Got an account issue...
First off, the boards can't help you out too much with this, as it is an NCSoft issue. However, we can direct you to contact on of the community reps (I forget who it is now, though), who should be able to elevate this kind of issue, and can give you some help. Give me a minute or two, and I'll get you the correct person.
Edit -> Send a PM to Avatea. They should be able to help you out. I hope that you can get it resolved.
Edit2-> By the way, it seems as if, from the data you've given us, that you wife's account was hacked at some point. Either from a weak password, or a true hacker, or even if you ever gave any account information to a Real Money Transfer (RMT: those guys advertising to sell you influence for real money), although I doubt that is the case. If this happened, you are going to have to jump through some hoops to get the account unlocked, as there was probably some malicious activity that occurred on that account, and they might be hesitant to unlock it.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
Already sent a PM to Avatea.
I know that only two people have her account passwords, her & me. Her comp has already been checked for malware, trojans, etc. All clean. Same goes for mine.
I'm completely baffled as to why they blocked her account. They claimed it was for our safety but we received no notice. None of her account info shows as having been logged in anywhere here or in Guild Wars inappropriately (we always create a guild/group for ourselves and invite each others characters).
We also know that her email address is still linked to the NCSOFT account as when I tried to reset her password, the notices of attempts to do so came to her address as expected.
I'm going to try calling them this afternoon when their support lines open to see if they can tell me anything further. Part of me is raging something fierce on the inside because we're being punished for something we didn't do and now have to dance like some circus animal to beg for her account back.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
Also note, she doesn't have to have malware on her computer for the account info to be hacked. If somebody gets a hold of what her account name is, they might be able to guess a password if it's not that hard. Or, if somebody had cracked the NCSoft computers, they could have gotten the info there.
Not saying that is what happened, just saying that her computer might be perfectly fine, and somebody could still have hacked the account.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
Also note, she doesn't have to have malware on her computer for the account info to be hacked. If somebody gets a hold of what her account name is, they might be able to guess a password if it's not that hard. Or, if somebody had cracked the NCSoft computers, they could have gotten the info there.
Not saying that is what happened, just saying that her computer might be perfectly fine, and somebody could still have hacked the account. |
I'm familiar with the issues and problems regarding information assurance (my day job). I've cranked up our own security settings where possible.
Just got a note back from Support saying they are escalating this to a higher tier. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't. Just will have to wait & see.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
Sorry to hear about yours, and your wife's account troubles. I've heard of other players having similar difficulties with NC regarding the 'rigamarole' needed to reopen a locked account.
And, with respect to NC, they need to improve their abilities in this area. This past summer, after about a year and a half hiatus, I re-upped my sub to That Other Large MMOG. Somehow (to this day, it's a mystery), my account name and password had been stolen, and the account had been used to spam RMT advertisements. I could not log in.
Within a 24-hour period, I had been granted access back into my account (it is here where I noticed a bunch of toons with the garbled names like 'dfda' and 'kdhadf' -- that's why I presumed the account was used for RMT purposes). Not only this, but a few days later, I got another e-mail, indicating they had audited all the characters on my account, and that none had any loot stolen. Presumably they wold have corrected matters had I been less fortunate in this regard.
My point being, the response to my locked account was quick and painless. And, the follow up to confirm the integrity of my characters was a pleasant surprise. NC really ought to be striving for this level of service.
Edit: keep us updated as to your progress.
Q. Just wondering Posi, where are the new dance emotes we were told would come with GR?
A. Positron: Whoops, my bad.
1387 badges, and counting
With all due respect, if you can't actually prove that it's your wife's account...can you see the other side of the situation?
What if I called NCSoft and asked for your account?
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
With all due respect, if you can't actually prove that it's your wife's account...can you see the other side of the situation?
What if I called NCSoft and asked for your account? |
*shrug*
In day to day commerce, online accounts get stolen or hacked regularly. It's one of the new facts of life in the Internet Age. Companies need to have established protocols to deal with these situations quickly. Based on my indirect experience, NC doesn't have a very strong track record in this area.
One other thing that just occurs to me, any follow up verbal phone calls really should be made by the OP's wife. It is doubtful he will make any progress speaking with a phone representative regarding his wife's account, for obvious reasons.
Be that as it may, I just hope the situation gets resolved for the OP as quickly as possible.
Q. Just wondering Posi, where are the new dance emotes we were told would come with GR?
A. Positron: Whoops, my bad.
1387 badges, and counting
With all due respect, if you can't actually prove that it's your wife's account...can you see the other side of the situation?
What if I called NCSoft and asked for your account? |
But I've given them the account creation date, the first character created. Presumably the account info on the NCSOFT account still points at my wife as an attempt to change the password generated a slew of emails that went to my wife's mailbox.
I even gave them the info (payment method, day, amount, etc) on the most recent renewal we've done.
I've confirmed the address, phone number, account holder, DOB, what games are on the account, etc. Yet that isn't enough.
