Regarding Compromised Accounts

From PlayOnline.com:

Recently, it has come to Square Enix's attention that an unfortunate number of players have lost access to accounts due to their becoming compromised by a third party. As such, we have devised a process that will allow these players to regain access to their accounts.

Effective immediately, the PlayOnline Information Center will begin assisting those customers who have lost access to an account due to it being compromised. Through identity confirmation, the PlayOnline Information Center will be returning account access to the original registrant. This process is currently going into effect to help restore account access to the original registrant as quickly as possible. Once access has been regained, the customer will then be able to seek reimbursement for lost items per our current item restoration policy.

Please contact the PlayOnline Information Center immediately should you find you have lost access to an account. We cannot guarantee we can assist everyone in these cases, but we will attempt to restore account access when possible.  Additionally, by contacting us as soon as possible, it will allow us to take action to limit changes to the account, and help restore access to the original registrant as quickly as possible.

Comments

Post Comment
Not good news for those hacked before this release
# Feb 04 2008 at 5:41 AM Rating: Decent
*
65 posts
A Friend of mine had his hacked. This happened in Oct. but took til Jan. to tell him no.
He called SE after this posting and they said Too bad.. We wont reinstate your characters and you have to pay to get them back to Bahamut and just for spite you have to keep the name Lolollolo or something like that
SE still doesnt care
SE really needs tooo take care of the the players better
Account Selling?
# Jan 31 2008 at 12:32 PM Rating: Decent
*
72 posts
Not to say that I personally would ever do such a thing, but I wonder how easy this is to exploit. For example, someone decides to sell their account. Whoever they sell the account to will likely be changing the account information to their own. Since account selling is not a supported activity, the seller could then call SE, say the account was stolen, and change the information back to their own, retaining the buyer's money and their original account.

I wonder if SE has safeguards in place against this sort of thing. I mean, not to say that the person buying the account should be protected, just that this seems like something someone could potentially do multiple times to make a bit of money with what is essentially SE's intellectual property.

Perhaps this is something that occurred to SE and is why they did not allow such measures earlier, but with the recent strain of legitimate lost accounts, they decided that they had to take the risk and open the door.

Just wanted to throw some more thoughts out on the issue.
Account Selling?
# Feb 01 2008 at 6:03 AM Rating: Good
***
2,890 posts
Quote:
I wonder if SE has safeguards in place against this sort of thing. I mean, not to say that the person buying the account should be protected, just that this seems like something someone could potentially do multiple times to make a bit of money with what is essentially SE's intellectual property.


A fool and his/her money are soon parted.

In other words I don't approve of somebody doing this however at the same time I don't approve of allowing people to play the game with a bought account and paid for gill either.

In fact, the reason alone that people who buy gill and buy accounts makes it even slightly harder for me to play the game legit is enough fuel for me to cheer on somebody who is going around and conning people like this. I don't have a PCC, Dusk gloves, dusk boots, merc criss, and a blau right now simply because of ******* cheaters and gill buyers that drove the prices of those items up so high. And in that light **** YOU is all I have to say to idiots making the game harder on me for no reason.

Oh and buy the way I can get you a great deal on a couple bridges in New York city if you want to buy them too!
Account Selling?
# Jan 31 2008 at 1:49 PM Rating: Good
Worst. Title. Ever!
*****
17,302 posts
Why bother that, when they could just take the persons money and give them fake account info from the start?

Account Selling is, and always has been, easily scammable. That's why it's not a good idea. Just because this is another avenue for scams with account selling doesn't mean it's not a good thing.

Account buyers deserve to lose their money.
____________________________
Can't sleep, clown will eat me.
item restoration
# Jan 31 2008 at 9:29 AM Rating: Default
Just want to point out that the current item restoration policy applies only to items dropped, and I believe they must be dropped in a city. Any items traded or sold are gone for good.
item restoration
# Feb 01 2008 at 4:53 AM Rating: Decent
DragoonCharron wrote:
Just want to point out that the current item restoration policy applies only to items dropped, and I believe they must be dropped in a city. Any items traded or sold are gone for good.


not onry do they not have to be dropped in a city, you can also get back items lost with /shoot (hey2uPPA).

however, i'm assuming they'll still give back items lost, if not... well, can't say i'm surprised, this is SE afterall...
Yeehaw!
# Jan 31 2008 at 2:14 AM Rating: Decent
**
632 posts
Hurray for a company (belatedly) doing what it was supposed to do from the start!

Refer to this post, read what I quoted from Square, and what I revised it to say had they been a company that cared about its customers:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10;mid=1197685404106328692;page=4;howmany=50#m119781488635811903

It almost seems like they READ my post and followed my suggestions verbatim. Too bad they're 2 months late on providing relief to people.

