Can anything be done?

Daysha

Heres a paste of my activities today

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Got a text round 3 o clock today. Visa security had just rung, They said they had noticed some unusual transactions on my XBL account during the middle of the night. They recommended freezing the accounts until we knew what was happening. Obviously I hadn't a ****in clue what was goin on so i headed home and turned on my 360 and see whats the story....

I get a message saying my XBL has been activated on a different console.
Me: O_o

I get another message saying I cannot log in as I know longer have a valid membership and my account has been deleted
Me: O______o

I tried logging into my account through the website, but not only can they not recognise the account, they can't even recognise the email address!! I head over to gmail and true enough, the password had been changed. Someone managed to access my email address

So what does that mean? Well like I've said, €50 was extracted from the credit card details that was on my XBL account. Two transactions, one of 45 and another of 5. Why didnt this **** take any more? I dunno

My gamertag has gone to heaven. I guess im lucky in the sense that it was only a year old, but i had only just started another year subscription to gold. There were a couple of hundred MS points on it too, can't remember how much. But every record from every game i've played on the 360 = gone

Its the email stuff thats really making things awkward though. One of the emails had my CAO password and number. I dont have a second copy of it so I cant log in to see has this guy accessed it in any way. Gotta ring them first thing in the morning

One of the emails also had my sisters credit card details. We managed to freeze her account before he managed to find it but thats now both my parents and sister who're gonna have to change their a/c numbers

My MSN is ****ed too. Just been spending the night tryin to get back as many contacts that i could think of and just passin the word round that if some guy logs into my old msn, it's not me talking!

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So in terms of my XBL account, Im not expecting it to magically reappear or anything, but how should i go about sortin this mess out? This kinda thing has never happened me before so i dont really know what steps to take

grizzly

Sorry to hear about this, sounds f***ing annoying. Report it to the Garda fraud squad, see you can claim anything back on insurance – maybe your bank covers against it.

Mr E

Thats a bitch, deise... painful.

Call Microsoft and see if they can do anything about your tag (it should still be there somewhere!).
1800 509 186 or +353 12420758 from a mobile phone

For Gmail, go through this wizard for a "My account has been compromised" option to see if you can recover it (pick "Username and Password don't match" for first question)

Vegeta

Well if the clown who has done this has logged into live then one would imagine your tag will be in use by his xbox, which has a mac address

If he has been stupid enough to register the 360 then MS support may be able to tell who did this to you

Also the credit card company probably take this sort of thing very seriously so they may help

If you get your e-mail going again or ring MS Support and ask them to change the e-mail address associated with your live account (giving the reasons why), then just fetch your live account again with the new e-mail addrees or the newly passworded gmail. Change all passwords on everything.

Its definitely possible to get your gamertag back

Julez

sorry man that sounds annoying, I'd give MS a call for sure, there must be something they can do! Let us know how you get on anyway.

faceman

Sorry to hear this OP. Presumably the credit card company are dealing with it for you? They will liaise with the gardai so you dont have to.

Contact MS and let them know what happened. Ask them why they cancelled your account but let somebody else use your credit card.

I know its no comfort to you now but you should never put credit card details in emails, particularly web mail. Could it have been someone you know, seeing as they were able to log into your email account?

rizzla

It could also be a case of, if your a member of quite a few forums or sites where you need to login and use the same username, password and put in your gmail. Some bad admin could use it against ya.

Just a guess, but it sounds reasonable

Daysha

Thanks for all the tips guys.

Im just off the phone is Xbox support (thanks for the no. btw) and explained the entire situation to them. The cnut bought 5500 MS points using the CC details before we got the a/c froze before we could do anymore. He spent 800 of these points to change the gamertag from deise59 to whatever.

The most important thing is they're optimistic that i'll get it back. They tried to help me retrieve my email address but the guy had changed the secret question as well, so no go there. But they did give me a link to contact windows live id support. They said if I explain the situation fully to them and tell them what Xbox told me than they'll be able to get my email address back.

Once that happens, I have to ring Xbox back and tell them I have my email address again. From there they'll be able to get my account back.

In terms of Visa we got in contact with them today and they said they'll start investigating whether it's a honest fraudulent claim. They said that could take 2 weeks but if my gamertag gets retrieved in the mean time then i can send them on my dealings with MS to Visa and that should help prove its a real claim. All goes well I'll have my money back.

So at the moment im quietly optimistic. Thanks a lot to all of ye that replied so far, really helped.

