The troubles with Xbox Live continue to grow as more and more people are reporting hacked and stolen accounts, poor customer service, and losses of money.
First up, one issue stems from a problem with logging into Xbox.com. Yes, some people are reporting that if you select to download a demo for a game while you are not logged in, the system will prompt you to log in. During this log in period, the Xbox.com system switches from a free demo download to a paid purchase of the game you wish to try.
Given the wording for both paid purchases and free downloads reads as "confirm purchase", many users are finding out that they ended up spending their Microsoft Points on the full version of a game they thought they were getting a free demo of.
Users at Giant Bomb have found this error out first hand. Having contacted Microsoft about the issue, Giant Bomb has learned that the team at Xbox.com is aware of the issue and are working on a fix.
As it stands, this still seems to be an issue, so take care when downloading those free demos as you may end up spending your points without even knowing it.
Next up are more and more reports of users having their Xbox Live accounts hacked and stolen. The NeoGAF forums are abuzz with new word that accounts that are stolen are being sold in foreign markets loaded with stolen Microsoft Points, arcade titles, and more.
As noted, many of these 9,000+ Xbox Live accounts on the site in question come with a disclaimer stating that upon purchasing, the MS Points must be spent within two hours. Why? Well, because those points were purchased via stolen Xbox Live accounts.
The above quote from the NeoGAF thread mentions the tale of one particular person who not only had their account hacked into and their credit card used to purchase MS Points, but was used a second time after Xbox Live Support claimed that her account would be locked down immediately!
After the first hack resulted in 10,000 MS Points being purchased, a Family Pack purchase, and a loss of about $215 it happened a second time after her account was supposed by locked for another loss. The total damages on both is a $366 bill for items she didn't purchase.
On January 5th, she was still able to access her account through her Xbox 360, meaning that it was not yet locked still. Upon signing in, she noticed a new name she recognized in an email as someone who received some of those illegally purchased MS Points. Upon contacting the person, they informed her that they purchased the account at a Polish based site that is similar to eBay, which is where some of the investigative work from NeoGAF came into play.
As of January 6th, her account was finally locked by Microsoft. That is about four days after initially contacting Xbox Live support, which is about three and a half days too many.
Now, I know a few of you wanted to hear about what happened with my own issues with Xbox Live support and my hacked account.
I had initially contacted Xbox Live support after my account was compromised and all of my Microsoft Points were spent on junk for games I don't own nor have ever played. They informed me it would take about 25 days. A subsequent checkup call around October 12th had them informing me that I should expect an email "any day now" and so I waited. No email arrived.
Having heard stories of it taking anywhere between 45-90 days, I waited and did not call back believing that the investigation was still on going. I had made one attempt at a call afterwards but was informed that due to overwhelming demand, it would take me forever and a day to get through to support and so I hung up. I waited until December 15th to make my third call to Xbox Live support. They had informed me that I was actually emailed back in October just a few days after my second call was made.
Wait, I was? Interesting, as I never received an email. I even checked my spam mail folders and nothing was found. I asked if they could simply resend the email to me. In order to do that, they had to resubmit me into the investigation system, meaning another potential wait of "up to 25 days." Fine, go ahead.
And so I waited. During this time I was gifted a free month of Xbox Live Gold through the Xbox Live Rewards system. I decided to redeem it since I still, at the time, had access to my account and really wanted to play some Xbox 360 games online. A few days after redeeming that code, my account was fully suspended. I could not access it anywhere and so I continued to wait.
January 2nd is when I received two emails from Xbox Support. They refunded my points back to me and provided me a code for one month of Xbox Live Gold. They also reset the time on the free month I was gifted, making for essentially two months of Xbox Live Gold.
My account was hijacked in August. I noticed in mid-September (as I hadn't played my 360 that much between the time of the hijacking and the time of my first report to Customer Support). A period of 3.5 months without Xbox Live Gold, a loss of MS Points, and for a brief period a loss of access to my account at all.
