Support NeoGAF

[Galdelico]

Hi Gaf, sorry to re-post this. After having asked in two different threads who went down fast, and received no answers, I thought to make a separate one, and see if you guys can help me figure it out.

Something kinda odd is happening on my PS3 (and PSP). Basically, all of a sudden, I can't sign in either my US and Japanese secondary accounts (my main account is European, and that works fine, with the 2-step verification enabled), even though all the games I purchased in the past years - with US/JP PSN cards - remain perfectly playable on both my PS3 and PSP (which I kept my US account signed in, due to the fact all my Minis come from the US PS Store) consoles. I just can't seem able to sign in. The consoles - and my PC as well - keep saying my ID or password isn't correct (but they are), when I type them in.

I don't believe said accounts got hacked because I've never tied any credit card or PayPal account to them, I've only used PSN cards, and surely I haven't got any notification regarding any kind of problem with the JP account, on the email that is connected to it. Unfortunately, I can't access the email I used for the US account anymore. It's very very old and I lost the password as well.

Any idea of what's going on? Of course, calling the Customer Service is not an option, as I'm neither an American or Japanese resident.

I believe a similar thing happened with my EU account too, but that was only to upgrade my security settings with the 2-steps verification, and I could actually log in. I wonder if all that means I should activate it on my secondary accounts too?

Any help would be super appreciated, thanks in advance!

Edit - I must say. I didn't actively use (in order to make a purchase, for instance, or download a demo) those accounts for ages, especially the Japanese one. I point this out because I have no idea whether or not an inactive account can actually expire, after some time.

 

[stryke]

It doesn't matter if you ever had a CC or paypal tied to the account, there's still value in it for people to compromise it.

The US account is good as gone if you can't access the email it's tied with.

The japanese one though does attempting to reset the password do anything?

 

[RayCharlizard]

CC info isn't the only thing that makes an account valuable to hackers, just having games attached to it is enough to resell the account. If you can't access the account yourself and don't have the email anymore, your SOL. Be more careful with your accounts and email addresses in the future. :-/

 

[Galdelico]

Well, sir. How can one be 'more careful', other than by using something legitimately, and as it's supposed to be used?
The email I created, a decade or so ago, specifically for the US account - which was an MSN email - and that I never used for anything else, is no longer available on the MSN itself (seems like it's been deactivated). It's not like I wrote the data on toilet paper and then Woops! Used it! Well, nevermind...

I took - still take - top care of my main EU account that I use pretty much on a daily basis, and nothing ever happened to it. I enabled the 2-step verification as soon as it became available. Never encountered a single issue in years.

I used those US and JP accounts only to buy a few games (only one, with the JP account), using regularly purchased US and JP PSN cards. It was possible to do that, at the time, so I took the chance only for a handful of PSN titles that came out in the US and Japan first. This to clear out that I've never been reckless, never tried to hack or mess around with anything.

I didn't even feel the need to sign in to those accounts because all the games I bought through them still regularly work on my EU profile, nothing even remotely odd happened to alarm me. There are no messages - on the email which is tied to my JP profile - about purchases that weren't made by myself, no notifications as well. I've read other threads about hacked accounts, and I've seen people finding games they didn't buy on their consoles... Anything like that happened in my case.

I'll try resetting the password for my JP account, as per stryke's suggestion. I didn't do it in the first place, because I assumed that would have brought me to activate the 2-step verification on there too, so I decided to wait and ask here first.

Edit - in general, is there any way to figure out if an account has been hacked, other than by email notifications, or finding stuff you didn't purchase on your system?

 

[EmiPrime]

Well, sir. How can one be 'more careful', other than by using something legitimately, and as it's supposed to be used?

By making sure your account information is up to date. I made all my psn accounts ten years ago and I've changed the email addresses when they became defunct. I also enabled 2fa on all my accounts when it became available, not just my main one. All my passwords are ridiculously strong too.

It sounds like you didn't do your due diligence.

 

[Galdelico]

Gotcha. Lesson learned for future experience.
Thanks guys.

 

[RayCharlizard]

Yah I've had the same PSN account since 2006, and various accounts for different region stores, I've just always been good about keeping up with my emails and passwords. Granted I've been on Gmail the whole time so it's been easy for me to manage. But yeah, just use modern services and password managers and you should be fine in the future.

Edit - in general, is there any way to figure out if an account has been hacked, other than by email notifications, or finding stuff you didn't purchase on your system?

That's pretty much it, it's not like someone can contact you via phone in that instance. Your email and noticed installation of unowned software are your only signs. You can use two-factor authentication these days but that's only useful if you can access the sign-up email address. This is just one of those "hard lesson learned" moments, apply that lesson to all of your accounts, setup a password manager, use unique passwords everywhere, keep track of all of your alternate email accounts and use two-factor authentication when available. And I don't mean to sound like an ass, these are just legitimate base-level security tips for the future.

 

[toythatkills]

Occam's razor would suggest that you haven't been hacked, but more likely that you're just using the wrong passwords.

A few times I've had my passwords reset by Sony, and there's every chance this has happened to you and either you've totally forgotten about it and so are using an old password, or you've not received the email about it due to losing access to your email account and so have been unable to set a new one.

