Be Excellent To Each Other

Received an email today to say that my Origin password had been changed. I didn't request the change so I logged in and changed it again, then I discovered my secret question was now in Russian.

After attempting to contact EA on their phone support line and holding for over 40 mins with no response (on an 0870 number) I thought it was time to see if anyone else had experienced this issue.

It didn't take me long to discover that many people have experienced it. It started last year and originally the russian hackers were changing the email and password making it impossible to reclaim the account as I have (partially anyway!).

In around December EA seem to have taken the clever decision of deliberately breaking the email change facility. Even though they claim there has been no breach of their systems.

So on their forums you now have two stickied threads, one where the people who have been hacked complain and one where the hackers complain about not being able to change the email anymore. Both with little or no response from EA.

I found it quite amusing in the end.

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Origin/bd-p/O-2

Yeah same thing happened to me. I'd already deleted as much info as possible last year but I think it funny that I need to be registered to raise a ticket.

I'm glad my Origin account has nothing on it!

I've purposely avoided having an Origin account (I think... Unless I've had to sign up for one) but I don't trust them. I think it's from someone on here who had problems in the past?

So how are they doing it? Bruteforcing your password? Abusing the 'reset email' system or something? Is there anything you can do to prevent it before it happens?

From what I can work out I believe their database was compromised last year.

Passwords were stolen then so if you have changed your password recently you should be fine. Also ensure you add a security question if you don't have one as this will prevent them changing your password. My account didn't have one as when I originally signed up it wasn't available.

This thread prompted me to load Origin up. What a lumpen piece of crap it is. I only have it for the free copy of Battlefield 1942 they were giving away last year but so far it's spent 20 minutes faffing about patching the Origin client.

Yeah I changed my password a couple of months ago and gave it some proper security questions, no problems up to now (famous last words).

As I said in the Sim City thread (although this is probably a better place for it), Origin is 'OK' in that it works and doesn't cause any problems in the main, unlike the horrible buggy beta piece of shit it was at launch.

I certainly don't find it any more annoying than, for example, my 360's dashboard which appears to change every time I turn it on, following a mandatory update, and everything gets moved around and it's got more advertisements on it and it takes me a while to find trivial, unimportant stuff such as, y'know, my XBLA collection.

Obviously I'd prefer to use Steam but I'm not going to pass on games like Sim City for the sake of installing another game client on my PC. Origin co-exists quite happily with Steam and there's nothing to stop you having them both running at the same time either.

I do actually 'use' Origin on a weekly basis for the Saturday night BF3 session if nothing else, as do all the chaps, and whilst none of us are in love with it, none of us particularly hates it either.

I went through the exact same thing as Nemmie a couple of months ago, I hadn't noticed the password change email, just tried to login and couldn't. Had the same issues getting through on phone at first, except I gave up after 20 mins. Then I tried again in the afternoon the next day, got straight through, and after giving them the serial number from my physical copy of ME3 they immediately fixed it. The guy then proceeded to tell me I probably have a keylogger on my PC. Interesting that the only account I've ever had compromised is my Origin one, then.

Origin now slightly less sucky.