Where do I go from here? (Account-theft related)

[SeraphonPrime]

Digital Extremes has failed to help me recover my stolen account again. I don't understand why they won't even try. They've suspended two of my "emergency" accounts which I've used to communicate with them about the issue. This is very scummy behaviour! I don't want to give up on the original account's recovery. Even if they wound back its progress to a certain point (back before their records show it was stolen), then that would be an acceptable outcome.

The account was made way back in 2013. It was (at the last time I know I used it) Mastery Rank 30, and had a large amount of frames, weapons, and companions unlocked. "Angels of Zariman" was the latest patch at the time. I was also a Grandmaster-tier Founder.

DE sent me this reply to my request for account recovery:

Quote

Hello SeraphonPrime,
 
We found records that you have sold/transferred your Warframe account. The account is not your property to sell. Selling your account is a violation of the EULA and Terms of Use Agreement you agreed to when you created your account and as a result of the aforementioned activity,  all associated and even future accounts are now permanently suspended from access to the game.
 
Please refer to the Terms of Use Agreement, Section 3 : Account, Paragraph 8:
 
"The Account you create is personal to you and Digital Extremes does not allow the transfer of user Accounts. You shall not purchase, sell, gift or trade any Account, or make any such offer, and any attempt shall be null and void. Any distribution by you of your Account and/or your Login Credentials (except as expressly provided herein or otherwise explicitly approved of by Digital Extremes) may result in suspension or termination of your Account."
 
Kindest regards.

No attempt was made to recover the original account, and they also suspended the second emergency account I made, just like they did with the first. What's the logic there? I'm the one with the stolen account and they're punishing ME for it. How is that fair? (rhetorical question; it's not fair).

So what now then? Where do I go from here??

[CosoMalvadoNG]

Nothing. If they say that you sold your account, the account remains perma-banned and the same with all another account you do. 

[SeraphonPrime]

12 minutes ago, CosoMalvadoNG said:

Nothing. If they say that you sold your account, the account remains perma-banned and the same with all another account you do. 

So it would seem. That's it then.

[PollexMessier]

wth? Obviously there's record of an account transfer if it was stolen.
What an absolutely braindead response.

Even if there were chat logs, forum posts, or external sites showing the account was sold, that doesn't mean you did it. Like the single biggest reason to steal accounts is to sell them.

They basically just said "it wasn't stolen, it was sold" like those are mutually exclusive occurrences.

[(XBOX)Shodian]

2 hours ago, SeraphonPrime said:

So what now then? Where do I go from here??

There's nothing that can be done on the forums. At this point just make a new account and in the future, do not let anyone access your account but yourself.

[Chewarette]

1 hour ago, PollexMessier said:

wth? Obviously there's record of an account transfer if it was stolen.
What an absolutely braindead response.

Even if there were chat logs, forum posts, or external sites showing the account was sold, that doesn't mean you did it. Like the single biggest reason to steal accounts is to sell them.

They basically just said "it wasn't stolen, it was sold" like those are mutually exclusive occurrences.

Well, for one, we shouldn't judge anything based on a forum story. We have no element to judge except the ones provided by the victim.

In this case, DE says they have "records". Unclear which ones, but they seem strong enough for them to keep his account(s) banned. And anyway, the account being sold by you or someone else doesn't change much... Otherwise I can sell mine, take the cash, complain to DE and they'll magically give it back to me without asking ? I understand they don't do that.

[PollexMessier]

8 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Well, for one, we shouldn't judge anything based on a forum story. We have no element to judge except the ones provided by the victim.

In this case, DE says they have "records". Unclear which ones, but they seem strong enough for them to keep his account(s) banned. And anyway, the account being sold by you or someone else doesn't change much... Otherwise I can sell mine, take the cash, complain to DE and they'll magically give it back to me without asking ? I understand they don't do that.

Sure but DE's also had quite a few famous instances of wrongfully banning someone. How much to you think that happens to people that don't go viral over it?

You're right, we don't have all the information. But innocent until proven guilty is an important guideline for good reason. They could have a mental disability, and fell for some phising bs multiple times, developing a suspicious history. I've had friends that fell for phishing scams multiple times. It happens.

Or they'd often play the game at friend's houses, or with a vpn, or they travel a lot and have a gaming laptop. Any of that would cause their account to be registered as having been logged onto in multiple different locations and flagged as suspicious.

