Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the heads-up! Very important information :-)
edit: I keep reporting scammers, bots, gold sellers more or less everyday if I see or bump into one..
Today it was a Dungeon "legit" runner that did scam a whole party for AC path...... Once we all had sent him the gold, he kicked us all from the party and went offline..
Sure it was only 2g but you dont do like that anyway!!! So pathetic wurms!!

(reason why I am buying dungeons runs is because for faster exp for my alts)

You can report him. Anet will do something about people who scam others. You won’t get your money back, but report anyways.

This thread should probably be stickied. Thanks for the heads up!

Appreciate the note. Thanks.

It’s difficult to imagine people actually fall for scams like what’s described here. Obviously Gaile is posting this for a reason but… it’s just mind boggling tbh. Like, idk.

Gaile, something related to mail that can be a bit misleading – not sure if you folks want to look into this…

But if someone gifts a person an item through the gem store, the gifter’s name appears with the ArenaNet logo. I think the mail system is seeing the sender as the gemstore (ArenaNet), while personalizing the gift with the giver’s name.

Just something that caught me off guard once.

Thank you and hope you’re having a great holiday

Becka Williams.4978:

You can report him. Anet will do something about people who scam others. You won’t get your money back, but report anyways.

I have reported him, and so has the other partymembers who were kicked aswell. I doubt Anet will actually look into this..
2g is not that much for me, still I hate scammers no matter what.
I just want him to get his punishment and if he keeps doing this to others.. it will be horrible!

Purple Miku.7032:

It’s difficult to imagine people actually fall for scams like what’s described here. Obviously Gaile is posting this for a reason but… it’s just mind boggling tbh. Like, idk.

People nowdays are trying everything to scam others.
And sadly people who may not know, atleast for this In-game mails from Anet, that they’ve added a little red icon that symbolize for Anet employee mail.
Great thing that they’ve added that little icon + with red text nowdays, lesser scams I hope.

Why is this not a sticky?

Oh man, and here I was about to send an email out to every player about the need to have your legendary “polished” before it becomes account bound…and how I was going to offer that polishing service for a nominal fee. Just send me your legendary, and I will polish it pronto and send it right back.

Darn. Thanks for warning them, Gaile. Yeesh

What Anet should do is send an in game mail warning about this. Not everyone reads the forums.

I noticed you took down my post about this and put up your own, interesting…

Pyr O Desolation.5017:

I noticed you took down my post about this and put up your own, interesting…

Ouch lol, thunder gets stolen during Christmas Holidays edition.

bumping to keep accounts safe from scum

Amovo.1689:

received this in-game email , add the sender into my friend list!

beg punishment for this guy please , and protect hundreds of thousands of players! ty

You need to report him. And I think its against the rules to have a pic with his name.

You can report here in the forums at the top of the page: Services / Support / Submit a Request (at very top of page). Or report in-game.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-Take-Care-with-In-Game-Mails/

Yup, happened to my husband too. He’s not really the gamer in the house, I am, so when he called me in to look at it, I knew immediately. So, I showed him how to report it and then he and I both reported the person who send it.

What bothers me is, to new players who do not know this, they would take it seriously and for what could happen after that? Pathetic.

Purple Miku.7032:

It’s difficult to imagine people actually fall for scams like what’s described here. Obviously Gaile is posting this for a reason but… it’s just mind boggling tbh. Like, idk.

ever heard of the nigerian prince?

Good link.. and I just noticed the stop-sign with the ! in it beside Reply. LOL at myself.

for those that dont know always check on the bottom, where it says this mail was sent by another player. Anet does not ask for your login info. Always report and block. And never ever go on those websites, even if curious, they are designed to steal login and personal info, as well as installing harmful software on your computer in order to steal your info. Stay safe.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Best: delete such mails immediately and put the would-be account thieves out of business.

Wouldn’t the “best” be to report then delete immediately? So that the accounts get sent to you guys and you can take appropriate actions against said account?

Or are you saying that you’re tracking all in-game mail and figure out when such mails are sent and by whom even without us reporting?

