Game Data Recovery Request (GDR) left me in Purgatory

[Zynyx]

I will start by stating my account was compromised, it wasn't for long and using Customer Service staff I was able to get the account locked down after about 30-40 minutes from the time it was compromised and the account was returned to me 3 days later.

This isn't why I'm writing, but just the background.

When I had the account returned, all that had been taken was my gil. I went through all my characters, bank slots, retainers etc. and as far as I can tell the only damage done to the account within that time period was them taking my gil. At a CS agents suggestion, I filled out a game data recovery form. This was on 9/24, slightly over two weeks ago. I tried contacting Square Enix's phone CS support and they have only given me the party line of "We do not place ETA's on character recovery" and to contact a GM via email for details on my case.

GMs have not been responding to their emails. To date, the only contact I have had with a GM regarding my case was an email I got asking for my Character name, Server and Job levels... All of that information was definitely available in the GDR form I was asked to fill out. When this first happened, the CS member said this process should only take a few days if it was just my gil. I didn't think to research it at the time I opened the ticket, but now I am reading posts saying this process can sometimes take months if not a year to process. Granted, many of these posts are quite old and I've had difficulty finding recent ones.

I am at a point where I am beyond caring about the gil.

I'm upset as it was not a small amount of gil taken, but I'd be far more upset if I'm unable to play at expansion release. Square rolls the character back to a certain date in time previous to your account being compromised when they do a GDR; ergo, there is no point in playing the character til the GDR is completed because it will simply have any progress eliminated when the GMs get around to the GDR. I have called the CS line and asked, if they could not give me any ETA, to simply cancel the GDR process and they said that once the form is filled out they do not cancel GDRs.

I have no idea how many previous images of a character Sqaure Enix keeps... if I just continue to play the character, will it eventually get to a point where there will be no images pre-compromization for them to use? Anyone with experience in this have any idea how long that might take?

My ideal solution would be for them to complete the GDR; however, if they can't do that previous to Endwalker then I'd rather cut my losses and play my character again.

TLDR; I cannot get an ETA on how long the my GDR will take, I cannot cancel my GDR, my character is in an unplayable state despite the fact that I have access to them again because at an arbitrary point in time they will be reset. Do I have any options here? (Don't bother with comments like add 2FA or roll a new character- they aren't constructive and are beside the point here).

[Rowde]

Yeah... I'm not sure how to fix this.

I imagine they don't give a guaranteed timeframe for rollback requests... cuz then it would make them "reliably" exploitable. Not accusing you, just saying if it was known rollbacks always take x amount of time, then it would be gamed out by those with nefarious intent.

I do agree that it should be possible to cancel the request if it is taking too long though... as this truly is a no win situation. The genuine player in no way benefits from a cancellation request.

Only thing I can recommend is escalation, my boomer dad has gotten a ton of free crap from various companies over the year by tracking down executive's company emails and sending them gripes about his issues with products/services directly. Anecdotal, but he sent VP of something department an email a day where he only changed a number in the body of the text "So and so, it's been x days since I contacted customer service about my issue and I still haven't received a reply about how this will be handled." until that person contacted him and was like... WHAT?! Then Customer Service magically contacted him and resolved his issue immediately.

[Zynyx]

I'd happily try that, but I'm not entirely sure where to even begin. I have gotten to the point where I am sending a daily email to the GMs; however, the phone CS and Game Masters seem to be entirely divorced from each other. When I talk to people over their phone CS they claim they have no communications with GMs and also won't escalate me to any of their managers. They simply ask if there is anything else they can help me with today. :/

[LianaThorne]

I still can't understand why people think random strangers are going to give them hundreds of millions of gil.

[Rowde]

I'd happily try that, but I'm not entirely sure where to even begin. I have gotten to the point where I am sending a daily email to the GMs; however, the phone CS and Game Masters seem to be entirely divorced from each other. When I talk to people over their phone CS they claim they have no communications with GMs and also won't escalate me to any of their managers. They simply ask if there is anything else they can help me with today. :/

Yeah, you'll have to internet and go over their heads. Not anything illegal either, just better direct searches of company profiles and such, you can usually find names of ppl in positions. If you're already in contact with somebody else at the company you can then sometimes "guess" their internal email address structure to email anybody you want (if the email isn't already listed). And believe it or not, this is still all war stories from my boomer dad... he does analysis on tech companies for a living still.

[Liam_Harper]

I still can't understand why people think random strangers are going to give them hundreds of millions of gil.

I don't understand why someone has to post this same nonsense on every single thread where someone had a compromised account.

