@pemtaphalon said:

what realy hurt was an email i got from esaying they hope i'v been enjoying fifa 12, would i like to tweet about it....salt in the wounds man

I know exactly what you mean! It actually infuriated me.

Here's another thing they could try: If the spate of account hackings are all people using other accounts to purchase what I understand are trading cards that can be transferred between accounts, STOP SELLING THEM AS DLC UNTIL IT'S SORTED!

It's not rocket science Microsoft/EA.

I've just sent an email to FIFA just in case they weren't already aware of the current situation. I've outlined the suggestions I've made in this thread to them and suggested that they put some pressure on MS & EA as it's also FIFA's spotless reputation (ha ha!) that's being affected by MS's continued assertion that this isn't that big a deal.

I was hacked yesterday and lost £51 to 6000 points. Hopefully I'll get my money back but having my account closed for a month right now is kind of the worst time. I don't want to play offline incase I cause some problems, so I can't play Batman, MW3, Battlefield 3, Rage, Fifa 12, Dead Island. Half of those are multiplayer focused anyway. Supremely annoyed.

Nintendo: People were annoyed there weren't enough games released in a timely fashion, so Nintendo give away 20 games to everyone.

Microsoft allow you to literally be robbed, then they spend ages maybe fixing it and are inconsistent on recompense, all whilst you twiddle your thumbs in the busiest gaming month of the year. And on top of that we don't know if they're doing anything about it happening to others and the same people again in the future.

When Sony had their problem, no one's money was taken. It was probably a bigger cock up with shutting down PSN completely, but they at least kept people informed and gave away games etc.

With this situation, Gears pretty much over for the time being, Bungie's Halo over for good, and steamworks on Playstation, I have a feeling I'm going to get a PS4 in a couple of years.

Three weeks later and my money is back on my account. So now that everything is said and done I can officially say fuck you EA or Fifa or whoever is the cause of this, you guys can eat a dick. Now to go see if people are mad skilled at Gears of War. Later duders hope you all get your shit back soon.

@pemtaphalon said:

@Sugarfix said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W-02OgFCCw here's one of many youtube videos that claims you can just email EA a code and they will send you someone password

Crhist on a bike! is it really that easy?!

Ive got my money back now, wont have the account for another week or two. I was annoyed when I thought I'd been stupid enough to allow my account to be compromised

but if its that easy then I'll be ******* furious with EA.

@theodacourt said:

I was hacked yesterday and lost £51 to 6000 points. Hopefully I'll get my money back but having my account closed for a month right now is kind of the worst time. I don't want to play offline incase I cause some problems, so I can't play Batman, MW3, Battlefield 3, Rage, Fifa 12, Dead Island. Half of those are multiplayer focused anyway. Supremely annoyed.

Nintendo: People were annoyed there weren't enough games released in a timely fashion, so Nintendo give away 20 games to everyone.

Microsoft allow you to literally be robbed, then they spend ages maybe fixing it and are inconsistent on recompense, all whilst you twiddle your thumbs in the busiest gaming month of the year. And on top of that we don't know if they're doing anything about it happening to others and the same people again in the future.

When Sony had their problem, no one's money was taken. It was probably a bigger cock up with shutting down PSN completely, but they at least kept people informed and gave away games etc.

With this situation, Gears pretty much over for the time being, Bungie's Halo over for good, and steamworks on Playstation, I have a feeling I'm going to get a PS4 in a couple of years.

*rolls eyes* yep they've kept no one informed I guess answering the issue when eurogamer asked is keeping it under wraps...but hey we all cant take a week to tell our customers that our complete user database has been stolen like sony...and then shut the service down for a total of 76 days combined time to get psn back up.

Hey guys, I've been screwed too. If it's any consolation (and I realise this is a shitty source!) I saw a few facebook posts on the XBOX UK page from individuals who said they have had their accounts restored and money refunded. But.... being a cynical bastard I'll be waiting another three weeks to see if this really pans out or not.

@WilliamRLBaker said:

@theodacourt said:

I was hacked yesterday and lost £51 to 6000 points. Hopefully I'll get my money back but having my account closed for a month right now is kind of the worst time. I don't want to play offline incase I cause some problems, so I can't play Batman, MW3, Battlefield 3, Rage, Fifa 12, Dead Island. Half of those are multiplayer focused anyway. Supremely annoyed.