The Sparrow

Its good to hear that there is light at the end of the tunnel for you! Shame to hear it ever happened though.

Many of my passwords on email and stuff are similar so your post has prompted me to change them.

Lex_Diamonds

Thats a very nasty state of affairs. Very glad that Microsoft and Visa are being so helpful.

Do you have any idea how your email address was compromised? It would be useful for me and maybe a few others if we got an intelligence report on this.

Daysha

MS got back to me late last night providing me a link to a verification form. Just some general info to help them prove that it was my email in the first place. They said they'll get back to me within 24 hours so hopefully I'll make a bit more progress tonight.

The CAO got sorted. Believe it or not this guy logged into my CAO application and changed the password, the ****er. Thankfully he couldn't change any of my course applications since you cant do that until next month. But they were very helpful as well, so at least thats now associated with the new email address.

Accomodation for DCU and UCC next year was sorted out too.

Mr E

deise59 wrote: »

Believe it or not this guy logged into my CAO application and changed the password, the ****er.

Wow, thats unbelievable. The guy really wanted to f**k you up. Any idea how/where he got access in the first place? Did you leave gmail logged in somewhere?

Glad you're making progress, anyway...

Daysha

Mr E wrote: »

Any idea how/where he got access in the first place? Did you leave gmail logged in somewhere?

Dont think so, I've barely ever been on public computers recently

I forgot to mention, when I was on the phone with the crowd yesterday and I told them that the secret answer had been changed, the rep. put me on a hold. A few minutes later, I was talking to her boss, who told me to enter in the city "Southfield" for the secret answer, but that still didn't work.

I never asked what was the significance of that answer (probably should have done tbh) but they hardly plucked that out of thing air, because she sounded very surprised to hear that that answer didn't work. Sounds like they know something I don't know.

I just did a google search on that place and turns out its a city in Michigan, roughly round the same size of Waterford. I'm gonna ring them again now since I havent heard back from them since I sent them the verification form and I should get more info out of them.

lafors

Jaysus thats crap deise, hope you get it all sorted out.

Thanks for posting it anyway, reading it made me get off my ass and renew my passwords, and make them different for each account.
I've been using the same password for all accounts since college.

DeVore

Keep us informed! You are entitled to ever penny back from Visa, dont take any bull. Its their job to prove it was you who spent the money, not the other way around.

DeV.

Daysha

Success!! well....kinda

MS got back to me saying they successfully verified to data I provided them to prove it's my account. The sent me a URL to visit and after a few minutes I managed to get my original email password changed.

Now here's the thing. I can accesss my email again, but only through Windows Live ID, as i linked my account to that to use my email for MSN. However, I still can't access my email through gmail.com itself. I sent them back an email telling them what happened but I can't see it being much of an issue.

So it looks like things are coming together! Once I can fully access my account through gmail I'll get to Xbox Live Support and tell them i've my email back, and once thats sorted it's on to Visa.

god's toy

Ah some good news! Good for you!


Yes please keep us up to date on this if you can, a nasty story but we all hope will have a happy ending.

A lesson for some of us I think, I know many people that just leave all the login account stuff sitting in the emails accounts.

RobertFoster

deise59 wrote: »

The CAO got sorted. Believe it or not this guy logged into my CAO application and changed the password, the ****er.

:eek: That's a bit much! Hopefully you get it all sorted out.

Cuddlesworth

You really need to find out how he got access to your email in the first place.

It could have been by brute force on the password, keyloggers on your machine or he abused the gmail support system. If it was a keylogger you may find yourself in the same situation or if the support system was abused it also may happen again.

I know I sound preachy but you only realize how much information is on these accounts when they get hacked.

Daysha

Believe me nobody wants to find out how or why this guy did it more than I do.

Today did shed a bit of light on it though. When I logged into my email via Windows Live he changed some of the personal details, and as I suspected, Southfield, Michigan was the name of his hometown. That obviously means I don't personally know the guy, but it also rules out my first suspicison that it was some angry gamer that I beat on Pro Evo online the night before it happened.

humanji

It also proves he's a thick as pig**** if he actually used his real hometown.

Star Lord

deise59 wrote: »

Believe me nobody wants to find out how or why this guy did it more than I do.

Today did shed a bit of light on it though. When I logged into my email via Windows Live he changed some of the personal details, and as I suspected, Southfield, Michigan was the name of his hometown. That obviously means I don't personally know the guy, but it also rules out my first suspicison that it was some angry gamer that I beat on Pro Evo online the night before it happened.

