Guild Wars 2

So I received a letter from a GM that my account will be shutting down. the letter basically says my account will shut down partially within 72 hours due to real-world money buy for item or abnormal login. I took all the necessary steps to remove these restrictions.

Will I get a notice from Anet if and when this is resolved? Out of all my years of online gaming, I have never done or have been accused of such a thing and I have no clue where this is even coming from since I am pretty much broke both in and out of the game. I also recieved a text giving me an ArenaNet code which I have no clue what to use for. any information would be great, Especially from Arenanet, as I have played both the original and guild wars 2 and have thoroughly enjoyed both.

Thanks in advance

Sound like a phish email. Arena net do not send mail about account close. They just close account with message when try to log in. You say you take step to remove. Sound like you get phish. Need to change password as soon as can and also maybe email for account. Make a support ticket, link top of page, to tell what happen because you get phish and account is maybe compromise. Also since seem you went to phish URL need to scan computer for virus and key log.

oh crap, I just gave a lot of info to. they told me to go to a website and they were named GM mptrebor

Need to delete that phish URL from you post and do what I say above. Link a phish URL dangerous for other that read this forum. You got phish so do what I suggest as fast as can.

I suggest in this order change password for account. Scan computer for virus and key log. Contact support, link top of page and tell what happen. Change email for account when talk to support.

I figured since it took me to the actual Guild Wars 2 site for verification, it may be legit

It didn’t take you to the actual Guild Wars 2 site. It took you to one that was designed by account stealers to appear legit.

Well sounds like I am pretty screwed because they got a crap tone of info from me. since I thought it was Anet

Also hope you did not give credit card or other important information to that phish site. If so need to contact bank and any other place important. Not screwed if you do like I suggest for you GW2 account. Make support ticket as fast as can. Also if gave bank information then talk to bank to secure what you need.

Good luck to you and do everything he Qugi suggested as soon as you can. We all have been getting those phish messages in game. You’re not the only one.

This has been going on for years and the phishers continue to do so because someone always responds for it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Alert-In-Game-Mail-Scams/first

And the in game e-mail also said quite clearly at the bottom that it wasn’t sent by anet staff.

Best make the changes as mentioned by others above and contact support ASAP!

mattkoko.6029:

oh crap, I just gave a lot of info to. they told me to go to a website and they were named GM mptrebor

1. Never ever type in your infos on sites where you got the link via email.
2. ANet, or any other game provider will never “warn” you to shut down your
account, they just do it.

Just think about it a while .. you commited a crime and the police comes to your
door and says : hey .. we will arrest you in 72 hours if you don’t show us .. whatever-
If you show us that all is fine, and you can commit your next crime.

Contact Arenanet support ASAP through the official website. Change your game password. Change your email password. Change all of your passwords. DO it as soon as possible and you won’t have anything to worry about.

If you gave them bank or credit card details then contact your bank ASAP and get their advice.

Oh look…. a fancy note… lets ignore it…

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Contact Arenanet support ASAP through the official website. Change your game password. Change your email password. Change all of your passwords. DO it as soon as possible and you won’t have anything to worry about.

If you gave them bank or credit card details then contact your bank ASAP and get their advice.

i doubt thats all you have to do now!
As people already said: its not enough to change passwords , scan your computer or better set it up new cause its not unlikely that it is compromised by< visiting this phishing website ( keylogger and so on)

if you lucky it was “only” a phishing website if not your pc have now many little visitors

Zaron.1987:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Contact Arenanet support ASAP through the official website. Change your game password. Change your email password. Change all of your passwords. DO it as soon as possible and you won’t have anything to worry about.

If you gave them bank or credit card details then contact your bank ASAP and get their advice.

i doubt thats all you have to do now!
As people already said: its not enough to change passwords , scan your computer or better set it up new cause its not unlikely that it is compromised by< visiting this phishing website ( keylogger and so on)

if you lucky it was “only” a phishing website if not your pc have now many little visitors

Aslong as he has the newest version of his browser (Chrome or Firefox, not IE), a Antivirus with browserprotection and he hasn’t downloaded anything, it is very unlikely he got a drive-by-virus on his pc.

Dimos Avergis.1864:

Zaron.1987:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Contact Arenanet support ASAP through the official website. Change your game password. Change your email password. Change all of your passwords. DO it as soon as possible and you won’t have anything to worry about.

If you gave them bank or credit card details then contact your bank ASAP and get their advice.

i doubt thats all you have to do now!
As people already said: its not enough to change passwords , scan your computer or better set it up new cause its not unlikely that it is compromised by< visiting this phishing website ( keylogger and so on)

if you lucky it was “only” a phishing website if not your pc have now many little visitors

Aslong as he has the newest version of his browser (Chrome or Firefox, not IE), a Antivirus with browserprotection and he hasn’t downloaded anything, it is very unlikely he got a drive-by-virus on his pc.

But still possible, so one should definitely check to make sure he didn’t pick up a virus or two.

