MICROSOFT: A COMPANY WITH NO BRAINS, HEART OR SOUL I am not the type of person who enjoys drawing attention to herself or making a fuss. I have never snapped at a customer service representative, I have never written a negative review and I have certainly never launched a one-woman attack on a company. The “customer service” I have been on the receiving end of over the last few days, however, has changed all of that. When I have a large quantity of money stolen from me, money that is meant to be paying for food for my 1yr old disabled son, I can’t just sit back and twiddle my thumbs in hopes that someone, somewhere, will eventually get off of their arse and help me; especially when that ‘someone’ is Microsoft. So what exactly has happened to make the ‘momma bear’ in me rage? On January 2nd 2012 I received a few emails in a quick succession that completely ruined my day. Someone had logged into my Xbox Live account, purchased 10,000 Microsoft Points and a “Gold Family Pack” for a grand total of $214.97 + Taxes. They had purchased the Family Gold Pack so they could then transfer the MS Points to a dummy account that they had created. I immediately attempted to log into my Xbox Live account and, when that proved unsuccessful, I got straight onto the phone with the ‘Phone Support Team’. I was informed that my problem would be forwarded immediately to their ‘Fraud Department’ and that they will have to lock my Xbox Live account for 30 days pending the outcome of an investigation. I inquired as to how they would contact me if they needed further information and/or wished to let me know that their investigation was complete. They requested a contact number and a new email, which I happily supplied. After getting off of the phone with Microsoft I contacted PayPal regarding the three unauthorized transactions and also my bank. While both were unable to do anything at the time they logged my complaint and also promised to investigate the fraudulent activity on their end. Not exactly the results I would have hoped for, but with a little tightening of purse strings I could just get through the month without that money. On January 3rd I received a generic email from Xbox to reiterate that my account is blocked and that the Windows Live ID will also be unusable elsewhere online. In addition to this they gave me a 30-day gold key as compensation for the lengthy investigation time and suggested that I create a temporary account while my main one is blocked. Apparently someone forgot that when you create a new Xbox Live account you get 30 days gold for free anyway. Communication clearly isn’t Microsoft’s strong point and even then that’s a bit of an understatement. I’d like to point out here that while I was given a 30 day ‘gold’ code this could take 42 days to rectify and even then there are 10 business days on top of that and it may take two billing cycles for it to appear back in my account. So that is near enough over two months away, if not three. Unbelievable. I forgot to mention that the account in question has ‘Gold’ on it anyway, so this ‘free’ 30 day pass they have given me would go towards claiming back the 30 days they are planning to keep my account on lock down for. How generous of them. But wait, it gets worse. I awoke this morning to find a further $124.98 + Tax stolen from me. I know what you’re thinking right now, “She should’ve unlinked her PayPal account from her Xbox account, the silly woman!” I completely agree with you; yes I should’ve done exactly that, but when Microsoft insisted twice that my account was completely blocked I naturally assumed that meant my account was completely blocked. Silly me! What they really meant was that they did not block the account whatsoever and the hacker/thief/opportunist decided to purchase yet another 10,000 Microsoft Points and transfer them to another dummy account. I was so surprised at receiving those emails that I burst out laughing just as soon as I had unlinked my PayPal account from my Xbox account. Surely this couldn’t be happening again? So back onto the phone with Microsoft I went. The person I spoke to certainly got a bit of an earful this time around. After explaining the complete story to the Phone Support Team Member, including the part where I was told twice that my account had been made inaccessible by all, they came out with a complete gem which just proved how full of bullshit they really are. “The fraud department was unable to block your account.” “So why did no one contact me about this? You have my telephone number, you have my email address. You used my email address to tell me that you HAD blocked my account. Just what is going on?” “They were unable to block your account, I don’t know. Have you tried changing the password online?” “Yes, but whoever is doing this has changed my password and my security question. I am completely unable to access the account myself. That does not answer my question though. Why have I been told, twice, that my account was blocked, that an investigation had begun, when clearly none of that was true? Why is it you’re allowing someone to successfully steal money from me a second time when you were aware of the issue days ago? What the Flubber is going on? I want my money, I need my money. Tell me what you are doing to help me.” “You need to keep trying to log into your account.” At this point I chose a few choice words that were only used out of pure frustration and hung up the phone. I came online, ranted on Twitter and received a response from the official @XboxSupport Twitter account. I direct messaged them. They were about as helpful as everyone else I have been in contact with regarding my stolen money. In total (including tax) I have had $366.06 stolen from me. Just how I am going to feed my son this month I just do not know. I can only hope that Microsoft will return my money back to me soon. At this point in time I just feel like I am being lead around in circles here. I have spoken to numerous people from Microsoft and the only information I am given is that they will pass it on to the next person. From this, I have learnt that.. No one can tell me how this happened in the first place. No one can tell me why my account was not