Or the mod that reviewed the case is just really stupid or a jerk, which is far from unprecedented for DE.

The suspicion goes both ways here. I tend to side with the person that actually lost something.

Especially because we don't have proof one way or the other. Because what we do have plenty of proof on, is that DE has a lot of ban happy moderators that don't like to fact check their own decisions.

[KIREEK]

Notes:

1. One strategy that account sellers used to deploy back then, was to sell accounts twice, they would sell once, ask support to get it back with the entire "someone stole it", then sell it again.
   Right now this method is obsolete as sellers are full on selling stuff that doesn't exist or they just sell random things 10 times or more in a row, account buyers are suckers, so they see no issues selling the same fake account multiple times.
   I'm not saying you are one of these individuals, i'm saying that whoever hijacks accounts in 2023 is a bit behind on the scam business, just make stuff up like everyone else. It's a scam, nobody cares if it's a real account or not. I don't like when players suffer from account theft (in any social platform, not just warframe), but those users do not care about morals, but they do care about the revenue and sadly hijacking a single account to sell seems like the worst thing you can do.
    
2. Right now when an account is hijacked, multiple things need to be compromised, just to give you an idea, when you request your account data, on top of questions, you need to provide a code sent to your email adress, you call this 2 factor authentication. So aquiring an account, changing the details, isn't as simple as login in with the correct password, as the account should trigger a code verification that you need to send in order to accept the new location/pc/game install

Now, there is still a possibility that you can get hijacked, especially if no form of 2FA is enabled or if the email is compromised aswell (some with 2FA enabled aswell), but support decision is final, they have the data, they can see what happened.
I'm not saying mistakes have not been made, but they have more info than any player on the forums, if they decided that the account is compromised beyond recovery, then that's how it will be.

Try asking support if you can make another account to play the game, if you enjoy it that much try starting fresh. gl

Edited October 17, 2023 by KIREEK

[Chewarette]

23 minutes ago, PollexMessier said:

Because what we do have plenty of proof on, is that DE has a lot of ban happy moderators that don't like to fact check their own decisions.

I see what you mean, and I don't necessarily disagree with that, except the last point. You say we have lots of proofs about that, but that's surprising considering DE doesn't discuss ban details in the open.

So all we have is plenty of people saying "I got banned for cheating/being toxic in chat but I never did", who were in fact banned for very valid reasons.

That some wrongful bans happen ? Sure, this is everywhere. "A lot" ? Not sure

[SneakyErvin]

56 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Well, for one, we shouldn't judge anything based on a forum story. We have no element to judge except the ones provided by the victim.

In this case, DE says they have "records". Unclear which ones, but they seem strong enough for them to keep his account(s) banned. And anyway, the account being sold by you or someone else doesn't change much... Otherwise I can sell mine, take the cash, complain to DE and they'll magically give it back to me without asking ? I understand they don't do that.

It wouldnt surprise me if the "records" they have is a clear e-mail change followed by activity on new hardware/connection setups using the 2FA with the new e-mail to enable it along with potential unlinking/relinking of steam, twitch and other things. Maybe even with potential new in-game purchases with a CC belonging to a new name etc. I mean there are plenty of records they can use to actually prove an account being sold and not just stolen. And the OP didnt mention that their e-mail was also compromised, so even harder to have the account actually stolen due to 2FA.

[MaxTunnerX]

So let me get this straight. This dude sold his account to somebody and then reported it as stolen and now complains DE ban it instead of giving it back to him? Thats some next level scam scheme.

Edited October 17, 2023 by MaxTunnerX

[CephalonCarnage]

I always love these threads, ever since someone complained about being banned for a while, posted a chatlog screenshot and then a DE employee popped in, checked and came back with "we see the disgusting things you said that were scrolled just off the top of the screenshot" and banned them permanently.

[MaxTunnerX]

9 minutes ago, CephalonCarnage said:

I always love these threads, ever since someone complained about being banned for a while, posted a chatlog screenshot and then a DE employee popped in, checked and came back with "we see the disgusting things you said that were scrolled just off the top of the screenshot" and banned them permanently.

lmao

[(XBOX)Hellsteeth30]

Not sure where the problem is.  You sold it, so you can't have it back, not can the new owner.

[Tsukinoki]

5 hours ago, SeraphonPrime said:

I'm the one with the stolen account and they're punishing ME for it. How is that fair?

