| kain_kusanagi said: So let me get this straight. Some idiot fell of a scam and Microsoft is cleaning up the mess for her? It's nice to know Microsoft has the same policy about fraud as Capital One. They fix it, you get your money back, and all is safe and right in the world. If I was Microsoft I'd ban her for being stupid and warn people not to fall for phishing scams. Yeah, it was nice of Microsoft and all, but I have little sympathy for the "victim", who probably gave up her login info thinking she'd get something for free. |
Too be fair, this was happening to a large number of people over a period of several months, and it was taking Microsoft some time before it started taking the issue seriously. For the first few months, people that were reporting their accounts had been stolen were having trouble getting their accounts locked and their money refunded through Microsoft.
And it's not clear that it's a phishing attempt. There's been much speculation that the passwords were obtained via other means (for awhile EA accounts were the primary suspects, but I think that's since been ruled out) and then matched with Xbox Live accounts that used the same username/password. The number of cases on a forum like neogaf alone implies this is no simple phishing scam. Here are four threads full of people that had their accounts stolen:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442986
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=449608
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=451055
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=457942 - This thread specifically discusses the sale of stolen accounts on foreign websites.
Even the first link in the Kotaku article discusses the potential gravity of the scam:
http://kotaku.com/5873604/is-microsofts-xbox-live-hacking-problem-worse-than-microsoft-realises
http://kotaku.com/5850126/fifa+loving-hackers-strike-xbox-live-accounts
