- A Reddit user by the name karankhushalani has shared their story of dealing with an account thief
- The thief claimed to work at EA and although the user doubted it at first, it might have been the truth
- The EA support finally got to the case and are currently investigating the alleged rogue employee
A Reddit user shared their story of having their account stolen by someone who claimed to be an EA employee and had supreme access to the user’s account.
How the Account Got Stolen in the First Place
An Apex Legend player by the Reddit name karankhushalani has reported that their account had been stolen by a person who insisted they are an EA employee. The account in question was worth more than $3,000.
Someone claiming to be a higher authority isn’t a new strategy for scammers but in this situation, things are a little bit different. According to the player, the one who stole his account allegedly had supreme access to the player’s account just from knowing their username.
Karankhushalani reported the full story on the Origin subreddit. They explained that they met the culprit by chance. Back then they were just a “random guy” on the ranked EU servers. The person showed great interest in karankhushalani’s account. They even asked to see it first-hand on a Discord stream. Karankhushalani obliged. Soon, karankhushalani had to leave the PC for a while. Once the player returned, they found out that this new acquaintance had blocked them. Even worse, karankhushalani’s account was marked as “currently in use,” finally revealing the thief’s malicious intentions.
The thief had changed the account’s password and email address. Karankhushalani immediately contacted EA customer support and began the recovery process. According to the story, they had to go through the process numerous times, as the culprit continued changing the password and email.
Things Get “Freaky”
It is here that the story gets concerning, or, in karankhushalani’s words, “Freaky”. The thief finally accepted karankhushalani’s request on Discord.
“Let me know when you’re done talking to Yaman,” the wrongdoer said.
Yaman, apparently was the EA support employee who was in the process of helping karankhushalani with their account recovery. There was no way for the thief to know his name, which immediately led the player whose account was stolen to fear they’d been infected with malware.
However, it doesn’t seem that malware was the source of the problem. The thief boldly stated:
“EA support can't help you now. I work for EA.”
At first, karankhushalani didn’t believe them and ran their anti-virus software. Yet, no malware was detected. Moreover, recovering their account, cost karankhushalani a long time, while the thief would take no more than a minute to take it back.
During all this process, the thief would mock karankhushalani. The user was crestfallen and preferred having their account deleted to it being in the hands of such a toxic person. However, there was hope on the horizon as another EA employee by the name Xar would help karankhushalani assume control. The thief would try to get the account banned but Xar would just unban it.
Xar explained that this is likely an instance of an employee abusing their powers. Karankhushalani finally had someone who believed them. The story soon went viral and more people spoke up in the user’s defense.
The player later restored their account but the investigation of the wrongdoer is still ongoing. Most concerning of all, in karankhushalani’s words, they aren’t the only ones affected by this and have a friend who has experienced similar issues.
Hopefully, the situation will be resolved with the help of the good-intended employees who heeded karankhushalani’s request. Players have enough hackers and scammers to deal with. Having enemies among the employees of the very game they are playing would be just too much.