Gaile, is there a reason why you guys can’t just prevent people from writing “Arenanet” in the subject line of in game mail? It seems like that would at least force scammers to write something else, which would in turn stop some slightly more unsuspecting people from accidentally believing the mail to be true.

I’ll read this post in a minute. First I have to take care of this amazing offer I just got in the mail of a full set of legendaries for the low, low price of 10 gold! What a bargain!

Given the amount of posts here and people in the account forum asking about the in game mail I still think it would be a decent idea to send an official in game mail from ANet warning about this new scam. After all not everyone reads the forums. Include a reminder about the message that is displayed when a mail is not from Anet because it seems a lot of people have over looked that. Also you could attach some boosters or something as a Wintersday gift.

Or possibly…

If an email has the word “ArenaNet” in the header and it contains text that is in the format of an internet address, have it sent to an agent for examination?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Gaile, is there a reason why you guys can’t just prevent people from writing “Arenanet” in the subject line of in game mail? It seems like that would at least force scammers to write something else, which would in turn stop some slightly more unsuspecting people from accidentally believing the mail to be true.

Most phising sites that copy regularly used websites will use letters to fool people into putting in there login info. They will use letters that resemble the word as close as possible for example Areranet, Aremanet, most people will spot the difference, but these scum look for that one person to make the mistake. Have to understand these scams are not designed to catch everyone, when you go fishing you dont go out to get every fish in the lake, just that one or two that goes for the bait.

To further protect yourself, always make sure your computer has the most up to date and comprehensive protections. Anti malware/spyware/virus/phising protections. Firewall.

One thing that always popped out to be by any mail that ArenaNet actually sends its player is… the Arena Logo is also in the letterhead. Nice big red lego right there, always tells me the email is official. It’s actually very hard to miss.

It may sound rude or whatever but… I don’t know, to me… when I have read such unbelievable forum posts on various topics regarding people woes about this game, to me, part of me feels that if you do not see the way ArenaNet properly dispenses mail in this game for which one cannot tell the difference between official mail and false player mail, then… to me you’re obviously not paying attention.

To me, the signs are as clear as day, and once I pointed those signs out to my husband, he dawned on him: “Hey, you’re right, it doesn’t have that red logo on it…”

(Beside the point, for those of you noticing and then wondering why, I haven’t decided which character to put the banker golem on yet, that’s why I never took it out.)

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Gaile, is there a reason why you guys can’t just prevent people from writing “Arenanet” in the subject line of in game mail? It seems like that would at least force scammers to write something else, which would in turn stop some slightly more unsuspecting people from accidentally believing the mail to be true.

Filters like this end up creating more work for the company and end up doing little. Say they prevent you from typing “Arenanet” in the subject line. Then:

• Scammers start writing “arenanet” and “arena-net” in the subject line.
• Players who were trying to let friends know that “arenanet is having a sale” get upset that they can’t type out a legit email.

So, the company updates the filter.

• Scammers now write, “arena•net” and “arena.net.”
• More players start getting annoyed and posting on the forums about how the company needs to lighten up on restrictions that hurt their game, too.

The problem is that filters don’t address the root cause, which is that there is easy money to be made from folks who don’t pay attention to the details in posts, emails, etc.

I’m all in favor of using technology to make our lives easier, but in this case, the problem is social, not technical — it cannot be resolved by software alone.

Not a problem, Gaile. I’m actually surprised that no one else has pointed it out.

I want to warn everybody not to fall for these lousy cheap tries to these new pathetic Phishing Scammers.

They try now a new form of scamming/phishing and use clearly hacked accounts to send people in the game Mails in which they tell people in various different languages, that their accounts will be shut down within 72 hours because of “currency transactions”, which is ridiculous in itself.

If you also see in your Mails such poor tries to scam you or to phish for your Data by leading you to follow their braindead Hyperlinks.

The best thing about these pathetic scammers is, they play themself up as “Wannabe GM’s” when the Ingame Mails clearly show you, when a Mail is seriously from a person from Anet Staff by letting you see the Arena Net Symbol in the Ingame Mail, while also not seeing the orange warning below the Ingame Mail, which explicitly tells everybody with an attention sign, if an Ingame Mail has been seen by another player.

