Originally posted by evianwater I love these forums, because the big-company apologists come out in droves and attack the customer. Best PR department I've ever seen for companies like SE, SOE, and Blizz
This. It sounds to me like they f'd up. This situation is occuring more and more often as dev scrable to come up with ways of catching the cheaters.
Good luck to you. 9.9 out of 10 times when something like this happens it will be fixed. It just takes time.
Same thing happened to me as the OP. This is the first time I got hacked even though I have played MMOs more than 10 years, and I work as IT engineer. I am fine with suspending my account to investigate further but sending me an email to accuse me of being illegal and terminating my account is beyond ridiculous. Lawsuit will follow.
Moreover this is suspicious. Topics like this are popping up the last few hours all over the internet (see the topic "I am done" on this very forum) and the official technical support forum. Just yesterday they put out a notice about improving the security of accounts. Coincidence? I would bet that they had a security breach but would be too much of a PR hassle to admit it at this time.
And to all these people that saying this game is good, sure it is until you get to end game where the economy is broken, bots are all over the place abusing the broken economy and people are using exploits to finish dungeons.
No...no lawsuit will follow. I call your bluff...just like everyone who ever threatens a lawsuit.
Originally posted by evianwater I love these forums, because the big-company apologists come out in droves and attack the customer. Best PR department I've ever seen for companies like SE, SOE, and Blizz
This. It sounds to me like they f'd up. This situation is occuring more and more often as dev scrable to come up with ways of catching the cheaters.
Good luck to you. 9.9 out of 10 times when something like this happens it will be fixed. It just takes time.
Nah, not this time bcbully - we aren't seeing eye to eye here.
If proper security protocol was followed, none of them would be in this position. Also, my personal experience with these type of things (both as a player and former GM) lead me to believe its mostly lies.
Firstly to say that my sympathies are with the OP. I had the exact same thing happen to me in Aion with a level 54 character I'd been playing since launch, that was a lot of time down the tube. I logged on as normal but knew at once my account had been compromised. I then immediately contacted customer support. After that I was banned and NCSoft never even responded to my emails.
Subsequently I did work out that I had used the same account details as in another game (Auto Assault which had gone under) so I accept it was my own fault. However, I do retain a massive axe to grind with NCSoft. I had made a mistake, yes, but I reported the problem and they just shut me down as it was the easiest thing to do. Under the circumstances they should have suspended me and no more. I actually understand their position, but I'll try to avoid ever using them again.
One final point. When pointing the finger of blame I would still point first at the Gil Buyers. Without these willing accomplices Gold-selling and all that goes with it would hardly be a problem. I honestly believe the whole community is terrible when it comes to attitudes to Gold-Buying, and they are the forgotten elephant in the room in this thread. I have on a number of occasions left guilds where players openly discuss buying gold. Perhaps I'm wrong but I always feel like I hold the minority viewpoint when it comes to buying in-game coin. At the very least a large proportion of the game pop are happy with the status quo.
I am in the same boat, except I am not putting up with this shit. I am getting all the required information and I am suing them. I have irrefutable proof I was not logged on during the time of when my account was hacked and being used to spam gil messages.
This is breach of contract, emotional distress, and loss of real world finances.
And I dont give a fuck who thinks its "My fault for getting hacked" there is no evidence of the sort wether it was or not that wont stand up in court.
While I think it's important that people do their part with proper security, using security tokens and all that, if someone IS hacked....I don't think it's appropriate for square to just say "sorry, banned for gil selling can't do anything l8r".
I would figure it'd be pretty obvious what happened when you see a bunch of logins from a certain IP, then one login from an IP in another country where suddenly the person is reported for gold spam. Pointlessly throwing a customer away because of it just leads to loss of revenue and bad PR.
What they need to start doing is doing the GW2 styled thing where when you login from an IP you haven't before, they send you an email you have to confirm its you on in order to play, then you can add that IP to the list of allowed places you login from. Obviously that's not foolproof since your email info could be compromised, but it would definitely help.
GW2 had the same issue and then after that was implemented, I heard very little in the way of complaining about being hacked, so it certainly is a big help.
First, I've said it before and I'll say it again, your account wasn't "hacked" being keylogged is totally different. Second, if you got keylogged it was your fault (people need to quit the hand holding "omg its always the companies fault and youa ren't to blame" stuff because no it is their fault), SE didn't have anything to do with it. Third, should have had the one time password on your account from the begging, it is pretty pointless after you have already been reported right? Fourth it is totally reasonable to have your account banned pending investigation that you are the real owner. Fifth, why are you complaining here?
