Permanent Ban after account being stolen

[ExNJ]

Hello everyone,

 

let me tell you my story of how I got perma banned for being hacked. Yes you read that right, not me hacking but my own account being stolen. Also I apologize in advance if there's any grammatical errors, English isn't my native language.

 

I think this topic needs to be adressed and if someone else already wrote something like this I apologize in advance as I didn't see anything.

 

It started of when I got a letter from my bank saying I should call them because they found some suspicious transactions on my credit card. When I went online to check my bank account I noticed that there were roughly €450.00 spent on NCSOFT service, which couldn't have been me, seeing as I haven't played in like two weeks at the time. I told the bank that this wasn't me and they should immediately cancel the credit card along with those payments.

 

So far so good, the money gets refunded but I notice that my entire NCSOFT account was stolen. Now I don't look at my emails everyday so I haven't seen the email of a 2-step verification activation (which wasn't triggered by me) 3 days before the call with my bank and one day before the suspicious transactions took place.

 

So, like most people would do, I contacted the NCSOFT support team. I explained that my account got hacked and that the recent €450.00 on my credit card wasn't me. Then there were several email exchanges with more and more details I had to give them so they could find my account, and in the end they did (kudos to the response times btw. Good job).

 

I got an email with the following instructions:

 

1. Scan your computer for any malicious software that may be stealing your login information. For tips on how to secure your computer, go to https://support.wildstar-online.com/hc/en-us/articles/203982419-Account-Security-FAQ.
2. Create a new email account. You do not need to create a new NC Account -- just another email address. If you have a smartphone, I recommend using an email service that uses two step authentications.
3. Submit a new ticket using the website linked below with the new email account, reference this ticket in the subject line, and please make sure you completely fill out the ticket submission form.

New ticket: support@wildstar-online.com
support@aiononline.com
support@bladeandsoul.com

Once we receive your new ticket, we will update the login name of this account to the new email address and at that time, you will be provided with additional instructions. Because we suspect this email account may be the cause of the compromise, we feel it is best and most secure to discontinue the use of this email account when requesting assistance with the account.

 

And so I did. I contacted "support@bladeandsoul.com" from another email account. Then, 22 hours ago I got an email with a password reset link sent to my new email. And you would think that it's all over and done now. I know I thought it was. But no. When I tried to click the link the site was apparently under maintenance and  couldn't be accessed at the time. "Oh well I'll just do it later then" I thought. However today I got this email:

 

Hello,

Thank you for your patience while we reviewed your issue.

After reviewing your account, we found that a purchase was refunded as a result of being found too high risk to accept by our payment processor.

The purchase attempt displayed characteristics that are currently found in numerous fraudulent transactions. As a result, the associated game account was permanently closed and the credit/debit card used was blocked from further use in our system. The account is not eligible to be reopened under any circumstances.

There is no further assistance we can provide you regarding this account or issue. As such, further replies may not receive a response.
 

So now, instead of giving me my account after they took it back from the one who stole it, they close it permanently because of the suspicious transactions while it wasn't even in my possession. If I just played it for fun I wouldn't mind that much, sure it would still suck but it could be worse, but I'm a founder, I actually spent money on that game (the most expensive founder pack too) and all of that money has now basically gone down the shit hole for me.

 

Is there anyone who had to experience a similar situation? And I'd like to know your opinion on this.

[KaLnoX]

Chargeback done on an account == permanent account ban.

Standard practice by almost every mmo out there. Whatever the reason for the chargeback is irrelevant and business wise the company sees your account as an unnecessary financial risk factor. You either quit right now or start another account and play, your call.

Note: You may want to hide your credit card and its (shady?) purchases behind PayPal. When you use it the seller does not get any credit card info. None. PayPal broker's the transaction between your card's issuing bank and the seller. So if your future purchases via paypal(using credit card) are shady or not, your card info is kept discreet.

[TheHorror]

That is why and never will spend a dime in this game...   even  I  sometimes  I would have wanted to... I simply don't trust NCw with my card their security   is let's put it nicely  really not that good.

