Nintendo Accounts Hacked: How To Protect Your Account From Being Next

[LuchaSloth]

It's especially shameful that people are doing this during the current crisis.

So many people are out of work and struggling to stretch their savings as far as possible.

I mean...there is never a "good" time to steal from people...but, this is a particularly dastardly time to be doing it. You might very well be stealing food from the mouths of people who are struggling to feed their family during the economic crisis. And for what? So you can have some useless weapons or costumes in a video game? I was lucky enough to be a in a position where that money can always be replaced (and it will be)...but, taking from someone who can literally not afford it is a huge, huge problem...it bothers me a lot.

 

[SmoochsPLH]

You're super sweet for sharing this! Be safe ya'll!

 

[chawwee]

Be me. University deadline on the 11th, pull a few all nighters in a row to get it done - don't check your email because you've not ordered anything, your bills don't come out for another couple of weeks, and you don't get that many emails anyways so why should you? Your phone stopped displaying new emails a while ago, but again, it's okay - the ones that matter, alerts from University, they display, so you're not worried.

Until you, for whatever reason, decide to check your bank account. Student loan should be in by now! Lets see how frugally I have to live for the next few months - and despite not going out at all this week, not buying anything, you see four new transactions on your account, by Nintendo. Well, thats fine, you think, you did sign up to Nintendo online, maybe those are the payments?

But Nintendo online isn't £79. It's not the following £31, or £19, or £7. So now you start to panic - who's making these payments and why are they being accepted as approved through Paypal? Sure you linked your papal to your Nintendo account, but don't they still need the password?

Apparently not.

What follows is an hour of frantic emailing, password changes, and frustration as the Paypal website doesn't work as it should, you get told to email different places by the Nintendo advice, and you can't figure out how these people got access to your account in the first place - and due to the current situation, it could take a while before anyone even LOOKS at your claim and emails, let alone gets around to refunding them. And thus it becomes a waiting game.

Word of warning, kiddos - DON'T BE LIKE ME! I immediate put on two step authentication on every single account I have. It might be more of a hassle to get in sometimes, but its a lot easier to do that than to dispute £139 worth of debit claims. Stay safe.

 

[Alienfish]

Good idea and sorry for what happened ;;

Though, never ever link or save cc/debit card stuff whenever making payment, and unlink after every purchase. That's a sure way to vulnerable yourself and while it's "convenient", so thinks hackers and phishers.

 

[chawwee]

Good idea and sorry for what happened ;;

Though, never ever link or save cc/debit card stuff whenever making payment, and unlink after every purchase. That's a sure way to vulnerable yourself and while it's "convenient", so thinks hackers and phishers.

See, I thought it was fine because even though its linked, I still need to put my password in each time! I just don't understand how they managed to do it - it was on a completely different device so shouldn't have had my password. What's done is done though I've learnt my lesson

 

[Alienfish]

See, I thought it was fine because even though its linked, I still need to put my password in each time! I just don't understand how they managed to do it - it was on a completely different device so shouldn't have had my password. What's done is done though I've learnt my lesson

As long as you have it linked - no matter what they can just go in and grab stuff. I accidentally saved my debit card on a site that used a fishy company for payments before and yeah of course I got phishing emails for that and if it's linked they can just go in and get it multiple ways, so yeah.

 

[mocha.]

I'm so sorry this has happened to you! I've had my account hacked a couple of times - a playstation account which took £300, and an eBay account which was around the same price. I'm quite careful making sure I have TFA set up but it's also important to remember to reset your passwords and change them up for accounts you have - if you have the same password linked to certain accounts (or your bank) this makes the job easier for fraudsters.

