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  1. #1

    Blizzard seems to be the cause of any and all spam email I receive

    First of all I'd like to say how all of it started.

    I decided to restart playing WoW (just to quit it later on again...) and I wanted to use my private email for my new battle.net account. Shortly after that, my usually completely clean email account got flooded with spam. I am 110% sure that I've never used this email for anything else but private conversations and to access my battle.net. If I have to register on some board, I usually use one of my spam emails.

    Since months I've been spammed with scam mails.

    Greetings!
    It has come to our attention that you are trying to sell your personal RuneScape account(s).
    Greetings!
    It has come to our attention that you are trying to sell your personal Diablo III account(s).

    And so forth. The list goes on and it includes many many games (of which most I have never played)

    So I began to wonder... where do those people get my email from? Who's the cause?

    Since every spam is a gaming account fisher and they all come to the one email that I've registered with WoW, I wanted to take WoW under inspection.

    I created six very different email accounts. Gmail, Web.de, @facebook etc. I have never used any of those emails before.

    Next thing I've done is to change my battle.net account to each address. Once every day I changed it to another.

    And guess what? After one week 4 of the 6 accounts are already spammed with 3-5 emails every day. The same as before...

    Seriously? How can this be? And, more importantly, what can I do to make it stop? Trash my email account and get a new one? Duh...
    It's also funny that all my other emails which I've used for LoL, GW2, Hawken, PS2 and my steam account are absolutely spam free. Completely. I have four different @gmail accounts and NONE is being spammed while all have at least one gaming account connected to them.

    Only my WoW email gets spammed to hell. Great job Blizzard.

    Is there any way I can report that shit to them?


    Edit: To make it clear. My PC 100% clean. I have never been hacked before. Not in WoW, not in any other game.
    Last edited by StayTuned; 2013-01-31 at 09:00 PM.

  2. #2
    I've never gotten anything like this on my WoW email account.

  3. #3
    Like most companys they probs sell our emails off to the highest bidder like our phone numbers...

  4. #4
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    I get that stuff all the time, even on emails that I've never even remotely used for Blizzard stuff.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Darsithis View Post
    I get that stuff all the time, even on emails that I've never even remotely used for Blizzard stuff.
    Which is kinda scary, since my private email is the email I got from my university and is actually kinda long and complicated. That's why I wanted to use it for WoW... in order to be safe from hackers by using long account names and passwords. But meh.

  6. #6
    Try making a complaint on the wow forums.

  7. #7
    I 100% don't get any of this stuff on my battle.net email. And I use the email for battle.net and nothing else.

    Seems a little weird, no way you would get anything like that via signing up for battle.net

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Gurushockin View Post
    I 100% don't get any of this stuff on my battle.net email. And I use the email for battle.net and nothing else.

    Seems a little weird, no way you would get anything like that via signing up for battle.net
    I seriously have no other explanation. It's also weird that only 4 out of 6 emails have been spammed. One would assume that all of them should be spammed. On the other hand, some people do have the same spam emails like me, others don't.

    It's just weird.... everything started with battle.net and everything can be traced back to battle.net, yet it isn't supposed to be the problem? Kinda hard to believe.

  9. #9
    So ... I'm pretty sure Blizzard isn't responsible for your spam, rather it sounds like a keylogger is. Unless they're working on a program of alienating more recent subscribers (because that sounds like a really good idea, right? and a logical, reasonable conclusion, at all?).

    Good luck clearing that up, though.

  10. #10
    I use 1 email just for WoW. I have never had any spam on that email.

  11. #11
    a majority of those spam emails are phishing scams, i have never gotten an spam email from blizzard that i didnt initiate or was not genuine mail from them

    I get it all the time from an email address that i use to sign up subscriptions for, these email address is in no way associated with my blizzard battle net email address

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    I seriously have no other explanation. It's also weird that only 4 out of 6 emails have been spammed. One would assume that all of them should be spammed. On the other hand, some people do have the same spam emails like me, others don't.

    It's just weird.... everything started with battle.net and everything can be traced back to battle.net, yet it isn't supposed to be the problem? Kinda hard to believe.
    You obviously used that email when signing up for something or you have some undetected malware/spyware crap on your PC sending back your emil addresses for the spam. I only use my Battle.net email for Blizzard games. I never use it for anything else. I have have never received any spam/fishing attempts in over 8 years of WoW. It is on your end my friend.