 

I am really sorry for you that you  lost all that money, spending money  in this game is a well known risk, recover what you can and move on,  because staying here will only get more salt and they will never  give your account back,  all the white knights  will come to NCw defense and say  that you got keuloggers or you  buyed gold from goldsellers it is a pointless fight against a really "I don't give a rats arse" company. 

[Archess]

37 minutes ago, TheHorror said:

That is why and never will spend a dime in this game...   even  I  sometimes  I would have wanted to... I simply don't trust NCw with my card their security   is let's put it nicely  really not that good.

 

I am really sorry for you that you  lost all that money, spending money  in this game is a well known risk, recover what you can and move on,  because staying here will only get more salt and they will never  give your account back,  all the white knights  will come to NCw defense and say  that you got keuloggers or you  buyed gold from goldsellers it is a pointless fight against a really "I don't give a rats arse" company. 

Well someone somehow got hold of his Account, so it is reasonable to think he used the same email/passcode somewhere else, it is far fetched to think someone running a keylogger to get visa numbers would be intrested in 450$ worth of BnS, so eliminating that then only remains a gold site, we all know gold sellers as honorable people right? Wrong....

 

Say, a goldseller getting hold of an account with a visa card in it, buy 450$ worth of outfits, salvage them and send the recuperated gold and extra gold to their own accounts to resell == profit, or a buddy you account share with pulling the same thing.

 

The only issue i have or had with NCsoft to date is losing my Lineage II account due to them doing away with master accounts...

[Smudger]

Use Paypal its far safer.

I never use my cc online too dangerous.

[Hatsunya]

2 hours ago, KaLnoX said:

Chargeback done on an account == permanent account ban.

Standard practice by almost every mmo out there. Whatever the reason for the chargeback is irrelevant and business wise the company sees your account as an unnecessary financial risk factor. You either quit right now or start another account and play, your call.

Note: You may want to hide your credit card and its (shady?) purchases behind PayPal. When you use it the seller does not get any credit card info. None. PayPal broker's the transaction between your card's issuing bank and the seller. So if your future purchases via paypal(using credit card) are shady or not, your card info is kept discreet.

Yup this.

 

First thing you should have done was contact Ncsoft explain your situation and get refunds from them.

 

At this point they had 2 choices. Either refund or not.

 

If they refunded you would hjave kept your account and so on

 

If they did not then you could easily chargeback through bank

[Kichi]

1 hour ago, Hatsunya said:

Yup this.

 

First thing you should have done was contact Ncsoft explain your situation and get refunds from them.

 

At this point they had 2 choices. Either refund or not.

 

If they refunded you would hjave kept your account and so on

 

If they did not then you could easily chargeback through bank

it's reasonable. We had same situation few weeks ago here on forum. But... He received a call from bank! What he had to do? Say, hold on, I'll go in game and see if there 450$ there? Of course not. His card was robbed.

[Fifi2]

Yes, I can confirm the comments above. They are not banning you for stolen acaunt, because they ban everyone that dispute payment over paypal or whatever. In my opinion, this is a moronic practices, becuse If i clicked something in the store by mistake, I have to pay for it or they will ban me if I chargeback. 

[lilleax]

Sounds like ncsoft to me.

[Fatalito]

As what happened before, a charge back means usually an auto permanent ban. No questions asked. If calling them, they will usually reply that their decision is final. Bothering them too much could result in a mac ban or even legal action against you. So when presenting your case, keep your cool and present the proof and facts as politely as you can. Still no guarantee that your specific case will be solved. One thing this server does against illegal logins is to send you a verify code to your email if a not known IP is detected. A hacker must either know how to bypass that or know your email and password to access the code (or be someone within your IP area). You will be looking at several places for proof that it wasn't you who did the transactions. And that your account was indeed hacked. Good luck and hope you can solve your issues. 

[lilleax]

Just now, Fatalito said:

As what happened before, a charge back means usually an auto permanent ban. No questions asked. If calling them, they will usually reply that their decision is final. Bothering them too much could result in a mac ban or even legal action against you. So when presenting your case, keep your cool and present the proof and facts as politely as you can. Still no guarantee that your specific case will be solved. One thing this server does against illegal logins is to send you a verify code to your email if a not known IP is detected. A hacker must either know how to bypass that or know your email and password to access the code. You will be looking at several places for proof that it wasn't you who did the transactions. And that your account was indeed hacked. Good luck and hope you can solve your issues. 

