To Gree management regarding Gree's response to hijacking of player accounts

[Longbeard]

A player was recently excommunicated for his actions; specifically, “scamming” under circumstances that would qualify as Wire Fraud. His response was to post a detailed description of his process within dozens of LINE chats. Shortly thereafter, several accounts were hijacked in the manner described.

The way this happened is and was not due to a mistake those players made or carelessness, but by exploiting the current system in place used by GREE to safeguard those accounts. Specifically, it exploits the fact that there is no way to verify the validity of the claim (verification question, verification of email address match, etc).

This has resulted in the current situation, where no one wants to post his/her friend code because of the fear someone could steal his/her account. Given the timing of this incident (just prior to an Epic Event), those of us in Leadership positions of our respective Guilds/Alliances are finding it increasingly difficult to verify applicants from outside sources seeking entry into said event.

What’s more, the current response by GREE has been unsatisfactory. The first returned account was reduced to the level of a basic starting account, with 8 basic armors and an emptied castle. This has led to an atmosphere of seeing GREE as trying to pass this off as a “Player Problem”, when it was in fact a 3rd party taking advantage of both the Player AND GREE. While a loyal player has no power to rectify this situation, GREE does through such actions as Account Rollbacks and a refined Verification Process (be it through programming or human interaction). While the victim may lose some gems and/or gold, such actions would help to regain not only months work but faith in the company that has brought such a diverse, eclectic group of individuals together in the name of Fun.

On a personal note: I have played K&D for a long time, and through this game I’ve made a wonderful group of friends. We have proverbially stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches and forged bonds that have influenced me In Real Life. The thought of losing this saddens me and more so that it would be precipitated by the criminal actions of a single, selfish individual.

Therefore, on behalf of the K&D community, we respectfully request a response from GREE in regards to this matter. We are not asking for personal recompense; we are merely asking for reinstatement of these accounts to their approximate status at the time they were stolen, as well as assurance that steps are being taken to prevent this in the future.

Sincerely,
The Knight and Dragons Community

[Jedi Jon]

I agree completely. This is ridiculous, my heart goes out to those affected by gree's lack of scam preventions.

[seta sojiro]

I fully support this request as well several of the guilds that are with me.
GREE does have to step it up a notch and protect their clients.

[majestic aman]

I completly agree with longbeard here.
GREE should put more effort in this.
People love this game and have made great friends in here. How horrible would it be to randomly get your account stolen... when its not even your own fault

[Clementine]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am working with the Support team on trying to find more details about this.

[Fossil]

Clemintine, I sent u a pm. The answer is quite simple

[miss carlie]

GREE has to do something, people spend alot on this game and if i lost my acc to some little so in so id be pissed...despite the fact that its bound people can still take it that sucks 100% agree with lb

[jediplharuko]

Yes. More needs to be done on this issue.

[Longbeard]

Clementine I can provide you with the same data your team already has. What is needed is Gree to step up and take responsibility for what happened to several players.

Its Gree's responsibility to check when somebody claims to have lost his account. This has obvious not happened, at least not as thoroughly as should have happened. The result was several hijacked accounts that where totally emptied of armors, buildings, gold and gems.

Returning emptied accounts to the rightful owner is not enough. Gree should take responsibility for its failure to check a claim and provide hijackers with Knight & Dragon accounts of others.

If necessary I can provide you with the data we collected.

[Dk DeadMan]

I agree that something needs to be done as I had a member who was guild sent in my guild have his account stolen in this manner . The bad thing is this is not the first time his account was stolen. Something needs to be done to insure the safety of everyone as many spend to much money building their accounts just to have them stolen away .

[StormBlessed]

While Gree certainly has the obligation to do something about this situation, please keep in mind that this is not something to get angry and flame Gree and their support over. They offer the account retrieval process through their support desk as a convenience to get back your account every time you try to take a selfie on a roller coaster and whoops, their goes your phone, but wait I didn't bind it.... No...

It is a simple process loophole that is being abused by malicious <expletive deleted, expletive deleted, expletive deleted >

Gree and KnD community. There is a very simple way to minimize this today. Gree, do not, under any circumstances retrieve any account that is bound to an email address through your support. Period. The person has the capability on their own to do this, and do not "remind" them of their email address until you have much stronger mechanisms of personal identity verification.

KnD community, bind your account to your email.

Problem minimized. And Gree, we know the kind of earnings you make and the $ that many put into this game. Failure to have proper compensating controls over valuable items such as accounts and the security measures to prevent malicious activity with those valuables is just as negligent as the big box stores have been with our credit card numbers and is class action worthy....

I also have a bitter taste in my mouth from defending Gree Support.

[legalious]

The only issues I see that could prevent or delay the return of the accounts are:

- Shared Information to allow for another player to use the same account
- Non-Account holder submitting the Ticket
- Unable to verify that it belongs to you
- Abuse of in-game exploits/hacks

[Longbeard]

While Gree certainly has the obligation to do something about this situation, please keep in mind that this is not something to get angry and flame Gree and their support over. They offer the account retrieval process through their support desk as a convenience to get back your account every time you try to take a selfie on a roller coaster and whoops, their goes your phone, but wait I didn't bind it.... No...

It is a simple process loophole that is being abused by malicious <expletive deleted, expletive deleted, expletive deleted >

Gree and KnD community. There is a very simple way to minimize this today. Gree, do not, under any circumstances retrieve any account that is bound to an email address through your support. Period. The person has the capability on their own to do this, and do not "remind" them of their email address until you have much stronger mechanisms of personal identity verification.

KnD community, bind your account to your email.

The best solution is enforcing members to bind there account. That would solve a lot of problems. Its not necessary to enforce it from lvl1, but enforcing it at the moment people buy gems should solve the hijacking of a lot of high level accounts.

Problem minimized. And Gree, we know the kind of earnings you make and the $ that many put into this game. Failure to have proper compensating controls over valuable items such as accounts and the security measures to prevent malicious activity with those valuables is just as negligent as the big box stores have been with our credit card numbers and is class action worthy....

The current problem is, as far as I can see it from the outside, a failure to thoroughly check the evidence submitted by the person asking for a retrieval of 'his' account. Whether this is through negligence by not following the procedure or by absents of such a procedure I do not know. What I however can see, the number of hacked accounts, is a big failure of a check that should be extensive and handled with care.

I also have a bitter taste in my mouth from defending Gree Support.

I do not know if support is to blame or management by not providing a good solid procedure to handle the case of a lost account.

[Tiffanee]

Thank you Longbeard for so articulately describing the problem. Thank you Clementine for seeing it a half hour after it was posted. I know few players have been quite upset with me. I'd hate to have my binded account stolen and would anxiously wait for Gree to fix the problem. I'm addicted to K&D.

[Phoenix Khaleesi]

I fully agree with longbeard. Gree needs to step up and take responsibility on there own actions. And fix what has happened to the accounts affected.