Fraudulent Procedures

*sigh* Idiots...

About a week ago, ArenaNet posted a tweet offering up 3 free access key codes on a first-come, first-serve basis.  This was an interesting opportunity to score a costume if I was quick about it.  With time to spare, I went to fire up Guild Wars in order to get the game up to date and be prepared for it.  However, just after entering the password, which I am sure was correct, I get hit with a Code=045 error.  The dialog box describes it as "payment fraud."  For whatever reason, all four of the Guild Wars accounts are locked.  I cannot log on to any one of them and found out that the NCsoft Master Account is also locked.

I immediately filed a support ticket to inquire, for which they asked a lot of information, most of which I am able to provide.  However, the most ridiculous part is that they want me to provide access keys for all of the campaigns that I own for any/all of the accounts linked to that master account.

It should come as no surprise that a geek's room can be clean or it can be filthy.  I am of the latter.  My room isn't all that very organized.  And access keys tend to get misplaced or lost with time.  This is natural for any small item like that.  These access keys are also printed on paper.  Thin, small, and easily to crumple up, it's easy for it to fall off the edge and slip under various objects.  And then there's the printing quality of these access keys.  Some of the keys are printed in horrible quality, making the keys have a blurry appearance and making it hard to read.

After 3 replies w/ access keys, corrections, and additional submissions, the morons at NCsoft finally unblocked my account for access.  However, being frustrated with it and knowing what they ask is outrageous, they had the nerve to say this on their response: "At this time, I am going to make a one-time exception."  That single sentence implies that they do not trust me nor do would they ever trust me in the event that this happens again.

I have had the first Guild Wars account for almost 5 years.  Other accounts followed long afterwards as they got cheaper to acquire.  But only until last year that they offer, for free, a special 4th Anniversary in-game feature would I be forced to do some account management using NCsoft's system.  So I had the accounts linked up.  I originally thought it's some loony trying to make purchases using my account.  But then that would mean my account is compromised in some manner.  It should not be possible to crack my account that soon anyway, since I have been using different passwords for a while now.

It was later indicated that someone has somehow gained access to my master account.  This isn't much of a major surprise, since the password isn't exactly strong for that account.  However, NCsoft's password system does not allow me to use simple characters and symbols for my password, thus limiting how cryptic I can make my password.

I'm frustrated and this incident leaves nothing but a sour taste and bitterness.  I can't even be happy or glad that I got my accounts back.  That's how terrible this entire thing ended.