hacked from new account system

[Zosimus]

UO should have a security question when you sign in the actual game. So if a person like the OP, bought the account from another player and did not use EA's account transfer system they would still be protected in some way.


Now you would at least have to change the names of the characters that you had kept on the bought account for your own safety reasons.


This link with a screen shot http://oneofthesealts.blogspot.com/2010/08/guild-wars-beaten-by-log-in-boss.html is what Guild Wars does when you sign in. You have a character name on the account as your security answer. If you dont put the right name in the account, even with the players email and password you can not log in the account.

It's not limited to one name on the Guild Wars account so as long as you know the characters name on the account you can use anyone of them. UO should apply something like this to the account for added security.

 

[thelma1717]

ok just fyi, original account was trasfered to pac over 8 years aago. i log in and my pcific luna vendor account gone acount stripped !! i call ea they say oops giv mr 6 months free play lol. so i start buliding back up. now mind you tier 3 tells me that wont happen again i say ok my loss should have used transfer. so here is where it get real wrong . my other account my main 150 months i take all this acounts stuf to keep to remodel my 18x18 ok . well guess what same person did it the same way call up sy its mine and boom he noe has ripped me of for 3 f--king accounts !! now tier 3 told me after the first hack if he tys it again he is banned !! lol ya rite funny thing is i call up get messanna and keith and they made the trnsfer of hacked acount to me so he could not dot it agian lmao. so they give me the castle outside luna fine start building again ! now this is where the real problem is there is no way he had any info on my second acount at all!!!! but after i linked hacked acount with my old acount wham he hacks my castle !! im my opinion he had to get it out of account management !!! now i gave them his name his icq everything and he is still here !!! and hacking !!! ive told them to stop this anyone caught and proved to hack an account the person who got hacked should be given every account the hacker has to the hacked person so im lookig into lawsuit for violating my tos that they did not protect my rites lol, but im not sure after 11 years if i have the heart to rebuild for forth time. just fyi

 

[Lady Storm]

thelma1717 sweety your so fast and jumbled in your sentencing that its very difficult to follow your story.
Now.. from what I can gleem from the mess is this:

Your account in question was bought and you moved the characters to Pacific 8 years ago. This account owns a Luna home on this shard... so far so good in the translation.

You log in and find the account has been hacked, your home and items gone, striped as you say. Now did you loose the characters too? As in he deleted them?
Ok EA CS gives you 6 months free play to make up for the loss and the goofup on giving this person access to your account. Did you change the E mail? Password?

CS tier 3 tells you it is now cleared up and your fine. Account was returned to your ownership and his access was removed or so they said.

Now here is where you loose me for a few minutes.... Your main oldest account you decide to redeco your house... so far so good.... But what does this have to do with the guy getting in your accounts again? He I assume pulled the same bull with the CS he called and got in your accounts by the linkage of them in the main menu. Claiming he owned them.

Again you get sent to Tier 3 at CS, They again do the dammage control and your smart to contact Mesanna and Keith to do the formal trasnfer of ownership on the books.. (it takes a few days for this to go through the full system to all related computers - this from a SR. tech for EA as of 4 years ago )

Mesanna and Mythic in recompence for your total losses grants you the gift of a castle on a new account in Malas. So far ... soo good ...

OK your now set till you linked the accounts .... He again gets the account info? Or didnt you change the information on the past hacked accounts? Your rant has none of this info. Quite frankly whoever is this person they are hell bent to get that account and any other you own.

First off did you contact the police? There are laws on hacking and internet fraud. He misreped himself as owner of said account to Mythic/EA CS. That is Fraud. The law is quite clear on hacking after 9 11. Dont take no for an answer to the police and explain it clearly to them.
UO still has a value in $$ in this world. Just look at the sights selling UO items and accounts.

I understand your ire Thelma1717, and the jumble of info you tried to set out for all here. It is quite plain to see your so flustered and want to get it out that the frenzy in your head at the outrage this person has caused you has made you fit to be tied!

