Why I Am Quitting Habbo (Hint: Customer Service)

[gnashville]

I was pretty surprised today by the actions and replies of Habbo support and believe I will be deleting my account in short order.
Here's why:

My friend and I decided to start playing again after a very long time off. She had lots of furni etc. from when she used to play,
I didn't have any myself, but we decided to create a game room and have some fun (What games are for right?).
Me and her purchased enough credits through sms (Why no paypal?) to get VIP club for a month,
with a bit to spare for any extra furni we could need. We proceeded to decorate etc. then played that day for about an hour.
A couple days later we decided to come back and play again, everything was fine, we hosted a ktu game and messed around.
The next day she logged on and all of her furni from all of her rooms were gone. Everything.

My friend isn't stupid. She knows there is no free credits or furni, any site offering it is a scam.
She runs an up to date antivirus (Nod32 Smart Security 4.2). She knows her personal password belongs in one text box only,
on the official Habbo.com site, right under her equally protected personal email.

In return for the money she spent on the game, Habbo staff proceeded to tell her it was her fault and there was nothing they could do;
they couldn't look at any recent trades, they couldn't look into her account logging in at a different IP, they couldn't care less.
On top of that I had gifted her objects to use in the room as well.

We both had real money stolen, albeit in a virtual form. I understand that Habbo has a lot of users, and a lot of reports to go through,
a lot of fake reports, I'm sure, as well, but I won't spend money on a game where I can do everything right, have everything taken from me
that I paid for, and have the only reponse from the people in charge be "Tough luck, your fault. Goodbye."

[Catzsy]

Well it does happen. I was hacked in the early days. Something must have happened for her to get hacked. Maybe a keylogging email or something like that. I do feel very sorry for her though and I can see why you are angry,

[karter]

It's definitely not her 'fault' spending on the game. But I'm sorry you can't blame the service for not compensating for the loss. Imagine people faking up hacks and Sulake paying them? They'll go bankrupt like that.
I know its unfair , but it's the way it is , think on their behalf.

[Redtiz]

We both had real money stolen, albeit in a virtual form. I understand that Habbo has a lot of users, and a lot of reports to go through,
a lot of fake reports, I'm sure, as well, but I won't spend money on a game where I can do everything right, have everything taken from me
that I paid for, and have the only reponse from the people in charge be "Tough luck, your fault. Goodbye."


They should have advised you to report it to the police if you had a significant amount stolen as it is, after all, unauthorised access to an account and theft.

I'm afraid that the base fact is that somehow, somewhere your friend has lost the account due to a security issue. It's hard to speculate which one as there are a myriad of ways you can make an account less secure; anything from easy-to-crack passwords, to social engineering (phishing), to scamsites, sharing passwords with friends etc etc etc. Sulake do refund furniture, but only when a glitch or other problem on their end is responsible for the loss.

Now it's the case that often times, if you report to the police you do end up getting your furniture returned because the police are able to contact us at Sulake with a Data Protection request for information on the person who broke into the account which enables them to find them IRL. I've seen a number of cases where the thief has put all the furniture back after the police have found and questioned them. There's the added bonus that a scammer is far less likely to ever do it to anyone else once his/her Mum and Dad see a policeman on the doorstep asking to have a word about their child.

[HotelUser]

I think moderators telling you it's your own fault you got scammed is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.

However I think the above post sums up a decent course of action considering the limitations surrounding the situation. It might also be worth mentioning that you shouldn't use Hotmail in conjunction with your Habbo account, and even if your antivirus application detects one serious threat and successfully removes it, you should still consider reinstalling Windows for the maximum protection, of course.

[Zak]

Don't worry a lot of us have been hacked, I got keylogged 4T no biggie. It's only virtual furniture, although at the time I remember I was extremely annoyed. I never remember thinking 'lets contact the police though' I honestly think they would've just laughed at me :P So I left it.

It's nice to have something to show on a game but you don't need it to have a good time. I've had no furni since my perm ban on main 2 maybe 3 years ago, doesn't relaly bother me, I never did anything with my furni when I had it anyway. Just sat in my room.

[MissAlice]

It can be quite a shock to find your account has been stolen as well as all your furni, particularly when you are not at fault.

I found myself in this position in July/August of this year, around the time of the merge.

Frustrated with the support system in place not working with all the new changes at Habbo at the time. I came close to just letting everything go.

Fortunately for me I did find help. My advice to anyone whose account is stolen is to persevere and if it means involving the police. Do it! It does work!

What I would like to see put in place is a security question for all Habbo users, when attempting to retrieve any account. A question created by the Habbo that only the creator knows the answer to. With the possibility of changing that question as and when you want to do so.

The thief who stole my account and furni is most likely banned on their numerous Habbo accounts and no longer visits this forum, unless they are now using an alias account on Habbox.

I am very grateful to the member of Sulake staff who helped me.

My advice is involve the police, if it's a substantial amount of furni stolen, it is a crime, real money was used to make purchases, it's theft.

[Josh]

They should have advised you to report it to the police if you had a significant amount stolen as it is, after all, unauthorised access to an account and theft.

I'm afraid that the base fact is that somehow, somewhere your friend has lost the account due to a security issue. It's hard to speculate which one as there are a myriad of ways you can make an account less secure; anything from easy-to-crack passwords, to social engineering (phishing), to scamsites, sharing passwords with friends etc etc etc. Sulake do refund furniture, but only when a glitch or other problem on their end is responsible for the loss.

Now it's the case that often times, if you report to the police you do end up getting your furniture returned because the police are able to contact us at Sulake with a Data Protection request for information on the person who broke into the account which enables them to find them IRL. I've seen a number of cases where the thief has put all the furniture back after the police have found and questioned them. There's the added bonus that a scammer is far less likely to ever do it to anyone else once his/her Mum and Dad see a policeman on the doorstep asking to have a word about their child.

Why is it the user's responsibility to contact police? It technically isn't even our stuff. Do Sulake even care about users anymore? (Doubt it.)

[Gibs960]

I think it's sort of stupid that they just said "Your fault." and they didn't even refer you to the police or any sort of online help. Habbo moderation is gettin' worse.

[Conservative,]

It;s a shame your friend got hacked. But as stated it's probably a tiny security ever. I would go to the police if it was more than £50 worth of stuff (so 5/6t's+) but if it's not more than that it's not really worth it. I agree it's unfair to say it's your fault when it's probably not but it's not their fault either.

[Redtiz]

Why is it the user's responsibility to contact police? It technically isn't even our stuff. Do Sulake even care about users anymore? (Doubt it.)

Because it's the victim of theft who needs to make a report in order for the police to investigate. Sulake is not the victim, the player is and it's the player who has all the relevant information about when it happened and what was taken. Sulake can give a lot of help into finding the person who did it in real life, but due to the Data Protection Act they can only give that information to the police in the course of an investigation they're engaged in.