Rant Blizzard poor customer service

[Grover]

as an Ex- WoW gamer, i have an account still registered with blizzard, and twice now, ive recieved an e-mail saying that someone ahs changed the address of the account.

there's only one possible reason for this, for someone to take control of my account.

this is the second time its occurred (and by chance, its the same E-Mail address its being changed to) and the previous time, i recieved no reply from the support team

am i right in saying that if i recieve a charge from Blizzard because their lack of security allowed somebody with means to draw a payment from my account, that i can legally challenge Blizzard, as they have been unable to prevent a secure transaction from being accessed by a third party? because im a little peeved at this

i know its not my end, i run regular scans on my PC and never find any malicious software (on the occasion i do find something, i change my security details and so on)

surely its blizzards responsibility to protect the data that i provide them in confidence? im sure the Data Protection Act has something to say about this

i hope they actually reply to me this time

[/RANT]

 

[dbeachy1]

Are you sure the notification email saying that someone changed the email address of the account isn't a phishing message? [I get a few of those fake messages per month on an email account that doesn't even have a Blizzard account.] Does the notification email say, "Click here to update your account details" or something like that? If so, it is a phishing email designed to trick people into submitting their account login information.

If it's a legitimate message, then you can get a Blizzard Authenticator (a keycode fob) to further protect your account. And of course logging into your Blizzard account from blizzard.com (not from any link in any email) and setting a strong password is the first step.

 

[Grover]

i checked all that, the e-mail came from an address on blizzards list of trusted senders, and the site it linked me to was legit (there is ABSOLUTELY no doubt)

 

[garyw]

Are you sure you don't have a virus on your machine that could have stolen this data? Yes, it is Blizzards responsibility to keep your data safe but it's also YOUR responsibility to do the same.

 

[Grover]

as i said, i run regular scans (every week or so), theres no way its on my end, unless its a bug that can outsmart both me and AVG

on a side note, my problem isnt that this thing happened, its mroe that the support staff ignored my request for them to help me! i asked if they could prevent any e-mail changes in the future, and they did nothing

if they dont reply by sunday im gonna ring up one of their support staff and give him a right earful

 

[garyw]

as i said, i run regular scans (every week or so), theres no way its on my end, unless its a bug that can outsmart both me and AVG

I found a virus once that the AV vendors had never come across. Three months later it was still only recognised by 20 out 43 AV vendors. AV is not guarenteed protection.

on a side note, my problem isnt that this thing happened, its mroe that the support staff ignored my request for them to help me! i asked if they could prevent any e-mail changes in the future, and they did nothing

Because people change email addresses on an annoyingly regular basis. If your email address is not on a domain you own when you change ISP's it may well change. Many companies won't accept gmail, yahoo or hotmail email addresses because they are too spam infested.

if they dont reply by sunday im gonna ring up one of their support staff and give him a right earful

By all means give them a call. Make a note of the persons name and BE POLITE. Explain the issue, explain that you are not happy about what has happend and ask the support person to take ownership of the problem. Only start to rant if they can't deal with the problem but rant NICELY. By that, I mean be direct. DO NOT SWEAR and keep stating the outcome that you want - this is a customer services technique called 'Broken Record'.

 

[Hielor]

as an Ex- WoW gamer, i have an account still registered with blizzard, and twice now, ive recieved an e-mail saying that someone ahs changed the address of the account.

there's only one possible reason for this, for someone to take control of my account.

this is the second time its occurred (and by chance, its the same E-Mail address its being changed to) and the previous time, i recieved no reply from the support team

am i right in saying that if i recieve a charge from Blizzard because their lack of security allowed somebody with means to draw a payment from my account, that i can legally challenge Blizzard, as they have been unable to prevent a secure transaction from being accessed by a third party? because im a little peeved at this

i know its not my end, i run regular scans on my PC and never find any malicious software (on the occasion i do find something, i change my security details and so on)

surely its blizzards responsibility to protect the data that i provide them in confidence? im sure the Data Protection Act has something to say about this

i hope they actually reply to me this time

[/RANT]

I'm fairly certain that they can't "draw payment from your account" without your permission--once you've removed your credit card as part of cancelling your WoW subscription, Blizzard doesn't keep the credit card around.

As to the specific problem. I receive emails (that look like they came from legit Blizzard email accounts) stating that something has changed about my account on a fairly regular (almost daily) basis. They're not real. Can you post the full text of the email you received?

After receiving these emails, did you point your browser to battle.net (typed, not clicking any links) and verify that the email address had in fact been changed? At this point, did you change the password on your account?

The easiest thing for you to do is get a blizzard authenticator. They're cheap, and no one's going to be changing anything on your account without it once you have one.

 

[Grover]

Hello,

Blizzard Entertainment recently received a request to change the e-mail address used to log in to the Battle.net account with the username [email protected]. The e-mail address k***@hotmail.com has been specified as the new username for this Battle.net account. An email has been sent to this new address containing a verification link to complete the change.

Once the new address has been verified, the e-mail address [email protected] can no longer be used to log in to this Battle.net account or any World of Warcraft accounts merged with this Battle.net account.

If you did not initiate this request, please click here to contact the Blizzard Billing & Account Services team immediately.

from "[email protected]"

and, quoting the blizzard support website:

Emails from Blizzard Entertainment will originate from an @blizzard.com or @battle.net address.

 

[garyw]

Still doesn't make it legitimate. I can spoof email using ANY from address in about 2 minutes. In fact, saying that 'Emails from Blizzard Entertainment will originate from an @blizzard.com or @battle.net address' is generating a false sense of security. There are better ways of validating yourself as a sender.

 

[Grover]

that came from the actual blizzard site

 

[garyw]

Doesn't matter, it's a false sense of security. As I said, I could very easily knock up a fake email and have it appear with a from address that had @blizzard.com it's next to zero effort on my part.

You might want to have a look at this as well.

I'd also suggest giving them a call and having a chat.

 

[Grover]

well, im officially unsure, the account was de-activated earlier this month, so it cant cost me any money in the worst case, and in the other end, i just apologise for falling for the (pretty convincing) trick

 

[TSPenguin]

Sender address spoofing is the new trend it seems, I am getting tons of emails from german TV stations evading spam filters by hyphening words.

Oh, and I have been getting fake blizzard email from blizzard.com for a long time.

All affairs regarding your battle.net account should be coming from [email protected] anyway, but since this is blizzard, you can never be sure. wowaccountadmin however looks highly bogus. The fact that there is no footer at all in the email is a clear sign that it is bogus.

As far as I understand you, your account is still working?! If anyone ever stole your account, they'd change the password within seconds of getting their hands on it.

 

[Hielor]

from "[email protected]"

and, quoting the blizzard support website:

Pretty obviously a phishing email. The "click here" link will take you to a site that looks a whole lot like Blizzard's and has a URL that looks a whole lot like Blizzard's, but the entire purpose of the site is to steal your password.

Congratulations, you've been bugging Blizzard customer service for nothing.