I am in the same boat, except I am not putting up with this shit. I am getting all the required information and I am suing them. I have irrefutable proof I was not logged on during the time of when my account was hacked and being used to spam gil messages.
This is breach of contract, emotional distress, and loss of real world finances.
And I dont give a fuck who thinks its "My fault for getting hacked" there is no evidence of the sort wether it was or not that wont stand up in court.
Report back on how that lawsuit works out and as to which lawyer is crazy enough to try to take on this case for you.
I am in the same boat, except I am not putting up with this shit. I am getting all the required information and I am suing them. I have irrefutable proof I was not logged on during the time of when my account was hacked and being used to spam gil messages.
This is breach of contract, emotional distress, and loss of real world finances.
And I dont give a fuck who thinks its "My fault for getting hacked" there is no evidence of the sort wether it was or not that wont stand up in court.
Can you prove you don't have a friend in China who you allowed access to your account? can you prove you didn't log in from a different IP to sell gold? Let me know how your case goes though. I'm interested to see if one of these "cases" actually sees a courtroom.
How do hackers hack into big companies and get personal info, or logins/passwords etc? Its not always about the person trying to protect themselves. If a hacker really wants to gain access to something they are going to do it.
Any ray of hope from people that had this resolved ?
I mean it's beyond frustrating that you have to basically petition for an investigation *after* being banned...but SE hasn't exactly shown they know how to run an MMO anyway.
Any ray of hope from people that had this resolved ?
I mean it's beyond frustrating that you have to basically petition for an investigation *after* being banned...but SE hasn't exactly shown they know how to run an MMO anyway.
I had my issue resolved. After trying for two weeks to get to customer service with no luck I contacted SE's sales dept. something river. I forget the name but it is SE just where you digitally buy stuff. They looked up my account and said I was eligible for a refund. It took about 3 days when they sent me confirmation of my refund.
I find this funny since I was accused for being a gold seller yet they did refund my digital download purchase. I got my 53 bucks back but I lost all the time I put into the game as a beta tester from phase one and the time I put into game before I was banned. It is a shame, since I was a legacy player and a SE customer/account holder since 2008, that the could have resolved this got me back into the game and kept me as a customer. This put such a bad taste in my mouth I will never buy another SE product of any kind again.
It would have been easy to resolve the suspension. They could have seen I was a long time account holder (i doubt a gold seller would have an account for years) check the ip of the log in of the gold spam and simply unblock my account. This may have taken a few day but it could have been done.
And this is what happens. A good game developer losing on hundreds of thousands of dollars in the long term by having players permanently hate the company because they were treated like shit. I've purchased nearly every squaresoft / square-enix games released except for the shitty handheld games over the years. And because of this they can potentially lose thousands of dollars from me alone, not to mention all of the other people who are being jerked around. If they understood customer service they would have hired more people to handle the customer service. Maybe the customer doesnt mean shit in Japan. I dont know.
So the way that Square Enix is handling their recent spate of hacking is to blame the players apparently..
Dear Customer: This notice is to inform you that we have suspended the FINAL FANTASY XIV service account registered to this e-mail for one or more violations of the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement that occurred on 9/11/2013. Specifically, you have violated following Section(s) of the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement.
------------------ SQUARE ENIX ACCOUNT TERMS OF USE 1. Registered Users Use of the Website or Services is limited to those satisfying the following conditions: (b)You represent and warrant that you will not use the Website or Services in any manner that is in violation of this Agreement or of any applicable law or regulation;
FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement 2.2 Real Money Trading, Farming and Power-Leveling. You may not sell,purchase or exchange for real-world money or value any in-game currency,accounts, characters, in-game services, or in-game virtual items. Youmay not play the Game for the purpose of acquiring virtual items or advancement in game play on behalf of a third-party or for the purpose of selling any virtual assets to a third party for real-world money, specifically including $B!H(Bgold-farming$B!I(Band power-leveling services. ------------------ Every action we issue is based on conclusive evidence of a violation and is reviewed for accuracy. Here is an excerpt from the activity log regarding this termination:
Based on the actions in this most recent incident and any prior record on the service account, we have terminated the FINAL FANTASY XIV service account registered to this e-mail in accordance with the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement. To best understand the penalties taken against the service account, please review the Account Penalty Policy section on the Support Center at the following link:
For information on prohibited activities in FINAL FANTASY XIV, please refer to the Square Enix Account Terms of Use, the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement, and the following URL:
As your account has been terminated due to a violation, you will be unable to create another FINAL FANTASY XIV service account. Unfortunately, you have shown yourself to be unwilling to follow the rules of the FINAL FANTASY XIV community. If we find that you have created another FINAL FANTASY XIV service account, we reserve the right to terminate that account as well in our sole discretion.