People make mistakes and do stupid things. Most of us who are more than smart enough not to click a random link have done all sorts of other dumb things in our life we really should have known better on. It happens to everyone in some form or another, you learn and move on. I don't get why people are so self-righteous over it.

[kaynide]

Frankly, if it’s just gil, I am positive there is a gm level command that just adds it in. Having seen the backend of a FFXI server I wouldn’t be surprised f it’s behind a more senior level of GM though.

[Lunalepsy]

I will start by stating my account was compromised, it wasn't for long and using Customer Service staff I was able to get the account locked down after about 30-40 minutes from the time it was compromised and the account was returned to me 3 days later.

This isn't why I'm writing, but just the background.

When I had the account returned, all that had been taken was my gil. I went through all my characters, bank slots, retainers etc. and as far as I can tell the only damage done to the account within that time period was them taking my gil. At a CS agents suggestion, I filled out a game data recovery form. This was on 9/24, slightly over two weeks ago. I tried contacting Square Enix's phone CS support and they have only given me the party line of "We do not place ETA's on character recovery" and to contact a GM via email for details on my case.

GMs have not been responding to their emails. To date, the only contact I have had with a GM regarding my case was an email I got asking for my Character name, Server and Job levels... All of that information was definitely available in the GDR form I was asked to fill out. When this first happened, the CS member said this process should only take a few days if it was just my gil. I didn't think to research it at the time I opened the ticket, but now I am reading posts saying this process can sometimes take months if not a year to process. Granted, many of these posts are quite old and I've had difficulty finding recent ones.

I am at a point where I am beyond caring about the gil.

I'm upset as it was not a small amount of gil taken, but I'd be far more upset if I'm unable to play at expansion release. Square rolls the character back to a certain date in time previous to your account being compromised when they do a GDR; ergo, there is no point in playing the character til the GDR is completed because it will simply have any progress eliminated when the GMs get around to the GDR. I have called the CS line and asked, if they could not give me any ETA, to simply cancel the GDR process and they said that once the form is filled out they do not cancel GDRs.

I have no idea how many previous images of a character Sqaure Enix keeps... if I just continue to play the character, will it eventually get to a point where there will be no images pre-compromization for them to use? Anyone with experience in this have any idea how long that might take?

My ideal solution would be for them to complete the GDR; however, if they can't do that previous to Endwalker then I'd rather cut my losses and play my character again.

TLDR; I cannot get an ETA on how long the my GDR will take, I cannot cancel my GDR, my character is in an unplayable state despite the fact that I have access to them again because at an arbitrary point in time they will be reset. Do I have any options here? (Don't bother with comments like add 2FA or roll a new character- they aren't constructive and are beside the point here).

Ouch. I hope it gets fixed soon!

[Breakbeat]

my boomer dad

I don't know if you mean boomer in the 2021 sense of the word, which is like, just anyone over 30 - or, in the actual sense of the word, like people born in the 1940s - 1960s. However, I have to say that 'my boomer dad', who was born in 1947, gives me much the same advice. LOL =)

'Squeaky wheel gets the grease, son."

Must have heard that a million times, and it holds true to this day. Sometimes you gotta be the squeaky wheel. It's not ideal... but it is what it is. I worked text- and voice-based tech support for many years, both as a front-line or "tier 1" agent, and as higher tier II and tier III support. There are indeed things that simply won't get done unless you insist to go over the 'tier I' agent's head.

I don't say this to disparage SE or any tech support in general... I just offer it up because this is the way a major ISP handled their tech support, and I witnessed it first-hand. 'Front line' agents are meant to be a triage unit. Granted, they should be escalating matters they can't or won't help with, but if that ain't happening, sometimes you have to get "creative". /shrug

Good luck OP.

[LianaThorne]

I don't understand why someone has to post this same nonsense on every single thread where someone had a compromised account.

People make mistakes and do stupid things. Most of us who are more than smart enough not to click a random link have done all sorts of other dumb things in our life we really should have known better on. It happens to everyone in some form or another, you learn and move on. I don't get why people are so self-righteous over it.

You would think with how many times it's happened, how many people have posted this, how much it's actively talked about (in game, on the forum, in discord servers (literally one of the servers I'm in recently had a security seminar on protecting your accounts))...that people would know that this situation exists by now? Maybe in general, not be so gullible to think that handouts are just given by random strangers?

I'll continue to post this and will others until those who are unaware/non-believing actually understand that people want to steal your account, not give you free gil. Instead of silencing us, help us spread the message further so more people can AVOID this situation.

People can make mistakes for sure, but I'm sure you were also lectured on the mistakes you made too.