Reinstating a Hacked/Taken Over Free Company

[Leatte]

Hello Forums! I logged a support ticket and was advised to post feedback on General Discussion section instead, as I was told GM/support does not have ability to reinstate Free Company status/history.

For some reason our Free Company as can be seen on https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...2835736887462/ were taken over my an unknown member that no other active members recognize. All existing members that were active trying to maintain the house to be active were suddenly kicked out of FC.

As all original active members of FC were kicked and none of us knows who the current leader is, we suspect there was a compromised account, possibly on the account of one of our members that had passed away, and this was used to do a hostile takeover. The FC Name, description, ranks were all changed. Then the active members kicked.

Since I am unable to contact the existing Leader, my ask was to reinstate the leadership to original/previous leader/ranks; and/or mediate to really understand why a sudden account/fc takeover was done - I highly suspect that this is being used for RMT or other malicious intent, and have logged an RMT ticket accordingly.

My concern is that if it's proven to be RMT, we may lose our FC home when the existing leader gets banned. This is heartbreaking and the house hold a lot of memories for us FC members. I am more than happy to provide details/statement from other members if this can be mediated.

[Bacent]

One thing could be someone who had their account compromised during the Make It Rain stuff that was going on, where people were sending tells about 'click here to go to the forums and post 1-30! Giving away 300m gil!'

Like some of the people that got hijacked could be 'sleeper accounts' so people don't realize they're got until it's too late.

Cause that 'FC Leader' just screams suspicious. But SE can't take/give anything from one character to another.

If they don't flat out kick everyone else before they get banned (IF they're a bot), then you've most likely lost the house.

But stick together as a group, and you'll all eventually be able to rebuild the FC with another FC house

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Well, the only way for someone to become leader is for them to be promoted to it by the current leader, which means whoever your FC leader was got hacked.

And since the permissions would have been given by said account, SE can do nothing.

[Kes13a]

Well, the only way for someone to become leader is for them to be promoted to it by the current leader, which means whoever your FC leader was got hacked.

And since the permissions would have been given by said account, SE can do nothing.

the leadership will also change if the FC leader is inactive, I think its 45 days or something like that

[KageTokage]

This doesn't seem like a normal incident because the in-game account phishers will typically just plunder the FC chest's gil then use the compromised account to perpetuate the scheme as opposed to doing a hostile takeover of the FC like this.

It sadly doesn't change the fact that the issue is too complicated for the GMs to resolve it, though.

[Nishira]

I’m so sorry to hear that, I can imagine it’s pretty heartbreaking, esp with a member you probably can’t reinvite because they passed away. All the memories. Hope you can get some help with it. If not, I wish you much luck and great new memories while rebuilding.

[KageTokage]

I am really curious about just what the heck the FC is being used for after observing that all of its new members don't have a single job over level 60.

if they're all flagged as returners, it would suggest this might be someone trying to get some kind of major bot farming operation going using accounts people sold off after quitting back in ARR/HW.

[Kes13a]

in looking at the posted fc... everyone in it seems to be level 60 or lower.

you yourself are not much higher.

as someone has said, you need to be FC leader in order to make someone else FC leader, so if your FC was indeed "stolen" then it was the FC leader's fault. Square will not be able to do anything since it would be seen as a legal transfer.

second scenario, your FC leader was inactive for a long period of time and was demoted and I assume next in line was promoted FC leader. (I am guessing next in line active member). They did what they wanted with the FC... again, Square will do nothing as its a legal transfer

bottom line is, sorry your original FC was lost as well as the house, but, I dont see SE being in a position to do anything.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

Sounds like someone left the ranking rule open to ppl they should not have, theres no glitches and if an unknown member has the fc now there has to be a path that was open.

The ranking right is fundamentally broken anyway ... Imagine you have 5 Levels, from Admin being 1 and new player 5 ... now lets assume you want to give a person the right to rank up the new ppl cuz your not always around and hes lv 3 ... he can rank himself up even higher ... why ... the rule only makes sense if you can rank ppl up to your rank and not yourself.

But you can rank them/yourself up if you ever have your fingers on the "rank rule" ... sorry for your fc, i guess your FC lead was away for a long time in which case it sorts it ... i think to the next person logging in or something really stupid.

[Jojoya]

You need to be talking to whomever was FC leader prior to everyone getting kicked and they need to be contacting SE if it was their account that was compromised.

There's always the chance it was not an account compromise and they sold the FC to another player who wanted the FC house, with that player then kicking other members once they had control. That has been known to happen.