Account hackers through Mobile Auction House - Ruining our guild moving day!

This morning Lushnek, Xynzelle and I were doing the weekly stuff in the Barrens.  We all logged off in the Barrens - Xyn had to go do family stuff, and Lush was hanging around at my house for the weekend since the kids like to see "Uncle Lush" and we were going to go out for lunch (and I've also got better internet - sorry Tout, your net does suck!).  We had killed a fair few things, and vendored lots of stuff.

This evening, we logged back in to finish our weekly and Lush noticed he only had 2g on his toon.  WTF??  And he had a new mail.  Apparently he'd bought something from the Auction House.


OMG he'd bought a Black Trillium Ore for 178k gold??  He was horrified.  What the hell?  Had he been hacked?  He was still in the Barrens, so he couldn't have gone to an AH, nor had his account been opened or he wouldn't be out in the Barrens where he'd logged off.  While he opened a ticket and tried to figure out what to write, I thought about what we'd been doing.  OMG, could this item have been bought through the Armory?  I know my toddler son had been playing with Lush's mobile phone and has opened WoW Armory before - could he have accidentally bought it?  I was mortified.  Lush was very upset and despondent.  I helped him compose a ticket to Blizz while I went to see if you could buy stuff through authenticator, and to check the auction house to see if this person had anymore funny items for purchase.  I thought maybe it was one of those douchebags who puts a low bid price and a high buyout to trick you.  I even told Lush to write a mail to that person saying there was a mistake (if it had been a bid) and to say would it be possible to send the gold back, and he would be happy to pay a reasonable, even slightly above market price for the ore.

Whilst Lush was offgame changing his account passwords, I decided I would do the same.  But I was having that sinking feeling that my son had done the damage and I felt terrible.  I told Luxy about it, and she made lots of sad faces, and said to put a ticket in.  I thought, if it was my son and he'd bought it through Mobile Armory, Blizz was never going to get the money back.  And the dodgy seller wouldn't send the money back either.  I wasn't feeling very hopeful.

Lush didn't feel like logging into WoW for about 15 minutes, he looked sad, and said he didn't want to play. He thought he should check the other accounts, which he forgot to do in the shock of losing all his gold and trying to figure out what to write on the ticket.  When he logged his other toons, he found this:







All his level 90 toons had bought a single Black Trillium Ore for pretty much all of their gold give or take 80g.  All from the same person.  I realised, my son couldn't have done this, it was a hacker.

And to top it off, the goddamn bastard had actually stolen Lushnek's Trillium from his paladin Farashkar (ie sold a stack of it on the AH for 1 copper and bought it from him) and then sold it once by one back to him for a total of 238k.


It was clearly a hacker.  I didn't know people could hack into your mobile armory and use your authenticator.  And Lush isn't the only one.  After this happened, Luxy told me that it is on WoWInsider as well, published yesterday.  There is also a forum thread on it here.  And another incident of it here.

Lush uses Mobile Authenticator on Android.  I do as well, and I'm nervous.  Though I don't have much gold, so it's not so scary.

After we finished our weekly we decided to do a challenge mode, and I told Sev what had happened.  Do you know what that cheeky bastard said?

"Well at least now he has 7 black trillium."

LOL.  What else can you do but laugh, right?  Poor Lush.  I hope he gets his gold back :(  And until the ticket is investigated, we can't move servers as it will look kinda weird if we lost all our gold then did a guild transfer.  So Frosties, server transfer is delayed pending investigation of Lush's lost gold.

Comments

  1. Poor Lushkin :( What an awful thing to happen.

    Irgargai sucks. I hope no one hugs him. Ever.

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    1. He got a response to his ticket and said that his gold would be restored and it was. Yay!

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  2. That is horrible, I can't even imagine how he feels. I guess you're happy your son wasn't responsible but poor Lush. I also feel really awful that I read what Sev said and burst out laughing, but I hope it gets resolved for him soon.

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    1. Blizz shut down mobile armory and are looking into it so thats a big relief! It's ok I laughed too when I read that and even Lush laughed when I told him - he asked if Sev would like to buy some for oh... 230k :p

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  3. Oh nooo Lush got well and truly rinsed! That's so cheeky of the hacker to buy Lush's ore really cheap and then sell it on for big money! I have to admit I laughed at what Sev said but it's right - in this type of situation you cant do much else but laugh.

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    1. Its happened to quite a few people so it had a good chance of being restored which was good of Blizz!

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  4. Oh that is truly despicable :( I hope it is fixed soon and all works out well in the end.

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  5. Being hacked must be horrible enough but the sheer cheek of using your victim's own goods to facilitate running off with their gold makes it even worse :(

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    1. Interestingly, Blizz restored the gold and Lush kept the 7 trillium but didn't get back the other 13 that was taken... but he doesn't really care, he's happy to have his gold back.

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  6. That does sound pretty scary, hopefully hk got everything restored!! -Roah

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    1. I know! Especially when he thought Blizz WOULDN'T fix it because he didn't know what had happened.

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  7. That happened to me a little while back and I got all my items/gold back from Blizzard. It's bloody annoying though and a shock. I logged on one Saturday morning to find the exact same thing. I had to get to golf and I couldn't concentrate on the game (that was my excuse for playing bad anyway :)). Blizzard got back to me pretty quick within a couple of days and restored but couldn't give me a reason why or how it happened.

    Sabrehawk

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    1. It's damn annoying, but it's good Blizz is really on our side and gives us back our stuff. Hopefully they fixed the issue. I wonder what the weakness was.

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  8. Hi Navi - One of my guildies had the same thing happen to him - he logged on last night to find he'd bought some of his own frozen orbs for almost all his gold. Thankfully Blizz returned his money (and his orbs) this morning... I read that they've shut down the mobile AH in the meantime as well. Good to see Blizz is on the ball sorting this out.
    - Therellian

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    1. Hey Therellian! I'm sorry about your guildie, though glad he got it all back but the stress must have been horrible. I saw a lot of whining about Blizz weaknesses but I think they are pretty good in general about restoring stuff. I have never had an issue with that sort of thing.

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  9. That's a bit freaky! So glad he got his gold back!

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  10. O'wow!! I'm glad Blizz was able to help him recover the gold I was really worried these hacks would fall through the cracks ....

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  11. Sucks he was hacked and ur moving day was delayed. Glad to hear he got all his money back fast!

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    1. It was a huge relief Pando. At least blizz cracked onto it fast!

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