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Sir Gnome -> Scam Awareness (2/9/2011 19:11:17)
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Scam Awareness
Nine tips to keep your accounts secure
One of the biggest problems we have to deal with is trying to sort out issues from people who have had their account stolen, their items sold, characters deleted, and generally spoiled. It's a sad fact that there are scammers out there who are out to steal your accounts. There are many ways this can happen; to ensure it doesn't happen to you, we've put this guide together to help you keep all your game, forum and master accounts secure.
1) Use a secure password!
The first step to keeping any account secure is choosing a good password. We advise something that is at least 8 characters long, using numbers and letters, and isn't something easy to guess like your Character Name/Username, "1234567890", "0987654321", "qwertyuiop", "password", or anything like that; don't think things like that are too obvious to be guessed, people have been caught out with these before! A good example of a password would be something like "SnoW513FlaKE", using upper and lower case letters with numbers (but please don't use exactly that - it's just an example!)
2) Don't share or trade accounts
Not only is this against the Terms of Service that you sign up to on creating an account, but sharing an account with someone very often ends badly, which is why we don't allow it. However much you trust someone at the time you're making the account, you don't know how things will change in the future, even with a very close friend or sibling. You don't want to put a lot of work in to a character to find that someone else has changed the password suddenly, and won't give you access. For similar reasons, don't lend your account to anyone, or attempt to trade/sell it - People asking to "borrow" your account so they can "give you free gold" or similar is a popular scam.
3)Never enter your password on a non-AE site
You should never enter your login information for any of your AE Accounts (Forum, Master Account, Game, etc) on a non-AE site. If you're told about a "private server" or similar for any of our games, then this is not something that we have created, and so will just steal your login information and with it your character. If you can't reach a site from links from the Battleon Portal then chances are it is not ours, and so you shouldn't enter any password associated with any of your AE accounts there.
4)Never share your passwords
Never tell another person your password to any of your AE account. We also recommend that you use a different password for each account you have with us, and that these passwords are different any you use anywhere else. For example, if you use the same password for a lot of things, and somebody finds it out, then you could have several of your game accounts, your forum account, your master account and your email account stolen in one go.
5) Be careful about where you save your passwords
Our games give you the option to save your login information so that you can log in more quickly the next time you play. You should only do this on private computers that you don't share, so that no-one else can get access to your account without knowing your password. Some browsers will also offer to remember passwords for things like your Master Account; again, you should never do this on a shared computer.
6)Don't be tempted by Trainers or Hacks
Anything you need to download or put your password in to which is claiming to improve your character(s) somehow is likely either something which will infect your computer or steal your password. Even in the unlikely event that they do neither of these things, using them is against our Terms of Service, and so will lead to actions being taken against your account, up to and including fully disabling it - We can detect this sort of thing, and will take action against any such account.
7)Don't trust second hand information
One tactic scammers use is to create multiple accounts who will go around claiming that "Player X gave me in-game currency and didn't steal my password!", while player X is actually also one of their accounts, and in reality hasn't been helping anyone. Other examples of this are things like people claiming "Artix told me to get your username and password" or similar - Again, Staff will never ask for or need your password, so this sort of thing is definitely a scam. A Staff member will also never ask a normal user to act on their behalf; if someone is asking you to do something for a staff member and they are not an in-game Moderator with a Gold name in-game or a member of the Staff and Assistants on the forums, then they are trying to scam you.
8)Never try to say your password in-game or on the forums
We have things in place to stop you typing in your password for our MMOs, and they are there for a reason! You will never need to type your password in at anything but the login screens, and shouldn't try to at any other point, even if you are confident that one of our filters will catch it. Don't experiment to see if the filters work, or try and get around them, because this will only lead to other people getting hold of your password, and through that your account. This is especially true on the forums where no such filters exist.
9)If contacting you outside the games/forums, Staff will only want you to reply via @battleon.com email addresses, or via AE webforms
If someone emails you claiming to be staff, then an easy way to tell if they are an imposter is what they're asking you for, and how they're asking you to send it. While we may send you information from personal email accounts such as hotmail or gmail accounts, Staff will never ask for you to send your password. Anything we do ask you to send will be directed to either a webform on one of AE's websites (such as this one, on www.battleon.com), or to an @battleon.com email address. Anyone asking you to send confidential information to any other email address or a webform that isn't on a site you recognize as related to AE is trying to scam you.
If you believe you have fallen victim to a scam or have otherwise lost control of your account, you can find links to the Help Pages for all of our games here.
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