Serious Account Issue

[noobas]

Dear all

I hav endured a very serious account security breakdown. I don't have hours to relay the details, so I will summarize the past weeks events as appropriately as I can.

On soldiermate in albatraum with orgmates: last secure login.
next morning can't log account.
email FC
PW change. login, revange is stripped. remove alts from org which are from that account.
petition. recieve items lost.
log out. change password.
log in. get a few more items that were missing and some creds.
log out.
next evening, can't log in. Email FC. the account has been fully infiltrated. The CC info, password and account details have been changed.

I recall GM Hoccard saying to write everything down in an email to FC. so I do. I write down everything from the account transfer from Unk to the emails recieved from the "new" owner, hacker?

So far as what I can see, here is how it went down. I've been talking to unk, and here is how this situation has emerged:

Buddy plays AO. decides to quit. Sells the account on ebay (or wherever) to a guy called the Operator. Operator buys and sells MMORG accounts. It's what he does. He's straight up and he keeps logs of all transactions.

Operator buys the account. Operator sells the account to Unk.

Unk retires from game.

Unk asks me if I would like to play the account. I certainly would, so I take it and put it to use.

I develop the chars. I sink some money into them, I twink revange, and I level soldiermate to 220. I twink a 60 MP, and spend a total of between 600 and 800m on the account.

Buddy who sold the account to the Operator has not "hacked" the account. He IS the original owner. However, he has seriously overstepped the boundaries which would be laid out for someone who engages in a real financial transaction.

The Result:

This weekend I spent some 8-10 hours petitioning on saturday afternoon, saturday night and sunday day time. I lost everything transferable on revange. I hadn't bothered to check soldiermate, but I am sure what can be transfered is gone, hhab, inf boots, creds, symbs, etc.

I got back nearly everything on revange, as a result of the petitioning and GM Hoccards help.
However, I can not again access the acount, making the pint moot.

I am treating the account as lost, currently, and It is locked, and should remain that way indefinitly.

The problems I face and am currently dealign with:

It has been seen, as a result of the records and logs of the characters what the intent of this person was.

This person was not out to reclaim the account, which he could have done (prior to some of his actions), he did not want to play the account. He wanted to steal, and strip the characters I built. His intention was never to use the account, but to somehow harvest the work that others had done to benefit himself.

He took everything. It is especially obvious that this is the case since he left each of the chars with nothing. It is never the intention of someone who wants to play the game to remove all things that will make the game better. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that this malicious attack was for pure profit.

At this point, I have to instigate a warning. Revange, although the account is locked (currently) is still an org member of GOA. At this time, I suggest the removal of this char from the org, since I can not gaurantee the person who MAY get the account activated includes ANY of the characteristics that would befit an (Athen) Paladin.

At this time I regret to inform all those who knew me under the guise of soldiermate/revange this identity will no longer represent me.

If I am able to regain control of the account, which I doubt, at this point, I will no longer use these monikers as the security of them is highly compromised.

Instead, I will delete the account as soon as I can, removing all items of worth which may be parlayed into cash for building another alt of suitable value.

At this point, I'm feeling particularly vulnerable, and given the circumstances, I'm out at least a few thousand hours of play time and the good part of a billion credits.

As such, my mood online I hope will not be dour, but I'm going to think about how I wish to continue in game going forward.

Sorry for the long Post, but it's imperative to make sure everyone knows that I will not be represented by those characters any longer.


Regards,

Nooba

[Elrojo]

god damn.

The same kinda thing happened to Enye, at least in his case he was able to negotiated some sort of truce and recoup some of the stuff.

Its really bad for you, especially since you obviously didnt reaslise that the toon wasnt an Unk original. It does sound all too easy to half do an account, sell it for RL cash, then log back in after a few years, strip it, and then sell it for in game credz. You could really just play another account in the mean time and then use all the new found resources to better the existing character.

I hope that you dont look on the game negatively because some jerk decided to be a jerk! I think the biggest loss is the time put into the toons and the fact that they were projects. I get the same on the crat where there are only a few things i really think i would like to do on him and i have started to log lowbie alts as projects to level them up. I hope that you can find an outlet that reminds you of what you enjoy in the game. Maybe even take a bit of time out to allow you to refresh and forget about the whole ordeal.

GL mate, we forgive you if you are a bit sour ingame.

[butrkup]

Nooba,

*hugs* & *hugs* & *hugs* I am so sorry for what has happened; it is so very disheartening. Like Rojo, I would hate to see your enthusiasm for & fun in AO spoiled by this, although sure, it will take some time for you to feel better. You are such a joy to play with. Keep your chin up!

[Grind42]

Dont be to disheartened m8, that was a way gimpy account even after u got your hands on it


Sorry I know im Mean!!!! (whips out my violin)

Bro I will speak to you ingame, take care & keep smiling

[Chrisax]

I talked with Noobas online, this afternoon GMT, when I logged on to kick Recvange and Soldiermate from GoA. So he already knows what I wanted to tell him!

You're strong enough and enough of a good player to survive that, Noobas. And you know AP will help you when you need. Spirits up!

[noobas]

Thanks guys, you're all so awesome

Especially, rojo, butr and chris and grinder!

nooo, I have new plans, I have some new ideas and I'm already adjusting and I've got some big plans ahead. I'm actually using this setback as a starting point.

I realized that the actual loss was much less than the percieved loss. Since you spend creds as you go, you don't really need to count those. So, realistically, ya sure I lost out on a couple expensive pieces of armour, but hey, nothing one or two decent drops wouldn't fix!

