Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah, but you have to do it through the chuffing console!

First create a new Live ID, then go into account management on the console and the option is there.

Edit: to clarify, I didn't 'change' my Live ID. I created a new one and associated that with my Gamertag, leaving my old Hotmail Live ID to die.

Oh. Hmm. I still use this Live ID for Messenger, though.

Messenger?! Regardless, there's nothing stopping you having two Live IDs I suppose.

It's how Grim... and I maintain our BEEX LEET CLEEQ.

But also no particularly advantage in doing so. The password is a secure one I only use for that account and I've never typed into anything dodgy.

Well sure! I just felt it was high time I changed mine seeing as it has been my 'throwaway' email address for nine years. I'd always use it to sign up for potentially spammy things and stuff, so it's definitely 'out there'. The address itself I mean, not any passwords - my password was pretty strong and recently changed. It's just now rather than someone possibly trying to brute force my account, they don't even have the username to try that.

In summary: the shits.

Luckily i have been using the prepay cards for live/points for years so the card they have on file is two cards ago. However I cannot delete this as it says it is still linked to my gold membership (despite being purchased via a pre paid card) and i am now going through the fun of recovering my profile.
Is there any way to remove this , as i'm not reading 3 pages (well, i did, but i can't see an answer) and i trust BEEX far above any other source of info....

But to get hold of so many player's details they'd have to run these 'scams' for an awful long time. But as I understand it this story has only just exploded today. So, did they 'phish' and 'befriend' the information out of hundreds or thousands of gamers and then simultaneously defraud them all at the same time? Or has this been going on for ages and the story has just come to light at the same time as Myp's problems by nothing more than a coincidence of timing?

And yes, what exactly IS the point of this scam? To buy points, spend points, then what? Download them to another console and play them off there - but then you can't play those games when the original account isn't signed in and online, so when the gamertag is recovered, what is the point?

I'm having trouble seeing the benefit to the scammers in all of this.

Any update from MS, Myp?

It's a tit - if you entered pre-paid cards before the credit-card sub expired, it's counted as a continuation, so you need to wait until your current sub expires (having carefully made sure that auto-renew is off on xbox.com). You can try ringing support if you like.

A download is tied to the purchasing console or account, so all accounts on the naughty xbox can access the ill-gotten goods.

Which consoles you'd think MS would be able to track and brick, unless they're filled and then unplugged, never to touch Live again. It does seem a bit baffling. Although can you 'gift' avatar tat?

Dammit, my current sub ends Jan 2013!
I may try support, although having spoke to them once this morning i don't feel encouraged.
I had an email saying i had failed to purchase 6k of points as my card had expired, which set this whole sorry affair in motion - despite my password being changed etc, they could find no record of this attempted transaction.....

Er. The email didn't say "6k Points purchase failure! Click http://live.xbox.com.filthy.spammer-bas ... your_email to find out more!" did it?

It's been going on for a few months, every since Fifa 12 was released in fact, it just hasn't affected enough people to get above the waterline until now.

Nope!
there was no link, plus it was like the usual email you get when you redeem points etc from billing.microsoft.com. I didn't click on any links etc, just tried to log onto live (to check my points balance) on the 360 and found my password changed....

Its been going on for a number of months (have a look at the posts at the start of this thread which are from early October and even then it was 'a few weeks old' , I do think they are going through times when its happening more often and I'm not entirely sure i believe all the stuff thats written about it - I also wonder (given the timing) if any is related to the various other password hacking problems over the last 6 months (e.g. there was a recent Sony one where Sony came forward and said that someone had basically just thrown something like 10,000 username / password combinations at PSN and a number of them were valid and they were now going to lock out those accounts).