Hopefully you'll get refunded soon - PayPal have been absolutely amazing with me and have sorted it out really fast. Obviously it might be a little slower considering the circumstances but im positive they'lll be able to help you

 

[chawwee]

I'm so sorry this has happened to you! I've had my account hacked a couple of times - a playstation account which took £300, and an eBay account which was around the same price. I'm quite careful making sure I have TFA set up but it's also important to remember to reset your passwords and change them up for accounts you have - if you have the same password linked to certain accounts (or your bank) this makes the job easier for fraudsters.

Hopefully you'll get refunded soon - PayPal have been absolutely amazing with me and have sorted it out really fast. Obviously it might be a little slower considering the circumstances but im positive they'lll be able to help you

The last time anything like this happened to me, I was like 13 on Gaia Online and I put my password into an OBVIOUSLY fake "Gaia Online". I lost the account and all the virtual money I had lol, I'd like to think I've been very careful from then on - still no idea how they managed to get my nintendo account in the first place, my password was very secure! Numbers, letters, the whole thing!

 

[mocha.]

The last time anything like this happened to me, I was like 13 on Gaia Online and I put my password into an OBVIOUSLY fake "Gaia Online". I lost the account and all the virtual money I had lol, I'd like to think I've been very careful from then on - still no idea how they managed to get my nintendo account in the first place, my password was very secure! Numbers, letters, the whole thing!

OMG I'm sure this happened to me once, too! I used to love Gaia haha. Its a hard lesson to learn but it makes us more cautious in the future, so I guess it's not all bad! We have to be extra vigilant at the minute because so many of us are working at home and on our laptops/phones more often. Unfortunately hackers and fraudsters use this to their advantage :/

I'm the same but sometimes a KeyGen can be used which automatically cracks the passcode - TFA is probably one of the safest forms of protection for accessing sensitive accounts because they need physical access to your phone etc.

 

[chawwee]

OMG I'm sure this happened to me once, too! I used to love Gaia haha. Its a hard lesson to learn but it makes us more cautious in the future, so I guess it's not all bad! We have to be extra vigilant at the minute because so many of us are working at home and on our laptops/phones more often. Unfortunately hackers and fraudsters use this to their advantage :/

I'm the same but sometimes a KeyGen can be used which automatically cracks the passcode - TFA is probably one of the safest forms of protection for accessing sensitive accounts because they need physical access to your phone etc.

Honestly I'm just glad they stopped - it was like four transactions in as many minutes, and all for - get this - VE Bucks. I don't even HAVE fortnite I'm just glad they didn't make any bigger purchases... hopefully Nintendo or papal respond soon, obviously they must be swamped with the current situation but I'm just worried they won't see the payments as fraudulent and not refund me

 

[mocha.]

Honestly I'm just glad they stopped - it was like four transactions in as many minutes, and all for - get this - VE Bucks. I don't even HAVE fortnite I'm just glad they didn't make any bigger purchases... hopefully Nintendo or papal respond soon, obviously they must be swamped with the current situation but I'm just worried they won't see the payments as fraudulent and not refund me

Hopefully Nintendo are able to fix it first, I remember when I had this issue with playstation and they warned me that my account could be locked if PayPal refunded me first. Fortunately I don't really use playstation so I wasn't too bothered - and it turned out that PayPal actually ended up refunding it first anyways lol. If it's through PayPal you should be absolutely fine, they'll just need you to list which transactions are fraudulent and may even be able to identify where the transactions have been purchased from (which could result in their account being banned). It's just a shame it's happened on a bank holiday weekend!

 

[chawwee]

Hopefully Nintendo are able to fix it first, I remember when I had this issue with playstation and they warned me that my account could be locked if PayPal refunded me first. Fortunately I don't really use playstation so I wasn't too bothered - and it turned out that PayPal actually ended up refunding it first anyways lol. If it's through PayPal you should be absolutely fine, they'll just need you to list which transactions are fraudulent and may even be able to identify where the transactions have been purchased from (which could result in their account being banned). It's just a shame it's happened on a bank holiday weekend!

Oh I didn't even think about the bank holiday I suppose I'll be waiting until Monday for a response - at least it's still within the claim period!

