account emptied...

[The Great Adventurer]

It goes a bit with the "All trades are final".

It doesn't actually state this anywhere in the terms of use. This line is found in a support policy, which is superceded by the terms of use.

18.1. Final Agreement

This Agreement terminates and supersedes all prior understandings or agreements on the subject matter hereof.

All trades are not final. MindArk can legally do whatever they want. They simply don't because the costs incurred would cripple them.

 

[Hego Damask]

Why do you ask? Because it happened to me during my naïve years 23 years ago. Police don't have resources to do fact finding and punish someone over $200.

Which 3rd world shithole country you are living in where police dont care about somebody stole 200 usd from You?

Once i was accused of stealing something like 40-50 USD online, 2 police officer showed up at my house, i was at work, they asked about me from neighbours and left a paper to invite me for a visit to the local police station, the paper clearly stated what they are alloweed to do if i refuse the invitation and do not show up at the requested day and time.

Both me and the accuser was played by a 3rd guy, i dont know what was the end of the story, just got a letter from police about all charges was dropped as police investigation find out not i was the one stealing the money, and never heard about it anything more.
But they were fucking care about 40-50 USD, they found me IRL, sent 2 police officer and investigated.

 

[atomicstorm]

Which 3rd world shithole country you are living in where police dont care about somebody stole 200 usd from You?

Once i was accused of stealing something like 40-50 USD online, 2 police officer showed up at my house, i was at work, they asked about me from neighbours and left a paper to invite me for a visit to the local police station, the paper clearly stated what they are alloweed to do if i refuse the invitation and do not show up at the requested day and time.

Both me and the accuser was played by a 3rd guy, i dont know what was the end of the story, just got a letter from police about all charges was dropped as police investigation find out not i was the one stealing the money, and never heard about it anything more.
But they were fucking care about 40-50 USD, they found me IRL, sent 2 police officer and investigated.

Well, you've completely missed the point and didn't read anything I said.

To answer the first question, it's the United States. The key issue is the theft is in a video game. Not only will police not understand the concept, the resources to research who did it, etc. is far beyond the theft. They won't touch it. You have given an example here of an apple for a situation that is actually a watermelon. They are not the same.

 

[Msturlese]

In whatever cou8ntry yuo will file to police

"that in a date comprised between xxx and yyy someone not indetificed has violated my accoutn oon the online game Entropia Universe and with his behaviour created me a damage that is estimated in about USD 200. i do not recognize any transaction made in the onlune system by this impersonator".

Police will probably not investigate with Interpol if you are not located in Swedem but you will ahve a police station stamp
with that stamp you file a ticket to MA asking for their intevention.

yes, 200 USD have a certain value in each countrym, vut also police has priorities, if it is something easy to act upon they will go for it
otehrwise if some prosecutor is looking for visibility could ask for an international manhunt to find who stole some USD spending 50.000 Eur to retrieve (int eh best case) 200

as a citizen i think that IT fraud is IT fraud, we call it scam but is theft... and is a crime
if i mislead you 100 normal boxes instead of easter boxes it is contractual fraud, and in italy it lead to 3 years time....
so... if police waste 50k to punish 200... i feel it as a social investmetn to eductate people that will read the news.
and for sure NO policeman will laugh at you and bring you out of police station because he is the next accused for not doing his duty.

 

[Angela Draniie Cloud]

I'm sure the issue here is that you think that you checked your privilege, but in all actuality you didn't.

 

[halftoasted]

It doesn't actually state this anywhere in the terms of use. This line is found in a support policy, which is superceded by the terms of use.


All trades are not final. MindArk can legally do whatever they want. They simply don't because the costs incurred would cripple them.

While they can do whatever they want. It really come down to 3 points and 1 easy support ticket.

10. Transactions between Avatars in Entropia Universe​

The Entropia Universe provides You with trading administration services (including the Auction System service, the Shop Systems services, Avatar Direct Trade System services etc.) that enables You to carry out secure transactions with others, in which participating parts can exchange Virtual Items and Real World Items (the "Approved Transaction")

You acknowledge Your responsibility to keep track of all transactions with Virtual Items involving Your Account. MindArk accepts no responsibility for misplaced or misused Virtual Items in any incidence, regardless of reason.

11. Participant Content​

Ownership Right in Participant Content
For clarity purposes please note that, Your retainable proprietary right to Your Participant Content does not mean that You obtain any right in the Virtual Item (like the virtual frame, advertising board etc.) displaying the said material. MindArk and/or Planet Partner, as applicable, hereby expressly retain all and any rights in all Virtual Items as set out above.

