Account Reactivation

[Candied Mokuba]

It's completely asinine that I have to fill out a whole questionnaire about an account I haven't logged on to in 12 months. Who I've traded with? What was traded? Really, Gaia? /Really/? I have not been on there in a year... Do you really expect me to remember that crap? You act like I have it written down - I don't.
Also, before I submitted the ticket it clearly stated it can take up to SEVEN business days, then I read something else and it says FOURTEEN business days. Are you kidding me? I have to wait /THAT/ long to use my account, just because I have not been active in a year? This is stupid and I'm sure a bunch of people can agree with me on that.
You state that it's "easy" to reactivate your account when it isn't easy at ALL. What if that account was my only account? So I have to go and make a new account just to reactivate? wow.

Here's a suggestion, how about instead of these tickets, you just put SECURITY QUESTIONS onto our accounts? If you're /that/ concerned with hackers and the like...
Because these ticket things are nuts. I shouldn't have to wait that long, no one should.

[Bleeding Apocalypse]

Let me tell you a little story.

Just recently I read a quote by someone on this site who suspected someone was sending him a scam PM asking for his password. In fact, he was sure of it. This person, KNOWING IT WAS A SCAM, transferred his more valuable items into a new mule account he just created, so those items won't get taken. Then, he proceeds to give the password of his main account to this person who he KNOWS FOR A FACT IS TRYING TO SCAM HIM. Now he is blocked out of his original account, and he's wondering if he actually got scammed or what.


Gaia's Devs and Admins can try their damned best to stop accounts from getting into the hands of anyone but the account creator. But you can't patch stupid. Although this newest account feature was created to basically ease the workload of possible account thefts by locking out older accounts automatically after x months of inactivity... scams are always, always, ALWAYS going to happen. Because no matter how many times you warn people, someone is still going to be just dumb enough to give their passwords away.

Which is a long-winded way for me to tell you that security questions won't work. There used to be a lot of "Answer Questions For Gold" threads going around, and among 100 asinine questions that you'd answer, common security questions were scattered in. Like the name of the street you grew up on. Mom's maiden name. City where you were born. Things that people typically answer truthfully in security questions. Then anyone could just check for responses and use those answers to reset an account password (which is usually tied to an email account that can be accessed with the same security questions) and voila! I now have your username and a brand new password only I know that I can use to access your account and clean it out.

[Lishee]

Candied Mokuba

It's completely asinine that I have to fill out a whole questionnaire about an account I haven't logged on to in 12 months. Who I've traded with? What was traded? Really, Gaia? /Really/? I have not been on there in a year... Do you really expect me to remember that crap? You act like I have it written down - I don't.
Also, before I submitted the ticket it clearly stated it can take up to SEVEN business days, then I read something else and it says FOURTEEN business days. Are you kidding me? I have to wait /THAT/ long to use my account, just because I have not been active in a year? This is stupid and I'm sure a bunch of people can agree with me on that.
You state that it's "easy" to reactivate your account when it isn't easy at ALL. What if that account was my only account? So I have to go and make a new account just to reactivate? wow.

Here's a suggestion, how about instead of these tickets, you just put SECURITY QUESTIONS onto our accounts? If you're /that/ concerned with hackers and the like...
Because these ticket things are nuts. I shouldn't have to wait that long, no one should.

There are some email providers, like Hotmail, that allow people to re-register inactive usernames. So then all the hackers needed to do is have your Gaia password sent to their newly re-registered email so they could get on and steal all your stuff, causing Gaia hundreds of hours of headaches in tracking down stolen items, etc. So Gaia had to come up with something to prevent people doing that.

Anyway, I think that's part of the reason. Unfortunately, I don't think they could retro-actively go back and get security questions put on all those old accounts. Maybe they'll develop something like that in the future, though.

[Candied Mokuba]

@Bleeding Apocalypse: It'd still be a lot of effort for someone to go through to hack an account, they'd have to really be searching for the answers to the security questions... and if someone is that stupid to give out their information like that - that's their problem their account was hacked...
Gaia has always given warnings to not give out your password and details like that, and if people do that's definitely their fault.
I just don't understand why there has to be this huge complicated process to getting an old account back, I couldn't even remember the answers to half the things they were asking in those ticket questions...
What I had in my inventory? The email address? c'mon. It's been a year, a lot of people have multiple accounts. Who is really going to remember that stuff?



@Lishee: Dang, really? I had absolutely no idea about that. geez that's crazy.
I really hope they'll do /something/ other than this ticket thing, though.... It's quite frustrating.

[Voat]

Bleeding Apocalypse

Let me tell you a little story.

Just recently I read a quote by someone on this site who suspected someone was sending him a scam PM asking for his password. In fact, he was sure of it. This person, KNOWING IT WAS A SCAM, transferred his more valuable items into a new mule account he just created, so those items won't get taken. Then, he proceeds to give the password of his main account to this person who he KNOWS FOR A FACT IS TRYING TO SCAM HIM. Now he is blocked out of his original account, and he's wondering if he actually got scammed or what.


Gaia's Devs and Admins can try their damned best to stop accounts from getting into the hands of anyone but the account creator. But you can't patch stupid. Although this newest account feature was created to basically ease the workload of possible account thefts by locking out older accounts automatically after x months of inactivity... scams are always, always, ALWAYS going to happen. Because no matter how many times you warn people, someone is still going to be just dumb enough to give their passwords away.