Look in your sent messages and through all the mails in your email, see if he's been up to anything, or if there's anything further you can glean from any corrispondance he's recieved or sent.

Daysha

Grrrr....I knew I shouldn't have gotten optimistic quickly.

Remember when I told you yesterday that the guide MS sent me helped me log into Windows Live ID but not Gmail? Well I emailed them last night telling them what they've done and sure enough, I came home this morning and I got the EXACT same response!!

The same thank you for helping us help you ****, the same please follow the instructions crap, the exact same guide. I followed it carefully, step by step, and just as I suspected, the same problem occurred again. I could get into Windows Live ID (like MSN etc) but not my actual Gmail account.

I just finished writing a (bit over) stong email telling them how annoyed I was that it was now 4 days since I sent them the verification form and I still can't access my email. I was going to ring MS Customer Support over here when I realised what they did but they closed at 6pm so Im ringing them first thing in the morning instead.

Like I said, i've probably gone overboard at them but its just the frustration of the past 4 days boiling over. And just to top things up, I got a Visa statement today and believe it or not, the cnut made 3 more transactions with the credit card before we got the XBL account suspended. Another €60 worth of MS points bought.

F-Stop

Deise59 that sounds like a nasty situation. I'm a bit confused as to why you are contacting MS about logging into your gmail account. Have you tried this: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50270

EDIT: Oh, that eventually brings you to this which might be the form you are talking about. http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?contact_type=ara&ctx=accounts&hl=en

Daysha

Thanks for those F-Stop, but I filled out that form last night once MS sent me the original guide that didn't work.

Yet to hear back from them.....

Daysha

.....and now they've just got back to me.

I'm finally back in my Gmail account! They verified the info I sent them, got me a step by step guide and a few minutes later I was staring at my now depleted inbox. Lots of xbox emails confirming much MS points bought etc but nothing else out of the ordinary. I tried to contact xbox support the moment I got in but their offices closed at 10pm. I'll just contact them in the morning.

Still though, fair play to Gmail.

Mr E

Good stuff..... NOW CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD.

Anything strange in the "Sent Items" or "Trash"?

Daysha

Well you can see my gamertag, so you know what that means

It took longer than I thought getting Xbox to open the account up for me again, and then i couldn't connect online, and then they were having trouble sendin me the MS points to change back the gamertag, but who cares, its all done and dusted!

They're gonna ring me back in a few days to tell me what they plan on doing with the MS Points spent on the c/c and the points still left on my account (2200 btw).

Looking through everything he had changed was scary **** though. He deleted my entire friends list and added loads of his own pals, which included a good few voice and text messages in the inbox. Just doing lots of googling on the info he entered into the biography, which all matched up with the email stuff he changed too.

Julez

I know the most important thing everyone is wondering... did he get your gamer score up for ye?!

Glad to hear you got it back, any news from visa, they refund you or anything? Scary to think people can do this.

ibFoxer

Just saw this posting, i'm delighted to see you got sorted or at least are getting everything sorted- something very similiar happened to a good friend of mine and he was unable to get it resolved. It really is terrible how some people will resort to this, im wondering just how Mr. Southfield managed to get your info in the first place??

Thor

hey man sorry to hear this happen to you as the exact thing happen to my mate.

one day his hotmail account just stopped working and his xbox live gametag wouldnt sign in as it was recovered on another console. also he could not recover it back as his password was changed on his email account.

so i said to him leave it with me and i will try to sort it out for him.

at this time his password wouldnt work and his secrect question had been changed.

so i contacted microsoft(hotmail support).

they sent me a link to fill in as much detail as possible. i.e contacts in the account, certain email boxes that you may have made on your email, your ip addres that you used to connect to it. basically any info that would indicate you have used this email address and that it is yours.

afer i sent them that info the guy at support sent me a link to change the password on my mates email account and it was all back up and running fine.

all of this took less then 24hrs from when i sent the email to support and getting the account back.

just recovered his account on his xbox and it was all working fine.

to me this is coming from microsoft as you use gmail and your xbox was attacked aswell. hard to think someone robbing email accounts also robs peoples xbox accounts.

i think it is some inside microsoft that works in the xbox section as it would explain how they get peoples passwords for the email.

hope this info helps mate and good luck getting your account back.

EDIT:::: just read that you had already done this. but i suspect something with microsft.