13. Limitation of Liability​

MindArk shall in no event be liable for (i) any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive or tort damages, nor (ii) for any loss of use or data (including, but not limited to Your Entropia Universe User Account, Avatar skills and/or Virtual Items) or for lost profits of any kind (whether direct, indirect or consequential). MindArk is in no event liable for any services provided by a third party.

Yes, MA can do wth they want. Doesnt mean they will give me 100000p because they can. They in fact clearly state if you read the 3 paragraph.
"The trade system is secure, WE(MA) own all your inventory pixels and skills, WE(MA) have no responsability if you get scummed in any way. Your recourse is begging"

But yeah.. If MA want to close an account, put someone fertilizers under the map or sell hangar with oils that never was used and removed later. They can..

 

[Katie Chalmers]

I would have a hard time getting a cop taking me seriously over 200 real dollars unless it was stolen from my hip directly in front of them. Time and resources vs payout and in most cases that shit isn’t worth it especially when the one entity that can provide the proof to them wont even show it to the account holder. What are they going to do? Get their cyber hacking department onto it? All will happen if you will file a police report, it will sit on a desk perpetually until maybe your criminal walks through those doors and confesses. Their time is taken up by too many assholes that know that a police officer will find it hard to attend every speeding/parking fine appeal in court and be able to skirt their punishment, racking up more unnecessary taxpayer legal debt, followed by all It all the emergency calls for stolen newspapers and boys playing on grass. Priorities.

 

[Snowball101]

Iv had an entropia account and been playing on and off since the project entropia days( probably before 2008), but life got on top of me recently so I havent played sin e november or so.

So, I have not played Entropia for more than 4 months. All my details are correct on the site and I received no notification of anyone attempting to access my account from any other IP or machine.

I didn't have 2 factor due to having a gold-card removed from my account after it became damaged, and didn't have a mobile phone to be able to use the new app (an issue I have now resolved) (this took literally from 2012 till 2020 to get sorted, what with documents, etc having to go back and forth...)

So, logged into my account a couple of days ago to find all my armour, weapons and ped missing. My GUI had also been changed.

Straight away spoke to a friend who said he saw me in game a few days ago. So, contacted MA support who said to Contact the police and they then closed the case.

Is this normally what they do? Advise us to go to the police? Surely that can't be the process?

In total, I probably lost 2k ped. Not a huge deal. And I have now got a mobile phone and have 2 factor on my account, although this is a bit of a crap deal...

But what happens when it's someone losing many thousands? 'Go to the police'? Like the police haven't got anything else to do but chase random computergame accounts for a couple of hundred quid...

Banks reimburse fraud almost instantly. A mere computer game should be able to do the same (support confirmed they have logs of everything). I have advised them that any and all transactions between 1st December 2022 and my most recent loggin would not be me and would be fraudulent.

Their response has shaken my confidence in this game and the RCE. I would be surprised if others didn't feel the same.

I'm waiting on a response from a second case I have opened in regards to this same issue.

My PC has been scanned etc and nothing found. My username is not known to anyone. My email would be known, and my password was numbers, letters, capitals and lowercase etc. Maybe I used the same pass elsewhere. It's possible with the amount of websites and apps that require you to create an account these days...
My email passwords have been changed multiple times recently and I don't use those anywhere else.

But, the response of 'go to the police', has astounded me.

Anyone else had a similar experience with support?

same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Account locked and said something about file a police report. Account emptied other than the shares (3CLD's 60 AUD's, PED, materials weapons armour, etc all gone.). It's a eye opener for sure. 2 factor or no factor, time wears away all. I didn't care, the money I put into the game was from about 8 years or more since I deposited. I never wanted to add my bank or CC info either. But just enjoyed playing in game with what I had.

I finally got access to the account just as I said shares left pretty much. Someone had a great New Year, suprisingly around the same time as the RL stock and CLD migration, who would of figured that.

 

[Katie Chalmers]

It's a eye opener for sure. 2 factor or no factor, time wears away all.

But did you have 2FA activated?

 

[mastermesh]

Police report should be to the Country that Mindark is located in since on the Server is where it actually happened.

 

[SuperKanjo]

Police report should be to the Country that Mindark is located in since on the Server is where it actually happened.

Servers could be in a different country as Mindark, I don't know for sure nowadays but weren't the servers in the Netherlands at some point in the past?

 

[Nik-Elas]

But did you have 2FA activated?

You dare take a guess?

