What is the name of your state? New York
I hope I put this on the proper forum. This is an issue about a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) which has a monthly service fee to use.
I play an online game called Final Fantasy XI Online based out of Japan and California in the United States. The services cost around $14 a month. Some players of that game have played for 5 years with the same user name, street address, and credit card information. Recently, a malicious script was placed on a help-website using an exploit in RealPlayer from earlier this year. Because of this, a good number of players lost their account information. It is believed the script was placed on the website by a third-party group of Real Money Traders (RMT) who gather currency from the game to sell online to players, which is not condoned by Square Enix. Square Enix in recent months has done a lot to curb their in-game currency gathering activities, and as a result they are very limited in getting currency to sell on their websites. They have seemingly began to steal player accounts through this exploit in hopes of making currency from the sales of their in-game valuables. Friends of hacked players have tracked down their victimized friend's character in the game and are either blocked off from communication or view them transferring valuable items to another account, while the real owner of the account can do nothing.
When players who have lost their account attempt to reclaim them calling up the company, even 20 minutes after the theft occurred (you are disconnected from the game when logged in from another terminal) they will not assist in the matter, even if you provide all relevant identification, including the original keys that you were required to enter when installing the game and your real name, street address, previous password, and credit card number. This includes knowing the time and date when the account password and credit card information was changed. The reason for this is, whoever has stolen the passwords has found a way to very quickly change the password as well as the credit card information. And SE has a policy where if the 'owner' does not know the current valid credit card information, the account does not belong to them, despite presenting every possible form of identification and proof of ownership. The original owner cannot even freeze the account so that their characters are not stripped of all value before their eyes.
The official policy of the company, Square Enix (SE), is that accounts cannot be bought or sold to other players. In essence, the transfer of a character from one party to another should not occur and should not be supported.
When a player asks the company what they should do, they tell them to contact their local authorities. When several players have contacted their local authorities, they tell the victims that it is an issue with SE and that in order to further pursue it they would have to submit a complaint to the FBI, telling them to visit http://www.ic3.gov/ for help from them. There are no protections for the player in terms of account security. There have been dozens of players turned away even though they can say when they started playing, their previous CC info, previous name on the account, street address, - anything that was required of them to enter at the membership screen. A lot of the players sent to the ic3.gov website assume that their claims wont be taken seriously, since it is an online video game and these guys are probably dealing with much more important issues than a screwed over video gamer.
I know this sounds very silly to some people. I'm sure it seems very irrelevant and minor. Some of the people who lost their accounts have played the game for 5 years, and have spent a good amount of time building their characters in the game. Doing the math however, over 5 years $14 a month adds up to around $167/year and $837 overall give or take (some people pay an extra $1 for a secondary storage character, the stated price is $12.95 but most in reality pay $13.95 with that charge). Many of us also have invested in the game itself and four expansion packs retailing at around $29.95 each, bringing the total investment over the years of play to close to $1000.
Square Enix is not providing protections for their players investments, and given that the situation is a known problem, and with Square's recent release of a non-full screen version of the game that allows web-browsing, they are falling back on their disclaimer that if you visit websites in windowed mode you are asking to be hacked.
My question is, is there any sort of legal response that can be sought after by players whose accounts have been compromised (all within a span of one week too it seems) since they have lost what potentially could be $1000 and 5 years of wasted time in damages? Who would that claim have to be aimed at? Is there any sort of legal action that can be taken against SE for not better protecting the identity of players since whoever did hack their accounts has access to their real names and street addresses? The process for changing membership information relies entirely on logging into the account.
If anyone can answer this I would greatly appreciate your time in doing so. My account hasn't been hacked as of yet, but I have a few friends who lost their accounts and are very desperate to work to get them back or at least get compensated for their wasted time and money. On the players side, we are working on petitioning Square Enix to enhance their security and change their policies. That doesn't help the players who have already lost their accounts however, and that is what I am hoping to help them do with any advice someone can give me.
Thank you
~Zylia
I hope I put this on the proper forum. This is an issue about a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) which has a monthly service fee to use.
