Stolen Account

[PennyLane]

Well I neomailed the new owner last night and explained, said I could offer proof that she was mine, and offered to trade another pet to get Aly back. If this person just wants a pretty pet then I could offer her a lot better than a royal chomby that doesn't have any clothes. I just hate that I didn't realize this was going on until it was a weekend. If it were during the week maybe something would have been done before this person pounded my favorite pet. =-/ In my ticket I asked TNT to freeze the account while investigating this because I was afraid something like this would happen.

Heto, they did get into my sides as well. On the account that I've been contacting TNT from I noticed another ticket there from the end of march, where they said that they forgot the PIN for that side account as well as another and said they can't have it sent to "their" email because emails from neopets were bouncing, and that they tried to change the email address but couldn't without a PIN. When I logged into that email account (an old aol one I had forgotten I had) I saw a sent email from them to support explaining this again. It really creeps me out D= Luckily because I had PINs on those accounts they couldn't do anything and lost interest in them. I wish I knew why I had the PIN on my main turned off, because I always used one.

So everyone, use your PINs, and never take them off. This idiot got my passwords but failed at getting the PINs, and it would have saved my main account if I hadn't taken it off for whatever reason I don't understand.

I wish I had realized the active pet wasn't mine before I tried to retrieve the email. When I did that it alerted the hacker that I noticed something was up and they probably wouldn't have dumped my chomby. Or maybe they would, considering my plushie ixi is on a frozen account @@

[invaderhorizongreen]

well i will continue to wish you the best, and on top of that i am just thinking NOT AGAIN!! I am tired of these scares! i also hope no one else with a last seen in .... days does not get hacked as well.

when TNT is gonna wake up and realize that this is an serious problem that needs to be addressed and need to be stopped.

[Bif]

Oh my god I'm so sorry that this has happened! Hopefully you get most of it back and soon!

[FaerieInGrey]

Jeez sorry to hear

Was your account registered on a Hotmail email? If so, they probably got into your inactive Hotmail account (they purge) and got your account that way.

[PennyLane]

Thanks everyone =) It wasn't a hotmail email, My two side accounts that were broken into were registered to the same old aol account that I forgot about and my main was on my email account provided by my ISP. Stupidly the aol account had the same password as my side accounts, but because emails from neoepts were bouncing for some reason, they couldn't do anything to those accounts =)

The person who has my chomby has logged on since I neomailed them, but ignored me. So considering she's on an active account it looks like I'll never get her back, even if I get my account. =-/ Or it could be the hacker and they transferred her to their own account and took off her clothes to make me think she was pounded, who knows. I'm hoping that's the case because then TNT might let me have her back.

It is so creepy thinking about someone playing on my account. Earning trophies and even buying NC items for my pets.

[invaderhorizongreen]

well i wish you the best on getting both pets back but i have my doubts on the UC one you lost. I am almost at the point of leaving neo for good because of this i try my best to keep a low profile and watch my account like a hawk!

[PennyLane]

So it sounds like this is a big problem on neopets now? If I had known i would have checked in on my accounts more often =-/ I stopped playing reguarly after they changed the pet artwork and then stopped releasing avatars that weren't clickables. Waiting for a response to my ticket is driving me insane.

[invaderhorizongreen]

penny i will tell you that you may be in for a very very long wait to hear back from TNT. Sadly mistress morbid went through the same thing but she did get her pets back even though they were on a frozen account. So do not give up hope just yet , but knowing the circumstances i would not get your hopes up too high. I use a pin on everything and i often change it still some days i do get worried about it. It just angers me that TNT refuses to address this problem and then in turn often sends canned reply's blaming the victim. In all prepare yourself for a possibly long drawn out battle if you have no prior warnings things may be more in your favor.

[Ailiel]

Yes, it is (fairly) common. I say fairly because it's not at all unheard of, there have even been weeks of very high scammer activity where TNT will freeze high-profile accounts simply for their protection during those times. They don't really release a lot of information to us players about what exactly causes these vulnerabilities, though, all they ever say is "don't click on offsite links in shops!" Not really extremely helpful for those of us who already do not do that. I did once click on a "fake item" in a shop that sent me offsite while buying codestones, but I was on Firefox and had adblock and noscript running. And they were certainly running overtime on the page I was forwarded to. Still I changed all my passwords and felt very upset.

