The Sun fights back in Xbox Live ‘hacking’ saga

UK national newspaper The Sun is not sitting down in its campaign about alleged Xbox Live hacking.

Earlier this week The Sun ran a story on the front page claiming that users of Xbox Live were seeing their accounts hacked and money stolen. Microsoft responded by denying any talk of a hack, saying instead that victims had succumbed to a phishing email scam.

Now The Sun has reasserted its claims of a hack, claiming that Microsoft is downplaying the situation.

Hundreds of readers contacted The Sun yesterday after we told how criminals have swindled millions from people in online scams,” it says. Many victims denied clicking on bogus ‘phishing’ websites or giving personal details to crooks posing as fellow players — saying that Microsoft is under attack from gangs in Russia and China.

They also said the computing giant is routing complaints to the US and dragging its heels to compensate people.”

Indeed, MCV has been contacted by several individuals claiming much the same – that their accounts had been compromised and that they did definitely not give out their account information.

I can assure you, [the hack is] very real,” one industry member told MCV under the condition of anonymity. During the first week of September two purchases were made on my own Xbox live account, one for 5,000 credits and another 6,000 – totalling about 100.

Not at any point have I had or have replied to an email asking for my account details in exchange for free stuff. To me this is a pure hacking issue.

I have called MS at least five times trying to get my account sorted and the money refunded. I was told on the day that I reported it that the most recent transaction would be refunded (which it has) but that the initial transaction for 6,000 credits would need to be investigated. That investigation would take 30 days and they would contact me with the results. I’m still waiting for that call and I have chased them twice in the past fortnight alone.

MS are playing down the issue here, but I can assure you there’s more to it than a bit of phishing. To me its full-on fraud and MS don’t seem that interested in sorting it.”