I play an online game called Final Fantasy XI Online based out of Japan and California in the United States. The services cost around $14 a month. Some players of that game have played for 5 years with the same user name, street address, and credit card information. Recently, a malicious script was placed on a help-website using an exploit in RealPlayer from earlier this year. Because of this, a good number of players lost their account information. It is believed the script was placed on the website by a third-party group of Real Money Traders (RMT) who gather currency from the game to sell online to players, which is not condoned by Square Enix. Square Enix in recent months has done a lot to curb their in-game currency gathering activities, and as a result they are very limited in getting currency to sell on their websites. They have seemingly began to steal player accounts through this exploit in hopes of making currency from the sales of their in-game valuables. Friends of hacked players have tracked down their victimized friend's character in the game and are either blocked off from communication or view them transferring valuable items to another account, while the real owner of the account can do nothing.
When players who have lost their account attempt to reclaim them calling up the company, even 20 minutes after the theft occurred (you are disconnected from the game when logged in from another terminal) they will not assist in the matter, even if you provide all relevant identification, including the original keys that you were required to enter when installing the game and your real name, street address, previous password, and credit card number. This includes knowing the time and date when the account password and credit card information was changed. The reason for this is, whoever has stolen the passwords has found a way to very quickly change the password as well as the credit card information. And SE has a policy where if the 'owner' does not know the current valid credit card information, the account does not belong to them, despite presenting every possible form of identification and proof of ownership. The original owner cannot even freeze the account so that their characters are not stripped of all value before their eyes.
The official policy of the company, Square Enix (SE), is that accounts cannot be bought or sold to other players. In essence, the transfer of a character from one party to another should not occur and should not be supported.
When a player asks the company what they should do, they tell them to contact their local authorities. When several players have contacted their local authorities, they tell the victims that it is an issue with SE and that in order to further pursue it they would have to submit a complaint to the FBI, telling them to visit http://www.ic3.gov/ for help from them. There are no protections for the player in terms of account security. There have been dozens of players turned away even though they can say when they started playing, their previous CC info, previous name on the account, street address, - anything that was required of them to enter at the membership screen. A lot of the players sent to the ic3.gov website assume that their claims wont be taken seriously, since it is an online video game and these guys are probably dealing with much more important issues than a screwed over video gamer.
I know this sounds very silly to some people. I'm sure it seems very irrelevant and minor. Some of the people who lost their accounts have played the game for 5 years, and have spent a good amount of time building their characters in the game. Doing the math however, over 5 years $14 a month adds up to around $167/year and $837 overall give or take (some people pay an extra $1 for a secondary storage character, the stated price is $12.95 but most in reality pay $13.95 with that charge). Many of us also have invested in the game itself and four expansion packs retailing at around $29.95 each, bringing the total investment over the years of play to close to $1000.
Square Enix is not providing protections for their players investments, and given that the situation is a known problem, and with Square's recent release of a non-full screen version of the game that allows web-browsing, they are falling back on their disclaimer that if you visit websites in windowed mode you are asking to be hacked.
My question is, is there any sort of legal response that can be sought after by players whose accounts have been compromised (all within a span of one week too it seems) since they have lost what potentially could be $1000 and 5 years of wasted time in damages? Who would that claim have to be aimed at? Is there any sort of legal action that can be taken against SE for not better protecting the identity of players since whoever did hack their accounts has access to their real names and street addresses? The process for changing membership information relies entirely on logging into the account.
If anyone can answer this I would greatly appreciate your time in doing so. My account hasn't been hacked as of yet, but I have a few friends who lost their accounts and are very desperate to work to get them back or at least get compensated for their wasted time and money. On the players side, we are working on petitioning Square Enix to enhance their security and change their policies. That doesn't help the players who have already lost their accounts however, and that is what I am hoping to help them do with any advice someone can give me.
Thank you
~Zylia
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I've played for 4 years myself and have never had an issue. We have a widely used forum that has massively been submitting complaints, so hopefully we can get the policy changed and have some sort of added security for it.