I've seen a few people's accounts broken into, just look through this forum. It's a good idea for security purposes to change your passwords every month for all your accounts, use unique passwords for each account and a separate password for your email, never use the email you use for the Neopets site itself for fansites or forums (or passwords either, that should go without saying), have PINs on everything, etc. But I do have to say that in every case I have seen so far, the account is restored to the rightful owner, however rarely in the same condition that it was left. I have seen a lot of pets lost and TNT does not always recover them, however sometimes they do take pets back from even actively playing accounts, so it just depends.

It's not uncommon to get a form reply back at first. Be kind, courteous, and persistent. Just keep sending them as much information as you can in reply to each of their responses. It can take awhile to get a response, and as you've already figured they do not reply or work on the weekends, so it can be slow going. But keep the faith.

And I agree it is creepy to think of someone on your account buying Neocash stuff for your pets. What an icky feeling that must be.

[PennyLane]

Yeah, I used to change my password pretty often. It's so weird that I got hacked because I hadn't played in awhile so there is no way I could have been cookie grabbed, and the password I had on my main account when it got hacked was one I didn't use anywhere else, ever.

Yesterday i did a search here to find threads like mine =( Sad to see how many people here have had to go through this. The fact that mistress morbid got her pets back makes me feel better. I even went ahead and sent an email to the person who got her pets back for her. Hopefully she'll be able to help me too.

I've been browsing around the site on my side account and wow neopets has changed a lot since I've been gone. And now that I see there are new avatars I'm anxious to get my account back so I can work on them.

[Darigan]

Did you use the same password on all accounts? Was it the same as your aol email?
Using a global password makes it easier to remember, but if an evil being breakes into one of your sites/accounts/emails he will break into everything.

[PennyLane]

My main had a password that was different and that I have never used anywhere else ever. The two sides that were broken into had the same password, that I stupidly used for the aol account that they were registered to. They're ok though, the hacker couldn't get the PIN for the accounts because emails from neopets to aol were bouncing I guess. I've changed the infomation for all of these accounts since this has happened. I don't understand how this person got these different passwords when I hadn't even been playing so I couldn't have been cookie grabbed or anything. But they couldn't figure out the PIN. I'm assuming I didn't have a PIN up on my main for some reason, going by the fact that I found that ticket from march 29th on my side asking tnt to give them the PIN for my sides. Why would the PIN be so hard to figure out if they could crack my passwords?

[AngharadTy]

Was there some point when a list of passwords was stolen? Neopets doesn't store passwords very securely, I seem to recall. Or didn't?

[Usul_Princess]

Unfortunately for people who enjoy playing the site, there is a Neopets "black market" of sorts where neopoints, pets, items, and even whole accounts are sold for cash. Often this is the motivation for someone to break into an account in the first place. When real money is involved it becomes very tempting-- and the rewards are greater than you might expect. I admit I looked at a few of those sites out of curiosity after I heard about this-- not something I would advise doing without precautions. What I saw shocked me completely-- people managing to sell unconverted pets for upwards of $200, and this was several years ago.

This is very disturbing. I had no idea this happened on a regular basis. I've heard of it happening once or twice. I have my pets pinned, but knowing that you have to look over your shoulder all the time upsets me enough to quit altogether. PennyLane, the best advice I can give you is give them information that only you have. Half the battle is proving that the information given actually came from the you rather than somoene else pretending to be you. I am very sorry this happened to you. Just keep holding out.

[PennyLane]

So, my tickets are still marked as "open" meaning they haven't even been looked at by a support staff member yet. But the ticket the hacker sent in on my side account in march was responded to the very next day. My account is down to my pea chia and the halloween ruki that the hacker moved there, and now neither have backgrounds. I haven't noticed my account logged in lately when I log onto the side it's still friends with to check. So I'm thinking this person decided to strip the account and leave it, since they probably know I'm trying to get it back now.

Is that true about a list of passwords being stolen at some point? Sounds like what happened on maple story. In December 09 my account was broken into because someone hacked into the server and got access to everyone's log in info. They posted it all on the game forum and I ended up losing all of my equips. (yes, this log in name and password were different than my neopets info)