You spent 11 years in UO, from the looks of your tale you did very well in that time. Once this is over settle down and go do what you love in the game. Fish , hunt, mine , or just hang out with your friends. But remember one thing, Dont let him win by pushing you over the edge to quit and let him have it.

I dont know who this person is but its greed and outright spite that makes them do this. Dont let him win kiddo.

 

[goldenpower]

Yes, and that's exactly why EA set up the official account transfer program, that apparently no longer is available.

You had to pay $30 I think but it officially, in EA's records, registered the old and new owner of the account.

It also was the ONLY way known, to remove any and all marks from an account. At least as far as I know.

but what about people who bought a new account code or got one for free from a friend? there's no way to "transfer" it. you created it, you own it, but that person can steal it from you simply by calling EA and reading off a code.

an account creation code is not an effective way to determine who is the rightful owner of an account. EA should change this policy and develop a better way to deal w/ customers who have lost passwords or usernames.

 

[DreadLord Lestat]

how do you know this?

That is how they verify account ownership. I had an account that I had not used in years and the e-mail it was hooked up to closed long after the UO account closed. I called customer service to try and get the password fixed so I could resub the account and I had to give them a code. I could not find the original game code but they accepted my expansion code from LBR to verify that I owned the account. It's not just Origin/EA that does this, Blizzard does it as well.

 

[goldenpower]

That is how they verify account ownership. I had an account that I had not used in years and the e-mail it was hooked up to closed long after the UO account closed. I called customer service to try and get the password fixed so I could resub the account and I had to give them a code. I could not find the original game code but they accepted my expansion code from LBR to verify that I owned the account. It's not just Origin/EA that does this, Blizzard does it as well.

again, this just proves how ineffective this policy is.

scenario:

player A goes to Wal-Mart and buys UO sometime during the last decade

player A uses new account code to start account

player A gives or sells upgrade code to player B to upgrade his account

player A backstabs player B and steals the account back w/ upgrade code

player B gets account back from player A by giving original account code but the account has already been stripped

...

see the problem? in the above scenario this policy has failed to identify who the account owner is probably resulted in EA losing a customer.

 

[DreadLord Lestat]

again, this just proves how ineffective and stupid this policy is.

scenario:

player A goes to Wal-Mart and buys UO sometime during the last decade

player A uses new account code to start account

player A gives or sells upgrade code to player B to upgrade his account

player A backstabs player B and steals the account back w/ upgrade code

player B gets account back from player A by giving original account code but the account has already been stripped

...

see the problem? in the above scenario this silly policy has failed to identify who the account owner is probably resulted in EA losing a customer.

Your scenario is flawed in that the player is taking the risk by taking the code from another player instead of buying their own code. They have a known risk when they do that. If you want to guarantee that does not happen to you then you need to buy your own upgrades.

What is your suggested idea to make this better? It is the way games have been doing it for a long time. If you are going to criticize then have a solution. It doesn't happen often, a lot less than someone's e-mail getting hacked and then losing their account that way.

 

[DreadLord Lestat]

let me ask you this: who, in your opinion, is the rightful owner of the account above? Player A or Player B?

My opinion doesn't matter, it's Origin's opinion that does. They use those codes to help verify accounts. Should you obtain an upgrade from someone else, you run that risk. I am not saying that is right or wrong, it's just the way they determine account ownership. It cuts out he said/she said. As I said before, if you have an idea of a better way to verify account ownership, list it. It is not a perfect way but it is better than the last credit card paying for the account.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

player A gives or sells upgrade code to player B to upgrade his account

player A backstabs player B and steals the account back w/ upgrade code

Well, first off, this scenario has a flaw. You say Player A gets account back. The way I'm reading your scenario, Player A never owned Player B's account.

Second, I don't support the way EA verifies the owner of an account. I simply understand how they do it and am explaining it.