Nintendo: People were annoyed there weren't enough games released in a timely fashion, so Nintendo give away 20 games to everyone.

Microsoft allow you to literally be robbed, then they spend ages maybe fixing it and are inconsistent on recompense, all whilst you twiddle your thumbs in the busiest gaming month of the year. And on top of that we don't know if they're doing anything about it happening to others and the same people again in the future.

When Sony had their problem, no one's money was taken. It was probably a bigger cock up with shutting down PSN completely, but they at least kept people informed and gave away games etc.

With this situation, Gears pretty much over for the time being, Bungie's Halo over for good, and steamworks on Playstation, I have a feeling I'm going to get a PS4 in a couple of years.

*rolls eyes* yep they've kept no one informed I guess answering the issue when eurogamer asked is keeping it under wraps...but hey we all cant take a week to tell our customers that our complete user database has been stolen like sony...and then shut the service down for a total of 76 days combined time to get psn back up.

I can tell by your tone of text that you haven't lost any money in this. 83 days is less time than Microsoft's problem has been going on. There's a difference between acknowledging a problem and addressing a problem. Xbox have said there's been a spike in this activity, they take security seriously and they'll help the affected. That's super boiler plate and at no point did they say this is a specific problem that needs addressing for good. My original post never said xbox kept it secret anyway, just that they weren't making any clear signs of doing something about it.

As for the rest of your comment, I guess if you were/are a PS3 owner you would have preferred Sony to keep it secret? and not try and fix it?

I may have been a little angry when I wrote that original post, but the point is that Sony and Nintendo made clear steps to take decisive action to resolve a problem, no matter the severity. Microsoft have just said "Yeah, sucks doesn't it? We'll get you your money back if you ask nicely."

Well,

I've just been on the phone again to MS (I'm determined to nag them about it) and the call agent I spoke to said something really interesting: He said, and I quote "Oh yes, it's an issue with EAs servers". When I pressed him for more information, he was unwilling to go any further.

Just thought I'd spread the word...

My account got hacked yesterday :( At least i don't have any credit card information on the xbox.

But how on earth can it take up to 4 weeks to get it fixed. At least the rep. told me I could still use xbox live but can't make any purchases. I hope that there are no great Deal of the Week for the next weeks. :(

@Sugarfix said:

Well,

I've just been on the phone again to MS (I'm determined to nag them about it) and the call agent I spoke to said something really interesting: He said, and I quote "Oh yes, it's an issue with EAs servers". When I pressed him for more information, he was unwilling to go any further.

Just thought I'd spread the word...

Goddamnit EA

In celebration of Halloween, here's my Live horror story. Back in late July I received an e-mail from Microsoft in Spanish stating that my Live account had been changed from a US account to a Colombian account. I think the last time I used my 360 was around the Kinect launch so I wasn't too freaked out but I figured this would be a good time to close the account and remove my billing information. I have two live accounts and this is the one I created for my younger brother years ago in order for us to play on Live together. I then noticed charges on my debit card from Microsoft, so I quickly call up Live support to get to the bottom of this. The nice lady at Microsoft let's me know she's going to straighten all of this out for me and get me my account back pronto. I ask the question: What are we going to do about these false charges on my card? The nice lady let's me know that unfortunately at Microsoft they cannot reverse the charges like every other company in the civilized world and I'll need to contact my bank and file a fraudulent charge. I was happy to find out that the people at Microsoft support would lock my account for now but I should have my account back by August 9th. I was told that I would be receiving a call and an e-mail around that date.

I handled the charges with my bank and got a new card from them. The page on calendar changed to August and then to September. On the second week of September I called Microsoft support again. The gentleman that answered after the delightful hold music let me know that top men were hard at work getting me my account back. I let the fellow know that I didn't really want the account back I just would like to take all my billing information off the account and cancel it. Unfortunately, this is impossible because the account is locked. I was told to just wait a little longer on that phone call.

