I got up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning, had breakfast and went to work for a couple of hours. When I got home, I grabbed a soda from the fridge and headed to my computer to log into my World of Warcraft account. I wanted to see what had sold overnight, and work on some quests with my Death Knight.
The first thing I noticed when I logged in was that my DK was in a black party dress, and she was in Northrend. I didn't leave her there like that. I always park my toons in the same place, in the same mode of dress, and this wasn't it. The next thing I noticed was that there was a level one character now on this server that I hadn't built.
My heart started to pound and my stomach went into knots. I logged in, and promptly got booted out. I logged in again. I found that my DK was removed from the guild I had her in. A friend whispered to me, "Why did you leave the guild?" When I tried to answer, nothing happened. I was mute. Then, I got booted out again. I logged back in, by this time in full panic mode. I was swearing and crying. I was sweating. I was shaking. I felt nauseous. As I logged back in again, my DK was falling out of the sky. She died. I resurrected her at the death angel and hearthed her back to her hearth point. It was at Valiance Keep. I had left her the night before with her hearth in Dalaran.
I was finally able to talk to my friend, and tell her that I'd been HACKED! I realized that the reason I was probably getting booted out was that the hacker was still in my account when I logged in. I'd lost nearly everything. All my armor; all my food, my packs, my non-quest items; everything in my bank--ALL GONE. I asked her to have someone re-invite me back into the guild, which they did. The first thing I did was to go and change my password. Next, I promptly went to the Battle.net website to see what to do if one had been hacked. The first thing it said was, DON'T PANIC. Too late. I was devastated, both in-game and in real life. I felt like I'd been raped.
I got the e-mail address of the department to which this outrage needed to be reported and fired off a panicked e-mail, not even bothering with capitalization or spacing, I don't think. Then, I went back to my account to see just how much damage had been done.
I have about 26 characters over five realms (servers). My two highest level characters had been completely stripped, or nearly so. Most of my gold was gone. One lower level character was also completely stripped, on the same server as the death knight. Several others had had most of their valuable items and gold taken.
I went back to my DK and my other toon on that server and started trying to rebuild a bit. I put the death knight to bed, because there wasn't anything in the line of armor or weapons for a character of her level that I could find available to put on her, at least without a large outlay of gold, of which I had none at this point. I went to my other character. Some friends donated armor, weapons and gold to me so I could at least run her.
I played part of Saturday, and part of Sunday. Monday, I logged in to find that my account had been locked. Another blow. I went to my e-mail to see if there was any communication from Blizzard/Battle.net, and found a form letter telling me that my account had been locked because of gold-selling activity. I cried. Then I wrote another e-mail to Blizzard explaining that I had never been involved in gold-selling activities, that the game is a vital part of my day, since I stay at home when I'm off work and look after my elderly mother, and that I would never do anything to compromise the game or game security. After that, I went back to the Battle.net website, and I purchased one of their account authenticators. Then I cried some more.
Tuesday morning, I got on the telephone to Blizzard through their 800-number. I got hold of a very nice fellow who examined everything I told him, and expedited the return of my items to my characters.
I avoided the game for the next two days. When I got the mail on Thursday, I had a small package from Battle.net. It was my authenticator. I checked my e-mail when I got home and found another communication from Battle.net informing me that my account had been restored, and Thursday night, after attaching the authenticator to my account, I tried logging in again. SUCCESS!!
When I logged into the character I'd been playing, the lower-level one that was stripped, I had mail in my mailbox. All my items were there that had been stolen, and one more thing: I had a corehound puppy from Battle.net for purchasing the authenticator! All of my characters now have a corehound puppy as a companion pet.
I still have very mixed feelings about playing now. I still love the game, but I'm finding that I have trouble trusting people. Some of the enjoyment has gone from the game for me. I still can't figure out how I was hacked, since I have never given out my account information, or even my e-mail to anyone. I have never visited, or purchased gold or items from any of those spammers that come into the game and advertise. I still just don't get it.
Things to know if you ever get hacked:
1: Go ahead and panic, if you need to. It's ok. It's a natural reaction when you find out you've been violated. If you need to cry, swear, scream or shout, or even throw things, that's ok, too. Just don't break your monitor in the process.
2: Once you stop panicking, go change your password immediately. Make it something with letters, numbers and those symbols that are above the numbers. Mix them up. Capitalize some of the letters, if you want. Write down your new password and keep it safe until you know it by heart. I wound up changing mine three times before I settled on one that I thought would be secure enough.
3: Send an e-mail to billing@blizzard.com telling them what happened, approximately when (if you know), and any other information you can remember to tell them. Give them a couple of days to work on it, then follow up with a phone call to their customer service at 1-800-592-5499. You may have to try repeatedly to call them. I had the best luck on a Tuesday morning around 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. As they say in some ads, your results may vary.
4: As hard as it is to do, BE PATIENT. Believe me, I was faunching at the bit waiting for them to do something, to respond or something. It takes them some time, because there are a lot of people with problems getting in touch with them, and a lot of those problems are exactly what you are going through. The hardest thing to remember is that you aren't the only person that has been hacked today. I really had to keep reminding myself of that, because I felt like I was the only person that got hacked that day.
5: Buy an authenticator. Buy one even if you haven't been hacked, and prevent it happening to you before it does. They only cost $6.50 each, no shipping/handling or tax, and it's well worth the investment.
It's up to your discretion whether you want to talk to people about it or not. I found that, when I talked about it in guild chat, the responses ranged from polite disinterest to being laughed at outright. It was hurtful to me, and I ultimately left the guild. I only talk with my closest friends about it now.
The best thing is to not get hacked at all. But if you do, perhaps my experience will help you through yours. Best of luck, and happy gaming! :-)