(links removed)
So..yeah..that part about "reviewed for accuracy" is particularly annoying..because distinct IP addresses would clearly vindicate me if they actually put any effort into their "investigation".
My account got hacked but once it got unlocked I was naked and had free lvl 50 gathering professions... said no one ever. But yeah they certanly aren't Blizzard when it comes to dealing with CS. Sorry to hear that.
Yes, Square-Enix is lacking in a lot of ways, really.
If some gold spammer loads up on you full time in a city you can't even just left or right click their name in the chat box and report for spam or put on ignore.
You have to manually open your blacklist and write in the name.
Many times these gold spammers are on characters that has weird letters in their name and it just sucks to figure out how to get those letters out so I simply turn off shout and yell while I am in cities.
It sucks to need to keep turning it off and on but it's a temporary (hopefully) solution at least.
Though also, many times I see gold spammers with really respectable RPGish type names (very decent both first and last name), and then I'm quite sure that some serious players account has been taken over and used for gold spamming.
I put on the one-time password thing as soon as I was able to (the mobile one for android phones), I haven't had a single problem with my account at all.
Not counting not being able to log-in for one whole week after waiting 2-3 days to even be able to create a character after release of the game.
I got one week free play time for that one though, so it's somewhat ok.
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
Originally posted by emperorwings My account got hacked but once it got unlocked I was naked and had free lvl 50 gathering professions... said no one ever. But yeah they certanly aren't Blizzard when it comes to dealing with CS. Sorry to hear that.
Usually it's nothing about hacking at all.
They simply have clever ways to obtain your username and password.
From some malware put onto your computer.
From you being careless while browsing around on the web or not being careful enough when downloading something or otherwise.
Gold selling sites have lists with usernames and passwords coming in, the big gold selling sites that is.
Lists filled with thousands of people on them, it might take weeks or months before they get to your supposedly username and password on that list.
That's why it's also clever to change your password often if you don't use an authenticator of any sort.
It can help in that kind of situation.
I have played many different MMORPG's over the years, some that are known for hacking A LOT.
In every online game I play I use different passwords, long one's, impossible to guess one's.
Not once have I lost my account to another person, not a single time, regardless of game.
I have been playing MMORPG's for 13-14 years now and have probably played over 50 different one's, quite probably.
Am I saying that really getting hacked is not possible?
No, not at all, surely it is.
It has not, luckily, ever happened to me though.
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
Originally posted by emperorwings My account got hacked but once it got unlocked I was naked and had free lvl 50 gathering professions... said no one ever. But yeah they certanly aren't Blizzard when it comes to dealing with CS. Sorry to hear that.
Usually it's nothing about hacking at all.
They simply have clever ways to obtain your username and password.
From some malware put onto your computer.
From you being careless while browsing around on the web or not being careful enough when downloading something or otherwise.
Get a securityu token, anyone that doesnt have one in any online game today when its offered deserves what they get. Just because a person hasnt been hacked in 12 years of online gaming doesnt mean anything. If you are just relying on a password today as your means of account protection you really need to rethink how secure you believe you are
Originally posted by emperorwings My account got hacked but once it got unlocked I was naked and had free lvl 50 gathering professions... said no one ever. But yeah they certanly aren't Blizzard when it comes to dealing with CS. Sorry to hear that.
Usually it's nothing about hacking at all.
They simply have clever ways to obtain your username and password.
From some malware put onto your computer.
From you being careless while browsing around on the web or not being careful enough when downloading something or otherwise.
Get a securityu token, anyone that doesnt have one in any online game today when its offered deserves what they get. Just because a person hasnt been hacked in 12 years of online gaming doesnt mean anything. If you are just relying on a password today as your means of account protection you really need to rethink how secure you believe you are
Yes, absolutely, 100% agreement, even though it's a bit negative to say that someone deserves it.
It's so easy today to just hook up security token or mobile / smart phone token to the games that offers it.
In which afterwards your account is almost, ALMOST, bulletproof.
Also me not being hacked for 12 years is from being careful and not using same passwords on multiple game accounts for different games. Used as purely an example, that you won't 100% sure get hacked, aslong as you are careful.
As soon as tokens entered the market, I started using them.
They lock up your account near 100% off / away from any other person.
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
Typical. People blaming the company hosting the game that their account got hacked. Whoever hacked your account likely got your password from something YOU did. Not something Square did.