Still waiting, I noticed another e-mail today in Espanol. My three years of high school Spanish class let me decipher that my account was being changed from Columbian back to the good old USA. This seemed like a great time to try again to cancel my account. I dial 1-800-4myxbox on my iPhone. Looking back I may have been better served using my work phone that runs Windows mobile. I spoke to another gentleman with Microsoft support and was informed that I needed to wait a couple more weeks. These things apparently take much longer when Colombia gets involved I was told. I assume with the overwhelming success of the war on drugs the Colombian cartels have turned to the easy money. Microsoft space money laundering. The gentleman with Microsoft sensed that I was a little tired of waiting at this point and offered me a code for 30 days free Xbox Live Gold. I quickly let him know that gifts would not be necessary and that I would be anticipating the phone call in two weeks time.

@Volts: That sucks.

I just lost almost 5000 points from someone getting my account and buying this stuff for fifa 12

Happened to me as well, just a couple of hours ago. Got 2 emails from PayPal confirming 2 purchases of 5000 points. Turned on my Xbox, and it said my e-mail and password was incorrect. Immediately changed my Xbox Live password and deauthorized my PayPal account from Xbox Live. Recovered gamertag from Xbox Live.

Thought I was off the hook. I wasn't.

30 minutes or so later, someone changed the e-mail associated with my EA/Origin account. Managed to change that back as well. (No "didn't you do this?"-link in the e-mail from EA confirming the e-mail change. I had to scour EA's support pages for a little while to get back in to my account. Shouldn't be necessary)

Thought I was off the hook. Still, I wasn't.

A couple of hours later i wanted to play, so I turned on my Xbox, and it said my e-mail and password was incorrect. Again.

Tried logging in to xbox.com to change my password, and it asked my name, and where I'm from.

"Whatevs, security measures", I thought.

Logged in, and xbox.com had made me a fresh gamertag.

"Wtf."

So my original gamertag had been transferred to another Windows Live account. Fuck.

Looked up my gamertag on xbox.com.

"Last seen 1 hour ago playing FIFA12"

"Motherf-----"

Yes, I hate soccer too. Makes all this a tad sour.

Checked my bank account.

2 purchases of 2000 points and 1 purchase of 500 points from my VISA, which, of course, is linked to my Xbox Live account.

Calling my bank first thing tomorrow to report this.

And to top it all off, it's the weekend, so that support form I sent Microsoft probably won't be read until Monday.

(Not exactly the kind of first post I wanted on this forum)

@xdup: It wasn't the first post I wanted to make either!

I had pretty much the same (without the EA account bit or transferring my gamertag) and it took MS about 30 days to correct it, but correct it they did.

I've had no response from MS (it's a surprise and a shock, I know) to my question of what they;re going to do about beefing up security to stop account being recovered to unknown consoles and also WHY they allow EA to sell DLC that can be transferred between accounts. If they allowed to to move ANY DLC, it wouldn't bite so much as I'd like to move some "Exclusive DLC" attached to my account to my nephew's account, but no, only certain stuff at their discretion.

Good luck in a speedy resolution and fund recovery!

One of my mates got his account hacked earlier today. :(

A follow up on my original report, my account has now been unlocked again by Microsoft after they completed their fraud investigation.

First of all, their email notifying me of this was 2 months to the day after it was reported. 25 day SLA my ass...

Second, the email started by saying "We reviewed your report of unauthorized access to your Xbox LIVE account. It appears that you've regained control of your Xbox LIVE account." Yes, I've got access back, you're the ones that locked my account down when I reported it, you muppets!

Third, they told me the funds from my card would be refunded within 10 days. Nope, no money back yet. I shall be chasing this up as soon as the phone lines open again...

Fourth, there was absolutely no mention of the points that were on the account before it got hacked, so they may well just have conveniently "forgotten" that I had almost £40 worth of points already on there before the card purchase went through. Thanks, guys!

Fifth, the stupid Fifa 12 gamerscore points are still on my account, even after me saying I expected them removed as part of this investigation... Unlike some other people, I don't want them on there. I don't want free points, I want every one on there to reflect what I have actually done!

On the plus side, they have automatically extended the current Gold subscription by 2 months, but overall an extremely poor showing Microsoft!

I'm lucky that this didn't happen to me but now i'm cancelling my card and gonna start buying MS points and XBL cards.