I am also suspicious of the links to EA



I think that Myp has just been unlucky in 'this batch'



The points can be used to buy Fifa points which can be transferred to other accounts freely so can then be 'sold' on Ebay for real cash (probably a fraction of what they were bought for) and i dont know about games on demand but again they could be downloaded and played by any account on that machine (although XBL titles can be 'revoked' from a system I do not know if games on demand can be)

So MS are categorically saying they haven't been hacked - ok. Why is there complete silence to do with the EA link? The problems before were to do with Fifa 12, and now my account has been compromised a mere couple of weeks after I tied my gamertag to Origin.

Doc G: can you not use your contacts at tuaw to probe a bit deeper into this? MS could be completely telling the truth, but the fact is that the weak link could be the company who forces you to register with them to play the sodding games, with MS's explicit approval.

TUAW? Not really, no, there's not much overlap between my (feeble) list of contacts and the Xbox Live world.

What about during the RichardGaywood gamertag hooha? No insider sources at Microsoft? Shame.

well silence implies an issue with ea. ms may want that, it is a useful scapegoat.

Actually, I do have Nick Bennett on a few social networks, but I doubt he's going to tell me anything about this!

(The guy's gamerscore is 215,610. He's well ahead of even Dimmers.)

I imagine EA's still big enough to tell Microsoft "You just keep your filthy hussy mouth shut" - Microsoft truthfully tell everyone nothing but "Live has not been hacked", the lie being through omission.

Which isn't to say that MS aren't in fact staring at a tattered, bloody wreck of an arsehole somewhere inside their data warehouses.

Annnnnnd all paid up for 12 months. Ahhh.

Nottingham Post reporter wants to send a photographer to take a picture of me with my Xbox. Decided that's far too geeky, even for me.

Would you be looking forlorn, holding the Xbox?

End of Movember? They'd stick you straight onto the sex register.

Oh man! Do it, myp! You have to!

GAY PAEDO USES XBOX LIVE TO GROOM SMALL BOYS

NOTTINGHAM, UK. A child fondling sex pest's devious perverted video game grooming ring was brought crashing down by hackers yesterday.

For fuck's sake don't give them a photo. It's bad enough somebody's got your gamertag. Next thing you know you'll be walking along the streets of Nottingham and you'll see someone with your face.

Or they'll unlock your phone.

Your face has your face.

Also: WTF

I'll never speak to you again if you don't do this.

That doesn't sound like much of an incentive.

I'm actually more concerned that one of my neighbours will recognise me and then know I've got luxury goods to rob.

Use this one. I loved you in Frankingsteing Must be Destroyed.

I almost did just take a creepy pic of me and my Xbox, but I just know that one of you wags would email it to the newspaper.

Like this one?

I done all them things what you said, and I've been boycotting EA for almost a year now* and every month seems to give me a new reason to continue that, so I'm untouchable now. YES YOU HEARD ME GODS, UNTOUCHABLE!!!

I didn't realise Dead Space 2 was one of theirs when I ordered it so that was an inadvertent exception

Finally agreed to a compromise for the photo, only to find out we can't logistically get it done in time now.

When's it going in the paper?

is, bafflingly, how I chose to misread that.

Tomorrow. I expect I'll come across as a total loser who has nothing more to his life than playing Xbox online.

Which is true, to be fair.

Don't be so harsh, you also like chatting to men online about moustaches.

Since we'really not going to see the picture? What comprise did you reach?

Were you going to be a silhouette like on Crimewatch?

Instead of me at home with my Xbox we had agreed on a picture outside of Game instead. Then I was asked if I could make 1:30pm today, which I couldn't.

USELESS CUNT HAS XBOX ACCOUNT HACKED

I've asked my friends in Nottingham to buy copies. I've had to spend money putting in an advert for an aunt I don't have, mind you, so I'm not associated with a total loser who has nothing more to his life than playing Xbox online, but that's small beer.


Seriously, have you heard anything more back from XBox at all? I'm really quite surprised at what's happened with their responses.

MOUSTACHED XFACTOR WANNABE LEAVES BACK END WIDE OPEN

Did you say it's tomorrows paper or todays?