 

[Snowball101]

lol no, no cell phone either. Even 2FA is not unhackable. These times are a changin'... Another 7 years and we may be into worrying on Quantum computers being used for hacking. batten the hatches time to hunker down

 

[Katie Chalmers]

lol no, no cell phone either. Even 2FA is not unhackable. These times are a changin'... Another 7 years and we may be into worrying on Quantum computers being used for hacking. batten the hatches time to hunker down

A password is also not unhackable. Should we still even use those? Banks can be robbed so just leave your money on your front lawn.

 

[The Abomb]

WoW fully geared PvP warrior = 0 usd.

Actually was worth a couple 1,000 USD

Which is why someone hacked my account, transferred it to another server to be sold.

Issue is, you fail to understand the difference:

I understand the difference completely.

The difference is MA needs to hire a support team, make improvements and add features/tools that are in this century of customer support for it's players. I think it would be great if MA especially switching to Unreal actually gets better tools and support for the game finally. That is even remotely comprable to games these days.

Lets improve the game and get the support and tools it needs for the players that support it. We support the game I would love MA to do the same.

Resolving this in essence seem easy but in a RCE... Lot more complicated

It's only more complicated because we function like a game in the 1990's instead of 2023 with the proper tools, support team and features. I'm not trying to be harsh here. Just want MA to be better because this stops the MEME that is support. It prevents bad word of mouth that has been going around about this game for a long time. Want this game to grow. Start with support and features that help the players and it's player base grow.

 

[The Abomb]

I agree the accidently TT'd stuff could have been handled better, like i wont mind a buyback option for TT console for 24 hours or at least for the current session, that is avilable in many games, but with the "protect" option available it is mostly covered.

How long did it take to get this protect feature that should of been in game 20 years ago though. My original points still stand.

 

[Bones]

The point of contacting a police agency , is to give MA the ability to follow the appropriate chain of events , if there is legal action to be taken.

 

[The Abomb]

The problem with this i suppose is that if you TT a lot of stuff, use the ped you got for ammo and go out for a Hunt. You hof, you hof big... back to TT you go and buy back the item you TT'd to be able to buy ammo in thebgirst place.

This isn't a problem. Also it doesn't matter if this is an RCE. Since other games have to protect their economy just as much as this one because if it collapses so does their game.

I can literally TT something in another game use that gold to buy enchanting materials to craft new items. Then be like OOOPS I sold the wrong thing to TT and go to the website and it will tell me what I need to restore that items since it was used in other transactions and do it immediately.

Stop making excuses for the antiquated systems this game runs on. Then these post will stop and the game will improve.

Thanks

 

[Alainax]

If you are in the UK you would get your crime reference number here ( if you decide to go down that road) -

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/what-we-do-with-your-information#:~:text=When%20you%20report%20a%20fraud,run%20by%20the%20police%20service.

I guess other countries would have something similar? ( rather than physically going into a station)

 

[The Great Adventurer]

Which 3rd world shithole country you are living in where police dont care about somebody stole 200 usd from You?

FWIW in North America, police will take note of the matter but will not investigate unless the crime is violent or over $5000. Anything non-violent or under $5000 the police will just tell you to make an insurance claim. They reason they take note is because it may become a pattern and they will then do something, like catalytic converter theft. Part of the reason for this is the absurd cost associated with policing. Police are paid fairly well and that means their time is valuable, their services are also expensive to use, even if it is paid by taxes.

The kicker here is that the insurance company will advise you to not make a claim unless it's over $1000-1500 (depends) because it technically won't make sense in the long run as making claims will raise your rates. Essentially, your SOL if you don't have insurance and/or the theft is under $1000ish.

Now, since you technically don't own anything in Entropia, the police and insurance company will simply laugh at you trying to make a claim for something you don't own in the first place.

MindArk telling you to make a police report is not only a kick in the teeth, it's downright insulting.

 

[halftoasted]

It's only more complicated because we function like a game in the 1990's instead of 2023 with the proper tools, support team and features. I'm not trying to be harsh here. Just want MA to be better because this stops the MEME that is support. It prevents bad word of mouth that has been going around about this game for a long time. Want this game to grow. Start with support and features that help the players and it's player base grow.

Thats oversimplifying things. Im with you there on the support aspect 100%. I bought keys instead of keys+box and it been 7 days... 7 !@#$en days... I know the mistake is mine and whatever.. I own it. But 7 days not resolved ? Trust me, I support a lot about need for change. The room for improvement is indeed HUGE seeing the big empty hole of lacking cooperation toward a healthy communication between MA and players.