  13. #13
    I know exactly who 'sold' my email to the scammers.

    I played WOW for 2 years before i got my first scam email. I had a dedicated WOW email which i never used for anything else...and then less then 12hrs after i applied to a guild using the guildlaunch portal i started to receive scam emails. I only applied to 1 website and have never used that email for any other games or guild applications. Didnt have to look very far to find out who sold it.

  14. #14
    I use private emails for every business I register with. As in, <businessname>@<myprivatedomain>. I have my email server set up so that any email to <myprivatedomain> reaches me. So any time a business sells out my email address to a spammer it is immediately obvious which business is the culprit. Usually I contact them and let them know that either they were breached, or I'm aware they sold out my email address.

    I've used the same address for 8 years of WoW and never gotten a single spam on it. If Blizzard is selling out addresses, they're being quite selective about it.

    However, when I've used addresses in the past for guild sites, Ventrilo, that kind of stuff, they are inevitably compromised and I get the same types of spams you describe about compromised game accounts, for years now. More interestingly, the addresses evolve, which I can observe since everything at my domain flows to me. First I got the actual account used on the guild site. Years later, I am getting variants of those addresses with various characters changed or modified. Spammers seem to shotgun mails at all sorts of address variations once they think they have one.

    Possibilities for your results:
    1) Even though you are using multiple services, if your names are remotely similar and have ever gotten on one list, that naming pattern could be shotgunned. You didn't tell us the actual emails (of course)... they may be variations on common addresses compromised in the past, even by other people.
    2) Your email addresses have gotten attached to a tracking cookie and as you browse around attaching your gaming interests to that cookie, more unscrupulous companies are learning that these emails belong to a gamer. It's amazing and frightening how much information can be tracked due to one's activity online.
    3) Some one at Blizzard is selling out addresses, but apparently only selecting new ones? (Not likely, or we'd see this more widespread.)

    I suspect #1.

    Edit: To make it clear. My PC 100% clean. I have never been hacked before. Not in WoW, not in any other game.
    Everybody thinks this before it happens. I've never been hacked either (to my knowledge) but I'm not naive enough to think it can't happen. Many normally safe net technologies can get bugged out or compromised and be used for hacks even if you're doing everything 100% right to protect yourself. And WoW is a big target because it has a large subscriber base and almost universal credit card usage.
    Last edited by BrerBear; 2013-01-31 at 09:36 PM.
    Help control the population. Have your blood elf spayed or neutered.

  15. #15
    Definitely getting them from keyloggers.

    Blizzard wouldn't risk going bankrupt via lawsuits over selling personal information.

    Assuming you never used those emails anywhere else.

  16. #16
    Titan Arbs's Avatar
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    Ever since I changed my email i have never got these emails anymore.
    I don't always hunt things, But when I do, It's because they're things & I'm a Bear.


  17. #17

  18. #18
    I'm not even playing WoW anymore. I came back after two years or so - I don't even have my old battle.net account. I had to make a new one and instantly received spam on the mail I've used for my new battle.net

    The only thing that I could imagine is that my WoW client is infected... but again, if I caught something that logs my email, why didn't I get hacked already? Not like it's that hard to transmit my password if they can transmit my email...

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 10:39 PM ----------

    I doubt that blizzard is actually selling them. I much more assume that there is a security issue regarding battle.net. Either within the web browser, or the client directly.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    I'm not even playing WoW anymore. I came back after two years or so - I don't even have my old battle.net account. I had to make a new one and instantly received spam on the mail I've used for my new battle.net

    The only thing that I could imagine is that my WoW client is infected... but again, if I caught something that logs my email, why didn't I get hacked already? Not like it's that hard to transmit my password if they can transmit my email...
    Possibility of them wanting full control of your account as they ask you for your security question as well, and if they full out hack your account, you will change the info.

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    I seriously have no other explanation. It's also weird that only 4 out of 6 emails have been spammed. One would assume that all of them should be spammed
    Explain why my WoW account email is the only one I DON'T get this spam on?

    Nice try, but what you have is a conspiracy theory based on anecdotal evidence at best.
    Not being confrontational, just pointing out a fact.

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