AND WE THOUGHT THEY WERE GROWING UP… [Author: wirehead]

Got this note. Yes, it is one side of a story, but if even 5% of it is true (and frankly, it seems authentic to me), Origin has some cleaning up to do.

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Hello all, this will be a lengthy read, but some very interesting stuff here, and you all pay 10 bucks a month for this 🙂

As a small background, I started playing UO in beta, heavily addicted as final came out despite the bugs, played many hours a day. Being newly married, my wife was interested in what was occupying so much of “our” time. Due to a screwed up noto system, I became red in one spell, and started feeding a beggar. My wife seeing what I was doing gladly offered to do this for me while I was at work (great wife) — after a week or so of this, she then demanded her own acct, and her own computer to play it on. I gladly said yes, built her a system and we were on our way 🙂

She played fairly timidly, but loved helping others and interacting with people. A couple of months later, counselor apps were being accepted. I scoffed at it, she quickly filled one out. I thought nothing of it til a month later she was overly excited. She was accepted into the counselor program, it was her fondest UO dream come true.

During the next 18 months, she lived and breathed OSI, counseled into wee hours of the morning, did anything asked of her, went to texas several times (bailed a GM out of rl jail, for gods sakes). There was nothing this woman wouldn’t/didn’t do for the program, or anyone in this program that she called “friend” which was many.

In March of this year she broke her hand, which severely limited her in her online duties. At this time she requested less duties, responsibilities etc. She was told with a smile from her “friends” that all will be well, take care of yourself, etc. etc.

Now, a tad more background. I myself from playing soo long and running a very large guild had acquired much property on Great Lakes — 2 towers(96k each) placed eons ago. When my wife told me of an all counselors player’s guild for Great Lakes that was in the works, I gladly let her use one of the towers for it. She seemed excited to actually play with these people. The people played for like a week… then stopped… was just my wife playing on Great Lakes again, nonetheless the tower stayed until July, at which time I sold my main acct (the one with that tower on it).

Time passed, my wife and I started playing EQ kinda heavily, only logged onto UO to refresh stuff basically. So… in the beginning of September, I log on to refresh the tower (which for simplicity sake I had placed ownership to my wifes acct), and lo and behold… it says.. that’s locked you dont have a key… hmmmm methinks… I call my wife and say… um wtf is up wit da tower 🙂

She logs on her chars… one by one… I can hear her voice ready to break down in tears… all her chars are ghosts… logged in INNs… mising bout 30% of their stats/skills… all her chars.. both of her accts.

Now… so far I know you’re saying… damn, that sucks to get hacked etc etc, but… there was someone who knew her password… an old one…for one of the accts…but not the other… hmmm. Plot thickens i guess… well, at this point I’m pretty pissed, cause the reality is, everything in that tower was mine… the guy who actually played UO and didnt counsel…

So, I know my neighbors well… ask him to tell me who he sees in my tower, about the same time, my wife is on the phone with OSI, a gm friend of hers, probably only real friend she had amongst them, well..theres this neat thing OSI can do… they can tell you whose IP logged into your acct. Normally requires an FBI summons to make them do so, but this guy either by mistake or out of friendship, tells her who was on her acct, about the same time I found out the names of the ppl in the tower…..*drumroll*

Welp, it was 2 of OSI’s employees… yessir… 2 SRCs… basically raped my wife’s acct and her characters.

Off with their heads, I scream (I wasn’t surprised, however). She continues talking with her friend, at this point… shes really pissed, but wants her stuff back (my tower) so she is told to logon and call the gm, will be taken care of. She logs on… calls…. waits waits waits… finally GM Clyde sends a message “Sorry, there’s nothing we can do about that” (sound familiar?). So… a couple of days later (many minutes of long distance) a tower comes back to us…. all of her chars are trashed… everything banks etc skills done, they do nothing for that….oh, they also add, and this is the kicker, if you post anything about this incident…we will delete that tower… how’s that for customer service?

Oh…what happened to their employees that commited a federal offense by hacking someones acct? Glad you asked…. nothing happened to either of them….they are still working for OSI…and you 🙂

Why should you care?

Welp…heres the thing, there was absolutely no way that either of these SRCs had her password — acct names…yes, thats public knowledge to an src,which means one of 2 things. Either a… they plugged away for passwords… or b…used their insideness with OSI to aquire them… either option means criminals have access to your accts, and if they take yours, OSI wont do squat 🙂