Third, when you used the Account Transfer System, it recorded the original owner's name, email address and I think other information as well. I can't seem to find the copy of the form I used to have saved.

It recorded the old owner's information, and the new owner's information. I would guess this is saved with the account and should the old owner attempt to steal the account back, the EA rep would see the account had been officially transferred to someone else.

I don't actually know how they saved the information or if they wiped all old codes from the account. I do know that EA said it was the only way to securely trade accounts.

 

[Demonous]

1. why anyone would buy an account from anybody instead of starting their own is beyond me, laziness.... starting UO from scratch is the fun part...

2. if you stoop to the level of buying an account from someone, why on earth would u not do an account transfer... that is a must and its cheap of u not to, its completely your fault that you lost everything if you don't do an account transfer

 

[Viper09]

That is how they verify account ownership. I had an account that I had not used in years and the e-mail it was hooked up to closed long after the UO account closed. I called customer service to try and get the password fixed so I could resub the account and I had to give them a code. I could not find the original game code but they accepted my expansion code from LBR to verify that I owned the account. It's not just Origin/EA that does this, Blizzard does it as well.

again, this just proves how ineffective this policy is.

scenario:

player A goes to Wal-Mart and buys UO sometime during the last decade

player A uses new account code to start account

player A gives or sells upgrade code to player B to upgrade his account

player A backstabs player B and steals the account back w/ upgrade code

player B gets account back from player A by giving original account code but the account has already been stripped

...

see the problem? in the above scenario this policy has failed to identify who the account owner is probably resulted in EA losing a customer.

Why would player B even want the code when they can simply get it themselves straight from the EA site by creating a trial account for free and then upgrading the account themselves? Then one would also assume that player A was patient enough to go through all the waiting, keep track of the cd key the entire time, and decided to go through all that trouble.

Also the likely people who really would pass those extra codes on would be from one friend to another. And in that case I would think there would be more to concern yourself with than simply the fact that your friend stripped your entire account account. Such as the fact that your friend just back-stabbed you.

Seriously though WoW has this exact same system. Most new players don't just get their account by keys from complete strangers. In fact I would go out on a limb and say that most new players get the key themselves straight from EA.

The only people who would suffer from this are those who decided to buy accounts unofficially from strangers. Period. So stop trying to make mountains out of ant-hills here. (Would have used the mole here but even that's more of an issue than it really is)

 

[Lady Storm]

That is how they verify account ownership. I had an account that I had not used in years and the e-mail it was hooked up to closed long after the UO account closed. I called customer service to try and get the password fixed so I could resub the account and I had to give them a code. I could not find the original game code but they accepted my expansion code from LBR to verify that I owned the account. It's not just Origin/EA that does this, Blizzard does it as well.

again, this just proves how ineffective this policy is.

scenario:

player A goes to Wal-Mart and buys UO sometime during the last decade

player A uses new account code to start account

player A gives or sells upgrade code to player B to upgrade his account

player A backstabs player B and steals the account back w/ upgrade code

player B gets account back from player A by giving original account code but the account has already been stripped

...

see the problem? in the above scenario this policy has failed to identify who the account owner is probably resulted in EA losing a customer.

Why would player B even want the code when they can simply get it themselves straight from the EA site by creating a trial account for free and then upgrading the account themselves? Then one would also assume that player A was patient enough to go through all the waiting, keep track of the cd key the entire time, and decided to go through all that trouble.

Also the likely people who really would pass those extra codes on would be from one friend to another. And in that case I would think there would be more to concern yourself with than simply the fact that your friend stripped your entire account account. Such as the fact that your friend just back-stabbed you.

Seriously though WoW has this exact same system. Most new players don't just get their account by keys from complete strangers. In fact I would go out on a limb and say that most new players get the key themselves straight from EA.

The only people who would suffer from this are those who decided to buy accounts unofficially from strangers. Period. So stop trying to make mountains out of ant-hills here. (Would have used the mole here but even that's more of an issue than it really is)

COUGH!!!

