Have been hacked - lost access to accounts etc

[philstanbridge]

Hey, hope somebody can shine some light on this little problem for me. Not even sure this is the right place for this, so feel free to move.

My son received an email yesterday from Microsoft which asked him to change a password. Yes I know, he is 13, and made a stupid mistake So tonight we started to have money taken out of the accounts etc etc. I’ve frozen the cards and notified the bank. No problem there and I’ve done everything I can. But the scammers have stolen my Microsoft/hotmail account which is proving more problematic and have apparently locked me out of it. I’ve filled out the recovery form so is it just a waiting game? The IP addresses point to the far east just out of interest

 

[philstanbridge]

Unfortunately yes. Lesson learnt. PayPal etc. I managed to freeze my accounts; I’ve contacted the bank and PayPal. I feel I’ve done what I can

 

[philstanbridge]

When I try to regain access to my Microsoft account I get this message.

 

[philstanbridge]

It’s asking me to approve a request on a mobile device.

 

[philstanbridge]

It’s Microsoft. It’s saying to recover my account I need to authorise this using an Authenticator, but it links round in circles. I just don’t understand what’s going on. Problem is my son’s Xbox account is linked to my MS account.

 

[philstanbridge]

I don’t really care about any of my stuff but my son has thousands of pounds worth of games on his Xbox linked to the email. What happens to those?

 

[philstanbridge]

also I can’t even kill the account because i can’t login

 

[philstanbridge]

Phone Microsoft, they are normally on the ball and pretty helpful

Thank you so much. I will call them tomorrow

 

[philstanbridge]

Does anyone have a contact number for whoever I need to speak to? I’ve just tried the account recovery and that just goes in circles. They’ve obviously locked me out

 

[philstanbridge]

I did but I can’t get to that stage. It says it needs me to add an account but when I try it says I need to recover the account first

 

[philstanbridge]

It’s actually worse than I thought. It turns out my Steam account is also linked. So if I request a password change the scammer will get that too. I really don’t know how to proceed. It’s super stressful.

Edit: I was fortunate to have already enabled steam guard with this one linked to my phone, so I’ve changed my email and should be ok

 

[philstanbridge]

Would META reach out to me via messenger or is that the scammer trying to be clever?

 

[philstanbridge]

just for context my son changed the MS password after receiving an email. He is 13 and was trying to be helpful.

 

[philstanbridge]

Im trying to call MS but they say everything is now done online? How am I supposed to contact them if I can’t login

 

[philstanbridge]

I noticed these guys were using a chrome browser, based in vietnam

 

[philstanbridge]

So to update, I’ve managed to protect Steam and I spoke with EA and they were great! So that’s sorted. But MS. What a nightmare. How can you speak to someone? I can’t fill out an account recovery form for 24 hours, but even after doing so it says they haven’t enough info to help.

 

[philstanbridge]

I’ve tried that number and it says it’s all done online, but maybe paid is the way to go. I would try that however my accounts are currently frozen

 

[philstanbridge]

So I finally managed to speak to someone, who tried their best to help. I think the problem is the account is still active - and Microsoft can't seem to understand that fact. It has been taken over! I don't know how to rectify that really. I'm concerned my son will lose his games and stuff on his xbox, as his account is linked to this one. Because we can't login we can't change anything. I'm hoping because his games are stored locally he should be able to use them with a new login?

 

[philstanbridge]

It does.

What I can't understand is how/why his son had access to his emails?

It’s really complicated. Years ago I created my Hotmail account. My sons Xbox account was linked to my Hotmail account. It was setup for parental support etc. in retrospect I should have created a separate account for him but I didn’t. So over the years he has been using my account as his. I’ve tried to separate the two without success so I’ve just given up and he uses it mostly now for Xbox stuff. The problem is I also had everything pointing towards it, and I didn’t overly think about that. So it’s like a job share.

 

[philstanbridge]

Ahh okay.

Do you not use any form of AV protection at all?

Only what MS provides.