My account was compromised and I have already gotten it back thanks to a very speedy GM team with ArenaNet, however here is a little bit I have learned after examining my account after re obtaining access to it.
How it happened:
Around 6pm while working and unable to check my phone I recieved an email that stated my password had been changed and shortly after that I recieved numerous emails saying thank you for purchasing gems (Yes, I made the mistake of saving my card to the gemstore.) $400 worth of gems were purchased using my stored credit card that Arena Net has refunded according to the extremely helpful GM I spoke to regarding the entire debacle.
I believe that somehow the entity that was able to log in to my account was a gold and item seller, possibly affiliated with one of the larger websites that do such. I learned this by checking my in game mail. A letter was sent to my account during that time that said “I paid for 1000 not 500 so give me the rest.” This obviously shows gold sales. I believe they converted the purchased gems to gold and started purchasing from the trading post. The items purchased besides legendary weapons were not anything special in fact they were Vital Bronze Swords, Knight’s Primordus Longbows, and Carrion Primordus Short Bows. The were purchased for the average Trading Post Prices, but it was the sell that confused me. The same items were sold for 700+ gold, which is where I realized that in order to move money they are selling and buying items on the trading post for exorbitant amounts of gold to help make themselves appear slightly more legitimate (it isn’t working though).
This is money laundering Guild Wars 2 style and I find it extremely interesting.
TLDR:
Gem to gold conversion is the first step in the process.
In order to avoid the in game gold stopping features hackers are selling items for much higher costs on the TP. (An item that costs 7 silver for 750 gold.)
This next part is a suggestion to the devs
A possible way that this could be prevented and I’m not sure how this exactly would be implemented or how complex it would be, but items could have a maximum listing price on the trading post, excluding obvious items like the legendary weapons, or posting items for such large amounts on the trading post could raise a flag for manual account review.
Final Note
Everything in this except the recommendation regarding a potential way to make this harder for hackers has been relayed to the GM that helped my get my account back. This is just to give everyone a little bit of a read.