So once again, if you should see such antisocial garbage in your Ingame Mails.

1) STAY CALM, DON’T OVERREACT
2) Look for the ANet Symbol and the Orange Warning Text, is there no Symbol ,but Warning Text…
3) then …REPORT THAT SCAMMER IMMEDIATELY by clicking on the icon right next to the answer button
4) DON’T ANSWER THEM BACK
5) Delete the Mail

Here’s an example of how the Scam Text in those Mails looks like in English (as like as in really poor German)

“We are sorry to inform you that your login account (insert Forum accountname.9999) will be shut down or partially limited within 72 hours due to currency transactions or abnormal login. If you want to remove the restrictions, please click the following link to validate: (insert Scammer Hyperlink here)
Please keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 is a global game with hundreds of thousands of players. This means that standards of behavious must be upheld

(Insert GM FAKE NAME)"

And here the poor German Version, where you instantly know, that if this would be in any way a serious Mail, that it would consist at least of proper German written by a person who can speak and write this language in a way, that it makes sense and is understandable where you just think , those scammers just used google translator to translate the English Text in a 1:1 pattern to German.

“Leider müssen wir Ihnen mitteilen das Ihre Login Konto (Account Name.9999) wird abschalten oder teilweise innerhalb von 72 Stunden wegen Währungstransaktionen oder abnormale Login begrenzt. Wenn Sie Beschränkungen auflösen möchten, klicken Sie bitte auf den folgenden Link um zu überprüfen:
(Fake Hyperlink)
Bitte beachten Sie das Guild Wars 2 ein globales Spiel mit Hunderten von Tausenden Spielern ist. Das bedeutet, Verhaltensnormen sind zu folgen.

(DIFFERENT FAKE GM NAME)
——

Please be all aware, that these kinds of Mails are 100% no real E-Mails from anyone of ANet, nor any GM of them
People like this just hack other peoples accounts, just to play with their stolen accounts then the Fake GM-Game to scam other peopel and to phish for their data by scaring them that their Accounts get deleted, shut down ,terminated, whatever to bring people to hasty overreactions in hope, that people do actually really follow those ridiculous hyperlinks that these people describe as “to click on”, when you can’t even click anything in Ingame Messages as Internet Hyperlinks just don’t work in the game!!!

I reported those 2 phishing scammers, but to ensure, that those 2 persons who got their accounts hacked there for sure, will get them back, please someone from ANet Staff, like Gaile or someone else please contact me and I will send you PM’s with uploaded screenshots from those two Messages where you can see the fake GM Names
Pictures are ready and just need to be uploaded for you on request or tell me a different way on wherre I should sent them for further investigations ect.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-Take-Care-with-In-Game-Mails/

Thanks for that Link as additional help.

Just what I was looking for. Logged in today and got one of these, text largely as stated above in Oprheal’s post. The “From” line indicated it from “Zorin Seeker” the body of the text indicated it was from a “GM Zoein Seeker”. The notifier clearly showed it was sent from another player, not an official ANet body. Reported for scamming and deleted.

I just got this phish attempt today. I think it may be a good idea to make it even more apparently the message is not from ANET by putting something right next to the sender’s name so it is super apparent.

I can still see 5 people out of 100 falling for this.

I seriously wish Anet would send a real in game mail to everyone warning of this. I see about a half dozen or so threads a day about this problem. An in game mail to all players would help quell this problem.

Latency.3907:

I just got this phish attempt today. I think it may be a good idea to make it even more apparently the message is not from ANET by putting something right next to the sender’s name so it is super apparent.

I can still see 5 people out of 100 falling for this.

You mean like this?

Jaymee.1560:

One thing that always popped out to be by any mail that ArenaNet actually sends its player is… the Arena Logo is also in the letterhead. Nice big red lego right there, always tells me the email is official. It’s actually very hard to miss.
!https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/176799/gw218.jpg!

