I got hacked!!!!!

[StatiK TactiK]

Goddamit I go on xbox.com and noticed that my most recently played game is FIFA 12 which I dont own. WTF? So I turn on my Xbox and it said my gamertag was signed into from a different console. WTF?? So I go to my account, my 1600MSP I had is gone and am left with 20. WTF??! So I go to my bank statement and not only did they spend my $25 bucks or however much 1600MSP is, they bought fuckin $300 worth of points from my credit card attached to my account and spent everything but 20. WTF!!!!!!

Dealing with Microsoft and Visa is not how I intended to spend my Sunday night......If any of you guys see my GT online before I post here next, tell them to eat a **** for me.

EDIT: Also, if any of you have some of those "free XBL for X amount of days" cards and wants to help a brother out, please PM me and I'll FedEx you a cookie (or just be very grateful)

[That1guy92]

Sorry to hear that bro. Hackers are D0uchebags. I hope you get your account back, and that the hacker gets his' sack kangaroo kicked!

[Murgatroyd7]

Ouch, that sucks. Unfortunately, this has become very common lately. For most incidents, it's not really a case of people having their accounts cracked ("hacked" isn't actually appropriate for this kind of situation). Microsoft has stupidly allowed people in Europe to migrate accounts between different countries with the greatest of ease, which is being exploited relentlessly. Many people are finding that their account has been migrated to a whole new region without anyone ever figuring out their password. Of course, some people are falling victim to brute-force cracks, but the account migration seems to be the biggest culprit.

Anyway, what these guys are doing is stealing any available points (and buying many more if you have a credit card or Paypal on your account) and then using them to purchase FIFA 12 DLC because EA allows you to transfer the DLC to other people. So, they just go on eBay, sell the DLC, transfer it to the winner's account, and bask in all of the money that they've made. Despite what Microsoft and EA say, it seems to be relatively widespread.

Unfortunately, all you can really do right now is just wait for Microsoft and Visa to sort things out for you. Visa should do a pretty good job of refunding your money in a timely manner. Microsoft is a different story, however. You can speed up the process by staying on their asses with phone calls every couple of days, but most people are reporting that it takes a month or two to get everything sorted out, especially if it's a case of migration (might only take a couple of weeks if someone simply figured out your password). And in the meantime, you won't have access to your account. The jerk in Europe still might, but you won't (you might still be able to use Xbox.com, though). That means you'll have to set up a new temporary account to play games and, of course, you won't be able to transfer any of your achievements over to your main account when you get it back. But if you complain to whoever you're dealing with at Microsoft, they'll give you a free month or two of Xbox Live.

Just a couple of weeks ago, someone actually cracked my account as well and bought $50 worth of points. Thankfully, in my case, I'm pretty sure it was a brute-force attack (so it's partially my own fault) and I caught it almost immediately because they tried adding their e-mail address to my Windows Live account. The very second I got the confirmation e-mail, I changed my password and took all of the fancy security measurements outlined on the Xbox web site. I reported the incident but I didn't request an investigation because nothing was actually stolen from me. Because I reacted so quickly, the points were still on my account, so I've just been using them to buy DLC, which I was planning on doing anyway.

Anyway, I hope you are able to get everything sorted out in a timely manner. It can be a long and annoying process, but I've got my fingers crossed for you.

[StatiK TactiK]

Wow that was fast. I already got my account unlocked. Props to MS on that one! (for once). I got my 1600MSP back and they said the money was refunded on my credit card. But Visa locked that account too so I have to wait until they finish their thing before I can truly verify that no damage has been done. I went and changed my security info for Windows Live and surprisingly, the guy still had his own email listed under "alternate email addresses" so that he would get a notification if I tried to change my password so I removed that too. In the meantime, we back in there!

[That1guy92]

Glad to hear that. Props to MS for actually stepping up and handling something for once.

[Murgatroyd7]

Wow, very fast turnaround. That must've been a brute-force attack then. Do you remember the guy's e-mail address by any chance? I'm curious if it might be the same guy I dealt with.

[StatiK TactiK]

I don't remember exactly what it was but it was from an adresses that didn't seem legit at all. It was _______@126.com or something like that. Very strange.

[Murgatroyd7]

Yeah, the person who got into my account had an e-mail just like that.

[StatiK TactiK]

I wonder if its the same group of guys. Why isn't MS or EA doing something about this? Definitely seems like a huge flaw in the system. Disable being able to transfer the purchase to other accounts and that's a lot less incentive to do stuff like this.

[Murgatroyd7]

They're basically denying that there's a problem. They say that it's an issue happening to a very small percentage of people. But from what I've seen, it sure looks like a hell of a lot of people. Like you said, they need to remove the FIFA trading (or at least come up with a better way of doing it) and MS needs to make the account migration a heck of a lot more secure. Honestly, I think they should just make it so US accounts can't be migrated. It would be inconvenient for some people, but I think it's a lot better than having everyone lose their accounts to these jerks.

[DeYanKees1]

Damn that sucks at least you got all your stuff back and no real damage was done.

Like hmmmm Static is playing something that's not MvC3 somethings up!!! lol With that said if you ever see me playing something that's not Gears of war 3 then somethings wrong.

[StatiK TactiK]

lol yeah mvc3/umvc3 has been almost all I've been playing on my xbox all year. Especially since I've been pc gaming again, all my new games have been on there.

That said, I still don't know 100% yet that this has all been settled. Visa is still investigating and as of now, the charges are still showing up on my credit card account. I'm pretty confidant that everything will be fine but until those charges disappear I don't know for sure.