Ya, realistically, I've decided the biggest loss is in having an awesome agent for twinking... common! agents rule! fp doc, and you've got FG,ES,IC, SFA and heck thats like 2/3's of all the buffs you ever need while twinking! :O

So, yea, I might build an agent on another account JUST for that purpose.

Also, the items that are annoying to lose but not a big deal are:
2 VTE
1 medical alien augmentation
1 nano alien augmentation
100 tara points spent ona GPH (booo hoo!!!!!) this kills me btw.

but obviously nothing not recoverable with a bit of creds, time and toil.

<3 looky my picture, still happy ftw!

Thanks all! I'll be working on my advy rodog for a bit, I'm goign to do all quests in SL in the next few weeks

join me for some doggy RS fun.

[Chrisax]

Good to see you feel better and are making projects.

VTEs?... let's have a little quick visit to the Mantis Queen.. then of course, you need to farm some gold and bot junk and look for Soul Fragments on GMS.

[faros1978]

Nooba my friend i am sorry to hear that story which convince me more nad more to stick only to my accounts. If u need any help to farm or to get some stuff pls tell. I wish your Avatar will stay smiley

[Lasarina]

Gimme a yell if you need gold and junk, I got some on bank toons

[noobas]

guys, lol thanks for the support

I'm totalllllly hopeless at TSing. I'm an engineer/geochemist in real life, and thats enough "trade skills" for me, when I'm in game I'm a MA. MA is NOT a TSer!!! lol

Grind has been ever so kind as to offer use of one of his accounts (one with a sold and advy I think), and unk has offered up his OTHER account that cutie was otherwise using.

Because I totally trust cutie, and grind, and well, all you guys, I'm just sort of deciding on what to do.

Unk's trader is a bit of a gong show (to me), totally geared up for Tsing but not fighting, so I'm not sure if I really want that. I will look into the other chars though, just for fun.

Also, I think I actually have all the parts needed (on unks trader) to make eggy things, but I'll be darned if I know how to do it

He has some eggs on his trader, but I dont really feel like stealing them, even if they aren't being used atm. I'm still assessing his account. I want to keep it active since it would be cool so he or cutie could log in occasionally and say hello.

That said, I may take up grind's offer, since having aTL7 soldier in tow providing team reflects is like, well, for an MA is bloody outstanding.

Weird how some annoying and disruptive things can turn around to be ok sometimes. just takes some good friends I suppose... Thanks all!

[Elrojo]

hey noobs,

I think i have a few eggs for VTE's on the advy that i have never used. I also have a bunch-o-nanos and ID's for random crap. I will maybe make a post with all the useless things i have farmed over the time i have been bothered to. I think i donated my 5-6 BPs of imps and symbs to the bank months ago but i always get more. ATM on crat i am trying to farm tinker tower for ICRT so i am getting alot of useless nanos again.... Most are QL140's but i'll try to make a list and then post and you can pick away at things you might want.

I'm also going to start rolling QL250 mish and looting imps and clusters so i'll keep you posted on those, more than welcome to blanks etc.

[Sookie]

HI GUYS...... IM SO SO SO SORRY for what happend and want to speak up for just a sec.

I built a main account XxxxxXXxxx a long time ago. I played it as a froob till my main was way up and I had used all my resets. I decided to go to paid version, but the account was too dmg'd. to be of any use. I made a 2nd account and thats the trader UNK. I dont think i did good with it, but i was in a better case. After frustration with the 1s account i swapped it for a enf account.
It's not my way, but the account was useless and I wanted a toon to host myself at any time. The enf account got recalled and I recalled XXXxxxxXXXXX. to make a short storie long, the "Operator" got pulled in by mistake as he took the 1stmain XXXxxxXXX account from someone else (selling) and trying to find out why i recalled it......... I passed it back over for Sol/Rev and was assued he personally knew the owner and the account was safe. Once again I had a host toon to work my trader account issues out..... I retired from the game and made this avl to nooba. Please also understand Nooba was not misled by me. I gave him the same idea that was given to me and "that it was a safe account, but was not mine originally".

IM SO SO SORRY THIS HAPPEND AND CAN ONLY BLAME MYSELF FOR THIS.
IF I ONLY DELETED MY ACCOUNT and never pondered using a 2nd account to help myself.


IF IF IF IF IF....

Unknown89 was made by me and not a traded account. I made a huge mistake and a dear friend got burned....... I'm Sorry Nooba!

Im also sorry this all got brought out all becuase selfish people burn good people. the whole org got affected by my mistake and some recaller...

/me walks away in shame

[noobas]

Dude, it's totally cool.

And you were generous for letting me use the account, whats done is done and in no way would I say you are to blame.

the only person to blame is the dude who attempted to reclaim something he sold. I emailed him and called him a criminal, likening his actions with an analogy; I said:

If you sell your car to someone across town, but, decide two years later that you want it back, and you root around in your closet for an old key, doesn't give you any right to drive it. If you did, you would be considered a criminal. And such behaviour isn't accepted in game or society.

So, Unk, because some criminal got the better of an account, doesn't mean anything. It could happen to anyone. So, don't feel bad, I'll have everything sorted soon enough.

cheers

[cutiecub]

Btw i have VTE's when you need, need to logon and start swapping banks and inv stuff (will keep equiped gear on toons).

Iff you need send me a PM, there not used by any toons.

[Hundfu]

I'm sorry to hear, Noobas;/

Too bad it wasn't that guy on OOC, who was selling that account ..

But if you need anything, tell me:) I'll help you buy back your stuff etc etc ..