In fact, all I wanted to point out was that for SOME things it's really more complex because of the RCE aspect.
One of the main asked feature often asked is being blocked by a simple ingame feature doomed to die from that change ---> Why use a bank if you can temp TT an item and get it back after your hunt cause you TT your loot or quick sell to get it back.

 

[halftoasted]

A password is also not unhackable. Should we still even use those? Banks can be robbed so just leave your money on your front lawn.

A password can be hacked, Cellphone can be stolen or sim card dupped, fake prints have high success at unlocking fingerprint locked content, a well made picture will be able to pass a a cam recognition software and so on.. Should we even use security ? I think the problem is a bit more complex once you realise that all the so called "secure ways" are actually way less secure than a password. I agree with you on the password and yet if you dont have a password on top of another secure method that isnt that secure.. Your better off with just a password. (I know.. Thats kinda sad. Vein biometric isnt bad)

 

[Mika]

Weird mindark would defer it do coldly, like the police are going to chase 200 missing dollars in some random video game, it’s obvious they mindark is the only entity with any chance of resolving this.
But come on mate?
You haven’t been able to figure out a 2FA capable device for the better part of a decade? Am I missing something here?

This.

While sure, its theft. The police is not the place you go to get these things resolved in a video game... Seeing how its mindark who should be the step to protect its players and not local law enforcements where various countries adhere to different laws and jurisdictions...

Mindark are able to take a quick look at your account, and see where items that were on the account, were traded to. not exactly rocket science on backend. its borderline in black and white. (Not accounting for how some people think the servers are some ethereal being of pure dark antimatter that you can only access by being god himself using unobtainium glasses)


I would press mindark firstly and if they don't budge, don't go to the police, go to the consumer service aid in your country, if you live in norway or a nordic country or most european countries, businesses fear them more than they would ever fear the police.


Also just to put it blatantly blunt, there is 0 excuse to not have a authenticator on things you use online in 2023.even if you were in jail untill 2020 (only actual reason to not spend 5 bucks on a used deadbeat phone with no simcard just needing to run an app..) you still left your account unattended after coming out of jail in 2020 till present day or refusing to get a deadbeat ancient cellular device

And before anyone says something, you need IOS 6, or newer, or android 2.3 or newer, meaning a 15 year+++ old phone does the trick, no sim needed just needs to download the app and connect it.

A password can be hacked, Cellphone can be stolen or sim card dupped, fake prints have high success at unlocking fingerprint locked content, a well made picture will be able to pass a a cam recognition software and so on.. Should we even use security ? I think the problem is a bit more complex once you realise that all the so called "secure ways" are actually way less secure than a password. I agree with you on the password and yet if you dont have a password on top of another secure method that isnt that secure.. Your better off with just a password. (I know.. Thats kinda sad. Vein biometric isnt bad)

You don't live in a james bond movie, if someone does this it takes a fuck lot of social engineering, you can't just zoom enhance your way around.... And if someone was gonna do something like this to people in EU, i don't think mr.bob's 200 bucks is of any interest. hell even 1000 mr.bobs 200 bucks is not worth it. why bother with that when you can just target 2-5 individuals and make 10 times as much, all you need to do is well social engineering and not make it obvious.

So you want to use this thing called security, because it deters just about every automated attack unless you're absolutely stupid. So less tinfoil, less james bond movies, more reality and stop thinking every hacker knows your name and wants to social engineer themselves into your life

 

[Igorl]

Attacker Gen 10	54 PED	Fri, 10 Feb 2023 22:30:56
	Cornundacauda Dominant	21 PED	Wed, 04 Jan 2023 21:50:23
	Cornundacauda Dominant	20 PED	Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:46:07
	Sabakuma Old Alpha	14 PED	Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:02:29
	Caudatergus Puny	8 PED	Sun, 30 Oct 2022 11:11:17

This takes me back when my Runescape account was hacked...

As I own a 20+ year old RS account - once I logged in after like 2 year break and what do I find after I recovered it - someone power leveled my magic and prayer and left 5k green dragon hides and 5k dragon bones in the bank which I didnt have. And a bunck of cash (more then I actually had). Thank you kind hacker.

P.S.
More likely that someone hacked and sold off my account, then some poor sod worked his ass out to level and then I recovered it.