Gentilmen first off the code cant be passed as the code we are talking about is the link to that account only. It cant be passed to another to upgrade. If you look back on a old box of UO say 7th age. You got the upgrade for active accounts AND a code for a new account on the box. (that box also had a sheet of free codes for new accounts to give friends)
Each code is different and linked to the account it is used on and cant be used to upgrade another account. So Yes Dreadlord Lestat's use of his code to get his account back was correct. All codes you have used on your accounts are linked to id the accounts if a password is lost. **** this might help some of you who have lost access to accounts on dead e mails and lost passwords...****

 

[Viper09]

COUGH!!!

Gentilmen first off the code cant be passed as the code we are talking about is the link to that account only. It cant be passed to another to upgrade. If you look back on a old box of UO say 7th age. You got the upgrade for active accounts AND a code for a new account on the box. (that box also had a sheet of free codes for new accounts to give friends)
Each code is different and linked to the account it is used on and cant be used to upgrade another account. So Yes Dreadlord Lestat's use of his code to get his account back was correct. All codes you have used on your accounts are linked to id the accounts if a password is lost. **** this might help some of you who have lost access to accounts on dead e mails and lost passwords...****

Bleh, yeah. It was late when I wrote that and didn't read that quoted scenario correctly. I was talking about those who had extra new account codes that they had with their upgrade codes.

 

[Gidge]

Meaning like those site you can buy codes from for in game gold? or time codes? I had someone give me a code once as a gift. I would be HIGHLY upset if they got my account because they knew one of my account upgrade codes.

 

[goldenpower]

Also the likely people who really would pass those extra codes on would be from one friend to another. And in that case I would think there would be more to concern yourself with than simply the fact that your friend stripped your entire account account. Such as the fact that your friend just back-stabbed you.

so you are admitting the scenario is possible, which means you are admitting the policy has failed to ID the account owner.

 

[goldenpower]

**** this might help some of you who have lost access to accounts on dead e mails and lost passwords...****

and it also helps anyone who has the code steal the account from you.

I'm just stating facts here. notice I am not placing blame or making judgements as others are. I am simply evaluating the effectiveness of EA's policy.

 

[goldenpower]

Meaning like those site you can buy codes from for in game gold? or time codes? I had someone give me a code once as a gift. I would be HIGHLY upset if they got my account because they knew one of my account upgrade codes.

beware, it can happen.

 

[Lady Storm]

No Goldenpower

It takes more then a upgrade code to get that kind of information to access a persons account.
But...
With that upgrade code(s) you will be one step closer to helping them prove its your account.
Now if you had more then one code you added it helps more.
EA/Mythic will start to look into ownership a bit more closer due to these flagrant errors on the part of its CS personel.
Infact it will be alot harder, and CS will be tougher if info is lost.

Account name , CC used, E- mail, CD code, Phone # , Address ... all are vital for you to keep track of your accounts. Tis a fool who dosent keep these items close to the vest.

OH IF I HAVENT STRESSED THIS IN FULL NEVER NEVER EVER GIVE EVEN CS YOUR PASSWORDS !!!! NOT YOUR MASTER PASS NOR YOUR INGAME PASSWORD !
THEY DONT NEED IT TO ACCESS YOUR ACCOUNT(S) IF ASKED COLLECT INFORMATION LIKE NAME OF WHO YOU TALKED TO, CASE #, DAY AND TIME, PHONE NUMER YOU USED.
REPORT IT TO MESANNA ASAP. NO EA STAFF WILL EVER ASK YOU FOR THIS INFORMATION.

 

[Viper09]

so you are admitting the scenario is possible, which means you are admitting the policy has failed to ID the account owner.

Of course its possible. But unless you're careless you have nothing to worry about. Typically your friends are friend; plus the original cd key can come free straight from EA. Needless to say though your scenario is FAR from being a common event. So far that you're making a huge deal of an VERY unlikely event.