From time to time reminders about keeping your account secure are a good thing. So here is SOEs policy about Account Security and some useful tips on how to keep your account secure.
As the population of online internet gaming increases, so do issues regarding stolen or compromised accounts, and/or accounts that have been transferred from one player to another in violation of the User Agreement. This also applies to the amount of issues relating to Accounts that have had their login information "shared" with friends, relatives, and Guild members. These issues (and the time it takes to investigate and attempt to resolve them) hugely detract from the time that SOE's Customer Support staff have to provide quality customer service. Accordingly, SOE must remind all customers that:
(1) Account security is the responsibility of the account owner. This includes password protection, running virus checks, disabling file sharing, or any other means of checking that the owner's account has not been stolen or compromised.
(2) Any and all stolen, compromised, or shared accounts that are reported to SOE may be *suspended* in order to conduct an investigation and prevent further malicious acts upon the accounts in question. If characters on the account are deleted maliciously by someone, or items and coin removed from a character, a Customer Service Representative may offer a "character-restore." This will restore the player's character to its most recent backup if a backup is available. Experience points, items, etc, that are lost due to this type of character restoration will not be reimbursed. Please understand that once characters are deleted from an account, SOE does not guarantee they can be restored.
This character-restore service will only be offered once per player account. Subsequent occurrences of character deletion or item/coin/experience loss due to account theft, compromised accounts, or sharing of account information will not be reimbursed.
If a player account has been stolen or compromised, he or she must first recover the account by following the Account Recovery Procedure (detailed here) and then submit a Customer Service help-ticket immediately. Note: Due to the availability of character backups, Customer Service may be unable to help if the request for assistance is not received within a reasonable amount of time.
(3) Any customer found to be involved in an account theft may have any and all of his/her accounts banned. Prior to taking any action against accounts reported as compromised, SOE will conduct a thorough review of the accounts and determine the appropriate course of action. Accounts will only face disciplinary action based on information gathered through our investigation and not as a result of external allegations.
Account Security Tips
We strongly recommend that you change your current password periodically and keep your registration information updated including choosing a secret question if you have not already done so. Please make sure that you have provided us with your current and valid email address, we will use the email address on record to notify you of any changes or activity regarding your Station account and in retrieving lost passwords (this email address will not be used for marketing purposes unless you specifically opt-in for newsletters and announcements.)
Please remember to NEVER give out or share your Station name or password, including with friends and Guildmates.
Account security reminders:
One last thing to remember, SOE will NEVER ask for your password. If you ever encounter someone claiming to be from SOE in the game, by phone or in email that is asking for your password, do not give it to them!
Until next time...
~ Kytherea