- - "What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?" - -
lots of peeps are getting banned one reason ive speculated at is not because rmt but because they crafted using mats that were deposited into some sort of guild bank by a bot gatherer, there is a lot of botting which doesnt bother me however i do still think the best system is one that allows open world pvp and doesnt enforce anti botting rules
Get a securityu token, anyone that doesnt have one in any online game today when its offered deserves what they get. Just because a person hasnt been hacked in 12 years of online gaming doesnt mean anything. If you are just relying on a password today as your means of account protection you really need to rethink how secure you believe you are
Yes 2 way auth is good and definately a step up but that is all clientside. And yes: Some huge companies are running their services on rather insecure (not updated) platforms.
Your 2-step auth will not help you there. (Yeah hate to point out the obvious: PSN hack/intrusion)
Stop pointing fingers at the world until you own and understand the blueprints... :-)
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
Comments
This. It sounds to me like they f'd up. This situation is occuring more and more often as dev scrable to come up with ways of catching the cheaters.
Good luck to you. 9.9 out of 10 times when something like this happens it will be fixed. It just takes time.
9 days and still counting (+ the following weekend = 11 days) with 2 tickets, 1 live chat, 1 phone call.
So dont get your hopes up that 1 week will be needed. Actually the rep I spoke seemed more honest and told me that she could not give an eta.
No...no lawsuit will follow. I call your bluff...just like everyone who ever threatens a lawsuit.
Nah, not this time bcbully - we aren't seeing eye to eye here.
If proper security protocol was followed, none of them would be in this position. Also, my personal experience with these type of things (both as a player and former GM) lead me to believe its mostly lies.
Part of the reason I hate customer service.
"Oh you mean you didn't have a security token?"
/click
Firstly to say that my sympathies are with the OP. I had the exact same thing happen to me in Aion with a level 54 character I'd been playing since launch, that was a lot of time down the tube. I logged on as normal but knew at once my account had been compromised. I then immediately contacted customer support. After that I was banned and NCSoft never even responded to my emails.
Subsequently I did work out that I had used the same account details as in another game (Auto Assault which had gone under) so I accept it was my own fault. However, I do retain a massive axe to grind with NCSoft. I had made a mistake, yes, but I reported the problem and they just shut me down as it was the easiest thing to do. Under the circumstances they should have suspended me and no more. I actually understand their position, but I'll try to avoid ever using them again.
One final point. When pointing the finger of blame I would still point first at the Gil Buyers. Without these willing accomplices Gold-selling and all that goes with it would hardly be a problem. I honestly believe the whole community is terrible when it comes to attitudes to Gold-Buying, and they are the forgotten elephant in the room in this thread. I have on a number of occasions left guilds where players openly discuss buying gold. Perhaps I'm wrong but I always feel like I hold the minority viewpoint when it comes to buying in-game coin. At the very least a large proportion of the game pop are happy with the status quo.
I am in the same boat, except I am not putting up with this shit. I am getting all the required information and I am suing them. I have irrefutable proof I was not logged on during the time of when my account was hacked and being used to spam gil messages.
This is breach of contract, emotional distress, and loss of real world finances.
And I dont give a fuck who thinks its "My fault for getting hacked" there is no evidence of the sort wether it was or not that wont stand up in court.
While I think it's important that people do their part with proper security, using security tokens and all that, if someone IS hacked....I don't think it's appropriate for square to just say "sorry, banned for gil selling can't do anything l8r".
I would figure it'd be pretty obvious what happened when you see a bunch of logins from a certain IP, then one login from an IP in another country where suddenly the person is reported for gold spam. Pointlessly throwing a customer away because of it just leads to loss of revenue and bad PR.
What they need to start doing is doing the GW2 styled thing where when you login from an IP you haven't before, they send you an email you have to confirm its you on in order to play, then you can add that IP to the list of allowed places you login from. Obviously that's not foolproof since your email info could be compromised, but it would definitely help.
GW2 had the same issue and then after that was implemented, I heard very little in the way of complaining about being hacked, so it certainly is a big help.
First, I've said it before and I'll say it again, your account wasn't "hacked" being keylogged is totally different. Second, if you got keylogged it was your fault (people need to quit the hand holding "omg its always the companies fault and youa ren't to blame" stuff because no it is their fault), SE didn't have anything to do with it. Third, should have had the one time password on your account from the begging, it is pretty pointless after you have already been reported right? Fourth it is totally reasonable to have your account banned pending investigation that you are the real owner. Fifth, why are you complaining here?
Report back on how that lawsuit works out and as to which lawyer is crazy enough to try to take on this case for you.