Which is more likely:
-Someone got your warframe password and bypassed the MFA setup on the account (meaning they also got your email password, and potentially another level of MFA to go along with that, and who knows what other accounts and passwords to go along with those) and then sold your account to someone else
OR
-You sold your account, tried to complain to DE to get it back, and then went surprised pikachu face when they banned you instead?  And then came to the forums to try to stir up enough people to force DE to reverse course? (Hint: this doesn't work)

 

Honestly I trust DEs records more than I trust someone complaining on the forums about a ban or an account being stolen.
We've seen plenty of these cases come through the forums claiming wrongful banning and many, many times we've seen that the person claiming that they were wrongfully banned or some other thing was the one at fault and DE just came down on them harder for attempting to do ban evasion by using multiple accounts.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Tsukinoki

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

You guys are sure quick to judge. OP said theft not that they sold their account. While we don't know the full story, we shouldn't be quick to assume they sold their account. DE doesn't have the best track record with support. I was recently warned that if I engage in black market trading again I could lose my account because an alliance member did a giveaway. Apparently they used illegal plat. How was I supposed to know? Sometimes the wrong person gets reprimanded.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

Someone rob ur account? In my experience, the only person to blame for having your account stolen is yourself. Did they steal your email? how the hell? Nowadays, email services have the possibility of several layers of security.

DE say that you transferred it or sold it, If your email really was stolen, why didn't you mention it from the beginning? you only came to complain to see if some crowd of people with less than a finger of brain supports you. In any case that your account was stupidly stolen due to lack of security in your email or some virus that yourself downloaded with some pirated program, in the end it is completely your fault.

DE looks at their data, they base their actions on that and they are not going to give anyone a break with simple words and with 0 evidence, it's the same in the real world.

Edited October 17, 2023 by CosoMalvadoNG
misspellings, Add text

[SneakyErvin]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

You guys are sure quick to judge. OP said theft not that they sold their account. While we don't know the full story, we shouldn't be quick to assume they sold their account. DE doesn't have the best track record with support. I was recently warned that if I engage in black market trading again I could lose my account because an alliance member did a giveaway. Apparently they used illegal plat. How was I supposed to know? Sometimes the wrong person gets reprimanded.

But it is very unlikely in this case given the reply from DE and the OP not mentioning their email being compromised aswell. If their mail was also targetted they could have attached that info (with proof) to DE, and mentioned it here. And there should be plenty of proof in that case depending how further authentication is set up, like a phone screen dump/forwarded message if they rely on SMS security for mails, the message sent to a potential security mail tied to the compromised mail or any other method they might use.

Sure the OP might not have the 2FA activated, at which point it shouldnt be on DE to recover their account imo, since the user failed/ignored to use one of the steps already provided. Yet when mentions of records are brought up, it seems like DE has info on what has happened since they can track IPs, hardware, transactions, names and so on.

[kamisama85]

If this is a case of hijacked account, this is exactly why you -want- the website/forum to log you out occasionally (looking at you "Website logged me out again" post).

But, I have a lot of trouble believing someone managed to steal the account of an active grand master founder. You would need to be very careless.
Surprised you didn't share the name of your grandmaster account in your plea for help. Surely someone could have vouched for you among veteran players if it were actually a case of stolen identity.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 2 minutos, kamisama85 dijo:

Surely someone could have vouched for you among veteran players if it were actually a case of stolen identity.

From the beginning the lack of information sounded very bad to me. 

[Aruquae]

1 hour ago, CephalonCarnage said:

I always love these threads, ever since someone complained about being banned for a while, posted a chatlog screenshot and then a DE employee popped in, checked and came back with "we see the disgusting things you said that were scrolled just off the top of the screenshot" and banned them permanently.

I would love to be able to see this

Sadly the thread has probably been deleted

[Numerikuu]

3 hours ago, KIREEK said:

Right now when an account is hijacked, multiple things need to be compromised, just to give you an idea, when you request your account data, on top of questions, you need to provide a code sent to your email adress, you call this 2 factor authentication. So aquiring an account, changing the details, isn't as simple as login in with the correct password, as the account should trigger a code verification that you need to send in order to accept the new location/pc/game install

This. I won't lie OP, this all looks a bit sus lol.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Numerikuu

[Letter13]

We on the forums cannot assist you beyond referring you to support, and DE's CSRs have the final say on matters such as these.