Documentation of my experience with a hijacked account [SOLVED]

Hi all.

This post will just be a documention of my personal experience with my hijacked discord account

Thoughout this documentation, I hope to be able to inform and reassure those who have unfortunately shared a similar situation to mine.

For more information reguarding a ‘recently’ resolved case, I recommend checking out this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/17we7zu/discussion_my_current_experience_with_hacked

3/3/2024, GMT-8 (4/3/2024, GMT+10) - Account Hijack

It was 12 am. I was in the middle of a DnD session when I fell for the "Please help me test this game I'm working on" scam.

My discord started bugging, and instead of going to settings to reset my password, I passed it off as a simple bug, tried to restart and lost access to my account.

3/3/2024, 11:51 PM, GMT-8 (4/3/2024, GMT+10) - Initial Ticket Creation

Upon realising what had just happened, I immediately created a support ticket.

4/3/2024, 5:15 AM, GMT-8 (5/3/2024, GMT+10) - Discord Bot Response

Clyde:

Hey Apollofu15,

Thanks for reaching out. We're sorry to hear that you're having trouble with your account!

If you are still able to log in to your account or are still logged in, we recommend that you please reset your password. This will log you out of all other devices and sessions to secure your account. You can find instructions to reset your password and tips on how to protect your account below:
Reset Account Password
Four steps to a super safe account

If you are having trouble with two-factor authentication/multi-factor authentication on your account, you may remove 2FA from your account by using the backup codes that you were provided by Discord when you initially set up the two factor authentication. We recommend you re-enable 2FA and save your backup codes as soon as you can.

If you believe you have been hacked and cannot access your account after following the instructions above, please reply to this message and provide details with how and when you were hacked so that we can investigate further.

Please note this form is only for hacked accounts. If you have any other questions or concerns, please choose the appropriate support form option for your issue and submit a new ticket here.

Sincerely,
Discord Trust & Safety

As I was awake at the time, I immediately provide details of the situation, with a follow-up ticket containing information about my account (username/ID, phone number, payment methods, 2FA status)

4/3/2024, 9:48 PM, GMT-8 (5/3/2024, GMT+10) - Discord Bot Response

I recieve a message from another bot

Obi Wan Kenobi: 

Hello,
 
Thank you for providing the information about your account.
 
We’ve escalated your ticket for the team to look into further. Unfortunately, we are unable to give you an estimate time of our response or answer questions about your account, but our team is actively working on these requests.
 
Please note that submitting multiple reports regarding the same issue may hamper our team's investigation into your report, and slows down how quickly we can help other users.
 
Thank you for your patience and a team member will get back to you when they can.
 
Sincerely,
Discord Trust & Safety

Which I respond to shortly afterwards, thanking them for the response.

7/3/2024, GMT-8 (8/3/2024, GMT+10) - Ticket Bump

I bump my ticket, sympathising with the discord team and the number of tickets they have to intake, while trying to express my concern for the users in my friends list, and hoping that they'd see my position and increase my chances of resolution.

7/3/2024, 9:38 PM, GMT-8 (8/3/2024, GMT+10) - 2nd Ticket Bump

I update my ticket with more information regarding my account - that being name and online status change

7/3/2024, 9:53 PM, GMT-8 (8/3/2024, GMT+10) - Hijacker Harassment

The hijacker adds me on my backup and proceeds to spam me with 'carla who', of what meaning I know not.

8/3/2024, 9:17 AM, GMT-8 (9/3/2024, GMT+10) - Forum Post Creation

I create this forum post. 

I plan to avoid further interaction with the hijacker and await discord responses, hoping that it won't take months.

I will update any progress as it occurs.

8/3/2024, 12:45, GMT-8 (9/3/2024, GMT+10) - Twitter Bump

I Direct Message @discord_support on twitter in hopes of getting a status update of ticket.

