I have been hacked, AMA.

[SamuraiJakkass86]

So sometime at the end of October, I decided to take a break from WoW. Didn't try to start up again until about 2 weeks ago. When I attempted to log into my account, it prompted me for an Authenticator key code thing. I was like "WTF?" I don't have an authenticator... so I went to log into my account and disable that security option (authenticator noob) - and couldn't log in there without one either!

So, I called up Blizz, this is pretty much how it went:

Me: I have an authenticator requirement on my account, can you take it off please?
Blizz: You did not put it on your account?
Me: No, I might have accidentally hit the checkbox for it at some point though.
Blizz: That's not how it works. The only way this would have happened is if someone bought an authenticator key and put in the activation code on your account, can't happen accidentally.
Me: ...Oh...
Blizz: You're account has probably been compromised.
Me: Alright then.. can I get the authenticator requirement removed please?
Blizz: Sure, just tell me your, name, email, secret security thing, what you ate for dinner last night, and provide your Original (Vanilla) account activation code.
Me: *15 minutes and a call back later*.. *pant*.. found it! It is __________.
Blizz: Okay, we'll remove that authenticator requirement for you.
Me: Thank you very much
Blizz: The authenticator requirement has been removed, and we've moved your account to a new email address. You'll probably find that a lot of your stuff is missing/sold, etc - just submit a ticket in game with the characters and the realm they are on, and we will perform a roll back on those characters to the last time you activated them*
Me: Will do, thank you.

*note: YES, they can in fact see when the last time was that you logged in at a certain IP address, so if in January you logged in from home with IP address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, and then 2 months later, someone hacks your account and starts logging in from Beijing for extended periods of time, they can tell when it was actually YOU playing your account - unless you moved to beijing.

So, I went into game, surprisingly a lot of my stuff was still there. All the sellable gears on my 80's were sold off, and all the mats in all of my banks were auctioned off. I submitted the ticket as instructed (the text space they allow in those things is riduclously small). I checked back a week later, and found that all my stuff had been restored... to my mailbox.

Funny enough, whoever hacked and/or bought my account (then authenticated it) was apparently a gold farmer. I have about umpteen-million stacks of frostweave in my inbox (they restored a lot of the auctions that he had received gold for), and somehow I ended up with about 8 Librarian's Paper Cutters.... They had taken all the gold off most of my characters, but apparently hoarded all the gold they made off of me onto my half-naked lvl 5X hunter. Whatever o_O. When I got all the gold back from those auctions where they sold my crap, along with what they had already stockpiled on my hunter... I ended up about 2k gold richer :P I won't complain about that.

The blizzard reps were very understanding and helpful in making sure my account was safe and repaired - to which I am eternally grateful. Oh, and this was on THANKSGIVING. They were there ON THANKSGIVING, helping me restore my account. I now know what it is that my $15 dollars a month goes to, and I'm 100% satisfied with it.

I have since reformatted my computer and purchased my own authenticator, among other security measures. I have antivirus/spyware scans running every night at 4AM to make sure that I don't have any malware on my machine for extended periods. Not entirely sure how I got it the first time - blizz said add-on download places like curse and wowinterface may contain keyloggers or trojans, so I'll be more secure about it in the future.

So, if anyone has any questions, go for it. If not, let it be a lesson to those of you who have been hacked - you can get all of your stuff back. I say this mainly because there seem to be an increasing number of people in game saying stuff like "LVL73 Generic Rogue: I don't havez any stuffz0rs, I have been hacked. Please give me gold and junk." If that's the case, they can do like I did and get their stuff back, otherwise they are gold beggers (perhaps a side market of the gold farming industry?).

Thanks for reading.

[Amgyn]

wow.. this happened to me last night...

logged into my account and it said an authenticator has been attached to it... battle.net account too
checked armory and my chars were all naked...
called blizz... after about an hour on hold ... they removed the authenticator.. reset my password... changed my email address...
i logged in and submitted ingame ticket...

this morning, i get an email saying account password reset (???) so i reset the password from work as well as a 72 hour suspension due to exploiting ingame economy....

no idea what to do now... will be checking again in a couple of days.

never thought it would happen to me... but it did.

