imongreen Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 First I will start with the whining... I've been a loyal fan of Neopets for over 5 years. Let's face it - it's a great site for people of any age! When my six year old son started developing an interest in computers and games, it was great that we were able to have a common interest in Neopets! After he put my grey koi up for adoption one day (yikes!), I decided it was time to make him his own account. To be fair and play by the rules, I transferred all but 2,500 of my neopoints to his account, since we both were using it. As Neopets was offering me two weeks of premium for free, I decided to give it a go in order to help build my son's account. I liked it so much, I kept it. In the past eight months now, I was able to build my son's account to a value of 3,000,000 in neopoints/items (including rare nerkmids) and around 170 avatars, including the secret laboratory, pant devil, alien aisha, faerie queen doll that were all paid for (NOT LENT). And in the process of avatar collecting and restocking, I fell in love with Neopets all over again! Great! Last Sunday (21 June) night while restocking, I noticed a glitch in the shop wizard. Someone was able to manipulate it so that it would appear as though they had codestones for 2,500 np in their shop, but when you click, there was nothing there. Ok, "maybe someone bought it", I thought, but everytime I entered a codestone in the search, that shop was still sitting there at the top of the list, and it lasted for a period of around 5 minutes. I also noticed a warning from OE that it was trying to prevent cross-site transmission. After conducting an experiment where I would refresh the ssw, while at the same time refreshing their shop, only to find nothing there, I realized it was somehow a scam, and knew it had to be reported. So I follow the rules, and go to the shop and click "report shop". In my report, I explained what was happening, and, of course, never got a response. Last Tuesday, I noticed the same thing, only this time the codestones were listed for 1,004 np. I conduced the experiment again, and again realized it was a scam. What do I do? Once again, I follow the rules and go to the shop to report it. Only this time, the clever scammers were able to manipulate the "report shop" link on the page, which took me to a fake page, only I didn't know it, and at this point I can only assume, because my son's account has been frozen, and they still haven't bothered to tell me why. When I try to log on to my son's account, I get an error saying the account has been frozen, and they can't guarantee I'll get it back. They also say that if I submitted my information to a fake moderator or admin page that I will not be getting the account back. At the bottom of the warning there is something about if I've done something wrong, and "you know if you've done something wrong"... What? I've done everything I'm supposed to do, and the best protection they can afford me who pays to use their website is to take my account away?! This is how they repay my loyalty? The solution? Well, first they can completely restore my account. : ) Next... I remember back in the good old days when you could make the prettiest, sparkliest, glitteriest fonts you could imagine on the neoboards. Some of you may remember and some may wonder what in the heck I'm talking about. At any rate, apparently they were too annoying to some people back in the dial-up days, and Neopets eventually did away with it, which brings me to my next point... I wonder how many people who are frozen by no real fault of their own find it annoying? And yes, I could check the link on every page that I click on, however, as a paidsubscriber, I feel that entitles me to a certain degree of protection. And don't you think that would make a great selling point? So what do you think? Do you think it would be a good idea to either: 1) Disable ALL non-Neopets links to protect everyone? 2) Give paid subscribers the option to disable all non-Neopets links? 3) Do nothing to resolve the issue? I've basically had it with Neopets until they resolve this. I'm not going to make any effort to rebuild an account (or pay them any more of my money) until this is fixed. And at any rate, beware of a good deal you see on the wiz, it could be the worst deal ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strategos Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Actually, all non-Neopets and Petpetpark links are disabled on Neopets. However, recently, scammers have found a way to put in Cookie Grabbers into shop descriptions, as well as manipulate the Shop Wizard. For more information, I reccomend that you view this thread: http://www.tdnforums.com/index.php?showtopic=15705&hl= As for the frozen account, it's because the scammers got into your account, TNT realized this, and froze your account to protect it. It's still likely that you'll get back the account, you just may have to try a couple times. They're not taking your account away, they're just preventing the scammers from stealing your NP. Finally, I just want to warn you that sharing accounts with your son is a violation of the Neopets Terms and Conditions unless your son is unable to play by himself, just in case you didn't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imongreen Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 Well, it would be nice to have it back, however, the warning stated quite clearly in bold and caps that if I fell victim to a fake mod or admin page that I would NOT be getting my account back. I can only surmise that's what happened, because it's been 5 days already and still no reply as to why it was frozen, so that I can beg and grovel for the account back. And it just seems to me that they might could come up with a better way to "protect" me than waiting until after I've been scammed and then take my account away that I then have to beg for "a couple of times" in order to possibly get back, even thought they're own warning said that I wouldn't. I mean, I paid to use their site... And I did happen to mention that my son was only 6 years old, but thanks for the warning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masaryk Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 My account was stolen, and subsequently frozen earlier this month. However, I was able to get it back after a week. Be thankful that your account got frozen, because it is likely that little damage was done to your account by the scammer. If you want some help to get your account back, feel free to PM me. Good luck getting your account back! The