One part of the team was aiding him in the issue while the other - WHICH DOES NOT COMMUNICATE - permabanned his account.

 

Your logic invalid

3 hours ago, KaLnoX said:

Chargeback done on an account == permanent account ban.

Standard practice by almost every mmo out there. Whatever the reason for the chargeback is irrelevant and business wise the company sees your account as an unnecessary financial risk factor. You either quit right now or start another account and play, your call.

Note: You may want to hide your credit card and its (shady?) purchases behind PayPal. When you use it the seller does not get any credit card info. None. PayPal broker's the transaction between your card's issuing bank and the seller. So if your future purchases via paypal(using credit card) are shady or not, your card info is kept discreet.

One part of the team was aiding him in the issue while the other - WHICH DOES NOT COMMUNICATE - permabanned his account. And it's undoable? I find this so hard to believe. LOL

I am ashamed that I spent 10 dollars of my money in a game that lacks security so much.

Upon login, even spams your screen with "hack protection software" to make ya feel better, right?

 

Permaban after you were hacked. Permaban in the process of fixing something because their support teams are divided and analyze 0 data (for example. Let's look up this account and see if there's a ticket blah blah blah) before permabanning someone. Nice.

 

The amount of people who comment with their "Nothing you can do. Sucks for you" mentality are quite surprising.

 

What happened to demand? What happened to being passionate about something you spend your time and money on?

[Elvenmad]

1 hour ago, Smudger said:

Use Paypal its far safer.

I never use my cc online too dangerous.

This 

 

NEVER NEVER give any online company your CC details, there is no need to and you dont know what they do with it, some companies even sell your details, not for malicious intent just so they can make more money from selling the info and from there in snowballs, Info is the most valuable thing in the world now.

 

 If a company does not offer PayPal more than likely it is because PayPal will not accept them and for very good reasons, If PayPal will not trust them why should you. if you do then that is your risk.

[Riepah]

My friend was recently hacked as well. Luckily, he "only" had his possessions sold and the gold stolen, and most of it reimbursed by support - no real money involved.

 

To those who think that people who get "hacked" have keyloggers, do explain how they so easily make it past the 6-digit PIN number we can't use keys to input.

 

There's a security loophole that's being abused, and the victims are not to blame.

[lilleax]

10 minutes ago, Riepah said:

My friend was recently hacked as well. Luckily, he "only" had his possessions sold and the gold stolen, and most of it reimbursed by support - no real money involved.

 

To those who think that people who get "hacked" have keyloggers, do explain how they so easily make it past the 6-digit PIN number we can't use keys to input.

 

There's a security loophole that's being abused, and the victims are not to blame.

Exactly. How many will be punished due to a hack before they realize who the victims are?

I wanted to love this game.

I really did.

[Elvenmad]

13 minutes ago, Riepah said:

My friend was recently hacked as well. Luckily, he "only" had his possessions sold and the gold stolen, and most of it reimbursed by support - no real money involved.

 

To those who think that people who get "hacked" have keyloggers, do explain how they so easily make it past the 6-digit PIN number we can't use keys to input.

 

There's a security loophole that's being abused, and the victims are not to blame.

 Its is simple , for every new security device, system, car alarm, bank vault etc designed there is alway going to be some one designing a way around, always has been and always will be and most of the times the people designing the ways around are far far cleverer than those designing the way to stop it, its a never ending circle.

 

[ExNJ]

First of all, thanks for your opinions/answers guys.

But for all the people saying that a chargeback equals a perma ban, isn't that really, REALLY retarded? Like I'm not gonna let someone who took my account spend €450. I still don't get why NCSOFT wont try to look at this from my perspective.

 

It's honestly bullshit.

 

Also lilleax has a point. They actually first helped me, or at least they told me they would do something about it, I even got the email so that I could make a new password and then another member of the support team suddenly told me my account is now perma banned.

[lilleax]

Just now, ExNJ said:

First of all, thanks for your opinions/answers guys.