Can I make a suggestion? Either make that warning more visble(change to red?) or put it at the top instead of the bottom of the mail we get.

it’s already quite visible, some people will always ignore it

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

it’s already quite visible, some people will always ignore it

People panic because they get a message which sounds a little bit scary. A lot of people unfortunately miss the warning because they’re already busy panicking.

If the warning were at the top of the message, then perhaps people would see that first before they started panicking, and would then correctly recognise it as a scam.

People seem to consistently have problems with this and it pops up on the forums all the time. You’d hope that people would be a bit smarter about it and read, but since they don’t and it is a big problem maybe moving the message would be beneficial?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

it’s already quite visible, some people will always ignore it

People panic because they get a message which sounds a little bit scary. A lot of people unfortunately miss the warning because they’re already busy panicking.

Precisely!

That’s why most phish work, even when the recipient is aware of the risks the natural human ‘panic’ reaction kicks in when they see a threat to something they value and rationality is often an early victim.

So Marcus Greythorne, stop blaming the victim!

Pukc.6328:

Can I make a suggestion? Either make that warning more visble(change to red?) or put it at the top instead of the bottom of the mail we get.

I absolutely agree with this. New players don’t know how Anet works and if they send mails in-game or not. I, as an inexperienced mmo player, almost fell in that trap, because i didn’t notice the message that says it’s not from Anet, when i first started playing Guild Wars 2. Luckily, i was smart enough to click around the website before i give any of my information. That fake website is well designed and everything seems normal except when you click the “Login” button and takes you to a Chinese page.

Why don’t anet automatically scan and filter those in game mail and stop delivering them?

Sunshine.5014:

Why don’t anet automatically scan and filter those in game mail and stop delivering them?

Because the scammers will just change their wording up and bypass the filters. And players will still fall for it.

People you need to read everything, I got one as well HOT is coming out and they want what you got. I saw the warning by Anet as well so here’s what I did. I didn’t delete it, I went to, Game Menu, Support, Report a Bug, User Interface, Mail, then stated the situation took screenshot of E-Mail and sent report.
So they could have proof of the sender and ban his butt perma.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

People you need to read everything, I got one as well HOT is coming out and they want what you got. I saw the warning by Anet as well so here’s what I did. I didn’t delete it, I went to, Game Menu, Support, Report a Bug, User Interface, Mail, then stated the situation took screenshot of E-Mail and sent report.
So they could have proof of the sender and ban his butt perma.

No need to do all those step. There is report button on the mail you can click. You bug report probably went to some person not deal with mail scam. Bug report for thing broke in game.

Qugi.2653:

Hybarf Tics.2048:

People you need to read everything, I got one as well HOT is coming out and they want what you got. I saw the warning by Anet as well so here’s what I did. I didn’t delete it, I went to, Game Menu, Support, Report a Bug, User Interface, Mail, then stated the situation took screenshot of E-Mail and sent report.
So they could have proof of the sender and ban his butt perma.

No need to do all those step. There is report button on the mail you can click. You bug report probably went to some person not deal with mail scam. Bug report for thing broke in game.

We are both talking about in game mail right? Because all I had working on mine was, compose reply and delete there were no other options.
As you say that was not the right department but I was not about to let this issue caused by a braindead moron to go unanswered.
Thanks for the advice.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Qugi.2653:

Hybarf Tics.2048:

People you need to read everything, I got one as well HOT is coming out and they want what you got. I saw the warning by Anet as well so here’s what I did. I didn’t delete it, I went to, Game Menu, Support, Report a Bug, User Interface, Mail, then stated the situation took screenshot of E-Mail and sent report.
So they could have proof of the sender and ban his butt perma.

No need to do all those step. There is report button on the mail you can click. You bug report probably went to some person not deal with mail scam. Bug report for thing broke in game.

We are both talking about in game mail right? Because all I had working on mine was, compose reply and delete there were no other options.
As you say that was not the right department but I was not about to let this issue caused by a braindead moron to go unanswered.
Thanks for the advice.

See the little exclamation mark in this picture: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/207458/667dadfb16cd24d52e15af264e5ef85e.png
That is the report button.
Alternatively you can type /report into the chat box.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Qugi.2653:

Hybarf Tics.2048:

People you need to read everything, I got one as well HOT is coming out and they want what you got. I saw the warning by Anet as well so here’s what I did. I didn’t delete it, I went to, Game Menu, Support, Report a Bug, User Interface, Mail, then stated the situation took screenshot of E-Mail and sent report.
So they could have proof of the sender and ban his butt perma.

No need to do all those step. There is report button on the mail you can click. You bug report probably went to some person not deal with mail scam. Bug report for thing broke in game.

We are both talking about in game mail right? Because all I had working on mine was, compose reply and delete there were no other options.
As you say that was not the right department but I was not about to let this issue caused by a braindead moron to go unanswered.
Thanks for the advice.

See the little exclamation mark in this picture: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/207458/667dadfb16cd24d52e15af264e5ef85e.png
That is the report button.
Alternatively you can type /report into the chat box.

Thanks for the head’s up.

Kraggy.4169:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

it’s already quite visible, some people will always ignore it

People panic because they get a message which sounds a little bit scary. A lot of people unfortunately miss the warning because they’re already busy panicking.