problem with Neopets that allows problems like CGs to happen is that they allow user scripts on the site. TNT allows us to program scripts into our Lookups, Petpages, etc., like animations and musics. But, by allowing the scripts that users want, it makes it possible for people to insert unwanted scripts into the user editable parts of the site. So, unless you can convince TNT that they universally should not allow scripts to run on user editable parts of the site, there will never be a foolproof way to prevent these kinds of attacks. However, if you use Firefox as your browser when playing Neopets, there is a lovely little add-on called NoScript that you can use to prevent unwanted scripts from running. It's a bit of a pain to "train," but it works well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imongreen Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 Thanks! I might take you up on your offer, though I'm concerned that it's been 5 days since I tried to contact them regarding the matter, and I haven't heard anything back... My point is that we should be given the choice to see everyone's pretty graphics or protect our accounts from invaders, particularly for those who pay to be there. I would choose to be able to safely use the site without having to worry about it. And I'm glad to hear that you were able to get your account back! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashbash Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 I understand your frustrations with this. I had my account frozen a long time ago for something I didn't do and was never able to get it back. I had to start all over and it was a major pain. Good luck getting your account back, I hope you'll have better luck than I did! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viridian Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Aw gee that's terrible! Maybe you should just try and submit all your information to neopets. Usually they ask me for more information that I just cannot remember... So that's pretty bad! But seeing I've got a terrible memory anyway that shouldn't be too much of a problem to most people. I wish you good luck on getting your account back if you're giving it a try! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masaryk Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Thanks! I might take you up on your offer, though I'm concerned that it's been 5 days since I tried to contact them regarding the matter, and I haven't heard anything back...Don't be too worried about the length of time. The short turnaround on me getting my account back was luck. With the huge CGing problem that's been going on for the past week, TNT is probably flooded with Account Access requests Be patient, and don't automatically expect a positive response the first time you hear back from TNT. The best thing you can do, right now, is to prepare to do a BETTER job of filling out the Account Access Form. The form asks for all sorts of information that is hard to remember when you are panicking about your account being frozen, and it will get harder to remember the longer your account is frozen. This is the part I can help you with. It's easier to brainstorm when someone is prompting you step-by-step. Filling out the form ACCURATELY is the key to getting your account back! I hope you hear back from TNT soon. It's so hard waiting for a response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitsurugi_0wnag3 Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Hopefully you get your account back, I almost had my account hacked this morning after clicking a potentially bad link, but I quickly managed to change my passwords and my PIN in order to prevent that. I'm purposely steering away from the SW for the time being for buying specific items that are searched for frequently (Codestones, Dubloons, etc) until that problem is rectified. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imongreen Posted June 30, 2009 Author Share Posted June 30, 2009 The Epilogue... They gave me the account back! Wow! The scammers were able to get my nerkmids, but they left **all** of the neopoints and everything else. I have to give kudos to TNT, as I never expected to get the account back, much less, still relatively intact. Thanks to everyone who posted! And if this ever happens to you, don't panic (like I did)! If you didn't do anything wrong, and are able to correctly answer questions about your account, apparently, you can get your account back! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denisa Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Wow..i so glad that this story has a happy ending..these are so rare when it come to freezing and scammers. Congrats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masaryk Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Yay! It's wonderful when these stories have happy endings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00fin_hearts_chocolate Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 Darn,this has been going around for some time now.It freezes your account when you report it,so they did some backwards thinking there.well,that's why I dont use the SW much right now.when this is over,im going to continue with my shop since its closed. BTW,congrats on the fact that you got all your stuff back!too bad about the nerkmids though,at least they didnt take EVERYTHING. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ΩCCΩ Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 Congrats for getting your account unfrozen back :D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viridian Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 Aw! I'm glad you got your account back! :) I hope I'll never get frozen for one or another reason. I wonder how TNT notices that there are others on your account... Do they always freeze you when you log in on another computer too? That just sounds odd. Anyway, that's a bit off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deepti M. Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 I'm glad you got your account back. They do have a Neopets Junior for your son to play. It's much easier, and it's what my 5 year old cousin uses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopstickninja Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 Congratulations on getting your account back :] this issue with CGers is getting ridiculous. I hope TNT is working to somehow get rid of them. it's making shopping for items so annoying nowadays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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