 

[halftoasted]

So less tinfoil, less james bond movies

You dont need a tinfoil or james bond movies. Ever heard of bad usb, rubberducky, fake prints, using pictures to unlock facial recognition and so on? There no james bond here... That are thing used by people these days. Yesterday thief is today hacker and security is far less effective than you think. You dont even need google... You just need some cash. A script kiddie can just ctrl+c and ctrl+v something he doesnt even really understand to do actions he desire by just purchasing part and uploading script on a computer. You dont even need magic if someone use a wifi/non bluetooth device. You can just hook up on the poor lad security and injecdt keystrokes from a distance. Via the internet or even by being at proximity of a wifi keyboard with lower security. While social engineering work, in the reality the reason why social engineering is called "The biggest part of the work or asset" is simple. The rest is already written and you can find it should you dare to use that secret website called Google.

 

[Crabby]

While sure, its theft. The police is not the place you go to get these things resolved in a video game... Seeing how its mindark who should be the step to protect its players and not local law enforcements where various countries adhere to different laws and jurisdictions...

1) Police is the place to go, USA has resources to tell you which agency to report it to. Hell even Mexico has one, so unless you live in some seriously messed up jurisdiction, there should be a place for someone to go. While they probably don't care about the video game aspect of it, they will be interested in what ever they did to gain access. Especially if it has to do with computer intrusion. If you shared the password, they probably will not care. Me personally, would not go out of my way over a video game. But MA and others are telling him what he can do and doesn't seem to wanna do it.

2) It is really up to the players to protect themselves. MA does what they do, and I'm certain they couldn't tell you your password if you asked for it cause most everyone encrypts passwords. If someone did get access to the auth db, good luck decrypting the passwords. It is 100% the doings of OP that led to this. There is no other way. Maybe he shared his password, maybe he got his PC compromised, maybe he typed in his credentials onto a fake website claiming MA was giving away 1000 ped to the first 20 people. Whatever the case is we hold primary responsibility for our own security.

It is very weirdo behavior to want to blame the company and report them to a 'consumer service aid'. If this happens to anyone, they should take their losses like a champ and figure out why it happened, so it doesn't happen again. And maybe perhaps educate others on what happened, instead of acting like they don't know 'gimmie my stuff back, not my fault'. Whether or not they want to continue EU is up to them, but this problem isn't unique to Entropia. If their solution is to try and be a rat about it to try and get their shit back, the initial problem hasn't been addressed and they'll just get hijacked again. Easy target.

Lemme rephrase the last part, if his mind is more concerned about $200 than his personal security measures, he is not thinking straight.

 

[halftoasted]

I agree to most things you just said Crabby but there still a part of responsability in the industry against those. Ask youtube! they deal with a RCE and need to fix that all the time and to people that may know a lot more than you me and most of the forum combined on technology.

 

[Crabby]

I agree to most things you just said Crabby but there still a part of responsability in the industry against those. Ask youtube! they deal with a RCE and need to fix that all the time and to people that may know a lot more than you me and most of the forum combined on technology.

They didn't use a password. They stole a session token from a browser to gain access to the accounts. All this happened because a slip up of one of his employees, he downloaded something that gave the attacker access. This is what im talking about, OS developers are constantly fixing vulnerabilities. Google is actively trying to stop malicious ads in their tracks. It is standard practice to encrypt passwords with like md5 + a prefix to everyone's password to protect the dummies that use 'abc123' as their passwords. We still need to do our part, they can only do so much.

For example it might be easy for us to just type in 'entropia universe' on a search engine and click the first link you see. Just be 101% positive youre at the correct address.

 

[Bones]

For example it might be easy for us to just type in 'entropia universe' on a search engine and click the first link you see. Just be 101% positive youre at the correct address.

It happened before if I remember correctly , where a misspelling routed you to a lookalike website.

 

[halftoasted]

They didn't use a password. They stole a session token from a browser to gain access to the accounts. All this happened because a slip up of one of his employees, he downloaded something that gave the attacker access....

Of course all this happen just because of a slip up from exactly what I said. More technologicaly capable users than most on this forum and a good chunk of people on the internet. It's really interesting too that you bring the session token because Im sure you can agree that from a browser you could steal a session token from email and change the EU account password. At that point you do what ? Doesnt matter how secure the password is. Could of been 4000 characters it change nothing seeing you can just reset it. The point is, if these guys got caught pants down... Just imagine the common user. It is expected to happen, known to happen and unavoidable because of the lack of efficient security measures that mostly revolve around costs. Every current consumer biometrics can be cheated and the most efficient one remain the vein biometric. Anything else ? It can be done by a kid having 0 clue what he's doing by following a guide on a hacker version of gamefaqs.com