Sorry, they just didn't seem proactive about doing ANYTHING about this. My guess is, the people who hacked the accounts suspended the mules account and just used the main characters for RMT purposes. Less monthly income for Square. After 2 months of a couple hundred accounts with no mules being paid for:

Square: "OH NOOOEEEES Where are the monies?!"

Also, "as per our current item restoration policy"?

Isn't their current policy limited to the retrieval of ONE (1) lost item?

Some items are obtained through non-repeatable quests. Some are very rare drops. A more in-depth description of what exactly can be restored and the process they use to investigate allegations of account theft would be nice?

I wasn't cynical about Square when I first started playing FFXI. They've turned into a company that disregards their own fanbase and customers, and makes no effort at creating goodwill. Way to go Square. More phail <|Yes please.|>
____________________________
Square Enix wrote:

We have received reports that a popular third-party FINAL FANTASY XI website had been infecting customers with malicious software...

We suggest that our customers read up on precautionary measures they can take to ensure the safety of their information online.

Square Enix, a company who cares... about your money.
too weak
# Jan 30 2008 at 10:26 PM Rating: Decent
"lost items per our current item restoration policy"
Which is a joke. basicly nothing and they will not restore character to the server it was stolen from if moved. Im dealing with it my self. :/ 2 more weeks till i have to PAY to move back to my starting server..
geez! picky!
# Jan 30 2008 at 9:29 PM Rating: Decent
I'm tired of trollin around this site. I have to speak my mind or i'm gonna go nuts...

I had my account hacked before christmas... I called them and sure enough, they couldn't do **** for me...

pissed me off ._.

I called them this morning and they told me that they would send me an e-mail with information on how to get my account back.

sure enough, at about 7:30PM i got the paper asking me to notarize some papers that i had the common sense not to throw away (like i know many people do... why do you throw your **** away? I still have my CD keys from ******' half-life!)
i'd like to see you throw away your "personal life cd key"... aka social security number!

anyway... it's just common sense information that they need. you don't have a registration code? how do they know you bought that from the store and not e-bay?

don't have the name on the account? wtf? if you don't know what your name is, you've got more problems then getting a hacked account back

date of birth? come on people! where you ******* hatched? if you don't know your date of birth people probably think you were lobotomized... I repeat, if you don't know your date of birth, you are probably retarded, and don't deserve to be in my game... get the hell off Shiva ***-clowns!

just because you can't keep track of your **** doesnt mean you have to be mean to the people at SE because they're schooling you on terms of service that YOU should have read to begin with...

don't **** with the poor guy or girl on the phone.. they're just doing their jobs! (which is not keep track of the **** you're supposed to keep!)

so i'm gonna finish my rant with: "Thank you SE. at least you're trying"

rather then "it's about time..."


******* ingrates!.... if you don't like the game, go to WoW, but stop your *********

Thepenismightier
geez! picky!
# Feb 03 2008 at 12:15 PM Rating: Decent
Oh em gee. You didn't even address the issue that this was started over. When your account is hacked, odds are they'll just mail your shiznit to a new mule, have the mule send it to their main, and then delete the mule so that the name doesn't appear in that little "blink" when an item dissappears from the delivery NPC. From there, there's 3 scenarios:

1: No change to your password, then you're just in for the surprise of seeing your char half-naked, same some Rare/Ex AF. So you change it yourself and start on the slow climb from poverty.

2: Your password is changed. Yikes! Oh well, at least you were smart enough to keep your keys, name, birthday, and credit card that were signed onto the account close! (I RECOMMEND YOU GO INTO PERSONAL INFO AND WRITE THIS DOWN IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, AS EVEN A TYPO IS NOT ACCEPTED BY SQUARE)

3: Your password is changed, as are your name, birthday, credit card, and address. Thus, you have absolutely no way of proving your identification, (other than your registration keys, which they do not find enough from my experience) and the attacker has a new account that they can milk until square decides it's time to verify the payment info. Then, the account goes to lockdown.

I suffered from #3 at one point. All of your personal info is easy to view and alter as long as they have your password (save the credit card, which only has the first and last 4 numbers, separated by asterisks). I think they're trying to address this now (after a year and a half of petitioning on the parts of the massively hacked a while back). Unfortunately, this was too long ago to save mine, and probably far too late for most of the rest of us that suffered from it.

If you use Firefox, download the Noscript plugin. It might be a pain to configure at first, but after a while it gets the picture. Trust me, it's far better than waking up to find that, apparently, you never owned your account.