Precisely!

That’s why most phish work, even when the recipient is aware of the risks the natural human ‘panic’ reaction kicks in when they see a threat to something they value and rationality is often an early victim.

So Marcus Greythorne, stop blaming the victim!

It’s the person’s responsibility to know not to carelessly give their account information out as well. There was a very noticeable message at the bottom of the mail, the name for the GM looked conspicuously bot-like, the website was obviously illegitimate…

There’s really no excuse. This message could be made to flash constantly, pop up in your face, and people would still manage to find a way to fall for it. Arenanet is already doing enough to warn people— they can’t completely hold everybody’s hand, because unfortunately the people who fall for these ploys are people who don’t really understand what phishing is so it’ll inevitably happen to them at some point until they learn about it one way or the other.

For some people, all it takes is reading up online what it is or hearing from others but sometimes it takes someone to actually mess up and lose something before it sinks in. Everybody’s different in that regard.

Its a kind like Homer Simpsons:

Ooh, A Talking Moose Wants My Credit Card Number, That’s Only Fair

Purple Miku.7032:

Kraggy.4169:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

it’s already quite visible, some people will always ignore it

People panic because they get a message which sounds a little bit scary. A lot of people unfortunately miss the warning because they’re already busy panicking.

Precisely!

That’s why most phish work, even when the recipient is aware of the risks the natural human ‘panic’ reaction kicks in when they see a threat to something they value and rationality is often an early victim.

So Marcus Greythorne, stop blaming the victim!

It’s the person’s responsibility to know not to carelessly give their account information out as well. There was a very noticeable message at the bottom of the mail, the name for the GM looked conspicuously bot-like, the website was obviously illegitimate…

There’s really no excuse. This message could be made to flash constantly, pop up in your face, and people would still manage to find a way to fall for it. Arenanet is already doing enough to warn people— they can’t completely hold everybody’s hand, because unfortunately the people who fall for these ploys are people who don’t really understand what phishing is so it’ll inevitably happen to them at some point until they learn about it one way or the other.

For some people, all it takes is reading up online what it is or hearing from others but sometimes it takes someone to actually mess up and lose something before it sinks in. Everybody’s different in that regard.

Yes people have a responsibility not to be stupid and give away their account information carelessly. However, not everyone has the same knowledge or gives the same care when these things happen. So lots of people fall for it, and it isn’t because they’re stupid or careless, they just don’t know what things to look out for and they panic. Hacked accounts impact EVERYONE negatively. I think its important for Arenanet to minimise how often this happens to try and make sure that gold sellers are kept out of the game and aren’t given opportunities like this to hack peoples accounts.

You could very easily argue that people shouldn’t be able to send mail in game like this or use certain words that clearly suggest some sort of scam is being conducted. I would also question why they’re able to put a URL in in-game mail. That seems idiotic. If someone needs to send their friend a website then do it out of game or do it via a whisper. Links or web addresses shouldn’t be able to be sent within a GW2 mail.

First : you CANT send links by pn that you can activate by clicking. you have to copy the text, open your browser and paste it!
second: the message at the end of pns that its send from and player and not anet is big enough. or you really want popups at every pn we get so that 99% of players have to click them angry away to protect the1% not so clever ones that are too lazy or too much at panic mode to read until the end of the pn ? O.o (btw at panic mode they also would click the popup away without reading!!)

third: you really want more censorship and filtering in game? for me the kitten ( also for normal and not verbal abusing words in forum is silly enough dont need that ingame too! O.o

Chris Cleary.8017:

Yup, his account was compromised by RMT quickly after, used to spam, and our support has helped him recover it. That being said, ArenaNet will NEVER contact you via in-game mail for issues with your account security.

Could the warning message be moved to the top, under the subject line? I feel, it will have more visibility there than at the bottom of the message. However, that may annoy people more. If other players want to respond to this suggestion, feel free. Is an annoyance like this ok?

Edited: Thinking about it, players may subconsciously learn to skip over the warning message regardless of placement.

and another one. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/ANET-help-Phishing/first#post5633614

The warning message could be in bright red, or how about on the log in screen—Big message saying saying you will never be contacted in game or by e-mail by Anet regarding your account. After that, nothing much can be done if a player follows the links.

So, I am back in the game. Long story short, who ever got my account did get me banned. At first I was banned for good. However, thankfully the guild wars 2 support team looked more into it and realized that a 3rd party had my account. I literally went back and forth with support all week and I was impressed by their quick responses and their patience. Usually I hear horror stories about games and their customer support. therefore, I would like to praise the guild wars support team for being so helpful and supportive.

As far as what happened with that mail last week, I make no excuses for myself. I was hesitant at first and responded anyway and I paid for it. In no way do I blame Anet for it. They do give the warning signs that it is not mail from an Anet staff member. Unfortunately I acted rashly and did not notice that until it was too late. But anything that asks for account and personal info should be a red flag. Thankfully, nothing was really lost and I got it all figured out.

Thank you again to the support team and thank you for those in this thread that gave advice on what I can do.