How I Got Stripped Off The LB- A Valk Tale

Hello KAW. Your friendly Neighbourhood Valk is here to give you the juicy backstory on my recent dramatic fall from the top of the LB, and how it can happen to you.



It was a Friday, not a particularly memorable one. Right after the evening EE war...I had returned to my home clan, blindly unloaded on the EB and was watching some TV, without any socks on.



It was all of 45 min to an hour after that at best that one of my mates was calling me on a *third party Ap not to be named*. Frantically, which, cause I’ve played KAW the right way for the better part of a decade can mean only 1 of 2 things: Either I was getting stripped, or he wanted to talk dirty to me in his husky voice.



So I’m trying to log in, and something funny happens, I get taken to the log in screen; Valk doesn’t load right up, which is odd, cause I know I didn’t log out of him...so now I’m double freaked.



I get on, and check, yep I’m down like 106 Quad, that stomach falling feeling sets in. But no incoming in my news. Wth? Then I get booted from KAW with that “your session has expired” message. Jesus, it dawns on me. Someone is on my account!



I get back on again, and I’m frantically hitting the “change password” screen buttons, they aren’t working...I open a ticket to the “cut and paste generic Feedback support guys”...and start some rambling stream of consciousness plea for help. It was especially upsetting that it took 3 full days from that event to get a generic cut and paste response from ATA, and it wasn’t a really good one, they didn’t even personalize it with my name.



In the meantime I’ve had a chance to figure out exactly what happened to my account:

1. Someone stole like 80 mcs of my rare charms, and traded them in game to probably to an alt account called “darkdealer” that was in my news, which were then passed around to a bunch of charm traders, rather quickly.
2. They took my throne and pet.
3. They tore down all my lvl 7-8 buildings on new lands.
4. They changed my name to “notLBnow” spending the 20 nobs I had left at the time.
5. They dropped 106 Quad in my allies.
6. They bought allies off the Value LB and dropped them, burning away all the ally and build gold I had. All of it but a couple hundred bil.
7. Drop me from #7 overall to like 1500ish, in 45 min.

So back to my story, I’ve had a ton of support from friends, clannies, and alliance members, lots of them also sending tickets in to try and get me some help or to voice their own concerns. Someone figured out how to navigate the KAW secret button pushing code to change my password by this point too, and it was decidedly less intuitive then it should have been.



Couple days in everyone starts getting their own personalized cut and paste responses. “Dear *insert name* We don’t discuss other ppl’s cases...blah blah...but you know, in every single case in the past no account has ever been hacked, they were all account sharing or they bought the account”



I paraphrased that a little, but the general gist of it is, KAW can’t be hacked, their security is like Fort Knox; I mean the Pentagon can get hacked, Facebook with their 100k employees can get hacked...hell the DNC server can be hacked; but nope, not ATA. Hack-proof. Fort Freaking Knox. Nothing to see here. Move along.



Oh, and your “friend”, ya well he’s a cheater. Deal with it. Talk about victim shaming.



Now to be clear. Valk was mine since day one, home grown, not bought, and never shared. Others can attest to that, at 3:00 am when I didn’t wake from a legitimate strip, calling me for hours while I was blissfully dreaming away.



Anyways, so on to the next part. ATA sent me the 20 question verification message including my recent purchase history. Check. They send me an email to change my login, and reset my password again. Check. Then as a “courtesy” they disconnect my Facebook from my account. Ok whatever, I’m all for security, especially now.



Then more waiting. I want my account back. I mean I worked hard to build up Valk, while in OSW for almost a decade, and ya, I spent a ton of money on my account, xtals and nobs, easy 15-20k, so it’s both a time and monetary investment for me.



Anyways, the feedback guy does get back to me a week after. They’ve investigated and discovered there are zero security flaws with their system. Ok. So how was my account accessed, cause it sure as hell wasn’t me. And as a ONE time courtesy “WE WILL RECOVER LOSES INFLICTED ON YOUR ACCOUNT”. (But what if it happens again?) AnywAys, Yippee! It might take some time, but I’ll get crestplates to rebuild and charms back and voila! Valk is back baby.



In short order, sure enough, crestplates arrive. My icetails and other rare charms and furniture are returned. ATA changes my name back for me....but, no allies. No gold.



So I ask, what about my 106 Quad in allies. More waiting. Then the stomach drop #2. We’re really sorry, but we can’t recover your allies.



So I say I know they’ve given out silver bars to the value of allies in the past.



They respond with, they understand they have done that in the past, but they can’t do that for me.



I ask “Then your not really restoring my account are you?”



Response, “if that’s how you wish to look at it then yes. We’re really sorry your dissatisfied with this...”. Then the mechanical clapping monkey closes the ticket. Like slamming the door shut.



So that’s it. 106 Quad. Gone. By even today’s KAW math, that’s over 50 hours of promo cruxing, thousands of xtals and 500+ seals. For me, that’s grown over the last 8 years, so it’s a lot more real money then that. Gone.



Now even if I spend more money after this whole affair, I still have no answers. According to KAW there was no breach, and in fact, they’re unbreachable! Fort freaking knox, remember. And who knows if the guy was caught, I mean someone took the charms. And if this happens to me again, I know I’ll get the same answer, it’s my fault I was hacked, obviously, and I’ve already gotten my “one time courtesy recovery” that was maybe a 30% recovery at best....so if it happens again, well I guess I’m **** out of luck, and a sucker to boot.



I’ve been stripped before, tons, happens in OSW, I’ve been stripped clean off the Ally LB three times over the years, once on Christmas Day (Thanks C, best xmas present ever!). But this is different. How do you defend against this? More towers? clan mates as BFA? charms? furniture? awesome mates who watch your back?...none of it would have made a difference here.



During this entire ordeal, at around the same time someone broke into Valk, multiple other ppl, none of which ever ran in any close close circles with me were also hacked, same MO, went after the rare charms and furniture and then tried to burn the accounts down. None of us got our allies or gold back.



So just a fair warning. According to ATA, there is no issue. I’m an obvious cheater, and their system is Fort Knox. But maybe you all might want to change all your log ins and passwords and disconnect your Facebook accounts, you know, just in case. Or maybe if you have any gold in Allies, you might wanna think about converting them into your build, If someone ever magically gets on your account, you can get your build back....but not your BFA. But only the first time. So be careful.