Does blizzard report people who send fake ID?

#0 - Jan. 11, 2010, 5:43 a.m.

My friend is having a major problem with someone stealing his account over and over by sending blizzard a fake ID.

The first time his account got hacked he send blizzard a recovery form with his ID and he got it back, then a week later he lost access to it again. So he sent the recovery form again, and then a week after that he lost the account yet again. He's now on his third time sending blizzard a recovery form, and the person who is stealing his accounts sent him a message in-game to talk over IM, he basically said that he will keep recovering the account over and over with a fake ID, and that my friend will never have access to the account as he will keep stealing it back.

Does blizzard not check if the IDs are real? I'd imagine they can call MVD or something and verify that the ID # is actually registered in the state and know for sure that it's genuine. And they should report fake ID's to the FBI as that is a federal crime that should be investigated.

Can any blue shed light on this? Why is it apparently so easy for your reps to be fooled by fake IDs? Is there no verification process? And what can my friend do to solve this problem?

Bheralrul

#10 - Jan. 11, 2010, 10:33 p.m.

I would like to first point out that we are not easily fooled by fake identification. The people processing identification do have the proper details and information on what to look for, and it is always better safe than sorry in cases of verification. Also, if multiple people are sending in proof of identification, that may quickly lead to a Notary lock, as was already pointed out by others in this thread. If both parties were able to get notarized proof they were the real person, it sounds like there could be a bigger identity theft issue at hand, and your friend may want to contact the proper authorities.

Q u o t e:
...how can I get in contact with blizzard to maybe cooperate with him and send him the IP or address where the fake ID is coming from to pursue legal action?

You would not get into contact with Blizzard to investigate this matter, Midnilux. I do not mean to come off as harsh or anything like that, but you have identified yourself as the friend of someone claiming to have issues with their identity being taken. If your friend truly feels he is the victim of theft, he would want to contact the proper authorities. We do fully cooperate with the police and all government bodies to help in any investigations.

Q u o t e:
Can any blue shed light on this? Why is it apparently so easy for your reps to be fooled by fake IDs? Is there no verification process? And what can my friend do to solve this problem?

Just to reconfirm: We do have a verification process for identification; we do not just process an id because it has a name on it, we want to make sure they are valid. If multiple people are sending in identification for the normal recovery process, we will move to other methods of verification to confirm only the real person gets it back.

Also, I am not seeing any other attempts by you to report this issue to us. Did this just start happening today? It was not a bad idea to write it up on the forums as other players have been able to inform you on some of the finer points, but you may wish to have your friend contact us, or if he is having a serious compromise of his real life identity and security, he may wish to contact the proper authorities in his area.

Bheralrul

#13 - Jan. 11, 2010, 11:31 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Bheralrul - I did not mean for me personally to contact on this particular issue, obviously you would be contacted by my friend, I just want to know how he can set this up, where should he call, who should he ask for? is there a legal department etc? wowaccountadmin hasn't responded so far, I'm not sure how many times he's tried emailing them. At this point he is willing to forfeit the account - just get rid of it completely or ban it, so that this guy doesn't keep thinking he's going to be successful stealing people's identity.

If your friend wants to recover the account, he would contact Billing. He can report what he is saying (somehow multiple back and forth id recoveries without it being reviewed) and have it looked into. If he wants to take proper action with his local police or whatnot, he would contact them. They would then go about the legal method of contact and requests for information.