Keylog Attack ~How My Story Ended~Follow

I find it extremely disturbing that SE has NOT implemented an account lockdown procedure which:

1) Freezes all account transactions (e.g. AH, zoning, toss, etc)
2) Freezes fiscal transactions (e.g. billing during dispute period)

Once a call reporting loss of account is verified by:
1) Registered address matches stored database address.
2) Police report with reference number has been filed.
(This is ebay, paypal and many other online merchant/bank procedures)

IMO, I am very disappointed in SE that despite their wonderful and engaging products their after sales procedures and processes fail so hard. I see that SE support systems still live in 1980s (Theory that everything done is the customer's fault).

I love the attitude of some people in here that just because a customer does something stupid (and the OP freely admitted that he had been stupid, not that it seemed to stop 100 would-be-geniuses coming in here to tell him anyway) then a company has no responsibility to help them. Obviously the initial fault lies with the player, obviously it's impossible for S-E to stop keyloggers/trojans existing, but that doesn't mean that they can't lock down an account for investigation if a complaint is made with reasonable evidence to back it up.

To say that they won't deal with you because you don't know the recently-changed details of account you claim was just stolen from you is just the most god-awful customer service I have ever heard of. I cannot even fathom how somebody would come up with a policy so mind-numbingly stupid, let alone how people could get on their smug high-horses and defend it simply because they are not the ones in the OP's unfortunate position. Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that all of us are perfect, internet-savvy heroes who would never get suckered in by any scam, and imagine having to watch some *** gradually sell off everything we worked so hard to get, over a period of years.

How about somebody it happens to in less blameful circumstances? Do they deserve to be treated like the OP? At what level of fault do we start deciding that people don't deserve to have SE help them solve the problem? A friend of mine recently quit the game because somebody who he had known for a long time in the game hacked his pc while they were talking on msn, found his password stored in a text file somewhere, and did to him exactly what the OP suffered (this is how I understand it to have happened anyway). I know, I know, never store your password anywhere omfg n00b, but what about him? Does he deserve to have SE basically hang up the phone on him while the rest of us have to stand in whitegate and hear this guy shout his asking prices for all of the stuff he just stole?

End of rant, but seriously, there are too many people acting high and mighty towards the OP like they never made a dumb mistake in their lives. How about you just show a little sympathy and don't be an *** instead?

Im afraid that we are dealing with a company too big and detached in its own money making ideals when appealing against these sought of crimes to get acounts back. I can understand the difficulty of treating each player as an individual and addressing thier individual needs and circumstances, but ,we have paid for a certain level of service and justice when we signed up and provided SE with the success that they currently enjoy.

I find it hard to hold anyone accountable for being a victim of a crime of this nature in this day and age as by simply connecting to the net you are instantly targeted and bombarded with scams, spam and the malicious un-provoked nature of others.

I hope you get your toon back sir, sadly enough I have to admit, it may be through a certian level of your own pain and suffering accomplish it.

Good Luck

We've all done stupid things but what the OP did was beyond stupid. I can honestly say I've never done anything that utterly moronic.

I think that is a somewhat different situation than the OP is stating. It is more like lending your credit card or car ownership to someone that you do not know at all.

Even in your situation, I bet people reaction will be very different depending where you are... I had lived in Boston and currently in Washington DC, I bet people there will take the 100 bill away, but when compared to like... a small rural city in central Pennsylvania (State College) where I also used to live, I think people there will be far more likely to turn the wallet to a police officer.

This ranks right up there with the reasons McDonald's coffee is now labeled "Hot".

The OP deliberately attempted to violate the terms of his user agreement by downloading a cheat program. Furthermore, he did it in a way that can only be described as "rampant stupidity", trusting an anonymous link that promised him "secrets" that could only be defined as "exploits for FFXI". That he got his account reamed for it is poetic justice, not sociopathy.

This is akin to trying to break into a home at 3 AM, falling out of the window and breaking your leg- and then trying to complain to the homeowner that it was unsafe. Take your concept of "justice" and stick it where the sun don't shine, because it could only be reasonably used as fertilizer.

Along with the rest of the bull's manure. The only "need" S-E should proceed with here is eliminating users who are dumb enough to try and download exploits, whether they succeed or end up as bent over the barrel as Hiro has.

He was greedy, his greed was his undoing. There is only one lesson to be learned- don't try and exploit the game. If you do, you will either be found and lose your account, or other people will use your greed and you will lose your account anyway. Either way, you lose.

So in otherwards, you've never done anything that you wanted to kick yourself for? I find that hard to believe. Noone deserves to lose there accounts unless they give their info to someone they don't know well. And from what I've heard from my bf he wasn't someone who held people back. I was told he was good at his job and a really nice person.



I agree completely. So much for feeling safe. It was widespread, on several servers. SE should do something. It wasn't like it was isolated. So the credibility shouldn't be in suspect. I understand if only 1 person had it happen. Once again OP, I wish you the best of luck resolving the issue. For some reason I feel you're not just standing for yourself but the whole player base.

I like this way of thinking: the victim is to blame, because he did something to provoke the actions of a criminal. This is a perfect world, and everybody gets what they deserve. Wether it is someone who didn't remember security measurements when accessing a "safe place" (either your home, or your account), or it is a woman who dresses "provocatively". Of course, the criminal isn't to blame, they just reacted to this provocation.

And where does SE comes in? We are their clients. We are bound together by a contract, from which both sides (they and we) can profit. That creates an obligation in both sides, to continue this mutally profitable relationship. You mess up, you lose all your data. But they have all the tools to make up for it. Yet, they refuse to do so. Do they have an obligation? Well, it depends on wether they value their customers, and hence, their ability to go on making money.

At the end, it's all about the kind of custemers you want to have. In a MMORPG, what kind of customers would you prefer? Long-time paying players, or account hackers?
Phantasy Star Online anyone?

Maybe i am a bit slow, but when i read in the OP the message saying "learn the secret of the gilsellers", i wasn't thinking at all in any hack to be downloaded. "Learn the secret of the gilsellers" could really mean anything, and it would surely make me curious. Probably some kind of text description or pics or anything.
I would smell a scam, but i wouldn't think it would be something immediately dangerous... curiosity killed the cat, i know.

O.K. I majorly contradicted myself. Sorry I do that often at times. "Confusion is my natural state of mind". I just hate when people are just cruel, when someone makes a mistake. In my oppinion though, giving you're information to someone you don't know and have know reason to trust is worse than clicking on something that makes you slightly curious. But everyone has their oppinion. My bf lost his account for a while because he gave his info to someone in his ls. In fact a few people in the ls lost there accounts to the same person. I just get riled up when someone starts treating someone horribly for making a mistake. I work with a bunch of egotistical, always right and never wrong truck drivers, so I guess I eventually need to get used to it. >.>

I agree completely with that. But I will admit that me and my bf have each others account info. It's come in handy. Call me stupid, but I completely trust him. He even lived with me for a while before complications arose and he had to move back. Long story, but we're still going strong. =) He's the one who told me about hiro in the first place. If something does happen though I know it'll be my fault and I'll know then how stupid I am. But he's the one who lost his account and I know he wouldn't do that to someone else. The fact that I've got his info on my PS2 makes me feel the same total trust from him, when he knows how dumb he was when he gave it to his ls mate.

It just really bugs me that someone can do something like this, with proof that it's been done on multiple servers, and SE does nothing about it. I do believe clicking on a link is stupid, but I still stand by eveyone makes mistakes. And I still hope him the best in getting it back.

You have to understand that they are sociopaths. They have no sense of right and wrong in the first place so trying to explain it to them is a wasted effort.