This is the extent of Square Enix customer support, spread the word.

[JowyAvilon]

My girlfriends account was hacked on 9/21/2013 and on her mogstation there was a character created there she never made. The date listed was on a weekend so it was impossible to contact customer support in anyway. So today she called phone support, and after having to try three times totaling 5 and a half hours she gets through to someone. They tell her they will open an investigation and that she still may not get her account back and the investigation could take an undetermined amount of time. Anyway, a few hours later, she receives this email.


"Dear Customer: This notice is to inform you that we have suspended the FINAL FANTASY XIV service account registered to this e-mail for one or more violations of the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement that occurred on 9/23/2013. Specifically, you have violated following Section(s) of the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement.

SQUARE ENIX ACCOUNT TERMS OF USE 1. Registered Users Use of the Website or Services is limited to those satisfying the following conditions: (b)You represent and warrant that you will not use the Website or Services in any manner that is in violation of this Agreement or of any applicable law or regulation;

FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement
2.2 Real Money Trading, Farming and Power-Leveling. You may not sell,purchase or exchange for real-world money or value any in-game currency,accounts, characters, in-game services, or in-game virtual items. Youmay not play the Game for the purpose of acquiring virtual items or advancement in game play on behalf of a third-party or for the purpose of selling any virtual assets to a third party for real-world money, specifically including $B!H(Bgold-farming$B!I(Band power-leveling services.

Every action we issue is based on conclusive evidence of a violation and is reviewed for accuracy. Here is an excerpt from the activity log regarding this termination:

Based on the actions in this most recent incident and any prior record on the service account, we have terminated the FINAL FANTASY XIV service account registered to this e-mail in accordance with the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement. To best understand the penalties taken against the service account, please review the Account Penalty Policy section on the Support Center at the following link: http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1

For information on prohibited activities in FINAL FANTASY XIV, please refer to the Square Enix Account Terms of Use, the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement, and the following URL: http://support.na.square-enix.com/fa...la=1&kid=68216

As your account has been terminated due to a violation, you will be unable to create another FINAL FANTASY XIV service account. Unfortunately, you have shown yourself to be unwilling to follow the rules of the FINAL FANTASY XIV community. If we find that you have created another FINAL FANTASY XIV service account, we reserve the right to terminate that account as well in our sole discretion.

NOTE: If you suspect the violation resulted from unauthorized access to the FINAL FANTASY XIV service account or the actions of an unauthorized third party who is not your parent or legal guardian, or if there are other points you wish to clarify, please contact the SQUARE ENIX Support Center. http://support.na.square-enix.com/fa...la=1&kid=68228

This message has been sent to you for notification purposes only, and we are unable to address further inquires via replies to this email. Should you have any additional questions or concerns, we ask that you visit the SQUARE ENIX Support Center at [http://support.na.square-enix.com/] to contact us directly.

SQUARE ENIX Account Administrator"

And sure enough, she went to check her mogstation after getting that email. Originally it was like this. [Account Type: Collectors Edition, Service Account Status: 13 days remaining, Bonus: the items from pre-order and collectors edition were listed here] Now it reads [Account Type: This service account cannot be used, Service Account Status: None, Bonus: None] WTF, because her account was compromised and she took the steps to get it back, they decide to perma ban it. This is the extent of Square Enix customer service ladies and gentlemen. This kind of thing cannot be allowed to stand.

[BlackShroudMercs]

Where is the activity log they spoke of?

Just curious because it said here is the log but then it seems to skip forward...did you leave it out?

Not accusing you or her just wondering..

[JowyAvilon]

Where is the activity log they spoke of?

Just curious because it said here is the log but then it seems to skip forward...did you leave it out?

Not accusing you or her just wondering..

Nope, didn't leave it out, everything is copy pasted 100% from the email, no link to any kind of log or anything, thats exactly how it lookss in the email as well.

EDIT: matter of fact, you gave me an idea.

[JowyAvilon]

Here is a screen cap of the original email.

[BlackShroudMercs]

Very odd, I have seen countless threads in here that are filled with complaints about SEs customer service, its quite obvious it really has major issues. People can't even pay for their sub fees because of errors and SE hasn't been any help from what I have seen, they just blame the players..

I see this game only maintaining a small pop in NA after a time. The support just isn't there and that's very important to have in an MMO.

Sorry for her experience, like so many others have done you'll have to write it off as a loss most likely and move on..sad, but that's the game at this point.

[JowyAvilon]

Very odd, I have seen countless threads in here that are filled with complaints about SEs customer service, its quite obvious it really has major issues. People can't even pay for their sub fees because of errors and SE hasn't been any help from what I have seen, they just blame the players..

I see this game only maintaining a small pop in NA after a time. The support just isn't there and that's very important to have in an MMO.

Sorry for her experience, like so many others have done you'll have to write it off as a loss most likely and move on..sad, but that's the game at this point.

