It’s been a long battle for one Xbox Live user, but they’ve finally got a refund and had their account restored – so does Live have a hacking problem, or just a customer service one?
Okay, I know what you’re thinking: ‘people get hacked on Live all the time, how is this news?’ Well, the difference here is that Microsoft seems to have been just kind of sweeping these cases under the rug and hoping they’ll go away.
User SusanT lost her account to a hacking, with whoever took it charging around $200 to her account in the process. She was locked out of her account, so she immediately took it to the Phone Support Team. After assuring her that her report would be forwarded to the Fraud Team right away SusanT received an email stating her account was blocked and closed. Except it wasn’t.
After losing yet $124 (keep in mind she was assured her account was now blocked and closed) and contacting Support yet again, Support told SusanT that they were unable to block her account. SusanT was just told to ‘keep trying’ to log into her account. Frustrated, she took to twitter and was instead met with condescending advice from their official twitter support.
SusanT is a mother and has had over $300 stolen from her, so she was understandably was pretty pissed about this. She created a blog which soon spawned into Hacked On Xbox, a website dedicated to Microsoft’s poor handling of hackings. The worst part about SusanT’s story? She has only ever accessed her PayPal and Xbox Accounts from their official websites – there’s no way she could have been phished.
There was a happy ending for SusanT, who was given a refund and got her account back, but what about other unhappy customers? SusanT says she has been contacted by users who have been trying to get their accounts blocked or resolved since September 2011.
"The online safety of Xbox Live members remains of the utmost importance, which is why we consistently take measures to protect Xbox Live against ever-changing threats," the company said in a statement. "However, we are aware that a handful of customers have experienced problems getting their accounts restored once they've reported an issue. We are working directly with those customers to restore their accounts as soon as possible and are reviewing our processes to ensure a positive customer support experience."
Microsoft assured in their statement "that there has been no breach to the security of our Xbox LIVE service,” but it’s not the breach I think I’m worried about – it’s Support itself.
I’m off to remove my PayPal from my Live account.