At this point, I'm just glad it's over. Microsoft, however, really needs to look into two-step authentication for Xbox Live, especially if it's apparent that account thefts are on the rise that have credit card or other payment options attached.
First up, one issue stems from a problem with logging into Xbox.com. Yes, some people are reporting that if you select to download a demo for a game while you are not logged in, the system will prompt you to log in. During this log in period, the Xbox.com system switches from a free demo download to a paid purchase of the game you wish to try.
Given the wording for both paid purchases and free downloads reads as "confirm purchase", many users are finding out that they ended up spending their Microsoft Points on the full version of a game they thought they were getting a free demo of.
Users at Giant Bomb have found this error out first hand. Having contacted Microsoft about the issue, Giant Bomb has learned that the team at Xbox.com is aware of the issue and are working on a fix.
As it stands, this still seems to be an issue, so take care when downloading those free demos as you may end up spending your points without even knowing it.
Next up are more and more reports of users having their Xbox Live accounts hacked and stolen. The NeoGAF forums are abuzz with new word that accounts that are stolen are being sold in foreign markets loaded with stolen Microsoft Points, arcade titles, and more.
The news of Xbox Live hacked accounts has been going on still, which was already discussed in a few stories on Giantbomb and Kotaku. It's assumed that Fifa has something to do with all this; that is, people are buying Fifa Ultimate Team packs and flipping them on ebay. Just some random guy and social engineering or something.
But what's new is the fact that one person was hacked twice, with hundreds of dollars taken from her paypal account.
It's an interesting, horrible story, but here's the fascinating part: she was able to chat with the person who hacked her account. And he revealed that he bought the account on TradeTang.
A look at the site (warning: this may be a harmful site so it's NSFW and you should visit it on a secure browser) reveals over a thousand Xbox Live accounts, ready to buy. (edit: a lot of these accounts are ones created specifically for stolen credit card purchases, and not necessarily stolen accounts. Thanks volturnus.)
But what's new is the fact that one person was hacked twice, with hundreds of dollars taken from her paypal account.
It's an interesting, horrible story, but here's the fascinating part: she was able to chat with the person who hacked her account. And he revealed that he bought the account on TradeTang.
A look at the site (warning: this may be a harmful site so it's NSFW and you should visit it on a secure browser) reveals over a thousand Xbox Live accounts, ready to buy. (edit: a lot of these accounts are ones created specifically for stolen credit card purchases, and not necessarily stolen accounts. Thanks volturnus.)
As noted, many of these 9,000+ Xbox Live accounts on the site in question come with a disclaimer stating that upon purchasing, the MS Points must be spent within two hours. Why? Well, because those points were purchased via stolen Xbox Live accounts.
The above quote from the NeoGAF thread mentions the tale of one particular person who not only had their account hacked into and their credit card used to purchase MS Points, but was used a second time after Xbox Live Support claimed that her account would be locked down immediately!
I awoke this morning to find a further $124.98 + Tax stolen from me. I know what you’re thinking right now, “She should’ve unlinked her PayPal account from her Xbox account, the silly woman!” I completely agree with you; yes I should’ve done exactly that, but when Microsoft insisted twice that my account was completely blocked I naturally assumed that meant my account was completely blocked. Silly me! What they really meant was that they did not block the account whatsoever and the hacker/thief/opportunist decided to purchase yet another 10,000 Microsoft Points and transfer them to another dummy account. I was so surprised at receiving those emails that I burst out laughing just as soon as I had unlinked my PayPal account from my Xbox account.
Surely this couldn’t be happening again?
So back onto the phone with Microsoft I went. The person I spoke to certainly got a bit of an earful this time around. After explaining the complete story to the Phone Support Team Member, including the part where I was told twice that my account had been made inaccessible by all, they came out with a complete gem which just proved how full of bullshit they really are.
“The fraud department was unable to block your account.”
“So why did no one contact me about this? You have my telephone number, you have my email address. You used my email address to tell me that you HAD blocked my account. Just what is going on?”
“They were unable to block your account, I don’t know. Have you tried changing the password online?”
