Original Post — Direct link

Yesterday my Jagex account was stolen due to negligence on my part. It was the lack of 2fa on my email account (Outlook), mixed with some "hacking" by someone. We found some very suspicious entity that literally had every permission possible, available to it on my Microsoft account. I immidiately locked everything down with 2fa... a little late I know.

Thankfully my significant other is extremely resourcesful and tech-literate, and she was able to help me sort things out while I was in the middle of work panicking. It was not only my Jagex account being stolen, but it was getting calls from Amex and PayPal because someone is buying their whole family a Shadow on my tab. Sweet. They attempted to spend ~$1200, and were probably successful with $880.00. They were able to block all my cards affected and returned the funds nearly the instant it occurred.

They also tried to ravage everything else they could. Epic Account. Blizz Account. LinkedIn for whatever reason. I was thankfully able to recover those as they all had text/phone recovery. Blizz even had phone login which is what saved me on that one. Otherwise that would have all been gone too.

It seems to me whoever took over these accounts, including my RS accounts, did not want them for their own use, but rather to rack up as they could, in as many different online games as they could so that they could mule it and sell it as through RMT.

The steps I've taken so far:

I reached out through customer support yesterday afternoon. No answer.

I also reached out on twitter to Jagex Support and they responded advising to put a support claim. I responded saying that i did and shared my reference number in the reply, and asked if it could be escalated. No response yet.

I made a post on reddit due to being desperate, against my better judgement. Obviously, there was no help provided, but simply meme-d on as expected.

In my initial post I said i had set up an authenticator, but I was wrong. I had only set up email 2fa, so the only advice I was given was to find the backup codes... but I now realize I wouldn't even have that.

Today as soon as I got home from work I remembered I had linked one of my characters to my steam, and tried logging in through there. I was able to log in without issue on my character "The EMF". It is one of the three characters linked to my stolen account.

Once logged in, I am able to click the "view inbox" button and it takes me to the settings page for my character. Here I am not able to do anything that helps me as far as I can see. I am able to view the accounts that my character is linked to (facebook and steam), but nothing else. It also gives me the option for jagex account management from there, but it asks me to log into my Jagex account... which i no longer have access to.

![img](lqyd20d0mbwc1)

![img](erhepmpcmbwc1)

Another weird thing is that I am completely unable to open up any store pages whatsoever. It pulls up the Steam browser and then tries loading for several minutes before it just fails.

![img](61rhefzgmbwc1)

I feel like I am being taunted by Jagex and the person that hijacked my email and RS accounts at this point. I have access to my character, but not my account. Is there anything I can do? Everyone just repeats the same thing. "THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO"... Even when I'm this damn close to the end? Really?

I just lost three accounts in one fell swoop. Thousands and thousands of hours. 20+ year old account. Gone... But i can still log in through steam...

Anyway. I'm an idiot and paid the price. FML

![img](1kowb4tjlbwc1)

Update: Amazingly a mod came across this and was able to look into it for me. Unfortunately, they still say I will forever have this vestige of what once was "my" account. The person turned on the authenticator and ruined any chances of recovery

I guess I'll go now and try to pretend i havent played runescape all my life and that all of that is gone forever due to being a moron.

Take care yall... I'm still in denial.

External link →
11 months ago - /u/Jagex_Melora - Direct link

Hey,

I've taken a look and can see this was already explained via your ticket, but unfortunately, there is no manual recovery method. Jagex accounts were created with increased account security in mind, and as part of this approach, we acted on player feedback to remove the old account recovery system due to concerns about historic data compromise from other websites being used by hijackers.

We provide as many tools and as much information as we can to players to keep them safe, but ultimately account security is a player's responsibility. I would strongly suggest reading over our security tips to protect your accounts against attacks and unauthorised access in the future.

While I understand this is not the response you were hoping for, this shouldn’t be the end of your adventures, so we really hope you continue to play on any existing accounts you own, or you create a new account to begin a brand new adventure.

RE: your Steam login, as you have a Steam account linked to the character you can login this way for now, but there is every chance this will be removed or you will get logged out, so I wouldn't continue to invest in the account in this state.

  • Jagex Support