I’m a 41yo Firefighter. I’m no “gamer” but I’ve owned several playstations and Xbox’s over the years and play mostly offline; Skyrim, fallout, red dead redemption 2, etc. My 9yo enjoys the video games much more than I do these days and that brings us up to the hack.
The hacker wanted my PlayStation network game tag. A quaint 4 letter tag that would only be available if you’re old enough to have generated it many years ago on ps2. Apparently I blew him off when he tried to contact me, I say “him” but who knows, so now he has hacked and stolen the psn online name. Ok whatever, but he got ahold of a gmail and yahoo email in the process.
Having those emails he was able harass me by changing passwords and settings on Netflix, Spotify etc. He gained no access to any financial info that I’ve found and he says he has no interest in that, oh yeah, we chat often. He messages me to see if I’ve changed my mind about paying his bitcoin ransom for the emails.
So I’ve contacted all the credit cards and banks. Which, btw, I’ve found the best way to get ahold of a person at financial institutions is allowing a payment to go delinquent and at that point a real live person will call you! In any case, most all the changing passwords and securing accounts was time consuming but not difficult. That brings us to PlayStation network (Sony) and xboxlive (Microsoft).
Between to two platforms I have downloaded content that I value over $2000. Games, movies, subscriptions etc. not including the cost of the systems themselves. All of which I am locked out of because the stolen email addresses are listed as contact and I can’t change passwords without PlayStation and Xbox sending the “change password” link to the guy who stole all my shit in the first place.
All attempts to contact customer support at any of the involved companies(Microsoft, Sony, google, yahoo) is an utter disaster. Although yahoo did offer their account recovery tools for $9.99, which is the closest thing to “customer support” I’ve obtained from any of these modern marvels of tech industry.
I’m frustrated beyond the limits of my vocabulary and my 9yo is heartbroken. We were starting Halo 2 together and of course he doesn’t understand that we can’t play now because some neckbeard in his moms basement is having a laugh with our accounts.
I’m not mad at the hacker, more annoyed, people like these don’t deserve the energy that anger requires. But I am absolutely infuriated by the disrespect with witch I’m treated by these companies that have pushed them selves into our daily lives. They promise security, they promise ease of use, they promise that they care for the people who purchase and use their products and they fulfill none of those promises.
I won’t ramble any further. It seems at this point there’s not much left to do but write off the lose, learn the lesson and drive on.
