Hi there,

before registering for *anything* on the web, I usually create a (rather cryptic) eMail-address I use exclusively for that service. Of course, I did the same with DnL, twice to be precise, one for me and one for a friend I bought a SoG-Account with (yes, I really bought two accounts prior to the launch of SoG, please don't add insult to injury now by mocking me for that).

In the course of the last few weeks, I started receiving spam (casino-spam) on not only one of those addresses (which could have been some lucky guess by whatever evil software spammers use), but both - what a strange coincidence.

Since I used these addresses strictly for DnL (see above), either my account data has been sold, or their systems must have been compromised. Either way, my personal data is now held by somebody I did not want to.

Sooooo ..... :
1) has anybody else had similar experiences, and
2) any suggestions as of what to do now (other than to disable both addresses, that is)?

I'm perfectly aware that I can't stop my data from circulating now it's been started, I'm just even more p****d off about NPCube than I have been before. After all, I have proof that one of the things mentioned above (data sale/theft) has occured.

Thanks, TJones
 

Sadly, because of a long history of shady (and outright unethical) behavior by NPCube/Farlan, this comes as no surprise at all.  Selling their customer database as they put the last nail in the DnL coffin seems an expected final step from these yahoos. 

Yeah, this is not a major suprise...

I did have a similar experience in this department though. Very shortly after paying for "SoG" (A.K.A. Beta Test) through Click & Buy my credit card had a bunch of fraudulent charges placed on it for various european gambing websites. I don't think its a coincidence that right after I bought a game that was developed in europe and the payment was processed by a company in Europe, that suddenly someone in europe started using my card to buy things without my knowledge.

Luckily this all worked out to my advantage in the end. The credit card company instantly caught the charges and cancelled them because they apparently found it odd that one of their customers who hardly ever buys anything would suddenly try to spend hundreds of dollars on european gambling websites. They not only took the charges off my card but they also shut down the card and sent me a new one so that whoever was doing it wouldn't be able to charge anything else to my card in the future. This also had the benefit of preventing the DnL devs from charging me money for subscription fees after I had already cancelled, since my credit card info was now different from what they had. So I was saved a lot of trouble that other people had to go through.

As for you getting spammed, I'll bet this is another last ditch money making scam from NPCube. Their game is dead and they are about to get sued out of existence in five days, so they decided to throw out their privacy policy and sell their list of email addresses to spammers for some chump change to throw at their legal defense.

Does anyone know if there is someone we can report them to for breaking their own privacy policy? I've never actually heard of a company doing this before, even though it doesn't suprise me at all that these guys have done it (they have screwed their customers every step of the way up till now, why not keep going?).

What a surprise. Since last week I started receiving spam mails on the mail account I used to register the clan we used to play Dark and Light under. Again, this mail adress was only used for DnL, so this is the third (rather cryptic) mailadress Farlan sold.

I wonder what other personal information they sold alongside.

I recommend using recyclable emails for registration purposes on dubious sites. I recommend spamgourmet.com - free and efficient site. May ned to toy around with settings, but after that, its peanuts! No more casions, no more porn spam.

Originally posted by jimmyman99

I recommend using recyclable emails for registration purposes on dubious sites. I recommend spamgourmet.com - free and efficient site. May ned to toy around with settings, but after that, its peanuts! No more casions, no more porn spam.

That is good advice. I recently started using "disposable email" (or FAKE email as I like to call it) sites like spam gourmet when I'm forced to give an email address to some site or another that I have to sign up for in order to download something or post something, ect. and I don't want to get any spam from them or want them to know my real email address for some other reason.

The problem here though is that when we register for an MMORPG where we are paying a monthly subscription we shouldn't have to ask ourselves if it is a "dubious site" that we should be suspicious of. I remember back in the day when I played Asheron's Call I never would have thought that the developers of that game would sell my email address to spammers (or continue to charge my credit card even after I had cancelled from their services or lie about the quality of their product or release their game in an unfinished state) because back in those days MMORPG developers still had integrity and actually cared about developing games that would not only turn a profit but would also have a certain standard of quality. Now days this is no longer the case. MMO developers are some of the worst and most notorious liars in the entire industry, with an interest in nothing other than squeezing every last dollar from their customers through "micro transactions" and constant add-ons. Atleast with guys like the Shadowbane developers they were just liars, but the Dark and Light developers have shown that this industry doesn't even have to follow the laws anymore.

I'm not really sure where I was going with this speech... other than to say its really sad that we have reached a point where we have to treat the people who make the games we enjoy like criminals (because sometimes they are).