Heck, if they went and verified the IP addresses that we used to connect they'd see they haven't changed in over 2 years.
I've even pointed out that my account's info and my wife's account info are the same except for the logon names, account holder name, and that mine has a few more GW services than hers.
I feel I've given above and beyond what they need to accurately identify us as the rightful account holders. They disagree because we don't have a particular credit card from 6 years ago and an email from the same time frame.
Seriously? Isn't that just a bit pedantic?
Despite the "not my problem" tone the emails seem to imply, we are still trying to work with Support. I've got to go through some boxes to see if we still have our keys used to create our CoH/V & GW accounts. Hopefully providing them will help (not that I'm holding my breath).
Already gave them the 4 keys we used for Guild Wars: Nightfall (& preorder). They said none of those numbers match up. I disagree with that assessment as those were the only four we had and we used them. Then again, my account doesn't show any of our Nightfall keys despite my GW account allowing me access to Nightfall. So who knows what sort of cluster**** is going on at their end. Our respective accounts used to show what each key was used for. Now they all have generic names (service, account, etc).
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
One thing you could try (no clue if it would work, however) is to call your card issuer and ask for the number of the card used unless you've completely changed banks.
Also check your bank statements - mine include a the last four digits of the card used.
Also, EDIT : Nevermind, can't verify because apparently NCSoft's main account site is down.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
One other thing that just occurs to me, any follow up verbal phone calls really should be made by the OP's wife. It is doubtful he will make any progress speaking with a phone representative regarding his wife's account, for obvious reasons.
Be that as it may, I just hope the situation gets resolved for the OP as quickly as possible. |
When you have a computer or software problem, you bring it to on-site IT. In our case, that's me. I handle all of our account info for banking, various websites, gaming, etc. I make sure it all works properly.
Hopefully when I call them, I can get in touch with someone who can help me get this straightened out.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
One thing you could try (no clue if it would work, however) is to call your card issuer and ask for the number of the card used unless you've completely changed banks.
Also check your bank statements - mine include a the last four digits of the card used. |
I'll keep it in mind.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
Well, I know it would probably be burried, but - you still have your paper copies of your statements?
Even if it doesn't list specific transactions to specific cards, when I had this issue I mentioned that, due to a lost card (and then wallet, boy was I on fire that time) it could be a card with the last four numbers of XXXX, YYYY, or ZZZZ - and they unlocked it for me.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
Well, I know it would probably be burried, but - you still have your paper copies of your statements?
Even if it doesn't list specific transactions to specific cards, when I had this issue I mentioned that, due to a lost card (and then wallet, boy was I on fire that time) it could be a card with the last four numbers of XXXX, YYYY, or ZZZZ - and they unlocked it for me. |
*sigh*...
No, we normally clear all that out after a couple of years. Never seen a reason to hold onto statements longer than that.
I suppose the easiest way to get that info would be to use the suggestion from earlier (call the banks in question and get the last 4 of the cards we had with them). Perhaps they still have records for those two months in 2004 when we initially signed up.
Also have to fire up my email archives tonight. Hopefully I still have those emails from 2004. Not sure if I purged that already or not. Though it's starting to feel like I'm grasping at straws.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
Dear OP I see that you mentioned that your wife had an account for another NCSoft game that has been affected as well. In all likelyhood that is where the problems started. NCSoft had a serious security problem over there which you can read about here.
The short version of it was this:
LOGGING INTO YOUR OWN PLAYNC MASTER ACCOUNT CAN RANDOMLY LOG YOU INTO ANOTHER PLAYER'S ACCOUNT. YOU HAVE FULL CONTROL OVER THEIR ACCOUNT FROM THIS POINT. YOU CAN CHANGE THEIR PASSWORDS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT ONE CAN EDIT FROM THE PLAYNC MASTER ACCOUNT CONTROLS.
They've supposedly fixed the problem since then.
I'll PM you with more info about what was happening because new forum rules don't allow us to post about other games on these forums, even if they are NCSoft games.
LOGGING INTO YOUR OWN PLAYNC MASTER ACCOUNT CAN RANDOMLY LOG YOU INTO ANOTHER PLAYER'S ACCOUNT. YOU HAVE FULL CONTROL OVER THEIR ACCOUNT FROM THIS POINT. YOU CAN CHANGE THEIR PASSWORDS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT ONE CAN EDIT FROM THE PLAYNC MASTER ACCOUNT CONTROLS.
|
See, this is the stuff that scares me. Because if I held on to random game paperwork trash for six years, even if it had an account number on it, the doctor would hang me by my toes.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Well, got a really nice NCSoft rep as part of the issue escalatation. He went into greater detail as to what he would need. He also explained why the keys I provided didn't suffice. He did go into detail as to what specific keys he could use to validate ownership. He also indicated alternative means for ID verification.
