There is a curious story on reddit: A user had not logged into his Epic Game Store account for months. Therefore, he only learned after months that the account had been stolen. The new owner had invested more than 330 hours in the MMO GTA Online. People who get robbed but still benefit from it is not an isolated incident in the gaming world.
This is what the player says: The user ThegreatestSaiyan posted in mid-May on reddit:
- He had not logged into his Epic Games Store account for several months
- When he finally checked the Store again, he realized that his account had been stolen. The new owner had spent 332 hours on Grand Theft Auto V, probably with the MMO GTA Online. The original account owner had never installed the game
- The player retrieved his account and said: “I almost felt sorry” – but only almost
You can easily spend hundreds of hours with GTA Online:
“The idiot even bought skins in Fortnite”
How is this being discussed? The phenomenon seems to be widely known: Players lose accounts, retrieve them, and then realize that the account is worth more than before.
- Another user says that his account was also stolen. And the idiot even bought skins in Fortnite.
- Another report mentions: His friend also retrieved his stolen account and then received an angry complaint: Someone had bought the account on a dubious website for $300. What the guy thought he could do, to demand the account back now.
Why couldn’t the thief secure the account? Although the thief had the name of the Epic account and the password. However, he lacked the password for the email account with which the owner was registered, he suspects.
Therefore, the thief could not secure the Epic account, but lost the account again when the true owner claimed it and changed the password.
This is what players are advised: Another user on reddit recommends the original owner to report to Epic that the account has been compromised. Because maybe the account was involved in illegal activities.
In any case, it is good that he has already changed the password – but an additional ticket is advisable.
Being careless, getting robbed, and profiting from it – it works
This is my experience with it: I, Schuhmann from MeinMMO, confess that something similar happened to me during my time in WoW, about 10 years ago:
- Hackers had stolen my account and started transferring all the possessions from that account to other accounts
- I was extremely wealthy in WoW at that time through trading in the auction house. So there were a few million gold to collect.
- I noticed the theft after a few hours, wrote a ticket, and retrieved my account
The curious thing back then. Blizzard’s support refunded me the “lost gold” without any issues. The hackers had not yet fully completed the transaction. The money was still partially in mailboxes scattered across Azeroth, from which I could retrieve it.
In the end, I didn’t lose any gold in WoW due to this incident, but actually made a substantial profit.
Over the last 10 years, many MMORPGs have switched to 2-factor authentication, so such stories should actually be less common than before.
The risks of buying accounts on the internet
What’s behind it: This story is precisely the reason why people warn against buying accounts on the internet. Because perhaps the account is not being sold by the right owner, but by a thief. Then, such a purchased account can quickly disappear and the time invested in it is lost.
There are also people who sell their accounts in MMORPGs like WOW. But they take back the account as soon as a new expansion comes out and they feel like logging in again.
The trading of accounts is a big business, especially in MMORPGs, but there are always mishaps or strange stories. One of the most curious stories revolves around an MMORPG character that was sold for far too little money: Chinese invests €1.3 million in MMORPG character – friend sells him for €500
