If you read the above headline and immediately checked your bank statement, well, that’s probably not a bad habit to get into, but we weren’t actually talking about Account Security. In today’s article, we talk about how plat farmers have gotten more sophisticated and are picking SOE’s pocket via new (StationCash Gifting) and old tricks (Legends of Norrath packs).

Fraud Happens

Every online business has its share of Credit Card Fraud. However digital currencies like StationCash have been especially prone to this problem, due to the immediacy of the conversion from real dollars to virtual ones. Scammers can create thousands of SOE accounts using automated scripts, activate them with stolen or faked credit card information, “fund” them with StationCash via more fraudulent transactions, and now with the new StationCash Gifting feature, “sell” items to players in-game using their ill-gotten StationCash. The scammer gets the platinum for the sale of the SC item, and then they can turn that platinum around to a plat-selling service. They get money for nothing via a bit of digital switcheroo.

Players have been advised about The Dangers of Buying Plat and/or Power Leveling services for a couple of years now, including the consequences such as compromised accounts.

However this July, SOE became aware of a more insidious and direct attack upon the EQ2 playerbase. We’re talking about an Account Phishing Scam that encourages players to login to an official-looking website using their SOE Station credentials. Personal information including logins, passwords, e-mail addresses, account names, are logged and eventually used to strip characters and otherwise compromise accounts for plat and item distribution within the game.

In the Account Fraud panel at Fan Faire, as well as some discussions with SOE staff, we have determined some sobering data points.