So now I'm pursuing the banks we were with at the time we started our CoH/V accounts. Already called one and they confirmed they can give me the information I need if I stop in and show ID. I'll hit up the other bank on the way home too.
If that turns up a dud, then I'll go digging for certain game boxes (sure am glad I got collector's editions). I'm fairly certain I know where those are.
All in all, this rep is helping me rather than hindering. I like this rep.
As for that security issue... when did that happen? I don't recall hearing about it and I keep up on updates on that side of the house. That said, I did notice the account questions and such in my master account when I changed my password.
What strikes me as odd is that as of Oct 2010, I was able to log my wife's master account in. I had to. I was the one who renewed both of our accounts. Nothing was amiss at that time. Maybe I can get the rep that is assisting me to explain what they saw once I have the account back under our control.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
Well, got a really nice NCSoft rep as part of the issue escalatation. He went into greater detail as to what he would need. He also explained why the keys I provided didn't suffice. He did go into detail as to what specific keys he could use to validate ownership. He also indicated alternative means for ID verification.
So now I'm pursuing the banks we were with at the time we started our CoH/V accounts. Already called one and they confirmed they can give me the information I need if I stop in and show ID. I'll hit up the other bank on the way home too. If that turns up a dud, then I'll go digging for certain game boxes (sure am glad I got collector's editions). I'm fairly certain I know where those are. All in all, this rep is helping me rather than hindering. I like this rep. As for that security issue... when did that happen? I don't recall hearing about it and I keep up on updates on that side of the house. That said, I did notice the account questions and such in my master account when I changed my password. What strikes me as odd is that as of Oct 2010, I was able to log my wife's master account in. I had to. I was the one who renewed both of our accounts. Nothing was amiss at that time. Maybe I can get the rep that is assisting me to explain what they saw once I have the account back under our control. |
2. I believe the security issue started in the fall of 2009. I learned about it in December when I tried to log in to play and found I couldn't. I had to jump thru hoops with CS and send proof I was the account owner. Anyway NCSoft really downplayed it and did their best to keep it all under everyones radar. Not that I blame them. I wouldn't want info on how to defeat their security spread all over the place.
3. As to why you were able to log on in October, I have no clue. I only mentioned the security problem from last year because you mentioned the other game and that's the first possible explanation that came to mind.
It's very possible the two things are completely unrelated.
Status update!!!
I stopped by both banks that I would have had business with around the time frame our accounts were set up. Both were able to dredge up my records from back then and none of our accounts had all the criteria the rep mentioned. I thanked the two bank reps I worked with for their time and went home.
I started digging through some boxes. Let's just say I'm glad I'm a packrat.
I found almost every single CoH/V item we have in the house. Still missing one CoV collector's edition but I am fairly certain I know where it is.
I then started comparing all the license keys I found against the two CoH accounts I have. The keys that didn't match either got set aside.
I update the ticket with the helpful rep from Support with those keys. Also had to correct my original report of the exact day we did the renewals.
A short while later (perhaps 20 minutes or so), I got the notice that my wife's account was unlocked and a notice to go in and reset her passwords. I just reset them to something as strong as the system will allow (which isn't terribly strong IMO, their password limits are too short).
So in short, once I got a helpful rep who was a lot more clear about what specifically he needed, things got done.
My wife already called while on break at school. I let her know the good news. All is happy in the house again
Now to go check her characters and see if anything is wrong there.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
Recommendation - Keep a file somewhere with your list of keys And the bank card info.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
My wife tried logging in to play some CoH with me this last weekend. She couldn't log in. She got a message indicating her account was suspended.
This was odd to say the least as we had just renewed our accounts at the beginning of October. Now she hadn't logged in at all for a few months because she is in school. All of her characters reflect that little detail in our supergroup panel.
So I tried logging in as her on the account maintenance page. This time, the error message is that her NCSOFT master account is banned.
We tried contacting Support but they are all but worthless. We've danced their little dance and given them every bit of information we could give them from their list only to get told "It doesn't look like you provided everything we asked for".
No, really? You really want me to cough up some code from an email from over 6 years ago?!?! And you want the credit card used to start the account from that same time frame when it's commonplace for consumers to change financials?
We gave them name, address, games under the account, acccount features unlocked, license keys that we could find that we redeemed on both of our accounts, even the information from when we renewed the accounts in October. They are still saying they cannot confirm we are the rightful users/owners on her account. I even gave them the IP addresses we use and that renewed from.
So as it stands, Billing happily took our money but Support is not letting my wife use her CoH/V account. To throw insult on top of injury, this also kills her Guild Wars account (all 3 chapters, TEotN expansion, plus several acccount perks.
Yet throughout this whole ordeal, my account (w/ CoH/V & GW) is fine.
Anyone got any suggestions as to what else we can do to get my wife's account back from NCSOFT? We are still looking to see if we can find more of the account codes we used. Even if we were to find them all, I don't believe Support will unlock her account.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.