[Cyclone Duke]

They're pretty good at getting you back on your feet anyway

[conscript]

no idea what to do now... will be checking again in a couple of days.

Step 1: CALL BLIZZARD
Step 2: They fix everything for you and your account works!
Step 3: Buy an authenticator

[Endlaw]

This happened to me last week saturday. They hack your accounts on the weekend so that there isnt as prompt a response from Bliz'z account recovery team. =(

Anyways I also saw that my password was changing on its own, they even tried to ship off a toon to another server using the paid character transfer tool *sigh*.

ALl of this was stopped and my gear on all 10+ 80's were returned across the two accounts i had under the 1 battle.net ID.

Needless to say i bought an authenticator as well... =D

Thank you bliz.

[Visix]

The undertones of racism in the original post frustrates me. Not all Asian players are gold farmers, and not all gold farmers are Asian players. Other than that, it's a good report on the customer service Blizzard is always expected to produce, but seems rarely able to.

[Tremelizzer]

Original (Vanilla) account activation code.

That pretty much means I'm screwed if I get scammed?

I lost my original Wow package when I was in dormitory (I lost many other things too like my 2 GB USB memory and some money :/).

[Killreaper]

That pretty much means I'm screwed if I get scammed?

I lost my original Wow package when I was in dormitory (I lost many other things too like my 2 GB USB memory and some money :/).

If you have your seceret question, you could give them that, your wow account name(your login before batttle.net was required), your first and last name registered on the account and the last email you used to login to your account.

[Amgyn]

Step 1: CALL BLIZZARD
Step 2: They fix everything for you and your account works!
Step 3: Buy an authenticator

i did call blizz ... i think they are fixing everything now, got another email saying a specialist is looking into the matter

That pretty much means I'm screwed if I get scammed?

I lost my original Wow package when I was in dormitory (I lost many other things too like my 2 GB USB memory and some money :/).

they didn't ask me for my original key... just asked name, phone number and secret question answer.

[Cyclone Duke]

That pretty much means I'm screwed if I get scammed?

I lost my original Wow package when I was in dormitory (I lost many other things too like my 2 GB USB memory and some money :/).

Secret question/answer --- Vanilla CD key --- Proof of ID (Scan of drivers license for example)

2 of the 3 and you should be grand. Details of your credit card that's been used to pay for the account's subscription can also be used I believe.

[Amgyn]

This happened to me last week saturday. They hack your accounts on the weekend so that there isnt as prompt a response from Bliz'z account recovery team. =(

Anyways I also saw that my password was changing on its own, they even tried to ship off a toon to another server using the paid character transfer tool *sigh*.

ALl of this was stopped and my gear on all 10+ 80's were returned across the two accounts i had under the 1 battle.net ID.

Needless to say i bought an authenticator as well... =D

Thank you bliz.

yeah, one of my mains was transfered to another realm (checked thru armory) ... but it was back on original realm right after the call with blizzard admin.

[jtstormrage]

If youi are hacked and your gold stolen and you gear and mats sold etc, do they give all that back?

[Spleenzorio]

Plus you get a cute lil Core Hound Pup when you activate your authenticator on your account

[Anium]

I thought this was going to be a QQ thread. I am pleasently surprised.
Happy that you got your acc back.

[jai151]

I've had 3 friends get hacked and all got everything restored. They're VERY good about it, and I'm glad it all worked out for you.

Just one question, though, what does any of this have to do with the American Medical Association?

[Captdeadman]

I recently got hacked this Monday (The day before 3.3 went live...FML!) They took all my crap, mailed it to who knows...and then used a stolen credit/debit card to transfer all my toons to different servers. Luckily the transfers failed so Blizzard locked the characters until they investigate what happened. I just hope they can put them all back to my original server and restore everything...especially my gold