Disturbing NCsoft Account Support

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Intel_Hydralisk

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 6, 2005
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So I decided to fire up Guild Wars the other day... but I forgot my password. I click the reset link. After not getting the email, I did a little digging and apparently now that they're using NCsoft master accounts, it won't email you a reset link directly to your email and you have to go through yoru NCsoft master account. I made this master account almost 3 years ago and pretty much never used it... so after some deep digging in my noggin, I remembered the account name and password. After that, there was a 'one time' security pass since I had never actually logged into this thing... and it asked me for my secret answer and birthdate.

I failed those checks, one of the two was apparently BS'd when I made the account. After being a little exasperated, I decide to send in a support ticket. The ticket system is fairly straightforward. I filled out my NCsoft master account, my guild wars account, and a character name from my guild wars account.

I get an email today with a reset link. This link was NOT linked to my NCsoft account... but to another NCsoft account that was one letter different than mine. I thought this was insane. I click the link and sure enough it was going to let me reset the info for some poor shmuck that had an account that looked like mine.

Regardless of how this confusion occured (my typo? theirs?)... I literally had NOTHING linking me to this account (the email I used was of course not his, my character name was not his... my guild wars account attached to my NCsoft master account is not his...).

So they have all this security to protect your NCsoft master account, but I was given the ability to reset some poor guy's info with literally NO security credentials of my own to link myself to his account. Holy crap.
 
Yah and instead of telling THEM and maybe letting that poor guy know, you posted ON A PUBLIC FORUM how easy it is to send NCSoft wrong info to reset some dudes password. I'm sure you did not intend anything bad with this, quite the opposite, but man.........now everyone knows that you can do this shit. Yeah, it needs to be addressed but.....really?
 
Wait, are you complaining or not?

Can they win? If the security was stuck to 100% you would probably have lost your account permenantly which would probably result on you posting on the forums that it's such a stupid system for locking users out of their own virtual characters/good and rant rant rant.

Instead they make an exception to try and get your account back, and obviously some kind of support/clerical error was made in the process. We don't know the circumstances under which they'll entertain this kind of support, maybe they have some specific reason to trust you more than just at face value (logged IP's from previous reset attempts and such)

If you're trying to suggest that someone could simply abuse the support system and start stealing lots of account details I highly doubt that, now if the system was automated and public facing then we'd have to be concerned.

Besides most of the accounts for MMOs and such like can easily be restored even if the account is stolen or hijacked so the long term risk to users is pretty minimal.
 
When I played Aion there was a bug that when you logged in, sometimes you would get into other people's accounts. Here I am all ready to kill some fools on my Sorceress and I'm staring at some male warrior. Made a thread on the official boards and nobody answered me from NCSoft but 100 trolls called me a hacker, liar, and all types of crap. Later on (6 months+) they acknowledged the problem and fixed it.

I think in Korea they got sued by the government for a leak that they didn't close in their accounts server for months. Hackers were getting CC numbers and having a field day. So yea, they aren't the best at account security.
 
I just regained access to one of my Guild Wars accounts, it was pretty painless. /shrug
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Wait, are you complaining or not?

Can they win? If the security was stuck to 100% you would probably have lost your account permenantly which would probably result on you posting on the forums that it's such a stupid system for locking users out of their own virtual characters/good and rant rant rant.
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I do have my GW CD keys (still have the original box) to provide more verification. I was under the impression that this was their main check, as it's mentioned numerous times in their support site.

Instead they make an exception to try and get your account back, and obviously some kind of support/clerical error was made in the process. We don't know the circumstances under which they'll entertain this kind of support, maybe they have some specific reason to trust you more than just at face value (logged IP's from previous reset attempts and such)
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I just moved so the IP's etc. are completely different than who knows when I last played guild wars (year+ ago?).

I honestly think someone at support got lazy and emailed me a link with a typo. The character name in the email they sent me is not even close to the one I filled out in my ticket.

Daggah said:
I just regained access to one of my Guild Wars accounts, it was pretty painless. /shrug
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I think the point is that it's a little too painless.
 
Admittedly I avoid NCsoft specifically because they're kinda sketchy. Too many MMO's under one company.
 
Eh? Too painless? I still had to answer a bunch of questions like address, CD key, etc.
 
lol... play lineage 2, and you'll see the horror of ncsoft support! or lack their of!

there was a bug at one point, that allowed you to get into other peoples accounts if their passwords ended with a number, without ever knowing their password too.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
lol... play lineage 2, and you'll see the horror of ncsoft support! or lack their of!

there was a bug at one point, that allowed you to get into other peoples accounts if their passwords ended with a number, without ever knowing their password too.
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haha, I came to post in this thread specifically as a long time Lineage 2 player...I played that game like crazy and wasted way way too much of my early 20s on it. You a player as well?
 
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