Can you prove you don't have a friend in China who you allowed access to your account? can you prove you didn't log in from a different IP to sell gold? Let me know how your case goes though. I'm interested to see if one of these "cases" actually sees a courtroom.
How do hackers hack into big companies and get personal info, or logins/passwords etc? Its not always about the person trying to protect themselves. If a hacker really wants to gain access to something they are going to do it.
Any ray of hope from people that had this resolved ?
I mean it's beyond frustrating that you have to basically petition for an investigation *after* being banned...but SE hasn't exactly shown they know how to run an MMO anyway.
I had my issue resolved. After trying for two weeks to get to customer service with no luck I contacted SE's sales dept. something river. I forget the name but it is SE just where you digitally buy stuff. They looked up my account and said I was eligible for a refund. It took about 3 days when they sent me confirmation of my refund.
I find this funny since I was accused for being a gold seller yet they did refund my digital download purchase. I got my 53 bucks back but I lost all the time I put into the game as a beta tester from phase one and the time I put into game before I was banned. It is a shame, since I was a legacy player and a SE customer/account holder since 2008, that the could have resolved this got me back into the game and kept me as a customer. This put such a bad taste in my mouth I will never buy another SE product of any kind again.
It would have been easy to resolve the suspension. They could have seen I was a long time account holder (i doubt a gold seller would have an account for years) check the ip of the log in of the gold spam and simply unblock my account. This may have taken a few day but it could have been done.
You are guilty - live with it.
well game crashes on me today while in the dungeon and now my acc is susspended reason not known no email nothing on my acc page just says susspended.
if i can never use my acc again i will never again buy any se game again.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Yes, Square-Enix is lacking in a lot of ways, really.
If some gold spammer loads up on you full time in a city you can't even just left or right click their name in the chat box and report for spam or put on ignore.
You have to manually open your blacklist and write in the name.
Many times these gold spammers are on characters that has weird letters in their name and it just sucks to figure out how to get those letters out so I simply turn off shout and yell while I am in cities.
It sucks to need to keep turning it off and on but it's a temporary (hopefully) solution at least.
Though also, many times I see gold spammers with really respectable RPGish type names (very decent both first and last name), and then I'm quite sure that some serious players account has been taken over and used for gold spamming.
I put on the one-time password thing as soon as I was able to (the mobile one for android phones), I haven't had a single problem with my account at all.
Not counting not being able to log-in for one whole week after waiting 2-3 days to even be able to create a character after release of the game.
I got one week free play time for that one though, so it's somewhat ok.
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
Usually it's nothing about hacking at all.
They simply have clever ways to obtain your username and password.
From some malware put onto your computer.
From you being careless while browsing around on the web or not being careful enough when downloading something or otherwise.
Gold selling sites have lists with usernames and passwords coming in, the big gold selling sites that is.
Lists filled with thousands of people on them, it might take weeks or months before they get to your supposedly username and password on that list.
That's why it's also clever to change your password often if you don't use an authenticator of any sort.
It can help in that kind of situation.
I have played many different MMORPG's over the years, some that are known for hacking A LOT.
In every online game I play I use different passwords, long one's, impossible to guess one's.
Not once have I lost my account to another person, not a single time, regardless of game.
I have been playing MMORPG's for 13-14 years now and have probably played over 50 different one's, quite probably.
Am I saying that really getting hacked is not possible?
No, not at all, surely it is.
It has not, luckily, ever happened to me though.
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
Get a securityu token, anyone that doesnt have one in any online game today when its offered deserves what they get. Just because a person hasnt been hacked in 12 years of online gaming doesnt mean anything. If you are just relying on a password today as your means of account protection you really need to rethink how secure you believe you are
Yes, absolutely, 100% agreement, even though it's a bit negative to say that someone deserves it.
It's so easy today to just hook up security token or mobile / smart phone token to the games that offers it.
In which afterwards your account is almost, ALMOST, bulletproof.
Also me not being hacked for 12 years is from being careful and not using same passwords on multiple game accounts for different games. Used as purely an example, that you won't 100% sure get hacked, aslong as you are careful.
As soon as tokens entered the market, I started using them.
They lock up your account near 100% off / away from any other person.
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
- - "What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?" - -
Yes 2 way auth is good and definately a step up but that is all clientside. And yes: Some huge companies are running their services on rather insecure (not updated) platforms.
Your 2-step auth will not help you there. (Yeah hate to point out the obvious: PSN hack/intrusion)
Stop pointing fingers at the world until you own and understand the blueprints... :-)
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)