What about making the mail showing up a different background, like devs names shows up here in forums? It doesn’t need to be a big thing, just a gradient or something like here would make it outstanding from any other mail and it would be easily noted. That warning on bottom and icons are a nice thing, but I can see how it can be easily missed too. A background can’t be avoided so easily.

Received this one today. Good thing ANeT uses the official symbol. Looks nice and official sounding.

Torsailr.8456:

You mean like this?

Jaymee.1560:

One thing that always popped out to be by any mail that ArenaNet actually sends its player is… the Arena Logo is also in the letterhead. Nice big red lego right there, always tells me the email is official. It’s actually very hard to miss.
!https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/176799/gw218.jpg!

That does not always work, at least not immediately.

As an ironic case in point, I’ll cite my own experience with this one – been involved with the internet for well over 20 years now (thanks to college), and been a Unix Admin for almost that long too. But my heart still skipped a beat and freaked out a little when I got one of these (censored) emails this morning. :p

Thankfully, the first thing that caught my eye was the yellow text at the bottom, so I eventually deleted it and continued on. It was pretty well done actually (in English at least), and if it weren’t for the horribly mangled URL I probably would have been contacting ArenaNet directly to find out what in Grenth’s name was going on…

@Gaille – again, thanks for the heads-up, and the changes ArenaNet been making in this respect. But I think this highlights a opportunity to expand on the NPE. The old help did some highlighting of the in-game mail system – not always in the best ways, but at least it was covered. We seem to have lost that now. Would it be possible to add a new clickable on one of the early levels, to highlight mail again at least? A summary of your information here could (hopefully) get pushed out more to early players.

I’d also suggest a reminder of some sort – in game, not just here. The frequency for that type of notice is always tricky, but if you’ve got the ‘last login’ info for our accounts, it should not take much work to tailor things for individuals. Use your triggering system involved with logins perhaps? I dunno, but going the extra step could go a long way.

This morning I attained some in-game mail about my account being locked and “shut down.” It’s obviously an attempt to compromise an account but you and both know, some inexperienced user out there will use a link to “protect their account.”

If you get any sort of message like this in-game, remember:

1) Check the notice at the bottom. If it doesn’t have the Arena.net logo and it doesn’t say it’s from Arena.net themselves, it’s fake. Report and delete.

2) Arena.net will never warn you of a ToS breach. If you’re account meets the requirements of a ban, you’ll encounter an error trying to log in. No warning or in-game message attached.

3) Arena.net will never ask you for any kind of account information, such as a password. They don’t need it. If anyone every asks for such information in-game or by email, report it, in game and to Guild Wars 2 Support.

Protect. Your. Account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/66122673-Guild-Wars-2-Account-Security

Sacred Was Eldaron

You received in-game mail about this? I just usually get fake emails.

I’d call this a recent trend. 12 others in my guild received the same message.

Strange thing is I get fake phishing emails about this on my email accounts that have never even been attach to my guild wars 2 account.

Also next time you might want to black out the fake link. They don’t like to have them advertised even if you are trying to warn others.

Yea I got it the other day too, the exact same one. So it’s a good thing Anet put their logo on all their mails recently, if not I would have probably believed for it to be real.

Now what if they figure out how to put the logo on there… that will be a scary situation.

JackDaniels.1697:

Yea I got it the other day too, the exact same one. So it’s a good thing Anet put their logo on all their mails recently, if not I would have probably believed for it to be real.

Now what if they figure out how to put the logo on there… that will be a scary situation.

Even if they did figure out a way to put the logo on there (highly unlikely), you can still safely delete any such e-mails or messages you get. As someone else mentioned above, if ANet wanted to suspend your account due to suspicious activity, they’d do it immediately. They wouldn’t “warn you” beforehand, because that would just tip off the gold sellers/hackers that they were onto them.

Basically, the only time you should be concerned is if you try to log on and find that your account is locked.

Just a word to say thanks to the devs for putting the notification about mail being from a player down the bottom. I got one of those letters and was thinking “Is this a scam?”, then I got to the bottom and realised that it definitely was. I like to think that I wouldn’t have fallen for it, but the line at the bottom made sure. The red symbol as confirmation is fine, but if you never receive official mail you don’t know to look for it.