Blizz WTF !!!!!!

so on my way home from work today I get this lovely peice of email on my phone, my main account, sure enough get home cant log on, not sure whats going on, email them and wait...totally pissed off here...I've 4 other accounts I can log onto, but those are useless without my main at present...hope blizzard gets resolves this quickly for me, i've got 8 other accounts i pay for with them.

:( :( :(
very sad multiboxer :(



WoWAccountAdmin@blizzard.com to me
show details 6:37 PM (1 hour ago)
English speaking customers: Please refer to the start of this mail
Para los clientes españoles: Por favor vayan hasta el fin de este correo electrónico
***Notice of Account Closure***
Account Name: *&(&(&(&(&*(&
Reason for Closure: Terms of Use Violation -- Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy
This account was closed because one or more characters were identified exchanging, or contributing to the exchange of, in-game property (items or gold) for ""real-world"" currency. This exchange process negatively impacts the World of Warcraft game environment by detracting from the value of the in-game economy.
Even if this behavior is the result of a third party accessing the account instead of the registered user (for example, a friend, family member, or leveling service) then the account can still be held responsible for the penalty because of the impact it had on the game environment.
We've found the above behavior is many times directly related to groups responsible for compromising World of Warcraft accounts; we take these issues very seriously. To better understand our position against exploitative activity and the risks involved, please review this article: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/.../antigold.html
The exploitative activity that took place on this account violates the World of Warcraft Terms of Use. We ask you take a moment to review these terms at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html. Note that additional Terms of Use violations may result in more severe actions against this account, up to and including permanent closure.
For any disputes of this action or further information on Exploitive Activity, please visit the Exploitative Activity FAQ and contact page here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/exploitfaq
Regards,
Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com

That sucks.

Contact billing and see what is up.

I feel bad for you but at the same time wonder WHAT THE HELL. I've been on the server longer and haven't gotten reported that bad, even by the extreme idiots.

Maybe your account has been hacked and used by a gold seller for whatever they do. Emails sent by Blizzard not always accurately reflect the issue. If I were you I'd call support and scan the computer for viruses, keyloggers, etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zal

I feel bad for you but at the same time wonder WHAT THE HELL. I've been on the server longer and haven't gotten reported that bad, even by the extreme idiots.

---

This isn't a player report, this is a "Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy" ban.

If the OP is on the up and up, it'll get lifted, a few others have reported being banned simply by moving money around toons.

The good news is yes, I was hacked, hence the gold selling/explotation thing....the bad is I have no clue how it happened. Nope I've always been on the up and up, been playing this game since beta and subscribe to 9-10 accounts at any given time. So i was pretty surprised to get that in my email, 24 hours later I got 19 emails of items, accounts and gold being restored across the bored..it looks like some cheeky bugger cleaned me out of nearly 100k of gold and then just vendored all the items and what not.

I seriously hope that whoever sold the gold and the guy buying it gets traced back and both banned, I know the farmer will just use another account and stay in buisness but I do hope whoever buys the gold lost a valuable account.

I was extremely sick at the thought of losing my account with all my collector editions tied to it, plus my blizzcon pets....you cant even replace those anymore...so word to the wise....use a Authenticator.....it might add a few extra seconds to log on..but it'll sure save u this headache.

Im downloading it right now on my phone and will never have to worry about this again.

As far as being reported for botting, I find it helpful if u tell the gm's as soon as you create your accounts, that you announce yourself and all your other accounts on the realm as a multiboxer, and it generally squishes any type of complaints that might be sent in against u from jealous players..or ignorant ones that can't grasp the concept of why we play multiple toons at once.

</ Gets off soapbox />

Yeah, the new vogue is to email the battlenet with that message it seems.

All the battle.net emails validate spf fwiw.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alptraum

The good news is yes, I was hacked, hence the gold selling/explotation thing....the bad is I have no clue how it happened. Nope I've always been on the up and up, been playing this game since beta and subscribe to 9-10 accounts at any given time. So i was pretty surprised to get that in my email, 24 hours later I got 19 emails of items, accounts and gold being restored across the bored..it looks like some cheeky bugger cleaned me out of nearly 100k of gold and then just vendored all the items and what not.

I seriously hope that whoever sold the gold and the guy buying it gets traced back and both banned, I know the farmer will just use another account and stay in buisness but I do hope whoever buys the gold lost a valuable account.

I was extremely sick at the thought of losing my account with all my collector editions tied to it, plus my blizzcon pets....you cant even replace those anymore...so word to the wise....use a Authenticator.....it might add a few extra seconds to log on..but it'll sure save u this headache.

Im downloading it right now on my phone and will never have to worry about this again.

As far as being reported for botting, I find it helpful if u tell the gm's as soon as you create your accounts, that you announce yourself and all your other accounts on the realm as a multiboxer, and it generally squishes any type of complaints that might be sent in against u from jealous players..or ignorant ones that can't grasp the concept of why we play multiple toons at once.

</ Gets off soapbox />

---

Did you have an authenticator? I use the phone in one. When my ip address changes I need to phone in, with a pre agreed phone number, and enter a 4 digit pin number. Fool proof. And I can log into all my accounts now at the same time, no waiting a minute for each code from my old iphone app.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alptraum

As far as being reported for botting, I find it helpful if u tell the gm's as soon as you create your accounts, that you announce yourself and all your other accounts on the realm as a multiboxer, and it generally squishes any type of complaints that might be sent in against u from jealous players..or ignorant ones that can't grasp the concept of why we play multiple toons at once.