If you use InternetExplorer, smash your head against your desk thrice, then download Firefox and the Noscript plugin.
geez! picky!
# Jan 31 2008 at 6:16 AM Rating: Excellent
***
1,191 posts

Thepenismightier wrote:
Thepenismightier


pointing out "The*****mightier" for the lulz.

nice name.
FFXI needs to beef up on security
# Jan 30 2008 at 9:15 PM Rating: Default
I propose that we organize a 1-2 month boycott of FFXI. Actually not giving them money for 1-2 months. THEY DONT CARE ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS! I have reported 10mining point hackers already in one week! All and all. We are not getting what we paid for as customers. Their customer service is horrible to begain with. We should tell them they can loose money for two months or use that money to beef their staff up and customer service. I spoke to a supervisor GM tonight and he didnt do anything for me in regards to the hackers! FFXI is taking your money and not giving you a game you expected to pay for. This is y ppl are leaving here and going to WoW. Im not much of an organizer but please help me out so we can protest how we feel about the horrible flaws of this staff and get it corrected once and for all!
Lost Account
# Jan 30 2008 at 8:42 PM Rating: Decent
I lost my account Dec. 9th called SE dec 10, 2007 i have been calling them weekly, got the supena and everything still no account. Called after seeing this post and was told my account was already under investigation. Asked them how long this would take and informed them it had already been 2 months. No reply, asked to speak with a supervisor and got lied to. Was told one would call me back before end of business day. NO call back. Not holding my breath on this.
Good idea
# Jan 30 2008 at 7:03 PM Rating: Default
**
424 posts
I like this idea.

Edited, Jan 30th 2008 10:04pm by SignOfTheZodiac
wow
# Jan 30 2008 at 5:38 PM Rating: Decent
***
1,004 posts
finally! i better be able to restore the account i lost a year ago >.>
my bad
# Jan 30 2008 at 4:51 PM Rating: Decent
mistake didnt mean to post. sorry

Edited, Jan 30th 2008 6:54pm by AlternativeOne
verification?
# Jan 30 2008 at 4:06 PM Rating: Decent
you know it could be possible that they ask something like: what was the registration key you used to register 'such and such' expansion?

i think that would be one of the better ways (not the only way, in case someone lost theirs) but it would assure that the person giving that info did, in fact, install that game (charachter) to their system... i'm sure they'll have thought of questions to ask that wouldn't be known to a keylogger as well.
SE, party.... who invited them already....
# Jan 30 2008 at 12:39 PM Rating: Default
Ok, so I understand why people are losing their passwords & usernames (stupidity mainly - either installing keyloggers, or telling ppl ingame etc).

But quite why SE has waited this long to try and let ppl play the game again I dont know. All they needed to do was blank out a bit more information in your details section, and ask a memorable question (whats you mothers maiden name or something similar, and then provide an online tool to reset password.
SE, party.... who invited them already....
# Jan 30 2008 at 1:55 PM Rating: Good
***
1,392 posts
Indeed. Besides, asking a memorable question isn't gonna help if there IS a keylogger on your computer. They'll just change the question or the answer to the question so that way you can't get it back. In the end, it will do nothing but hurt you.
SE, party.... who invited them already....
# Feb 01 2008 at 4:55 AM Rating: Default
you obviously don't know how the question/answer system works. you can't change the question, or the asnwer. ever. once you set it, it's set for good.
SE, party.... who invited them already....
# Jan 30 2008 at 1:22 PM Rating: Good
Kahlane wrote:
Ok, so I understand why people are losing their passwords & usernames (stupidity mainly - either installing keyloggers, or telling ppl ingame

I guess you didn't hear about the compromised sites, you dont need to be stupid to loose your info.
SE, party.... who invited them already....
# Jan 31 2008 at 12:52 AM Rating: Decent
****
6,424 posts
Barlowone wrote:
Kahlane wrote:
Ok, so I understand why people are losing their passwords & usernames (stupidity mainly - either installing keyloggers, or telling ppl ingame

I guess you didn't hear about the compromised sites, you dont need to be stupid to loose your info.


Some people would consider running IE and RealPlayer an act of stupidity...

FF isn't 100% secure, but at least it's far less vurnerable to this kind of attack.
It's a start
# Jan 30 2008 at 12:14 PM Rating: Excellent
*
85 posts
Now to make it harder to steal the accounts in the first place.
And now joining the party, SE...
# Jan 30 2008 at 11:33 AM Rating: Excellent
**
435 posts
OH.
HELL.
YES.
Post Comment

Free account required to post

You must log in or create an account to post messages.