Beware of scam e-mails!
I've heard of plenty of reports of scammers trying to get your account information with e-mails claiming to be from Blizzard, but after having one land in my Around Azeroth mailbox, I thought I'd share it with you. And while we're at it, we can talk about how you can tell that an e-mail came from Blizzard or not.
First off -- this didn't come to my primary e-mail address. Blizzard doesn't know me as "aroundazeroth@gmail.com" so any mail going there has to be bogus. And secondly, it's coming from Blizzard Europe, while I don't have a European account. However, if this had landed in my primary mailbox, and substituted US contact information for EU contact information, I'd have to take it seriously -- after all, it appears to have been sent from blizzard.com and it sounds awfully ominous. They suspect me of trying to sell my account and they're going to suspend it unless I verify it! Yikes!
However, here's the big catch: after going through all of their ominous threats, they tell me to give them my account name and password. Nope, sorry. A Blizzard representative will never ask for your account name and password -- so don't give it out to anyone claiming to be with Blizzard, because that's all the information they need to take over your account. And if you get a mail like this that you're just not sure about -- don't give them any information, but confirm its authenticity with Blizzard, first. Get in touch with their billing support team by phone or e-mail!
For those of you curious as to what one of these scams looks like, the full text of the e-mail is after the jump.
Greetings!
It has come to our attention that you are trying to sell/trade your personal World of Warcraft account.
As you may or may not be aware of, this conflicts with the EULA and Terms of Agreement.
If this proves to be true, your account can and will be disabled. It will be ongoing for further investigation by Blizzard employee's.
Blizzard might consider taking legal actions against your crime, if it seems too be of an extreme nature.
If you wish to not get your account suspended you should immediately verify your account.
This action is taken because we at Blizzard Entertainment takes these sales
quite serious. We need to confirm you are the original owner of the account.
This is easiest done by confirming your personal information along with concealed information about your account.
You can confirm that you are the original owner of the account by replying to this email with:
Use the following template below to verfiy your account and information via email.
* First and Surname
* Address
* Zip code
* Phone number Daytime
* Country
* Account e-mail
* CD-key, alternative a photograph of your CD-key that is located on your manual for World of Warcraft.
* Account name
* Account password
* Secret Question and Answer
If you ignore this mail your account can and will be closed permanently.
We ask you to NOT change password until the investigation is fully completed.
Blizzard Entertainment Europe
Account Administration Team
TSA 60 001
78143 Vélizy Villacoublay Cedex France
As soon as we have this information we will be able to progress the resolution
of this matter for you.
If you wish to review our current Rules and Polices, they can be found at:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/policy/
Regards,
Khemborea
Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment Europe
http://www.wow-europe.com/en
