286-day-playtime character deleted on Christmas
by Eliah Hecht 
Dec 31st 2006 at 4:37PM
Whoever writes this blog is saying that his 3/8 Tier 3, full GM, level 60 human Warlock, with over 6,800 hours played, was deleted from his account by means of a stolen password, and on December 25th, no less. He tells a fairly compelling story. He contacted Blizzard as soon as he found his character missing, assuming it was an error on their part; they got back to him and said his password had probably been compromised via a phishing scam. Our protagonist looked back in his email and found a likely candidate from December 23rd that had asked him to "update his credit card info".
Understandably ticked off, and apparently possessing considerable financial resources, he hired an investigative firm to look into the matter and track down whoever had done this to him. (On a side note, why would the scammer want to delete the character? I can see why he'd want to steal the character's gold, but deleting a character is just sadistic.) He now plans on finding a lawyer and suing this scammer for, presumably, whatever he can get out of him (the blogger hopes for prison time, but that seems unlikely to me; however, IANAL).
There's some interesting commentary on the story over at digg. It's fairly mean-spirited, like most digg comment threads, but it still raises a few good points. What do you guys think? Did this guy deserve what he got for being rich and/or ignorant of phishing scams? Personally, I don't think anyone deserves to have their toys taken away just for being unknowledgeable. And how about that giant playtime, eh?
One more point that just occurred to me: legally, I believe, we players don't own our characters -- Blizzard does. So how much of a case does he have for destruction of property or whatever? I could be wrong, though. I'm currently trudging through the EULA (do I sense a weekly feature in the making? ;).
Filed under: Cheats, Odds and ends, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom Dec 31st 2006 5:21PM
First, being that the "guy"'s name is chelsea....id venture to say its a chick.
and you cant sue for your own negligence......but you can turn them in to the FBI computer crimes division for criminal phishing.
Ransom Dec 31st 2006 6:28PM
Fleur, Night Elf Priest, level 60 on Boulderfist (US) alliance.
Heh.
Paul Dec 31st 2006 6:59PM
I don't get it... why didn't Blizzard bring his character back is what I don't understand.
Pengwnmastr Dec 31st 2006 7:11PM
My account was recently hacked as well, and all of my like 15 toons were deleted, 3/15 were 60's. 2 weeks have gone by and i have yet to get any feedback from blizz yet
Kang Dec 31st 2006 7:33PM
Uh, that's totally a human priest, #2.
Qix Dec 31st 2006 9:19PM
I too hadmy account hacked, but more likely due to logging into the wrong computer. Though only all my equip was sold off. Beginning of December i reported it, still no word back besides the generic computer generated email. Sure wish i could go PvP with my rogue over xmas vacation.
ObtuseMoose Dec 31st 2006 9:46PM
@ #1: Quoth the blog: "I am a man who is not concerned..."
Hitman Dec 31st 2006 9:55PM
personally i think the story is a fake. my mates account got hacked recently and he got his character restored almost immediately. His gear however, took Blizzard over 4 weeks to fully return to him (some gear he had to buy back with appropriate shards since the person who hacked him had sharded those items and blizzard deemed it neccessary before they would replace those specific items).
i know of other guildies/friends that have had a similar experience, so when i hear that this person's character wasnt even restored..... i call bullshit.
Tryst Dec 31st 2006 11:06PM
This happened to one of my guildies. All his stuff was, presumably sold or sharded, his characters deleted and his passwords changed. I'm guessing that's why we got the in-game e-mail this morning warning us not to go to the sites that are spammed to us while we play (3 in one 4-hour Molten Core run!) and to run virus protection all the time.
Krianna Jan 1st 2007 10:17AM
Was the guy foolish? Yeah, probably.
But nobody "deserves" to have their stuff destroyed. I can very easily see some immature (mentally) telling himself that if he can get in to their account, they "need to be taught a lesson" of some sort-- like destroying a character.
oomu Jan 1st 2007 10:03AM
legally, yours characters don't belong you. it's all property of blizzard and blizzard has no legal obligation to give you back your character or even to keep your character.
legally, blizzard can erase them when it wants.
it's all in the contract (eula) of the game.
Prauche Jan 1st 2007 1:56AM
Let me just say, good luck finding any *real* lawyer to take any kind of case as regards this. I'm quite certain that the culprit is judgment-proof. And, as another attorney once told me, "He who is judgment proof can laugh at the world."
BartmanDK Jan 1st 2007 3:50PM
Well the way i see it is, if he was dumb enough to fall for that phishing thing, he got what he deserved!!
GM Jan 1st 2007 7:23AM
I hope he finds the ***** who did this to him and I hope he gets what he deserves whether it is in or out of court - a few hundred dollars can buy you a hell of a beating (broken limbs extra)
Iain Jan 1st 2007 9:22AM
Reply to #1
"and you cant sue for your own negligence......"
Have you lived under a rock for the last 10+ years? People sue due to their own negligence all the time...and win.
crsh Jan 1st 2007 12:41PM
My account got hacked a month ago today and, while not having that many hours invested in my toons, I can say seeing my two lv60s (BWL/AQ40 rogue and a PvP priest) buck naked on the character screen was pretty rough. I was luckier, as my toons were not deleted, and their professions were not dropped, but they're idle with no gear and no money. Hell, even my low-level mule lost a lot of banked mats/items. The funny-sad part is, between vendored gear/items and saved up gold, the hacker only got roughly 200g out of it.
Ultimately, it's my fault for not being more careful and letting my machine get infected with a keylogger; no doubt about it. I learned my lesson the hard way.
The character restoration process is certainly another pain in the ^&%!, with the Holidays and all, there's an endless backlog. It's been a month already, I've since levelled a warlock to lv40 out of boredom, I'm just crossing my fingers my toons will get their gear back before BC comes out.
Angeldevoid Jan 1st 2007 11:09PM
I had my character Angeldevoid deleted 20days before Nax came out.
Lost everything, everything was sharded and deleted
took until after the Nax release event before my stuff was restored.
I still don't know who did it :\
I think they delete the character to remove traces of where the gold was x-fered.
Profit Jan 2nd 2007 7:50AM
I've had a guildmate loose her account, all characters deleted and nearly six months without a restoration... So not are as lucky as some... :(
kormain Jan 1st 2007 10:53PM
ITZ A FAKE STORY guys.
Jeff Taylor Jan 2nd 2007 3:31PM
I have to say that part of the problem is that (unless I am mistaken) you cannot change your account name. If you could change the account name AND password periodically it would go a long way towards cutting down on hacked accounts, keyloggers not withstanding.