Popular MMORPG account hacker learns a valuable lesson: 'An hour later my friend had his account back'

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  • 01
    Free armour trimming "An hour later my friend had his account back."
  • 02
    Young 'hacker' found his way into the wrong account and paid for it. This isn't anything spectacular but I figure some will get a kick out of it. It has been long enough I might be remembering certain things wrong but the overall story is true.
  • 03
    So this was back in 2002/2003ish. I was somewhat addicted to the MMORPG Runescape. I had a lot of friends but there was one friend in particular that I played with a lot. We were both fairly invested in the game and were in the top 2000 on the leaderboards at the time. We both had well developed accounts worth enough that I was offered $5k for my account once. I suspect it was a scam attempt but it gives a vague idea of what our efforts might have been worth if we'd decided to sell our accounts.
  • 04
    One morning I log into... I think it was MSN Messenger that we talked on most of the time, and my friend is very upset as his main account was hacked into. Weak password, keylogger, someone he trusted betrayed him: I don't know. However it happened he couldn't get in. Worse, the person who did it managed to get his contact information and was taunting him over chat, threatening him and trying to blackmail him.
  • 05
    I was enraged and after about 2 hours of convincing he finally agreed to give me the contact info of this person so I could talk to them. I'm no tech genius but I know a few tricks my friend didn't and was too upset to learn at the time.
  • 06
    I don't remember if it was from Runescape or MSN but I got the person's IP address, and the whois tool to look up IP addresses was something I'd used a few times. So while I start laying into this person I'm also looking them up. I know there's only so much. information I can get but it's worth a try.
  • 07
    It's very quickly clear I'm speaking to a kid. Maybe 10 at the very youngest, more likely 14-16 range. And he's so cocky it was unbelievable. Just before whois spits out his details he says his dad is a cop and he's immune to anything. But then whois gives me a Police Department in a town in California as the source of the address.
  • 08
    I'd never seen so specific information before but I wasn't about to question it. I'd expected to get the region and use that but now I had a golden ticket to victory. It took all of 30 seconds before the kid was totally freaking out and begging me not to call his dad as I rattled out his home town and where his dad worked. I couldn't just call his dad even knowing the police department location (no long distance. on my phone at the time) but he didn't know that.
  • 09
    An hour later my friend had his account back. With bonus gifts. The kid was transfering items and gold around and all my friends' gold was gone, but I guess my timing was awesome because there was 10x the value of the missing gold in items that he gained in exchange. My friend and I played for another year or two before moving on.
  • 10
    Distdistdist 9h ago Most excellent work!
  • 11
    shesinsaneornot 8h ago Petty revenge with a side of justice (friend's account was restored, with apology gifts). Well done!
  • 12
    Beginning-Record-908 · 8h ago Dont think its petty, you did a solid both to your friend and even the hacker by teaching him a lesson. Well done
  • 13
    Dranask • 8h ago . Also hope OP's friend was more technically secure moving forward.
  • 14
    CreditReavus • 5h ago Glad you got out of the game...I spent 20 years on there before finally quitting
  • 15
    • contigo717 · 7h ago I've never been a gamer, but RuneScape around this time was awesome and my favorite game I'd ever played besides madden. Was slightly hooked myself definitely wasn't as good as you seemed to be though but had a lot of fun
  • 16
    • guestername ⚫ 4h ago that story brings back some wild memories, friend. reminds me of the time i got into it with a real crafty hacker back in the day. had to pull out some old school tricks to get the upper hand, just like you did. always feels good when you can turn the tables on someone tryin' to do you wrong. glad your buddie got his account back safe and sound.
  • 17
    TadzJaz 51m ago • The amount of times I had my account hacked with my stuff stolen, this brings me a lot of satisfaction. Thanks for the story!
  • 18
    Yamawalkie • 3h ago . Fake. Nobody truly moves on from RuneScape. You just take longer and longer breaks True. We have all been hacked by some 10 year old at some point.

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