Square-Enix Gives Final Fantasy XI Customers the Cold Shoulder While a Large Amount of Accounts Are Hacked
Multiple Theories Have Developed: Is it an Inside Job? Is it Fraud? The Ultimate Question: Why Isn't the Mother Company Helping?
Within the past month or so, around the time the new expansion, Wings of the Goddess, was released, many accounts have been "hacked". Numerous reports of these crimes have been found on popular forums such as Killingifrit.com, one of the most popular websites for the MMORPG titled Final Fantasy XI.
Some theories that have sprung up are that it was an inside job, and that a Square-Enix employee, or employees, have been hijacking the accounts and auctioning them on eBay. One user who was hacked actually saw his character get auctioned on eBay. An account, depending on the level, gear, merits, and so on, can go for an average of $150. Since it's nearing the holiday season this means there will most likely be more sales.
Another theory is that Real Money Traders (also known as RMTs) have been fed up. RMTs make a living by making revenue within the game (the currency in Final Fantasy Xi is called "gil") and then selling it for actual money. These people, or companies, also sell characters, power-leveling services, and items for real money. Anyway, the theory is that these RMT got fed up with Square-Enix, as Square-Enix was enforcing rules and banning RMT's accounts, and hacked the Square-Enix database to obtain confidential information such as credit card information. When the hackers got into this information, they changed the password and altered other information so that the real owner can not log in, nor get help from Square-Enix's customer service. When calling Square-Enix you must verify a bunch of codes, personal information, and some credit card information. Without this information, they will not help you.
One more theory is that it's just hackers (non-RMT) that are cashing in when they saw the opportunity.. Supposedly when customers went out to buy and install the expansion the servers were very busy, hypothetically allowing them to gain access to this information easier.
Since the hackings have occurred many customers have seen a large decline in help from customer service. Such a decline includes lack of help, less friendliness, and some representatives actually falsified some information (whether they falsified information on purpose is foggy at this moment).
More and more petitions to Square-Enix are being circulated to get this straightened out. Multiple customers are even calling lawyers, and possibly bringing Square-Enix to court over the matter. But so far Square-Enix has failed to create any real solutions for the matter.
Published by Andrew Berry - Featured Contributor in Technology
Andrew Berry has acquired his Fire Fighter 1 Certification from the Yaphank Fire Academy and is currently an active volunteer firefighter in a department residing in Suffolk County, NY. He has also earned hi... View profile
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22 Comments
Post a CommentI recently too have had numerous problems with Square Enix and with the recent occurrences I have been left in the dark with no help and with no way of getting my account ban lifted. Within the months of June, July, and August my account was banned twice. The first time being able to have it lifted finding out that they could not and would not express why they did ban it and that it was never justified. The second time which now places my account in a permanent ban with no means or justifiable purpose to do so. The odd thing is that I did not have any playtime in between those bans and yet they accuse me of violating their user agreement(s). Despite the fact that Square Enix reserves the right to ban an account regardless of a players action even though they have done nothing wrong, this is just plain ludicrous. This is true as I have verified it time and time again through the process I took to try and reason with Square Enix from numerous phone calls to there customer service and onl
yeah pretty much just say fk em. i got 3/5 items they requested to confirm account ownership all b/c a) i haven't seen the damn booklet that came w/ the game for about 4 years now XD and b) whoever hacked my account messed w/ the registration screen so I wasn't able to verify everything they needed. Fk em, I wish colon cancer on all who are keeping me from my addiction.
I've also had so many problems with them, I can't even express it - and I've lost money to them despite my account having been closed (I always paid faithfully, came back to the game twice before!). Rude, horrible customer service (that's IF they respond to you at all) The latest thing also: if you want to play your old character again (revive it) they hit you for another $20 JUST TO revive the character?@?@!!!!!
The game world and music were beautiful, but when I think of the greedy sleazy leeches making money off of it... I've finally given up. It's not worth some eye candy to have so much grief from these money-grubbers just to play a damn game. SE = went down the toilet with this.
i would like everyone to know that the post about me and my friends buying gill was posted by my crazy ex wife during the middle of a divorce,. The allegations are FALSE she is just bitter and is striking out at me and my friends.
Peace... Zippylqd
ROK ON ALEXANDER
How do I turn in 2 big gil buying cheaters?
They constantly buy gil online, the gil provider's name shows up as belrion when they get billed. It is unfair and they think they will never get caught. People they play with think they are so great but its because of the cheats they use. I am not a gamer but it just doesn't seem what they are doing is right. I watch other people play for enjoyment and do it the right way. Not these guys. Their names are Zippyliquid and Darkblade. They use xbox and are in Florida. They have bought millions and millions of gil. Sometimes $40 a pop. They also have a friend named fayed who is in florida and uses playstation I have heard her talk with them on the subject too. I believe she is also in Florida. I am telling you they have been flaunting their cheating for years!
How do I turn in 2 big gil buying cheaters?
They constantly buy gil online, the gil provider's name shows up as belrion when they get billed. It is unfair and they think they will never get caught. People they play with think they are so great but its because of the cheats they use. I am not a gamer but it just doesn't seem what they are doing is right. I watch other people play for enjoyment and do it the right way. Not these guys. Their names are Zippyliquid and Darkblade. They use xbox and are in Florida. They have bought millions and millions of gil. Sometimes $40 a pop. They also have a friend named fayed who is in florida and uses playstation I have heard her talk with them on the subject too. I believe she is also in Florida. I am telling you they have been flaunting their cheating for years!
To the two comments below, I play on the PS2, which SE told me was "unhackable" since it wasn't a PC. I never gave out my information, nor did I ever even sign on my account on a PC. I could have no third-party programs since I was on the PS2, and I know how stupid giving out my information is, so I never did it. Sorry to burst your bubble.
exsisting customers. Pretty much selling their own stolen property back to them. I say its karma. If you cheat or want to cheat, this can happen to you. Legit customers do not seem to have this problem. Their problem is that they share their accounts with family or friends or even roommates. Some even give out their account information. Lets not point the finger at Square-Enix when it is a very high possibility that the person who you really should be pointing at is yourself.
Most of the time its because people are visiting websites that have hidden key loggers contained with them. Even those individuals who purchase the power leveling services recently or had in the past may still be contained through Real Money Trade websites. Some people think also that when people make shouts in game to go to gilsellingwebsite.com for certain deals advertised, anyone who visits there automatically obtains these key loggers or cookies etc. If you ever see people shouting in game like that, DO NOT GO and petition immediately for a GM to take out the trash. Its also rumor that over 70% of the general FFXI population use to have used the illegal windower ( non-offical ) one in the past and also contained hidden key loggers within them. So basically, the individuals who are getting scammed like this either have used gil selling services, power level services, or had third party programs on their machines from before and now the gil sellers are just cashing in from their exsi
its ironic that when something like this happens everyone thinks "its SE not me". out of all these people how many ppl were using programs not endorsed by SE? i've had bad run ins with SE's CS many times, and i'm not a big fan of it. but comon, after all these years that SE has been saying "do not use programs to alter/enhance/change anything with how the game is meant to be played" and just now something happens and people think it HAS to be SE's fault. they havn't stated what really happened yet but still. if it comes down to ppl that installed something on their own computer, SE cannot be accountable for this. there also should have been more websites listed as possible ones that were malicious. I know for one Somepage was also deemed as a website that was getting information and also some banner ads that appeared on some FFXI related websites.