Yeah, which is sad, cause the game itself is very enjoyable and I love playing it. As I posted in another thread...somewhere xD it won't bother them any, but if her account is permanently gone, they're going to be losing a total of 4 more *my girlfriend included* people from the game. The sad thing is, if she gets/got the account back, she was even going to invest even more money into em by buying the physical security token and i was going to pay for 3 months out right when subs came due for payment when the free days ran out.

[Raist]

I went through this with XI about 6 or 7 years ago... it's sort of standard procedure. The email is sort of an automated response when they suspend the account, and doesn't always accurately reflect what is going on. Basically, they disable the account so no more damage is done while they look into it. When all is said and done, if they are able to isolate a point in time with a known good state of the account just before the hacking took place, they will try to restore it to that point in time. When I reported my situation, I did it through chat and they went into a lot of detail (cut/paste notices) in the chat session and I got an email of the transcript and all back then. Unfortunately, that was like 4 or 5 systems ago, so don't have that transcript to provide an example. After roughly a month (think it was 5 weeks), they were able to restore me to a point just before I purchased some new equips for my BLM--which kind of sucked because I lucked up on some AH purchases... but at least I got all my HQ staves and key swap pieces back, which was still worth quite a bundle back around 2006/2007.

They SHOULD have gone over all of this with your girlfriend on the phone. Sorry if it wasn't made clear. Just to be on the safe side, I would advise you contact them about the hi-jacking (as instructed to do in the email), just in case this suspension was actually triggered by RMT activity and not because of her reporting the hijacking. This may help things move along more smoothly.

[Sethos]

This doesn't seem odd at all to me. Their system probably detected the gold seller who had hijacked the account and automated the ban. Assuming there's no falsehood to your statement it should be a rather simple matter of following the link in the email pertaining to unauthorized access. As their systems log ip addresses they would be able to verify the truthfulness of your claims and restore the account.

Do not assume because you approached them claiming your account was hacked that they decided to ban it. To think there is only 1 guy working on accounts and security is foolish and it is more likely someone else had determined your gf's account was being used for gold farming and took steps to ban it.

[JowyAvilon]

I went through this with XI about 6 or 7 years ago... it's sort of standard procedure. The email is sort of an automated response when they suspend the account, and doesn't always accurately reflect what is going on. Basically, they disable the account so no more damage is done while they look into it. When all is said and done, if they are able to isolate a point in time with a known good state of the account just before the hacking took place, they will try to restore it to that point in time. When I reported my situation, I did it through chat and they went into a lot of detail (cut/paste notices) in the chat session and I got an email of the transcript and all back then. Unfortunately, that was like 4 or 5 systems ago, so don't have that transcript to provide an example. After roughly a month (think it was 5 weeks), they were able to restore me to a point just before I purchased some new equips for my BLM--which kind of sucked because I lucked up on some AH purchases... but at least I got all my HQ staves and key swap pieces back, which was still worth quite a bundle back around 2006/2007.

They SHOULD have gone over all of this with your girlfriend on the phone. Sorry if it wasn't made clear. Just to be on the safe side, I would advise you contact them about the hi-jacking (as instructed to do in the email), just in case this suspension was actually triggered by RMT activity and not because of her reporting the hijacking. This may help things move along more smoothly.

That's the thing. The account was already suspended, she played it last on the 20th, it was suspended on the 21st(without receiving an email or any sort of communication to keep in mind) and she immediately went and changed her password, twice, and put in a support ticket explaining how she had been hacked. She couldn't call at the time cause it was the weekend and they're not open on the weekend. She finally called today, the 23rd and after a total of 5 and a half hours of waiting and finally getting through she did all they asked to confirm the account was hers and the agent said he would put it in for investigation and that it would take an undetermined amount of time and that even then she may not get the account back. It was a few hours after that phone call she got that email i copy pasted and took the screen cap of.

[Raist]

Yeah, which is sad, cause the game itself is very enjoyable and I love playing it. As I posted in another thread...somewhere xD it won't bother them any, but if her account is permanently gone, they're going to be losing a total of 4 more *my girlfriend included* people from the game. The sad thing is, if she gets/got the account back, she was even going to invest even more money into em by buying the physical security token and i was going to pay for 3 months out right when subs came due for payment when the free days ran out.

That's a large part of the problem.... people aren't understanding just how big a risk their accounts are under without proper security. The tokens were created specifically to address rampant hacking that was going on in XI--RMT's made tons of money off of hacked accounts over the years prior to this additional layer of security.

NO one should be playing these games without at least the free token (provided you can run it on your phone). If not, buying the physical token is a wortwhile investment, considering how much you will potentially invest in the game. And they last a long time...mine is from the original pre-order batches and is still running just fine. And I logged in almost daily to XI for years, only out of game a max of maybe 10 or 12 months (part of that from the earhquake downtime), AND I used it in the 1.0 beta and have been using it since the 2.0 beta4 as well.