Question Regarding Bans on Compromised Accounts

[Gramboozle]

The only thing you can do is wait and be patient for your rollback. If you reported it as a compromised account than they will ban the account until such a time the owner can show proof of ownership and reclaim it. For them to even do the rollback, the account owner can't be logged on at the time of rollback. This process can happen between 7 to 10 days.

As far as reimbursement of down time in game, the fault doesn't lie with SE when it comes to who's to blame for the compromised account. They are not the ones who followed the link and logged you in. They want to keep you and others in the same situation as a customer however, so they will rollback your character before the account was compromised. So you should count your lucky stars that a company will do that much for you and learn from it. Spread the word to others about this phishing practice, so they don't fall victim too.

No one here is blaming SE for the compromised account. What I am blaming them for is charging us for playtime while the account is not accessible. That is very different. Also, to make assumptions on how an account was compromised doesnt necessarily help in any way, and its quite rude. We were literally in the middle of a frontline when he was disconnected from the game and then locked out. There was no 'inputting my info into a link" so that is irrelevant. (very victim blamey of you). The condescension is unhelpful and unnecessary, have the day you deserve

[Arazehl]

There is no assumption when you stated yourself that they spammed from his account for hours. The only reason they do that is when they are phishing and they always do it from a phished account. it's common knowledge. SE also didn't select your choice to auto pay either. In the meantime until such time you can access the account back, then you'll have to wait. Sorry if you don't like that answer.

[Gramboozle]

There is no assumption when you stated yourself that they spammed from his account for hours. The only reason they do that is when they are phishing and they always do it from a phished account. it's common knowledge. SE also didn't select your choice to auto pay either. In the meantime until such time you can access the account back, then you'll have to wait. Sorry if you don't like that answer.

I think your reading comprehension may be impaired. Just because something is "common knowledge" doesn't guarantee an outcome. Correlation does not equal causation and you are absolutely making an assumption. You are simply being rude for the hell of it, and its not really appreciated. No matter what you think you know, its not ethical to charge consumers for services that aren't accessible. Your apology is not genuine or accepted.

[SenorPatty]

No one here is blaming SE for the compromised account. What I am blaming them for is charging us for playtime while the account is not accessible. That is very different. Also, to make assumptions on how an account was compromised doesnt necessarily help in any way, and its quite rude. We were literally in the middle of a frontline when he was disconnected from the game and then locked out. There was no 'inputting my info into a link" so that is irrelevant. (very victim blamey of you). The condescension is unhelpful and unnecessary, have the day you deserve

Sir, its may not be what you want to hear or even accept but yes, it's very common, especially in the video game industry, to not refund any sub time that you don't have access to the game, for whatever reason
Otherwise, people would lining up for sub time refunds during maintenance and major patch/expansion updates. Only in extreme circumstances that are out of the control of players and/or company alike (like the 7 day extra sub time during the Endwalker start-up troubles) will the latter consider and even then, as you can see, those seven days are not an actual monetary refund.

It was a bad and frustrating situation for you being unable to play and even worse, not getting the money you feel you should be owed but video game subscriptions are the one thing companies rarely do anything about if you are found even an iota responsible for falling for infamous internet and video game traps.

[Gramboozle]

Sir, its may not be what you want to hear or even accept but yes, it's very common, especially in the video game industry, to not refund any sub time that you don't have access to the game, for whatever reason
Otherwise, people would lining up for sub time refunds during maintenance and major patch/expansion updates. Only in extreme circumstances that are out of the control of players and/or company alike (like the 7 day extra sub time during the Endwalker start-up troubles) will the latter consider and even then, as you can see, those seven days are not an actual monetary refund.

It was a bad and frustrating situation for you being unable to play and even worse, not getting the money you feel you should be owed but video game subscriptions are the one thing companies rarely do anything about if you are found even an iota responsible for falling for infamous internet and video game traps.

You make a very good point, thank you for bringing that to the forefront. Its just so disheartening to invest so much time and money into this service and it just be stuck in this limbo, while we continue to pay. We were already in the game when the 'attack' happened, we definitely havent clicked any links and damn sure havent typed our log in info into anything other than the game itself. literally the only thing we use our playsations for is to play this game...its not even possible to click links so I dont even know what else we wouldve done to "provide the info voluntarily". We're not even looking for a refund..we just want the payments to stop, at least until the investigation is complete. Called the bank and they can't even stop the payment, because of the authorization for auto-renewal, they suggest we contact SE and request for them to stop the payments..but they wont do anything because the account is suspended...its like a horrendous frustrating circle. I guess at this point there is no resolution and I'm here to complain. Keeping fingers crossed for some kind of update, and hopefully we get the account back. Thanks everyone for your replies. Except Arazehl, they can kick rocks.