blocked when I was told it had been. No one can tell me why this was allowed to happen a second time. No one can tell me this will not happen again in the future. No one can tell me when I will get my money back. No one can tell me exactly what is happening with my ‘investigation’. No one can explain the inconsistencies between the amount of points purchased and the amount of points that were logged as being transferred. Everyone seems to be completely dumbfounded by the whole situation despite knowing that this is not a new occurrence; that many gamers are waking up to these emails every day. Everyone who is currently reading this should go and change their passwords right now. Just how much louder do I need to shout before I can get some answers? —————————— Update Dec 5th @ 5.11pm: I just turned on my Xbox so I could create a temporary account and play some video games. What’s this? My account logs in straight away like normal? That means.. Oh no, surely they’ve still not blocked the account?! Yeah, that’s right. It has been over 72hrs since I first reported this whole thing to Microsoft and my account is still active. I cannot log in via Xbox.com, which confuses me because surely if my password had been changed than I wouldn’t be able to log in via my console? Oh, and who is this? Wait a minute.. I recognise that name! Oh Fecal Leaking. I fire off a friendly message. (Sorry, I didn’t even think to photograph my messages to him!) “Hi, who is this? When did you add me?” “Oh right! What seller did you buy it from on there? ” “Ahh, okay! What’s the name of the middleman? Does he have a website or is he on Xbox too?” Alright, now we’re getting somewhere. I play it cool, keeping it friendly and upbeat. “I just wanted to see if I knew him lol! What’s his username on there?” Bingo! I am about to see how far this lead gets me. I’ve decided not to reveal the email address just yet in case this person is an innocent party. Wish me luck - I will update again as soon as I can! Update Dec 5th 11.50pm: A few things to update on here. Firstly, I have spoken to Microsoft again and the rep I chatted to was appalled that no one else had actually managed to get my account blocked since the moment I first reported the issue on Monday. He said he is going to (wait for it) “pass my case onto the Tier 3 team” who will phone me once my account has been blocked and the investigation began. I don’t have much hope of it getting blocked. I’m beginning to get used to the idea of never being able to use my account again. Secondly, I did some detective work and have figured out the hacker/thief’s game plan. It’s pretty simple really. Step One: Obtain username/password of account currently in use (I cannot work out how he obtains this information) Step Two: Purchase Family ‘Gold’ Pack for the hacked account (this means he can now transfer points between the accounts he lists on the family pack) Step Three: Purchase 10,000 MS Points (4000/6000) Step Four: Create multiple (number unknown) brand new Xbox accounts (typically American accounts) Step Five: Transfer all purchased points to these accounts (divide among multiple accounts or send full amount straight to a single one) Step Six: Sell the account that has these points on to people, charging a smaller amount than Microsoft would charge for the points alone Step Seven: Rinse, repeat, profitprofitprofit! He also does Step One-Four but instead of transferring out the points he’ll purchase games with them and sell accounts with these games on. Finally, his listings all state that you must use the MS points “as quickly as possible” and that if they disappear, it’s not his fault as there was a stated ‘warranty’ in his auction site listing. If the points have gone you will have to purchase more from him, end of story. The same goes for the games; you must recover the purchased GamerTag, transfer the licenses for the games as quickly as possible or you may miss out. I have so far gotten his online auction site account name, his ‘business’ email address and a contact number for a Polish chat-system called ‘Gadu-Gadu’, which looks quite similar to show Skype works. I have not reached out to contact him yet and I ask that people who are reading this do not attempt to do so either. And finally, before I wrap it up for the night, a few people have criticized me for not making my account safe enough and basically lumping the blame solely on me. I believe this is a pretty unfair judgement to make. I want it to go on record that I have not become the victim of a phishing scam. I am extremely conscious of online identify theft and I know exactly what to look for when it comes to non-legitimate websites. On top of that I have never logged into Xbox.com or Paypal.com through any web address other than Xbox.com and Paypal.com. I realise now that I made a huge mistake in keeping my bank account linked to my Xbox account, but raise your hands if you too have done the same with some form of online account. World of Warcraft, GameFly, LoveFilm, Playstation - The list goes on. I think it’s fair to say that many people would look at Microsoft as a reliable company and absolutely trust them with their bank details. What makes them any different than Blizzard or Sony? If this level of trust makes me a fool, than so be it, brand me as one. Just know that you are branding a hell of a lot of people with that marker than you probably know and we are not the ones to blame here. Story from: Ladyelysium (If you want to get in-touch with Ladyelysium Email her here: hackedonxbox@gmail.com)
If you ever get the dirty immigrant ******** address, we should all go round and break his dirty thiefin scum fingers. Is there a possibility you.ve got a keystroke logger on your computer. Not that i know what one is or how it works, but could be a possibility. My paypal got done recently, only £20 but it happened a bit after i linked xbox and paypal accounts. Got instant refund and changed all passwords. Now i don't use same passwords and never save 'em on comp.. good luck with ur outcome. Sorry if it's all obvious and been said before, but ya never know. P.S. regarding the comment above mine - nice to see that someone can joke about such a serious matter..