 

[Galdelico]

This is just one of those "hard lesson learned" moments, apply that lesson to all of your accounts, setup a password manager, use unique passwords everywhere, keep track of all of your alternate email accounts and use two-factor authentication when available. And I don't mean to sound like an ass, these are just legitimate base-level security tips for the future.

Please don't worry about that. You didn't, and I completely realize I haven' been careful enough with those two accounts. Everything I use on the Internet, I have the maximum care of. 2fa, bullet-proof passwords, constant checking and updating... I just neglected both my US and JP secondary profiles because I literally activated them, used them (last time was years ago) for purchasing the few games I wanted and that weren't available on the EU Store back then, and that's it. I pretty much forgot about them. On the PS3, you can play all your games through one single account, so I didn't even feel the need to sign in anywhere else than to my main European profile. It's my bad, really.

Occam's razor would suggest that you haven't been hacked, but more likely that you're just using the wrong passwords.

A few times I've had my passwords reset by Sony, and there's every chance this has happened to you and either you've totally forgotten about it and so are using an old password, or you've not received the email about it due to losing access to your email account and so have been unable to set a new one.

That's most likely the case, yeah. Even the message I get from the PSN says so: your ID or password are not correct. I'll try checking out at least my JP account.

As a general information... Is it possible to activate 2fa on a secondary account too? Since doing so with my EU profile required a telephone number, I assumed it wouldn't have been possible to enable it on American and Japanese accounts.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[EmiPrime]

That's most likely the case, yeah. Even the message I get says so: my ID or password are wrong. I'll try checking out at least my JP account.

As a general information... Is it possible to activate 2fa on a secondary account too? Since doing so with my EU profile required a telephone number, I assumed it wouldn't have been possible to enable it on American and Japanese accounts.

Thanks again everyone!

Yeah I use the same phone number for 2FA across all my PSN accounts (UK, US and JP).

 

[Galdelico]

Yeah I use the same phone number for 2FA across all my PSN accounts (UK, US and JP).

Thanks.

So, I managed to recover (by changing its password) and update my Japanese account - tied to an Hotmail account I regularly use - but I guess I have no chances to get back into my American one. The Hotmail address I used with it is super old - way older than 2006, I reckon - and when I try to access to that mailbox through MSN, it says it doesn't exist. Sure thing, I let more than 365 days pass without signing in, so it's been deleted 100%.

I guess I'm only going to screw things up badly, if I try to sign in, say I want to change the password and then give a different email account, right?

 

[Interface23]

Thanks.

So, I managed to recover (by changing its password) and update my Japanese account - tied to an Hotmail account I regularly use - but I guess I have no chances to get back into my American one. The Hotmail address I used with it is super old - way older than 2006, I reckon - and when I try to access to that mailbox through MSN, it says it doesn't exist. Sure thing, I let more than 365 days pass without signing in, so it's been deleted 100%.

I guess I'm only going to screw things up badly, if I try to sign in, say I want to change the password and then give a different email account, right?

If it doesn't exist can you remake the email and then send the password reset to the new "remade" email?

 

[JaseC]

If it doesn't exist can you remake the email and then send the password reset to the new "remade" email?

It sounds like the account was an @msn.com address, which Microsoft stop supporting for new accounts back in 2013 or so, circa the launch of Outlook.com.

Edit: I lost access to my original Steam account in a similar fashion. A friend wanted to play CS 1.6 while I was on holiday, so I gave him the login info (mistake #1) and he, against my specific instruction, changed the password only to forget what it was. I had no recourse through which to regain access as:

- I no longer had proof of ownership of the Half-Life Platinum Pack key registered to the account (mistake #2)
- I'd never purchased anything from the store, and
- I no longer had access to the associated e-mail account (mistake #3)

Fortunately, all games included in the Platinum Pack bar Opposing Force activate the Platinum Pack on Steam and I had one such key remaining, so I was able to make a new account and "restore" my game library without much hassle.

 

[Galdelico]

If it doesn't exist can you remake the email and then send the password reset to the new "remade" email?

Uhm, I didn't think about that. Any chance this can compromise my purchase history? I'm a bit concerned because I bought quite a few US PSN games, back then, and some of them got pulled from the PS Store, in the meantime (as in the Neo Geo Station titles), so I wouldn't even be able to re-purchase them on the European Store.
Thanks for the suggestion anyway!

It sounds like the account was an @msn.com address, which Microsoft stop supporting for new accounts back in 2013 or so, circa the launch of Outlook.com.

Sorry to hear about your story. :/
It was an @hotmail.com address. Is it still possible to create one today?

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

Uhm, I didn't think about that. Any chance this can compromise my purchase history? I'm a bit concerned because I bought quite a few US PSN games, back then, and some of them got pulled from the PS Store, in the meantime (as in the Neo Geo Station titles), so I wouldn't even be able to re-purchase them on the European Store.
Thanks for the suggestion anyway!



Sorry to hear about your story. :/
It was an @hotmail.com address. Is it still possible to create one today?

No. Sony can't tell when the email address was registered with the provider.

 

[Galdelico]

Well guys, I owe you a massive favour.
Followed your suggestions - recreated my long time expired @hotmail.com email, and used that to request a change of password - and I just recovered my US account too.

Huge thanks once again.