---

I contacted atleast 3 different GM's and asked about this, but on EU there is no such thing as an 'account note' or anything like that. So it seems that is just a myth and GM's are not able to flag an account as "multiboxer" or something similar.

Good luck finding the cause :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liquidity

Did you have an authenticator? I use the phone in one. When my ip address changes I need to phone in, with a pre agreed phone number, and enter a 4 digit pin number. Fool proof. And I can log into all my accounts now at the same time, no waiting a minute for each code from my old iphone app.

---

Not exactly 'fool proof'. Enough 'tools' out there that turn your computer into a proxy. That is with regards to the 'ip changing' of course, I don't comment on the authenticator part.

At this point, paying without some type of authenticator (if the option is available in your country) is simply foolish, IMHO. Especially now that they have the toll-free phone option (which I'm now using and love).

they can find out if you was hacked.

Then they give you accont char/gear back and some gold or even give you the "care pack" as you did not have the tocken on but sounds like you more peaed about the pets that you get back if they give you acconts back that you sould.

Accounts are being hacked everyday, it just make good sense to purchase an authenticator. (or get one free for your phone/pda device) My account got hacked earlier in the year (I was fortunate to be alerted within just 5 hrs via email) Within a few days, got all my items/gold returned)

First thing I did after getting my toons back was get an authenticator, then I set up a totally separate email account for use with Blizzard (not used for any other communications)

Been fine ever since

Sadly, like myself we all seemed to have undergone being hacked before buying an authenticator... Those CS reps must hate us.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zenga

Not exactly 'fool proof'. Enough 'tools' out there that turn your computer into a proxy. That is with regards to the 'ip changing' of course, I don't comment on the authenticator part.

---

The authentication is what makes it foolproof*, or at least as useful as the keyring authenticator. If you try to log in from a new IP, you have to call them from the phone number that you registered the service with and provide two numbers- a four digit PIN that you created when you signed up for the service, and a random number shown on the screen.

As someone else stated, the best part about using this service is that you can log in all of your accounts at once again. I no longer have to spend five minutes entering separate authenticator codes. Hallelujah...

* I hate to use the term foolproof, as it implies that it's impossible to get around it, and time and experience show us that people find ways around anything. But for securing your WOW account, the authentication options at least make it so that your account becomes more trouble to hack than it is worth, IMO.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tonuss

The authentication is what makes it foolproof*, or at least as useful as the keyring authenticator. If you try to log in from a new IP, you have to call them from the phone number that you registered the service with and provide two numbers- a four digit PIN that you created when you signed up for the service, and a random number shown on the screen.

As someone else stated, the best part about using this service is that you can log in all of your accounts at once again. I no longer have to spend five minutes entering separate authenticator codes. Hallelujah...

* I hate to use the term foolproof, as it implies that it's impossible to get around it, and time and experience show us that people find ways around anything. But for securing your WOW account, the authentication options at least make it so that your account becomes more trouble to hack than it is worth, IMO.

---

What they're saying is that someone can fake the IP address of your computer when doing a login - it won't seem to Blizzard like it's coming from a different IP address so they won't trigger the authentication call-in procedure. If someone can log your keystrokes, it's not difficult for them to get your IP address and then fake it.

The keychain fobs are, IMO, the best bet - if someone finds a way to hack those they won't waste their time on WoW accounts, they'll just hack bank accounts (my bank issued me a fob when I signed up for online banking).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kate

What they're saying is that someone can fake the IP address of your computer when doing a login - it won't seem to Blizzard like it's coming from a different IP address so they won't trigger the authentication call-in procedure. If someone can log your keystrokes, it's not difficult for them to get your IP address and then fake it.

---

Ah, I understand now. I'm wondering if that is possible, though, or at least easy enough for your garden-variety gold farmer or account thief to pull off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sbrowne55

Sadly, like myself we all seemed to have undergone being hacked before buying an authenticator...

---

Been there ... done that ...

I've got five addresses, made specifically for the authenticator.
Don't use them for anything else, and once I've set them up have never even logged into them.

Running Firefox with Noscript, etc.

Not 100% secure, but fairly happy with the security.



I'm really interested in the phone based authenticator.
That will get rid of the need to even enter an authentication number to log in, which is one less hassle.

And if anyone tries to log in, not from my location, they cannot do so.

I think that is likely stronger security.
People have been key logged, and had their authenticator code intercepted.
It is rare, but good luck finding then breaking into my house, to log into my wow account.

Definitely looking forward to the phone based authentication.

I agree the phone in authenticator is open to hijacking through means of proxy. It seems the only advantage of this over the keychain/iphone authenticator is ease of use though. It would be nice if they could make it so that a single authenticator code worked across all accounts on the one battlenet account if used within a minute of each other or some such. It is really only having to wait for 5 unique numbers to come up which slows down log ing with these authenticators.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Littleburst

I contacted atleast 3 different GM's and asked about this, but on EU there is no such thing as an 'account note' or anything like that. So it seems that is just a myth and GM's are not able to flag an account as "multiboxer" or something similar.

Good luck finding the cause :/

---

Recent blue post in forums says otherwise.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...3449?page=2#26

In fact the entire thread is a good example of how in game GMs can be just plain thick in the head (and there's another good example of an idiot GM at http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...81435?page=1#5).