But for all the people saying that a chargeback equals a perma ban, isn't that really, REALLY retarded? Like I'm not gonna let someone who took my account spend €450. I still don't get why NCSOFT wont try to look at this from my perspective.

 

It's honestly bullshit.

 

Also lilleax has a point. They actually first helped me, or at least they told me they would do something about it, I even got the email so that I could make a new password and then another member of the support team suddenly told me my account is now perma banned.

RIGHT... IT IS RETARDED. You lost 450$ and had to deal with it with your bank - obviously proving it was a criminal transaction not done by you lol.

They don't investigate the situations regarding chargebacks at all, and that in itself is flawed. I understand it may happen often, but banning the masses will cause extremely loyal customers who mistakenly were included in said masses to suffer.

 

You deserve to be treated as a human if you spent a dime or a moment of your time in this game. And I'm so sorry.

[Skaitavia]

1 hour ago, Fifi2 said:

Yes, I can confirm the comments above. They are not banning you for stolen acaunt, because they ban everyone that dispute payment over paypal or whatever. In my opinion, this is a moronic practices, becuse If i clicked something in the store by mistake, I have to pay for it or they will ban me if I chargeback. 

Actually, if you accidentally clicked something in the store and accidentally bought something you actually didn't want, as long as you haven't touched it (if it was a consumable/material), you can send in a support ticket explaining your entire situation and what you want done, they usually do it. For example, this happened to my clanmates multiple times. They accidentally bought an outfit with NCoin when they meant to use HMCoin. They contacted NCSoft, and within 2 hours they got their NCoin refunded back to their account, and the outfit removed.

[Naekuh]

this is why i will NEVER Autostore CC info on their crappy servers EVER. 

 

NTY... even reoccuring payment option... NTY...  

They cant even get rid of the bots on their game, you think there SSL is up to par against hackers?  

 

Another bit of advice... DO NOT MAKE YOUR BnS PW anything simular to your Email/Skype/Paypal/Bank password.

Your just asking to get OWNED...

If you did.. id suggest you change ALL of them, and not just one of them as it may already be too late, and in a queue system on hackers to exploit.  

 

[JJhopper]

I requested removal of all cc information and I dont even use their site's credit cards input. 

[SpyderBite]

Account Compromised:

 

1. Girlfriend/Wife/Boyfriend/Sibling/Friend/Guildmate who you shared your login info with.

2. Email account accessed via crappy/weak password or again; shared with one of the above

 

Don't share your email account. Don't share your game accounts. Don't use weak passwords. Don't use the same email for forums, games, banks, etc. Use different passwords for different websites, programs, etc.

 

In other words.. The best prevention technique is Use Common Sense.

[AionCheesecake]

Just an FYI from helping someone else with their account, the Wildstar forums had a breach last year, so that's one place where they could have gotten your login details. https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Never have your email password be the same password that you've used anywhere else. Use multi-factor authentication with your email.

Stay in contact with NCsoft. The ban likely came from someone else as a knee-jerk response to the bank recovering your funds. Hopefully you can be unbanned since it wasn't your fault.

Never save your billing information on your account if you can help it, too!

[GoatSploat]

22 minutes ago, AionCheesecake said:

Just an FYI from helping someone else with their account, the Wildstar forums had a breach last year, so that's one place where they could have gotten your login details. https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Never have your email password be the same password that you've used anywhere else. Use multi-factor authentication with your email.

Stay in contact with NCsoft. The ban likely came from someone else as a knee-jerk response to the bank recovering your funds. Hopefully you can be unbanned since it wasn't your fault.

Never save your billing information on your account if you can help it, too!

This^

I had wondered how/why they were able to find out about my account, and this was the lightbulb moment.  Thanks Cheesecake.

[TopKEK]

38 minutes ago, AionCheesecake said:

Never save your billing information on your account if you can help it, too!

This. 

If you can find an alternative to using your credit/debit card, do it. Me, I haven't spent money yet on this game but I have found myself an alternative which is Paysafecard vouchers for UK. Literally, it's safest option I have because I'm using a voucher as opposed to card details. 

[Saksoy]

Just use paypal ffs