Reprehensible customer service

#0 - April 5, 2007, 1:16 a.m.

I've been playing this game for over two years and am posting on an alt. This morning, a very good RL friend of mine discovered that his account was hacked and all of his items sold or destroyed. He lost over 3000 gold and all of his vast collection of epic mounts.

My friend immediately contacted Blizzard to advise them of his loss. They told him that they'd conduct an investigation. He received an e-mail this afternoon from Blizzard, informing him that his account was now banned for "associating with other accounts previously banned for exploiting the economy."

Brilliant. If that's not the very definition of being hacked, I'm not sure what is. In other words, Blizzard elected to punish a long-time customer for being the victim of someone else's criminal behavior. That is absolutely shameful.

I cancelled my account today. My measly $15.00 per month means nothing, save to allow myself the satisfaction of knowing that not another dime of my money will go to this increasingly unresponsive and shoddy company.

Kaone

#5 - April 5, 2007, 1:47 a.m.

Hello Apocalyptah,

There is another option that must always be kept in mind when dealing with this subject. That is the notion that an account that is compromised can be used in any number of ways. Certainly what you immediately associate with "being hacked" is the loss of items and gold - but compromised accounts can be also "used" in ways that violate our policies. This in turn may mean that an account that was hacked can receive actions and suspensions for activities done by whoever had hacked the account.

While I have no idea what account you are referring to here, the way you describe the situation sounds like the email received from Account Administration may have been independent of your friend's report to the Game Master. I.e. it is possible that it was a suspension already in the works due to activities made on the account while compromised.

If your friend feels this is the case, he - and only he - should contact Account Administration regarding this matter. This will ensure this aspect is fully investigated so that it can be determined who was responisible for any policy violations made. He can contact our Account Administration Department at:

Account Administration Email Support

Website E-mail Form
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/?id=eSupport000
[email protected]

Malkorix

#45 - Aug. 4, 2008, 9:07 p.m.

On the upper right, please select 'Latest Reply' from the drop down sorting menu =). It'll help avoid this kind of issue in the future.

Let's allow this to settle back into the depths for now.