Account was stolen over 16 years ago

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by Deemer, Dec 17, 2018.

  1. Deemer New Member

    I played this game religiously from the time it started until sometime during the Shadows of Luclin expansion. I had quit before planes of power. I e always had fond memories of the game, recalling my guile’s raids in north tov. I recently decided I would come back and mess around, maybe get my character back into raid shape to enjoy the decades of content thats been released since I last played.

    I recovered my account, new the security question, email address, etc. but none of my characters were there. I submitted a ticket. They asked me what was the name on the credit card and billing address for the year 2003. The account shouldn’t have been active then.

    Someone obviously has been using my account after I deactivated it. Since I don’t know who, am I out of luck for recovering my characters?

    I know the characters on my account (at least when I was playing) the history of the account (my personal information when I created it) the character history (what characters were created first, what servers). Shouldn’t that count for anything?
  2. Dythan Ban Lev in Plane of Fire guy

    Your SoL buddy. But it will be fairly easy to get a new toon leveled and geared to what you remember.
  3. Deemer New Member

    It’s an idea, but frankly finding out my account was stolen a decade and a half ago, I’m screwed out of the characters I worked hard to build (regardless of how outdated they are now, the memories are a big reason I wanted to play again) and support is unwilling to help isn’t exactly the “welcome back to EQ” I was hoping for. Seriously that’s a good reason to stay away permanently. If that’s what it is, so be it.
  4. Niknik Journeyman

    A dumb question - but are you sure you are looking at the right server? There have been MANY merges since then.
    code-zero likes this.
  5. Deemer New Member

    Nah, it’s not a dumb question. I checked all of the servers just in case. No characters on any of them.

    The main reason I wanted to play on an official server and not one of the others that exists out there was to feel secure that the servers wouldn’t be shut down suddenly and my characters would be available to me if I ever wanted to quit and play later. This kind of kills that idea. It’s really discouraging that if my account was stolen I’m not even given the opportunity to prove I’m the real owner of the account. I need the address of the guy who stole it from me. It just doesn’t make any sense.
  6. Dythan Ban Lev in Plane of Fire guy

    I'll play devils advocate. In the event that your account was hacked, they would of stripped the toons of all the gear and money, and maybe deleted the toons to be mean. I find it unlikely that they also took the time to change the billing info too.

    What most likely happened is you sold the account, or gave it to a friend. Both of these are against the rules, but happen all the time. Now you are trying to steal back the account. Daybreak can only verify who the last owner of the account was, via CC info.
  7. Deemer New Member

    I deactivated the account because I knew I might want to play again one day. I was in a top three guild on the server, and one of more popular enchanters. I spent hundreds of hours playing and building up my gear. I’d never sell or even let someone borrow my account or play as one of my characters. It’s most likely you don’t know what you’re talking about.
  8. lenuvas New Member

    There have been a couple of times (possibly around server merges?) in my time playing eq that they did a mass delete of characters that hadn't been logged in in X amount of time. I remember the word being spread in /gu to log in all your alts just in case so they and all their stuff didn't get axed to clear up space on the servers.

    I want to say they had level minimums for it, but if you haven't played in 16 years it seems very possible you got hit by this.
  9. code-zero Augur

    Well you must have missed all the fun not so long ago when accounts were "stolen", moved to FV, stripped of gear which was sold on that server. Then deleted and the original owner would /petition to have the character recovered.

    They aren't bringing your characters back
  10. Deemer New Member

    I definitely missed something. When I quit, all of the good gear was bind on equip, no trade. I have no idea how anyone could have sold my staff of the serpent, or my journeyman boots.

    What I do know is I never allowed anyone to play as me. It’s against the rules and a bannable offense. Why would they allow payments from anyone other than the person who set up the account? I never even got a notification that my account had been changed in any way, or I would have stopped it. It sounds like extremely weak enforcement of the rules, and I’m getting blamed like I did something wrong.

    Ultimately, to heck with it. I just wanted to log in and play again to remember some good times, but it appears protecting thieves and keeping 16 year old gear out of hands of players is the bigger priority. You guys can have this dead game. It’s not worth the time anymore.
  11. DeseanJackson Augur

    Dead game? Then why post on the forums looking for support? Wouldn’t that imply no one plays?

    Did you possibly quit later than you thought? I thought I quit in 2004 but actually paid through most of 2005 and just blurred the times... cause it was 12+ years ago.

    Also, did you try providing your billing address from your last known time paying? Maybe you did already, only you know the manner and time in which you quit.
  12. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    So you played from 1999 to 2001-2002 and they are asking for billing info for the year after you quit which is 2003. Did you give them your last billing info? I don't think you can totally remove billing info so perhaps what they are seeing is the old info. This could be a trick question or their account tool is not showing billing that old. Don't focus on the year but just give them the last 4 and name as they are requesting.

    Back then everyone was giving everyone else in their guilds character log in info since raiding was hard core - 5 days/nights a week and lots of mandatory attendance. I would say at least 60% of the guilds gave each other log in info so the character could go on the raid even if the person could not play. Not saying you did, just a comment on the game structure at that time. Many of these things are why security became so tight on the game.

    I find it odd that someone logged in and did not change your security question, email, or password but did change the billing info. If they transferred characters off your account or changed billing info then they had to know that information. Any changes to the accounts are always followed up by email from Sony or Daybreak so that might have raised a flag for you back then when you got that email.

    An unfortunate way some people had of trying to secure or block accounts be it EQ or any other online game/website etc that they have to register for is to put in fake info so no further billing can be done. Unfortunate that this comes back to bite the person when they cannot verify it.

    Bottom line is that you still have the account. Just no characters. I would create a new character and play on it. After all its free and you should have lots of veteran benefits and loyalty points left. I have heard of people not being able to recover the old characters but can get the account and the newly created characters get all those benefits right off the bat.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Moone like this.
  13. svann Augur

    Have you tried creating a new character with the same name?
  14. McDougal Augur

    This got me wondering? Remember when you could consent people to loot your corpse? Just when did they create no drop items? I can't remember.
  15. Zalamyr Augur

    To be clear, you want them to find and restore characters that may have been deleted over 15 years ago? I have a feeling even if they found that, the character format probably isn't even compatible anymore. They do keep characters indefinitely (apart from one cleanup during merges...iirc they deleted toons under level 10 that hadn't been logged in for a set duration). Your issue isn't them not keeping characters. Your issue is somebody logged into your account and deleted them more than a decade ago.

    I understand you're frustrated you apparently had your account compromised, but any rational person would understand there's absolutely nothing support can do to remedy it.
  16. Flatchy Court Jester

    What was your chanters name? What server was he on?
  17. Snack Augur

    My friend recently was able to recover his account and the one character that was left on the account (he had two) was stripped down with only a couple items left. His main toon (was a Velious era Ranger) was gone.
  18. code-zero Augur

    If your characters are all gone then whoever had access undoubtably moved them all the FV, sold off the gear and deleted them.
    Since that was a long running scam that resulted in either SOE or DBG eliminating the character restoration service you can be certain that you'll receive no help. As far as they're concerned you decided to stop playing and did that yourself for some quick RMT cash.
    For that matter, my son in law had a character stripped and sold off by a "friend" of his who didn't even play and carried the entire theft out on his computer in his own home during a party.
  19. svann Augur

    Never share your account info.
  20. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Formula for EverQuest haters:

    Create new account. Join forums. Post a problem that cannot be solved. Blame DBG and EQ, citing how 'dead' it is to crank up the thread views and replies. Never post again.

    Got it. Thanks Deemer. Next!