9/3/2024, 2:13 AM, GMT-8 (10/3/2024, GMT+10) - Twitter Response

@discord_support: 

Hello there. Your ticket is currently still open in the correct queue, and a Trust and Safety team member will get back to you as soon as they can. The team is working through these tickets as quickly as they can. I don't have an ETA at this time, but you should receive a response soon. We genuinely appreciate your patience and understanding in the meantime, and if you need anything else please let us know.

11/3/2024, 9:05 AM, GMT-8 (12/3/2024, GMT+10) - Twitter Inquiry

I DM @discord_support on twitter again in hopes that they'd be able to shed some light on how my mobile 2FA was removed.

11/3/2024, 6:41 PM, GMT-8 (12/3/2024, GMT+10) - Twitter Response

@discord_support: 

Unfortunately, our social team doesn't have any information regarding Discord accounts being hacked. That is handled exclusively by our Trust & Safety team for security purposes. I apologize for the delay in response to your ticket. Tickets are answered in the order they are received, the team will get to your request as quickly as possible. For security and privacy reasons, we’re not able to discuss account details from here.

13/3/2024, 11:53 PM, GMT-8 (14/3/2024, GMT+11) - 2nd Ticket Creation

I create another ticket to cancel my ongoing nitro subscription, to remove my payment methods from my hijacked account, and to speak to a support team member

13/3/2024, 11:53 PM, GMT-8 (14/3/2024, GMT+11) - Discord Bot Response

@Clyde immediately responds to me:

Hey there,

We’re sorry to hear about this situation.

If you have lost access to the email address associated with the Discord account you had described, we can look into assisting with any refunds that are eligible per our Refund Policy, removing your payment information, and canceling the subscription from the associated account.

Additionally, if you haven’t already, please provide the following details as we will need them to move forward:
- Last four digits of your credit/debit card:
- Date of most recent charge:
- Amount of most recent charge:
- Billing zip or postal code:
- Screenshot of this transaction on your billing statement:

On the other hand, if this occurred in PayPal, we'll need:
- Your PayPal account's email address that is associated with the charge:
- Date of most recent charge:
- Amount of most recent charge:

(If your PayPal account is associated with a different email, please submit a new ticket from the email associated with your PayPal account. To protect our users' privacy and security, we're only able to discuss account details with the email address associated with that account.)

Thank you, and please let us know if there's anything else.

Sincerely,
Discord Trust and Safety Team

I tell them that I don't want a refund, and only wish for the cancellation of my nitro, the removal of my payment methods, and to speak to a support team member.

14/3/2024, 4:28 PM, GMT-8 (15/3/2024, GMT+11) - Discord Response!

I get though to a staff member! 

Though it was from a different branch that handles financial transactions.

Mary (Discord)

Mar 14, 2024, 09:28 PDT

Hey there,

Thank you for providing the requested information. Upon review, I have canceled the subscription and removed your payment information from the associated account. 
 
Please note that the charge you indicated to us on your card ending in 1989 doesn't appear to be affiliated with our platform/app. I'm afraid that we won't be able to provide support for this transaction if this charge occurred outside of our billing system.
 
For reference, all purchases made within Discord will be labeled DISCORD* ItemName within credit/debit card statements (depending on how your bank renders this) and PAYPAL* DISCORD if completed through PayPal.
 
For more information, you can check out our Billing FAQ here:
https://support.discord.com/hc/articles/360017693772
 
I recommend reaching out directly to the vendor associated with this charge for further support.

Additionally, if you are still waiting to recover your account, please wait for correspondence through your other open ticket with our Account Security Team.

We apologize for the inconvenience here, but please let us know if you have any other concerns.

Best,
Mary

I thank them for their help, and try to raise awareness towards my account recovery ticket by stating that all I want is for my account email to be reverted and for a password reset email to be sent.

14/3/2024, 7:02 PM, GMT-8 (15/3/2024, GMT+11) - 2nd Ticket Closure

My ticket regarding my payment methods was closed. 

