Credit Card Fraud involving Blizzard Entertainment

bobtastic · 11 July 2007 at 12:38AM

I had 2 charges on my paypal account yesterday.

Not for world of warcraft, but for a website which sells virtual gold for world of warcraft!
$60 and $49
Can you beleive these sap's pay hundreds of dollars for some virtual money on a game they are addicted to.

first transaction at 13:06, and the next one at 13:07.

no idea how they got my account details.

Have spoken with the merchant and they've given me a few details on the username of the world of warcraft player, and i have their IP address but it probably doesn't help.
I'm going to give Blizzard a ring tomorrow to see if they will give me any address or phone number of the person who hacked my paypal.

lylbyrd458 · 11 July 2007 at 3:30PM

102milbury wrote: »

My wife just bought scrubs from Jasco about 4 days ago and since then I've had 2 warcraft debits and 1 blizzard ...
I've called my bank and cancelled her debit card but what should I do now?

You should put a fraud alert on your credit file or a security freeze. You can contact the credit reporting agencies to find out how. You should also file a police report and provide the information for the report to the credit card company when you dispute the charges.

Kevoh · 11 July 2007 at 4:41PM

harryhound wrote: »

PS Gold plated wipers? No wonder you got them pinched. I remember in 1971 parking a mini in Belgrade and noticing I had the only car in the street with wipers. The wonders of communism meant no wipers in the state plan. So I locked mine in the boot;)
I've recently replaced the wipers on a Mondeo (the rubber blade and its metal carrier that goes back and forward over the windscreen - not the spring loaded arm). The pair cost less than a tenner from Brazil via Aldi.

Gold plated I wish! It cost 125 to replace 2 whole spring loaded arms, wiper blades, nuts, washers and nut covers from a Mazda 6 dealer, boy do they make ££ with spares! I think the reason is that wiper arms are in low demands nice they don't wear off.

DLancer7676 · 11 July 2007 at 4:59PM

We received our American Express bill and noted a strange charge on it from a
Blizent Electronics for computer games---amount: $21.84. I found this site (moneysavingexpert.com) and noted that there has apparently been widespread credit card fraud involving that company. I attempted to call them, but as one poster noted, I was put on hold and listened to wierd music for as long as I could stand it. Then I called American Express Customer Service. They were extremely helpful, purged my credit card the $21.84, and are invesitigating the incident. They will not allow Blizent credits in the future.

I did note that some of the posts mentioned a "Blizzard" company. Wonder if that is the same group?

SittinInATree · 11 July 2007 at 11:52PM

Well guess what. I posted above about 7 WoW charges from the end of June. I cancelled that card but today I had 3 more charges from WoW plus fees since the purchases were done internationally. Great....

I am contacting my local media to try and get this company exposed. Blizzard needs to investigate what is going on and try to resolve this matter. I think all major credit cards, at least Visa and MC, should cease all operations with them until they do.

This is unbelievable.

Almost_In_The_Black · 12 July 2007 at 12:06AM

I've only read a few pages of this thread so apologies if this has been answered but is this a genuine Blizzard problem or just people using stolen detail to buy things with Blizzard? After all if someone stole my details an bought a TV at Tesco my issue would always be with my bank and not with Tesco?

As a side note I've been a WoW player for a year or so now and I'm neither addicted nor do I buy gold plus I'm over 25 with a well paying job. So lets leave the stereotypes out of the conversation! (Yeah I know I'll get flamed for that).

Matt123 · 12 July 2007 at 10:18AM

I think Blizzard is a big target because they sell a product that does not need delivery, it is just purchasing play-time for World of Warcraft. If people have never used their credit cards with Blizzard then it's not a Blizzard problem, rather the security of the card is compromised.

I'd recommend everyone checks their PC for malware, spyware and viruses. There are a number of freeware tools available. There are many businesses set up to exploit the WoW economy for profit and I'm sure many of these are not legit and would use malware to steal credentials, credit card info, etc.

It does make you wonder though, is the delivery address the only thing that is stopping credit cards being used illegally everywhere else??

HyperionCT · 12 July 2007 at 3:04PM

I also found 3 separate charges on my credit card this week from BLIZZARD-ENT*ELECUPGRD, each one for $19.99. I called Blizzard and the (snotty)woman I spoke with told me that they had no account in my name, but I could not dispute the charges with them...they would only deal with a bank or credit card company for that. I did call my credit card and they cancelled my card and issued me a new one, and are removing the charges. If there are 6 pages of replies to this thread, imagine how many thousands? tens of thousands? or more? people this has happened to!

diablox29 · 12 July 2007 at 5:40PM

You've got to admit it - Blizzard get their money for doing nothing so it's no real loss to them if 0.1 percent of their dealings are stopped by credit card companies.

And the credit card companies don't lose out; they are making billions anyway so don't do more than pay lip service to fraud. When they handle money it's like a coal merchant shovelling coal - so what if a few lumps drop off the cart? Maybe one day the whole load will be nicked but they are not going to worry about that until it happens.

Mat123 suggests everyone checks their PCs for malware, spyware and viruses. I am using a hardware firewall, Kerio Software firewall, Avast antivirus and MS Windows Defender for spyware. I regularly update these and do A/V and spyware scans. Have all the MS updates. Use the "Thunderbird" browser, with pop-ups blocked. Never open attachments in spam email. Never enter info into 'phishing' sites. But still someone gets my card number.

I'd say a bigger risk is in giving your card number over the phone, specially to "off shore" call centres in India. It's well known that the operators jot down the details and sell on lists of them to other crooks.

Its just too easy - all you need is a name and a number to access someone's money. Who are the credit card companies to talk about security when they make it so easy for crooks? Why is it possible to have goods delivered to other than the authorised address? Why don't they apply this rule to your IP internet address as well?

I've just received my replacement bank card, in the post. Anyone could have felt that there was a card in the envelope. They could have just taken it out and used it over the internet. There was no need for me to contact the card company to "activate" it. I'm no security expert but this is a farce!

Diablo.

ducati74 · 14 July 2007 at 3:55AM

3 charges of $19.99.

When I did a Google search of Blizzard entertainment I got this webpage as a hit..I just wanted to add a line to let others know it is still happening..

It was sad to read that many have had the same issue, but it gave me a bit of ammo to give the customer service woman a hard time about the charges...As someone else mentioned she did say it would be nearly impossible to use a stolen credit card due to their high security. Having read prior post I knew where she was going and asked what she meant.

I was told that it would be nearly impossible for someone to use my credit card without knowing my name and implied that probably a family member had used my card...my reply was , "REEAALLYY then run my name in your system and try and find me."' Of course she did not find my name so I asked how that could be possible. Her story line then changed to "well sometimes people buy gift cards under other peoples names." Of course I asked her to run my credit card number to see whose name the account was under, BUT "DO TO THEIR HIGH SECURITY" she could not do that???

I did not get overly rude because it is easy for someone to hack your card info and use it online plus she is just some minimum wage customer service girl, but it is annoying to have to cancel your credit card. Technically the company is the one to lose the money since the credit card company just pulls the money back, but as someone said Blizzard makes enough money that it don't hurt them anyway..and they can always claim to be innocent victims, but they should try to do more.

I am going to add the following to mabye allow Google to hit on some of the words for anyone else that may be searching for the company.

BLIZZARD GAMES
WORLD of WARCRAFT

Blizzard Entertainment

Credit Card Fraud involving Blizzard Entertainment

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