This past weekend the little lady, baby, and I were enjoying some television. I think it was a Christmas movie because my wife loves to watch them this time of year and she watches them non-stop. Just the same three Christmas movies on endless repeat; it is actually quite maddening. I would like to mix it up with some “Die Hard”, but it never works. “Just because it takes place during Christmas, doesn’t make it a Christmas movie” is always her argument. My response is usually “Psshh.” or something equally intelligent. Anyway, we are sitting around probably watching Christmas Vacation (that’s one of the three) when my phone rings. It’s my friend Josh and he has something to tell me.
“You might want to check on your WoW account because I think it’s been hacked.”
My mouth became immediately dry and my palms started to sweat as a knot formed in my guts. I hung up the phone without another word, and sheepishly attempted to login to my account. Sure enough, my password doesn’t work. Beautiful.
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I’m going to stop right there for a second and acknowledge the fact that last week I said I wasn’t going to talk about WoW again until another expansion came out, for that I am sorry. I wouldn’t have had any other reason to bring it up but this happened so now I’m going to rant about it, as it is my job to do so. You have to appreciate the double meaning in the title now though, right? The integrity of my password AND my integrity as a columnist for this website have been compromised. Air high five? No? O.K. Well it will be here if you want it.
Once the realization sunk in that I had been hacked, I felt kind of dirty. Like some creepy stranger just violated me. I was in the shower for a good hour just crying and scrubbing myself with an S.O.S. pad until my skin was raw and bloody, singing the theme song from “The Crying Game” to myself. When I got home from the hospital, after a blood transfusion and giving a statement to Benson and Stabler, I thought it might be a good idea to get myself a new password and run damage control.
The process to get a new password was quick and easy. Didn’t have to wait around for emails or anything, all I had to do was remember my security question. Thank God I didn’t make it something incredibly stupid. First time in my life I didn’t answer the security question with some kind of smartass answer and it paid off. My password was changed and it was time to see what havoc was caused to my account. Then I hit another wall, it seems my account had been temporarily suspended.
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I start to panic now because I thought this maniac who hacked my account really put my good name through the ringer. I imagined him going into town twitching and throwing together the most epic string of profanity and racial slurs every typed. So hate filled and explicit that if spoken aloud to drunken bros on Xbox Live even they would say “That’s totally uncalled for brah.”
Turns out, whoever it was, was trying to sell gold or something. I think I would rather have the super racist swear-time other than some bell-end gold seller. Are you not creative enough to just make up an email address and make your own account dude? How hard can it be? No, you have to pirate my account and just vomit up a bunch of spam messages involving buying gold till my account gets suspended. Obviously you put in some work to get into my account, so why can’t you do that with trial accounts or something. Never mind! None of that matters and it was actually starting to piss me off writing it.
Moving right along, I wanted to call customer support and find out how I could lift the suspension on my account and maybe convince someone I wasn’t a dirty gold seller to get my account turned back on faster, but Blizzard’s customer support phone line closes at 8 PM PST. What the hell Blizzard? 8 PM is what time old people go to sleep. You call that customer service? How about a twenty-four hour line? Your offices are in California I know there are people out there who need jobs. Hook it up, you know you have the money to support actual twenty four hour help line or even out-source the jobs I don’t care. Sometimes, after you have been violated, you just want to talk to someone.
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I never did talk to anyone but I was still curious about how I could have possibly gotten hacked, because I still felt shallow and used. It didn’t even take that much digging around on Blizzard’s site to find the section that gives insight into some of the ways your privacy and innocence can be stripped away from you. If I have learned anything from Law and Order: SVU it is that you don’t blame the victim… and that is exactly what Blizzard does. Every reason on Blizzard’s site puts the blame straight onto you.
- You must have given your account info to someone.
- You must have downloaded something malicious.
- You must have fallen prey to a phishing website.
- You must have traded your account info for an eight ball of cocaine.
You need to spend six-fifty on this account authenticator so it never happens again, you don’t want it to happen again… do you?
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I guess you’re right Blizzard, I’m stupid and weak. I have no idea how to protect myself or my account from hackers. Please, let me buy more stuff from you to keep the bad men away! Wait a minute…
I never gave any of my account info to anyone. I don’t have any malicious software on my computer. I’m not a moron and I know how to spot a phishing site. I don’t even do cocaine!
I think Blizzard just staged the whole thing to squeeze some extra money out of me! Damn you Blizzard you slippery snake, I’m on to you. Everyone who is reading this is now wise to your scheme. Oh, I’ll buy your precious little “authenticator” just so you keep your grubby little mitts off my account you cheeky monkeys.
That’s all for me! A happy non-denominational winter time holiday to you all! Unless you’re a gold farming, account stealing, jerk face. In that case I hope one of you die in the most painful way possible.