I had reopened it by replying to the support agent that was assigned to me, but it seems that they've closed it again.

Hopefully my request was read and considered.

12 days has elapsed since my ticket creation, no agent has been assigned yet.

25/3/2024, 4:58 PM, GMT-8 (26/3/2024, GMT+11) - New Activity?

I was just browsing the forums and conducting another ticket checkup when I noticed the ticket activity changed from 22 days ago to 5 hours ago(4:58 PM GMT-8).

Hopefully this means that someone has viewed it and that I will be recieving a reply shortly?

I was on my way to create another support ticket, but will hold off for now in hopes of a reply.

10/4/2024, 5:49 AM, GMT-8 (11/4/2024, GMT+11) - New Ticket Creation

I decided to create and submit another ticket seeing as it has been a month already with no response

This time, I tried to include all my info within the inital ticket creation (details of event, account ownership proof, discord pw emails, etc), as well as being more thorough with the details requested by the ticket.

10/4/2024, 5:49 AM, GMT-8 (11/4/2024, GMT+11) - Discord Support Email response

Got a entirely different ticket confirmation response from Clyde

##- Please type your reply above this line -##

Hey there,

Thank you for reaching out! Sorry to hear that you experienced this on our app.

**While our team investigates this, please read through the following points:**

1. If you created a new Discord account with the email that was previously associated with your hacked account, you will need to change the email on the new account to something else. That way the email address is available to be moved back to the original account.
- Follow the steps here to change the email address:
https://support.discord.com/hc/articles/4423385681175

2. Any unauthorized purchases on your account will be investigated and refunded accordingly.

3. If a new Discord account has been created without your permission using your email, please let us know right away.

4. Any updates or changes made to your servers, friends list, or messages are irreversible.

5. Double check and make sure all the information provided through the support form was accurate.
- If you are unsure about any of those details, please let us know in a reply.

In the meantime, please let us know if you have any questions. Our team will respond as soon as they can; we truly appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,
Clyde - Discord Support Bot

I replied to the email with a simple acknowledgement.

10/4/2024 08:09 PDT - Account Recovery

Holy miracle

Hello,

Our team conducted an investigation and have reverted your account back to your original email. We apologize for the delay.

During this investigation we temporarily suspended the account. You should have received an e-mail with steps on how to reset your password. Once you have reset your password, your account will be re-enabled.

Unfortunately, we are unable to revert any changes that were made to the account, such as changes to server permissions or messages sent.

If you haven't received the email yet, you can also use our forgot password feature available from the login page here: https://discordapp.com/login! You just need to type in your email address and then click "forgot password", and then you should get an email shortly with a link you can use to reset your Password! Here's a link with more information as well: https://support.discord.com/hc/articles/218410947

We recommend you make sure to have a strong password and enable two factor authentication on your Discord account! You can check out password managers like 1Password (Mac) or Dashlane (Windows) which make creating and storing secure passwords a breeze. Additionally, you can check out how to enable 2FA onto your Discord account through this link: https://support.discord.com/hc/articles/219576828

For future reference in protecting your account, here's some important tips to keep in mind:
 

1. Be wary of clicking unfamiliar links (If you leave Discord by clicking on a link that brings you to an external site, it's possible that the website can access your personal information)
2. Stay away from downloading unfamiliar files from anyone you don't know personally or trust!
3. Group servers full of new people can be a great way to meet new people, but be careful about sharing personal information!
4. Discord employees will never ever forever never ask you for your password or other personal information on text or voice chat.
5. On that note, you can always ask us via Twitter or email if you're not sure. Better to be safe than sorry!
6. Remember that any public announcement we would make will be broadcast across our official accounts, not heard second-hand!

If you have any questions, just let us know here.

Sincerely,
Discord Trust & Safety

Yup, I got my account back within minutes of sending in the ticket!

Thanks everyone who has acompanied me on this journey! I wish you the best of luck in your recovery process.

I'm always open to answer any questions you may have to the best of my ability.