Guild Wars 2

Hello, I’ve been here since the very beginning of the GW1 and never really had any issues with my account until now.

Just recently I received a massive number of scam e-mails spoofed as noreply@guildwars2.com
Clicking on the link in the e-mails will lead me to

Moderator Note: Links removed due to leading to malicious websites

and so on, and so on…..

Taking a look at the source/headers it seems that those e-mails were sent with a chinese version of Foxmail, but of course, that could just as easily be spoofed to put the blame on the chinese.

Anyway, my complaint is that nobody is suppose to know that my e-mail address is bound to a GW account, how did the scammers find out?!

And please do your best to put an end to this madness.

You need to remove those links from your message as they are dangerous for any use who may accidently clicks on them.

There are already multiple threads on this subject. The main one that they are all being rolled in to is here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Email-from-ArenaNet-Please-read/first

Receiving those emails does not mean anyone has connected your email address to your GW2 account. I have multiple friends who have never played either game and receive the same emails, and even my 75 year old mother who does not even know what GW is has received them. I have received similar emails for WoW for years, and I have never had an account.

It’s a common scam method, you send out emails to every address you can get a hold of and see what results you get. The chances are if you send out enough, some of them are likely to get results. The spammers have been doing it for decades.

There are many reports of people who got this kind of emails. Also people who have never played GW2. I also got several of those mails from a game called World of Warcraft wich I have never played. They got your mailadres the same way a spammer gets your mailadres.

I have played GW2 since the betas, and am starting to get real-life e-mails from people on my game address. (Not labeled as coming from ArenaNet or anything like that). Guild Wars 2 is the ONLY place I use that e-mail address. It was created SPECIFICALLY for use with GW2.

The latest mail (based on the sender address and subject – I didn’t open it) is from a furniture dealer in Kiev, Ukraine. I live in Ohio, USA.

The point is not that I am getting junk mail. The point is that I am getting junk mail that can be pinpointed to YOU guys. I do not get these on my 3 other accounts set up under my service provider. Just with the address used ONLY for GW2.

You guys are either giving our addresses away, or you’ve been hacked. Did I miss that part of the Terms of Service? Do you reserve the right to give out our contact info?

Hamfast.8719:

I have played GW2 since the betas, and am starting to get real-life e-mails from people on my game address. (Not labeled as coming from ArenaNet or anything like that). Guild Wars 2 is the ONLY place I use that e-mail address. It was created SPECIFICALLY for use with GW2.

The latest mail (based on the sender address and subject – I didn’t open it) is from a furniture dealer in Kiev, Ukraine. I live in Ohio, USA.

The point is not that I am getting junk mail. The point is that I am getting junk mail that can be pinpointed to YOU guys. I do not get these on my 3 other accounts set up under my service provider. Just with the address used ONLY for GW2.

You guys are either giving our addresses away, or you’ve been hacked. Did I miss that part of the Terms of Service? Do you reserve the right to give out our contact info?

Your jumping to conclusions not based in fact. I have been working in computer security for nearly 20 years now, and a major part of that is fighting spammers..
They get your email addresses in may ways, including sending to literally hundreds of millions of email addresses that do not even exist. I have seen spam come in to email addresses that where created only hours before, that had not even been used yet. I have seen users click on a link/attachment in an email and have their whole address book uploaded, including all of their own email address as well. You also have to look at it logically. Companies do sell email addresses, it happens all the time, but an email address alone is almost worthless without information to go with it, like geographic location, hobbies, etc. If anet where going to sell your address, you would be getting spam from companies that you would actually purchase from. Anet has your IP, so they know your location from just that alone so why would a furniture company from Kiev want to send you spam, unless hey had no idea where you where located and where just sending blindly to a blank list?

I’m not trying to diminish your frustration, but if you’re getting spam at an email address you only used for GW2, that does not mean the GW2 user database was compromised.

I get spam on a DAILY basis at multiple email addresses that I’ve never used anywhere. Not for forums, games, social networks, talking to family, etc. The addresses have never been used, ever.

3 of the email addresses are gmail accounts I created with the intention of using them as throwaway email addresses (if I wanted to use the email address somewhere but didn’t know how secure a site was). I never got around to using them as I’ve only been using my own domain for email, but those 3 gmail accounts still get spam.

I regularly get spam sent to various addresses at my domain, and again these are addresses that I’ve never used anywhere.

I keep waiting to get spam at any of the email addresses I’ve used for GW1 or GW2 but so far that hasn’t happened.

gassy.8975:

I’m not trying to diminish your frustration, but if you’re getting spam at an email address you only used for GW2, that does not mean the GW2 user database was compromised.

I get spam on a DAILY basis at multiple email addresses that I’ve never used anywhere. Not for forums, games, social networks, talking to family, etc. The addresses have never been used, ever.

3 of the email addresses are gmail accounts I created with the intention of using them as throwaway email addresses (if I wanted to use the email address somewhere but didn’t know how secure a site was). I never got around to using them as I’ve only been using my own domain for email, but those 3 gmail accounts still get spam.

I regularly get spam sent to various addresses at my domain, and again these are addresses that I’ve never used anywhere.

I keep waiting to get spam at any of the email addresses I’ve used for GW1 or GW2 but so far that hasn’t happened.

And meanwhile I’ve been using the same email for a dozen games, including this one, and haven’t had a single email. My GW1 used a different address that gets a metric buttload of junk mail, but it hasn’t gotten a single scam email either.