One of my friends gets his account hijacked through a phishing site (he only clicked on the link because it was his cousin - oops, wrong choice I guess)
Naturally he just puts in a support ticket, and I asked him to just give back the account before we get it back in a day or two. In retrospect this was probably the wrong decision, but it was worth it.
He tells me that "$20 or the account is VACed"
I just tell him that he has another account (which he did) and it wouldn't matter, but he pressed the issue anyway as he wanted the $20. He ended up removing me which was fine, and my friend goes into the phishing site and puts in "email me:" as the username and in the password "friend's email here"
Here's a copy of the email he recieved:
"peter ***** to me
1:25 AM (18 hours ago)
You have 24 hours to answer this email or I shall VAC ban and punkbuster ban it permanently with my hax.
I am willing to sell your account back for 20$... if you do not agree... say bai bai to your good status. kthx"
He copy pasted this to me over MSN, and then we both joined a ventrilo server (voice-chat program) and he was just sort of rambling on about how retarded this was, until I heard a sentence which was something like "I wonder what we could do about this.."
Well, I got to thinking.
This guy emailed him with his *real* name. I wonder if he has any other profiles...
So, we both start googling his name. We find a bunch of his forum profiles (like xfire, GMOD forums, and so on) and learn that he likes to "do GTA4 seans" and, after looking over his profiles, I eventually end up with one that gives me his general location:
British Columbia, Canada.
I have no idea what to do with this, but I got to thinking: how do people find me in real life?
They usually just call me. So, where can I find other people?
In the phone book.
So I look him up in the phone book, and guess who is listed?
*. *****
***** ******* **
*******, ** *** ***
Oh yeah. (Info is censored for obvious reasons.) So I give the information over to my friend and tell him to call him up (smart decision on my part, more about that later):
"Hello?"
"Is Peter there?"
"PETER!...GET OVER HERE"
"Hello?"
"Is this email here?"
"Yes"
"Is this youtube username here?"
"Yes.."
"Is this xfire username here?"
"Yes..."
"Is this gmod forum username here?"
"Yes...."
"You hijacked my account and I want it back, or this address goes everywhere."
"IT WASNT ME I SWEAR, MY YOUTUBE GOT HACKED, STEAM, EMAIL, EVERYTHING!"
"Oh, okay." At this point my friend knows that he's lying, but doesn't push it (all his usernames were different)
What happens the next day?
He gets a ****ing call from the Canadian police. It turns out that this guy filed a police report on my friend, and basically completely lied to them. Something along the lines of "I felt threatened", and "he hijacked some of my accounts."
So this constable calls up my friend. Turns out the hijacker is 13 years old, and the police person is a complete noob at computers - my friend gets it all sorted out, the real story, etc.
Meanwhile, steam support gets my friend his account back, and all is good. The steam settings show "VAC: In good standing"
What happens to the kid? Well he supposedly got a call from the police and was picked up and then "held". Juvenile detention center? We'll never know, but the one thing we do know is that the kid learned a nice lesson.
Naturally he just puts in a support ticket, and I asked him to just give back the account before we get it back in a day or two. In retrospect this was probably the wrong decision, but it was worth it.
He tells me that "$20 or the account is VACed"
I just tell him that he has another account (which he did) and it wouldn't matter, but he pressed the issue anyway as he wanted the $20. He ended up removing me which was fine, and my friend goes into the phishing site and puts in "email me:" as the username and in the password "friend's email here"
Here's a copy of the email he recieved:
"peter ***** to me
1:25 AM (18 hours ago)
You have 24 hours to answer this email or I shall VAC ban and punkbuster ban it permanently with my hax.
I am willing to sell your account back for 20$... if you do not agree... say bai bai to your good status. kthx"
He copy pasted this to me over MSN, and then we both joined a ventrilo server (voice-chat program) and he was just sort of rambling on about how retarded this was, until I heard a sentence which was something like "I wonder what we could do about this.."
Well, I got to thinking.
This guy emailed him with his *real* name. I wonder if he has any other profiles...
So, we both start googling his name. We find a bunch of his forum profiles (like xfire, GMOD forums, and so on) and learn that he likes to "do GTA4 seans" and, after looking over his profiles, I eventually end up with one that gives me his general location:
British Columbia, Canada.
I have no idea what to do with this, but I got to thinking: how do people find me in real life?
They usually just call me. So, where can I find other people?
In the phone book.
So I look him up in the phone book, and guess who is listed?
*. *****
***** ******* **
*******, ** *** ***
Oh yeah. (Info is censored for obvious reasons.) So I give the information over to my friend and tell him to call him up (smart decision on my part, more about that later):
"Hello?"
"Is Peter there?"
"PETER!...GET OVER HERE"
"Hello?"
"Is this email here?"
"Yes"
"Is this youtube username here?"
"Yes.."
"Is this xfire username here?"
"Yes..."
"Is this gmod forum username here?"
"Yes...."
"You hijacked my account and I want it back, or this address goes everywhere."
"IT WASNT ME I SWEAR, MY YOUTUBE GOT HACKED, STEAM, EMAIL, EVERYTHING!"
"Oh, okay." At this point my friend knows that he's lying, but doesn't push it (all his usernames were different)
What happens the next day?
He gets a ****ing call from the Canadian police. It turns out that this guy filed a police report on my friend, and basically completely lied to them. Something along the lines of "I felt threatened", and "he hijacked some of my accounts."
So this constable calls up my friend. Turns out the hijacker is 13 years old, and the police person is a complete noob at computers - my friend gets it all sorted out, the real story, etc.
Meanwhile, steam support gets my friend his account back, and all is good. The steam settings show "VAC: In good standing"
What happens to the kid? Well he supposedly got a call from the police and was picked up and then "held". Juvenile detention center? We'll never know, but the one thing we do know is that the kid learned a nice lesson.