I waited for more then a month to get my account back and i swear they take the **** they gave no information about it and never really kept me update as to whats going on i did eventually get my account back with everything what was stolen and a 1 month free gold membership
Should I be expected to sympathise with her ? No I shouldn't, if your account gets hacked through a companies fault fair enough , but all she explains is that Microsoft is the devil , we as readers have no idea what she does / has done with her email address. And i will joke about it as Brian said ' always look on the bright side of life ' And personally there's so many idiots on the internet now they should be teaching this crap in schools , myself I have around 10 emails all for different purposes . So yeah learn to take a joke
This is horrendous I cant believe this poor woman has been lead around like this ffs the woman has a 1yr old disabled child! Shame on you Microsoft! :wtf2:
quite shocking how microsoft has dealt with this!!! even if it was an error on her behalf she followed teh correct procedures to get her account deactivated and microsoft should have done this. I would be be reporting fraud to my bank and going to the police too. I would then take microsoft to a small claims court with proof of emails showing that they said her account was frozen and that she expected everything to be taken care of.
Why didn't she get her card blocked and call her credit card company? They'd have probably blocked the card and reversed the purchases.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for Microsoft has issued the following statement regarding the Susan T security breach: "Microsoft can confirm that there has been no breach to the security of our Xbox Live service. In recent cases, some Xbox Live members appear to have been victims of malicious scams. Unfortunately this is something that affects many internet based services. "The online safety of Xbox Live members remains of the utmost importance, which is why we consistently take measures to protect Xbox Live against ever-changing threats. However, we are aware that a handful of customers have experienced problems getting their accounts restored once they've reported an issue. We are working directly with those customers to restore their accounts as soon as possible and are reviewing our processes to ensure a positive customer support experience." The spokesperson added that it was aware of the specific case mentioned in our original story and it had refunded any illicit transactions linked to that account. "While we do not ordinarily comment on specific cases, Microsoft can confirm that the account in question has been reinstated to its rightful owner and all unauthorised charges are being refunded in full."
People are hacking accounts from other sites in which the victim is signed up to or they just try and collect information about them to eventually get their xbox live account i myself was hacked and i noticed money had been spent on fifa content i dont even like football so i know something was strange then i got logged out and could not proceed to sign in thats when i know i had been hacked i think the people who got hacked and had fifa content downloaded to there account may have some how got hacked from EAs websites ? also it seems they are hacking and then selling our accounts to other people with a ton of MSP already on them i hate people who hack steal or use social engineering such a desperate bunch of assholes :lol:
in 2009 my Hotmail and password was hacked and they took my BxR Account xbox couldn't help even though i had so much information to give them. so i hired a guy to hack my account back and the problem stopped. simple.
[quote name=&#39;BxRKings&#39; timestamp=&#39;1325998088&#39; post=&#39;87723&#39;] in 2009 my Hotmail and password was hacked and they took my BxR Account xbox couldn&#39;t help even though i had so much information to give them. so i hired a guy to hack my account back and the problem stopped. simple. [/quote] So... you googled "Hacker Services" ? Aside from that sucks, shouldn't buy stuff directly from MS anyway (as they are the DEVIL D:<). I don't link my bank account with anything and always buy from resellers, almost the same price as listed on MS.
Block your credit card/make new account/remove any money source from account Microsoft is full of fat asses who dont knw wat they are doing
It all boils down to how complicated your password is, i keep telling my girlfriend that her password (consisting of digits only and being her birthday) will one day get her in trouble, but she says "I can't remember anything else". My password for all websites / anything is a variation of capitals / numbers / abcs and special characters. I feel if the password was a 20 character password easy to remember (it sounds hard but i have remembered mine since i was 13) consisting of at least one capital letter and a few special characters it would be fine. On most websites i mix it up a bit by adding a few special characters at the end, or making one of the characters capital. Just follow a pattern your brain is comfortable with. It is called Brute Forcing and there are dictionaries with millions of password variations and even ones that will try combinations of numbers / letters and tbh i have partaken in the process more than once myself. get used to it and create a stronger password. When your xbox account gets stolen, it is because you, somehow, became sloppy or careless, whether you know when it happened, or choose to acknowledge it.
