Why is he banned forever?

#0 - Feb. 8, 2009, 2:01 p.m.

I am posting for the first time on these threads because I'm just so angry right now I can't sleep and I'm hoping it will do some good for someone I love. My boyfriend and I have played this game since the first year it came out. We have never had an issue ever. After years of being loyal customers, all of the sudden he received an email that his account was compromised. He was hacked. He did everything he was told to do, emailed blizz and all and they informed him his account was not just compromised but BANNED FOREVER.
Apparently the hacker spammed advertising messages and they BANNED him without hearing his case. Within hours Blizz had told him there was some kind of investigation. Trust me, there are plenty of people that can vouch for him that his normal behavior is NOT spamming advertisements, selling all his character's items, and changing his password several times to do more advertisements!! Why is he being treated like a criminal when he was a victim? What did this hacker do in the short time he was on that causes his account to be banned? He couldn't even get on to talk to a GM, he has to do everything now through other means.
Blizz can say it was his responsibility to keep his account secure, but when all it takes is a single bad link, some of which can be found even on these forums no doubt, it's only a matter of time and nothing can prevent it. Blizz authenticators are sold out every time I check the store. We don't hand out our info. What more can we do? From a business stand point I don't understand how blizz would turn away long time and loyal customers for getting hacked the first time. I have seen plenty of friends on my realm return after being hacked. I don't think any were actually BANNED. He has emailed everyone he could think of pleading his case, asking if there is anything he could do. All he wants is his account back.
We have put time and money and it's just so hard to see it all thrown away in an hour. I have lost so many friends to this kind of thing. Blizz, hackers and keyloggers will be the death of WoW, especially if you continue to punish innocent customers like this. Please tell me what we can do to get his account back. We just want to play the game we paid for. Thank you.

Aredek

#2 - Feb. 8, 2009, 2:17 p.m.

Account Administration will happily look into this for your boyfriend, Luthiest. I encourage you to have him review the following threads for more information on how to secure his computer and recovery his account following a period of malicious access:

Computer Security Recommendations:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778038509&sid=1

Account Compromise Info Center:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14318909866&sid=1

He will want to pay particularly close attention to the following section of the Compromise Info Center:

Q u o t e:
6.1 My Account Was Banned!

Sometimes characters on a compromised account will be used for malicious activities. When this happens, the account to which these characters belong may be suspended, banned, or locked for exploitation.

If your account was penalized for actions which occurred while it was compromised, the appropriate recourse is to contact our Account Administration department as soon as possible. Our AA representatives may be reached by email or by web form.

Email: wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com
Web form: http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml?gameId=11

Should you have any further questions or concerns why compromised accounts may be penalized, please see the following discussion:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4071469304&pageNo=1&sid=1#3

The best advice I can give is to remain calm, and follow the directions included in the threads above. If you have any questions along the way, let us know.

Please send your boyfriend our regards and well wishes.

Malkorix

#53 - Feb. 12, 2009, 7:16 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Okay I sort of take back my last update. There is a change...a big change.

My mage and Death Knight are back (Yay! Thank you Blizz!)

However none of my gear is. Strangely enough, I logged into the two mentioned characters, and there is a lot of gold on my Death Knight, seemingly all the gold I lost, and an item or two that could've been vendored off but werent. So why was the Death Knight deleted?

I also had some arctic furs on my druid and they ended up being in my mage's inventory.

My real question here is, is the restoration done? Or is the investigation not over yet? I'm guessing I probably would've received an e-mail if both were the case.

Excellent! I'm glad to hear that we were able to help you recover those characters =).

It should be that a followup investigation for restoration is under way; however, if you still believe items to be missing, it is probably a good idea to send an email to wowcharhelp@blizzard.com explaining what seems to still be missing and requesting restoration for those items.

Malkorix

#62 - Feb. 13, 2009, 8:57 p.m.

Q u o t e:
You may not hear this a lot Blizz, but I am grateful for you getting my characters back on their feet and back in action. In my case your customer service was excellent. I know it's not an easy thing to do with 12 million something subscribers, especially when it comes to providing service this quickly. I hope you are able to continue dealing with compromised/hacked accounts in this manner and I hope your subscribers continue to grow.

Thank you everyone! King Lyshu is back!

As before, I can't adequately express my delight that you're back on your feet and playing! It's all too easy to become jaded, after seeing many such issues, and forget the great relief and joy that comes with having a situation like this completely resolved. Thanks for reminding me of how intensely personal and important recovery from a compromise can be.

In turn, I can say with absolute confidence that stories like yours are the greatest reward we can reap for our efforts =).

If you'd like, you can send an email to wowgmfeedback-us@blizzard.com to express your appreciation regarding any members of our staff you interacted with in-game, via email or on the Customer Service forum.