Which is a long-winded way for me to tell you that security questions won't work. There used to be a lot of "Answer Questions For Gold" threads going around, and among 100 asinine questions that you'd answer, common security questions were scattered in. Like the name of the street you grew up on. Mom's maiden name. City where you were born. Things that people typically answer truthfully in security questions. Then anyone could just check for responses and use those answers to reset an account password (which is usually tied to an email account that can be accessed with the same security questions) and voila! I now have your username and a brand new password only I know that I can use to access your account and clean it out.

What you're mistaking your example with though is that account reactivation deals with a different type of 'hack' - that is, people who use outdated emails to reset passwords.

Phishing scams an entirely different problem from the type of problems email provider reset present.

If someone is away for 6+mo and are locked out of their account, you're not going to get phished - because you're not even on Gaia or using your account to respond to a phishing attempt.

Gaia's own set of ticket questions are also liable to being phished as well. Gaia's security questions are actually not as secure as high quality personal security questions anyway. The only good thing about using customer service for account reactivation is that they can double check if the location you provide matches up to last IP address logged in from. Then again, if you know where someone lives because they mention it somewhere on their profile, you've probably got that Q in the bag. So that only makes that Q extra useful if you're trying to log in from the same IP address that you did 6mo/1year ago.

Overall it's best if Gaia automates it like most websites. Neopets automates their account reactivation system, and that's a site for kiddies.

[Akabi Yoru]

Candied Mokuba

@Bleeding Apocalypse: It'd still be a lot of effort for someone to go through to hack an account, they'd have to really be searching for the answers to the security questions... and if someone is that stupid to give out their information like that - that's their problem their account was hacked...
Gaia has always given warnings to not give out your password and details like that, and if people do that's definitely their fault.
I just don't understand why there has to be this huge complicated process to getting an old account back, I couldn't even remember the answers to half the things they were asking in those ticket questions...
What I had in my inventory? The email address? c'mon. It's been a year, a lot of people have multiple accounts. Who is really going to remember that stuff?



@Lishee: Dang, really? I had absolutely no idea about that. geez that's crazy.
I really hope they'll do /something/ other than this ticket thing, though.... It's quite frustrating.

From personal experience I can tell you that those questionaries can be annoying BUT they can be completed. You might need some time and thought, but if you haven't logged into the account for more than a year, you can take a couple of days to find the answers. I had a couple of mules locked after I forgot about them, and I was completely at a loss about trades and stuff. It took me a bit of time, but I managed to find Paypal receipts for Gaia cash. I had a general idea of the items in the account (very general, like, "event items and maybe some EI's" wink , and I remembered some extra details about the account. Even if I didn't remember the email I had used, I went on and filled the ticket with the bits of scrapped info I had gathered. They gave me my account back in a mater of hours.
My advice would be: try to gather as much info as you can about your account, fill the questionary as completely as you can, and if you remember any extra info that can help a mod prove the account is yours, put it in there too. It might seem like a hassle, but you have to consider we as users should be responsible for our accounts too. Now I have all the emails and passwords safely stored and I take care of loging in every now and then.

[yanizc]

I'm currently in a similar position. I have about 5 accounts that were locked that are worth millions in Gaia gold and I'm worried they're going to give me a hassle to unlock them because it's been more than a year and half since I've gone on them and I can barely remember the things I had on them or which emails I used for each account. It sucks because with everything in the accounts that is so valuable the staff might think I'm trying to Hack or something. I feel a huge headache coming on.

Has anyone had any luck with reactivating accounts that are more or less considered wealthy? I'm really worried about this, I don't want to lose my items/gold.

[fredwise]

I recently had to get my account reactivated, and I initially had the same thoughts as you (omg how the hell am I supposed to remember my most recent trades?) - but the fact that I remembered enough details from the other fields was enough to get it unlocked.

It's not an exam - they're not looking for 100% correct answers - they're just making sure that it's you who's getting the account unlocked and not someone else.

[Urd Tanzanite]

I've been back on Gaia for a month. I submitted a ticket to regain access to a mule account. When I saw the questions that needed to be filled out, I sat there and thought about everything that I could about the account. I actually quit out and thought about it for a few days, jotting down notes and such as I remember things.

Here's the thing, I didn't remember everything correctly. The email address was one of them.

There's an email that Gaia sends you telling you of the reactivation. In that email, you have the opportunity to add additional information, which I did after two and a half weeks, adding in everything else that I remembered and correcting things that I had gotten wrong. My account was reactivated hours later.

[Miss Molly Mule]

I haven't seen the tickets to reactivate. But it sounds like it's really easy to use this system to get old accounts. Check to see what the avi is wearing, list a couple of those items, then say 'there's other EIs too, but I don't really remember which ones, maybe this or this?' and list out EIs that came out around that time or that looks like it would match the avi.

Then say, you don't remember the email you used (because who is going to remember what email with what account) give a few of your personal mule email accounts and wait until staff says you were wrong.


New question
Well, what if your old email account was compromised? Then is there even any bother doing this? Do you have to log into the old email? Emails get deleted after so long of inactivity.

[fuiuchi]

Yea my friend just came back after about a year of inactivity and she can't log in to any of her accounts. She made them so long ago that she can't remember the email or anything anymore. She got frustrated with the form and left. sad

[Lady Kayura]

Candied Mokuba

Here's a suggestion, how about instead of these tickets, you just put SECURITY QUESTIONS onto our accounts? If you're /that/ concerned with hackers and the like...
Because these ticket things are nuts. I shouldn't have to wait that long, no one should.

Security questions failed when hackers made stupid quizzes that had all the security questions in them then people flocked to fill them out.