 

[necrofantasia]

i thought i was hacked then realised that i didn't even have an account...

 

[LuchaSloth]

Going directly through Nintendo is the only proper way to resolve this. I got my funds back the other day. No problems. If I had told Paypal to refund me, then Nintendo would have considered me "cheating the system" or whatever. You have to consider...they don't know why you're requesting to cancel the payment if you do it through paypal...it just looks like you bought something and then tried to stop the payment and get it for free. You definitely don't want to freeze or reverse any payments through paypal. Call Nintendo, answer a handful of their questions, and they will push a request to paypal through their end, and the funds are returned in full. It was honestly a refreshingly simple process. The whole process takes about a week.

Also, the two-step is all well and fine...but, I honestly recommend just unlinking any payment info to insure that it isn't possible again. It's a shame for me...because, I used to buy a lot of small impulse purchases on the eshop...just when the sales were good. And it was nice to have my info automatically set so I could do that on a whim. I really haven't been doing that since this incident. It would be too annoying to put my info in each time for 5 or 6 small impulse buys. But...it's better than the alternative. And, myself...like you, assumed that paypal would be fine. I didn't keep my card info on my account...but I expected paypal to be okay. Now we all know better. I'm honestly only buying things on the eshop with pre-loaded eshop cards in the future. Will just have to buy codes through amazon or whatever.

Hope you get your situation figured out. It's a horrible feeling.

 

[chawwee]

Going directly through Nintendo is the only proper way to resolve this. I got my funds back the other day. No problems. If I had told Paypal to refund me, then Nintendo would have considered me "cheating the system" or whatever. You have to consider...they don't know why you're requesting to cancel the payment if you do it through paypal...it just looks like you bought something and then tried to stop the payment and get it for free. You definitely don't want to freeze or reverse any payments through paypal. Call Nintendo, answer a handful of their questions, and they will push a request to paypal through their end, and the funds are returned in full. It was honestly a refreshingly simple process. The whole process takes about a week.

Also, the two-step is all well and fine...but, I honestly recommend just unlinking any payment info to insure that it isn't possible again. It's a shame for me...because, I used to buy a lot of small impulse purchases on the eshop...just when the sales were good. And it was nice to have my info automatically set so I could do that on a whim. I really haven't been doing that since this incident. It would be too annoying to put my info in each time for 5 or 6 small impulse buys. But...it's better than the alternative. And, myself...like you, assumed that paypal would be fine. I didn't keep my card info on my account...but I expected paypal to be okay. Now we all know better. I'm honestly only buying things on the eshop with pre-loaded eshop cards in the future. Will just have to buy codes through amazon or whatever.

Hope you get your situation figured out. It's a horrible feeling.

I've sent emails to both Nintendo and Paypal, neither have responded :/ what should I do if paypal gets back to me first? Tell them to hold off and see if I can resolve it on nintendos end first?

 

[LuchaSloth]

I've sent emails to both Nintendo and Paypal, neither have responded :/ what should I do if paypal gets back to me first? Tell them to hold off and see if I can resolve it on nintendos end first?

I'm really not sure, tbh. If you can do that, then yes...I think that would be best.

I didn't email anyone when it happened to me. I just called the Nintendo helpline right away, and spoke to a representative. One of the first things he asked me was if I had contacted paypal yet...which confused me for a moment. So, I said "No...but I can do that, if that's something I should do"...which prompted him to tell me that it was good that I hadn't, and the rest was smooth sailing. But, yeah...that was the first thing he wanted to know...is if I had tried to get paypal to cancel the payment...and he was adamant that it would be best if I had not. Presumably because my account could be banned if I had.

The fact that you contacted both at the same time might be okay. As long as they are in contact with each other...they should hopefully be able to iron the situation out. I think it might only be a problem if you contact paypal way in advance and Nintendo isn't even aware that paypal is going to refund the account. I really don't know...