Hello Mani A,

Thank you for your wonderfully insightful copy-and-paste response!

Unfortunately it didn't seem to address either of my questions. Fortunately for you however, I went above and beyond the call of duty as a non-paid, non-employee of Trion Worlds (aka customer) and dug up the answers to my own questions (at no charge!). What follows is a summary, both for your benefit (assistance in reading and actually answering a question, rather than just copying a macro response), and mine (archival purposes).

Apparently, my account was accessed on June 13th, and a free trial code applied. I find it quite puzzling that a 7 day-free trial code would work on a paid game account (I've already purchased the game, why would I need a free trial?). As to whether any items or currency was taken, while I'd have to guess yes, there's no way of me finding out for certain without ponying up another $15 dollars to resubscribe and find out. To be quite frank, I can think of a great many things I'd rather waste that money on.

Now that I've answered my own question, I'd like to take the next several paragraphs to offer some suggestions that may help improve both your performance as well as Trion World's security measures.

1. How would verifying my identity help answer my original questions of whether my account was illegally accessed and any items stolen? I'm no social engineer, but I'm fairly certain that if I was the Chinese gold-farmer that brute-forced his way past a 16 character alpha-numeric password into an account (see point 2), and applied a readily available 7 day trial key to an already purchased game account (see point 3), I would not be contacting support to ask whether they had noticed my activities. There's an ever so slight gap in the logic circuit there. Not to mention, my English is fairly good for someone who apparently has never left mainland China, wouldn't you say?

2. Why is it that there is no limit to the number of login attempts that can be made before a forced waiting period/e-mail notification to the email on file/ forced confirmation procedure is implemented? I find it hard to believe that the security measures taken by the cheapest of porn sites (Captcha, login attempt limit, IP access limit) trumps that of an apparently respectable company such as Trion Worlds. Maybe you guys need to take a break and surf the seedy parts of the net for a bit to get some ideas? I doubt any of the employees would object to a "Surf Porn for Security Day!" Just a thought.

3. Why would a readily available 7-day free trial key work on a purchased game account? I've already shelled out $50 to buy the game, why would I shy away for paying a measly $15 to check out if I wanted to play it again later on? The only purpose those codes serve is to give Chinese gold farmers free access to compromised accounts. I highly doubt that Mr. Wang would be able to enter a valid credit card or payment details, even if he HAD successfully brute forced his way past that 16 character alpha numeric password.

Also, you may want to consider sending a confirmation email to customers when their lapsed account is reactivated, just to be on the safe side, you know? That way they'd immediately know that something fishy is up, rather than finding out 7 days later, by an email asking for a re-subscription because the current one is up. Makes sense, no?

Well Mani, I hope you enjoyed the read (assuming you did read it). I took quite a bit of my own time to think this out and type it up. Hopefully my suggestions help either you or Trion improve in some way. As a side-note, it would have taken you a few minutes at most to answer the original question, certainly far less time than it took you to read this or me to type it.

At the time of this writing I've since changed my password, and "reclaimed" my account (or what's left of it). That said, any chance of me resubscribing in the future is highly unlikely.

While I'm no longer in need of your assistance, I do look forward to your copy and paste reply (even though I think I already know what it's going to say!) Also, if the guys at Trion ever happen to be hiring in the future, shoot me a line, you've got my info. I'm not exactly a people person (as you may have gathered), but I've got great writing
skills, plenty of good ideas, and the sense to back both up!

It's been a pleasure,

-----------.
Victim of A Chinese Gold Farmer and Gamer Extraordinaire
Working Stiff Inc.

Hello XX,

Thank you for contacting us regarding RIFT.

I apologize for the miscommunication. I asked you to phone-in to secure the account/verify ownership, because it would allow us to investigate any foreign IPs that were accessing the account (procedure). The thought of someone other than yourself making any changes to your account was concerning. I investigated further and it appears that it wasn't a 7-day trial that was applied to the account. Our automated system had simply activated promotional free game-time to all inactive accounts.

However, I do appreciated your feedback regarding "limiting the number of log-ins attempts". Our system does in fact lock users out after repeated failed login attempts. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let us know. Thank you for your continued support of Trion Worlds and for playing RIFT. Your reference number for this ticket is XXXXXXXX

Sincerely,

Mani A.
Account & Technical Support
Trion Worlds Inc.