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.