“Yes, but whoever is doing this has changed my password and my security question. I am completely unable to access the account myself. That does not answer my question though. Why have I been told, twice, that my account was blocked, that an investigation had begun, when clearly none of that was true? Why is it you’re allowing someone to successfully steal money from me a second time when you were aware of the issue days ago? What the fuck is going on? I want my money, I need my money. Tell me what you are doing to help me.”
“You need to keep trying to log into your account.”
Surely this couldn’t be happening again?
So back onto the phone with Microsoft I went. The person I spoke to certainly got a bit of an earful this time around. After explaining the complete story to the Phone Support Team Member, including the part where I was told twice that my account had been made inaccessible by all, they came out with a complete gem which just proved how full of bullshit they really are.
“The fraud department was unable to block your account.”
“So why did no one contact me about this? You have my telephone number, you have my email address. You used my email address to tell me that you HAD blocked my account. Just what is going on?”
“They were unable to block your account, I don’t know. Have you tried changing the password online?”
“Yes, but whoever is doing this has changed my password and my security question. I am completely unable to access the account myself. That does not answer my question though. Why have I been told, twice, that my account was blocked, that an investigation had begun, when clearly none of that was true? Why is it you’re allowing someone to successfully steal money from me a second time when you were aware of the issue days ago? What the fuck is going on? I want my money, I need my money. Tell me what you are doing to help me.”
“You need to keep trying to log into your account.”
After the first hack resulted in 10,000 MS Points being purchased, a Family Pack purchase, and a loss of about $215 it happened a second time after her account was supposed by locked for another loss. The total damages on both is a $366 bill for items she didn't purchase.
On January 5th, she was still able to access her account through her Xbox 360, meaning that it was not yet locked still. Upon signing in, she noticed a new name she recognized in an email as someone who received some of those illegally purchased MS Points. Upon contacting the person, they informed her that they purchased the account at a Polish based site that is similar to eBay, which is where some of the investigative work from NeoGAF came into play.
As of January 6th, her account was finally locked by Microsoft. That is about four days after initially contacting Xbox Live support, which is about three and a half days too many.
Now, I know a few of you wanted to hear about what happened with my own issues with Xbox Live support and my hacked account.
I had initially contacted Xbox Live support after my account was compromised and all of my Microsoft Points were spent on junk for games I don't own nor have ever played. They informed me it would take about 25 days. A subsequent checkup call around October 12th had them informing me that I should expect an email "any day now" and so I waited. No email arrived.
Having heard stories of it taking anywhere between 45-90 days, I waited and did not call back believing that the investigation was still on going. I had made one attempt at a call afterwards but was informed that due to overwhelming demand, it would take me forever and a day to get through to support and so I hung up. I waited until December 15th to make my third call to Xbox Live support. They had informed me that I was actually emailed back in October just a few days after my second call was made.
Wait, I was? Interesting, as I never received an email. I even checked my spam mail folders and nothing was found. I asked if they could simply resend the email to me. In order to do that, they had to resubmit me into the investigation system, meaning another potential wait of "up to 25 days." Fine, go ahead.
And so I waited. During this time I was gifted a free month of Xbox Live Gold through the Xbox Live Rewards system. I decided to redeem it since I still, at the time, had access to my account and really wanted to play some Xbox 360 games online. A few days after redeeming that code, my account was fully suspended. I could not access it anywhere and so I continued to wait.
January 2nd is when I received two emails from Xbox Support. They refunded my points back to me and provided me a code for one month of Xbox Live Gold. They also reset the time on the free month I was gifted, making for essentially two months of Xbox Live Gold.
My account was hijacked in August. I noticed in mid-September (as I hadn't played my 360 that much between the time of the hijacking and the time of my first report to Customer Support). A period of 3.5 months without Xbox Live Gold, a loss of MS Points, and for a brief period a loss of access to my account at all.
At this point, I'm just glad it's over. Microsoft, however, really needs to look into two-step authentication for Xbox Live, especially if it's apparent that account thefts are on the rise that have credit card or other payment options attached.