[Kes13a]

I think your reading comprehension may be impaired. Just because something is "common knowledge" doesn't guarantee an outcome. Correlation does not equal causation and you are absolutely making an assumption. You are simply being rude for the hell of it, and its not really appreciated. No matter what you think you know, its not ethical to charge consumers for services that aren't accessible. Your apology is not genuine or accepted.

lets put it this way.

account billing and customer service are not the same people. if your account is set up to auto pay, it auto pays. doesnt care if you are banned or not unless the account is terminated by customer service.

a temporary suspension will not stop the billing process. you may not like it, but regardless of the circumstances, the account was banned for activities, not terminated. for that reason, the billed "play time" continues, whether you can access the account or not. if you can refrain from the way you put things in this particular reply, they may even credit time, who knows. but venting all over them will ultimately solve little.

ethics has little to do with it

[Gramboozle]

lets put it this way.

account billing and customer service are not the same people. if your account is set up to auto pay, it auto pays. doesnt care if you are banned or not unless the account is terminated by customer service.

a temporary suspension will not stop the billing process. you may not like it, but regardless of the circumstances, the account was banned for activities, not terminated. for that reason, the billed "play time" continues, whether you can access the account or not. if you can refrain from the way you put things in this particular reply, they may even credit time, who knows. but venting all over them will ultimately solve little.

ethics has little to do with it

Ethics has a lot to do with it actually. Regardless if a business's departments are separate, they are still the same company, and should be aligned operationally. If you are going to charge consumers for services they do not have access to (whether its common practice or not) is not ethical..no matter how your account billing is set up, ESPECIALLY, if there is no way to cancel those payments, or contact anyone to resolve it.

[Risvertasashi]

Hello,

I am wondering why Square Enix's account recovery process is so abysmal when an account was compromised. My husbands account was compromised last thursday, and they did nothing but spam malicious links in chat for an hour, and then logged off, soon after my husband was able to change his PW and recover his account (without ANY notification to the subscribed email)

After recovering his account he was able to play as normal for two days, and then suddenly a total account ban, probably due to report for the hackers spam.

Now because of that the account is banned, and we are not able to recover any of the subscription time or game payment. How exactly is this legal business practice? They are still charging us...even though the account is suspended, while they "take their time to investigate the issue."

Customer support around these issues are a widely complained about issue (if you can even get a hold of anyone), and I am looking for answers. We have given this company thousands of dollars over several years, and not an OUNCE of professional assistance has been received. This is unacceptable.

What else can we do?

This is precisely why Square bans the accounts, instead of deleting them as is sometimes called for.

The best you can do is contact Square support and begin the unfortunately slow process of recovering from there. Yeah, it sucks, sorry. In the future, I strongly recommending setting up and using the OTP system as it makes a stolen password virtually worthless.

[Kes13a]

Ethics has a lot to do with it actually. Regardless if a business's departments are separate, they are still the same company, and should be aligned operationally. If you are going to charge consumers for services they do not have access to (whether its common practice or not) is not ethical..no matter how your account billing is set up, ESPECIALLY, if there is no way to cancel those payments, or contact anyone to resolve it.

unethical would be doing nothing. they are looking into it. your $0.50 cents a day wont even start to pay their wages, so you are in fact, getting OVER your money's worth. but feel free to raise a stink about it.

[Gramboozle]

This is precisely why Square bans the accounts, instead of deleting them as is sometimes called for.

The best you can do is contact Square support and begin the unfortunately slow process of recovering from there. Yeah, it sucks, sorry. In the future, I strongly recommending setting up and using the OTP system as it makes a stolen password virtually worthless.

Thank you! That is absolutely the first thing we did, and are in the account recovery limbo stage while they investigate. The wild thing is, we were able to recover the account on our own, and change the password and apply the OTP, and he was able to play for a full day, But the "hacker" had already sent out a bunch of tells with a phishing link by the time we got it back, and the ban happened the next day.