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Minecraft Gift Codes Stolen - Mojang Refusing To Help

azoundria's Avatar azoundria7/25/16 11:58 pm
1 emeralds 2.7k 20
11/19/2016 7:35 am
azoundria's Avatar azoundria
I bought my gift codes in 2010 during Minecraft Alpha, when gift codes were really cheap. I was foolish and bought more than I needed. (I have spent hundreds of dollars - which was a lot of money but I didn't mind because Mojang was a small company with a really great game.) So far they have been stolen from my account twice.

I take security very seriously, so I was quite skeptical the first time when they said it was a breach of the account, but I still changed my password, secured my email, and took every reasonable precaution to protect my account that I could think of. Mojang refused to issue a refund for any of them, despite the fact that they fell within several clauses of their refund policy at the time, and they refused to cancel any of the codes, despite the fact that whoever stole them can still use them, but they did replace them.

This time, however, Mojang is refusing to do anything. They insist my account is fine (which it should be) and also insist that their gift code security is unable to be penetrated. The replies I'm getting are really short and don't even address my questions.

They refuse to help, and I have no idea what to do. These gift codes are worth thousands of dollar. They're insisting that there's no way anyone could have guessed them, despite that I can find tons of videos and tutorials on how to do just that. They've also updated gift codes to 25 characters, more than twice as long, which you can see on their own website. All the gift codes I had left are used by random usernames - I can't use any of them.

I'm not sure what else to do but make my story public. I'm very upset and disappointed!
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azoundria
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11/18/2016 6:37 am
Level 88 : Elite Modder
Fureniku
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"they didn't even look at that second account to see that there was an unused code still left!"

...That is 100% your responsibility, not theirs. You are getting support on the one account you are using for the support talks, and that's it. Even if you could "prove" you owned the second account, no company worth their salt would give out any information at all on a second account unless in direct talks with that account.

Honestly this thread seems super fishy. I mean if you had no plans to use the codes and just wanted to buy them to "support mojang" then why do you care to begin with? It sounds to me like these codes either were already used by you, or simply never existed to begin with and you're trying to con out some free ones.

That being said, assuming they did exist, and were the old 12-char codes, it's totally possible someone has a small background task running that grinds through all combinations in a brute force-style code redeeming system which periodically sweeps through the entire spectrum (probably taking well over a year to complete) in the hopes they'll snag an unused code. This is a well known problem with gift codes everywhere, and it's why they are designed to be used, and not designed to be sat on. If you sat on the codes for 4 years without using them, and a bot snagged them, that's your fault and not theirs. Plus, there's physically no way to prove that it was a bot and not you, it's been well over any form of "warranty period" (Not that there IS one for gift codes to begin with), and thus legally they do not have to do anything at all. Hell, even morally they don't really have to do anything, because as I see it it's your fault for not using the codes for such a long time.
1
11/18/2016 8:51 am
Level 52 : Grandmaster Prince
Prince Oceanus
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My thoughts exactly.
1
11/18/2016 5:55 am
Level 8 : Apprentice Prince
OreoTurtle
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Confused @_@
When you say your account was compromised which do you mean?
1
11/19/2016 7:35 am
Level 1 : New Miner
azoundria
azoundria's Avatar
I only believed the other account was compromised because the only code on it did not work. On my main account, the gift codes were all used and I could clearly see that. I don't know if it was due to a compromised account or a vulnerability in the gift codes themselves. I have been given no information at all other than a list of usernames who registered them which I can see in my account. I've looked up those names, and the registrants are clearly foreigners from places like Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The most common countries seem to be Czech Republic and Turkey. I have no idea how Mojang thinks I came into contact with these people who don't even speak English.

Silvania Studios"they didn't even look at that second account to see that there was an unused code still left!"

...That is 100% your responsibility, not theirs. You are getting support on the one account you are using for the support talks, and that's it. Even if you could "prove" you owned the second account, no company worth their salt would give out any information at all on a second account unless in direct talks with that account.

Honestly this thread seems super fishy. I mean if you had no plans to use the codes and just wanted to buy them to "support mojang" then why do you care to begin with? It sounds to me like these codes either were already used by you, or simply never existed to begin with and you're trying to con out some free ones.

That being said, assuming they did exist, and were the old 12-char codes, it's totally possible someone has a small background task running that grinds through all combinations in a brute force-style code redeeming system which periodically sweeps through the entire spectrum (probably taking well over a year to complete) in the hopes they'll snag an unused code. This is a well known problem with gift codes everywhere, and it's why they are designed to be used, and not designed to be sat on. If you sat on the codes for 4 years without using them, and a bot snagged them, that's your fault and not theirs. Plus, there's physically no way to prove that it was a bot and not you, it's been well over any form of "warranty period" (Not that there IS one for gift codes to begin with), and thus legally they do not have to do anything at all. Hell, even morally they don't really have to do anything, because as I see it it's your fault for not using the codes for such a long time.

Firstly, I just want to say I appreciate your honesty. I'm trying to understand the other side of this issue, and it's really helpful. I just want to make sure you understand the full situation of what's going on.

At the moment, I'm not getting support on any account. They are now ignoring all communication. I'm trying to even get answers to simple questions like if they track logins. So I can know if the password was compromised, for example. I think that's reasonable. I point-blank sent them an email which had only that one question in it, nothing else at all. And they point-blank didn't answer it. That was the first message they ignored and it quite frankly scares me. To this day, I still don't know if someone else logged into the account. And I don't think they have any idea either.

I do own both accounts and did provide proof that I purchased the gift codes with the original transaction IDs. Both accounts use the same email address. The second one was registered in alpha when the email address wasn't the account key. So I was using the most appropriate email to ask about the other gift code.

I did have plenty of plans to use them. At the time, almost everyone I knew played Minecraft. I ran a large online community and wanted to do a weekly give-away to boost activity. Christmas was a couple months away. And spare accounts. I just set up the 11th, and I use them all for one of the multiplayer servers I'm on. I know people who have more than that even and use them for decorative heads. I had plans to launch servers, which I did, and I was going to give away gift codes there too. I have no way of knowing 6 years ago exactly how many codes I would want to use. If my life had taken different paths, I would certainly have used them, maybe even run out and been kicking myself, spending hundreds of extra dollars, but on the current path I overestimated. But I'm by no means done using them. I have my whole life ahead of me. And the only thing that's been relatively stable in it for all 6 years is Minecraft.

I love Minecraft and Notch and I did have a strong love of Mojang, but I didn't 'just' buy the codes to support them. I also play the game a lot, and I wanted to get a good deal on something that I saw would use and would make excellent gifts for friends and family at the time. You have to remember, the game costed $12 back then and now it's $36, and these price hikes were announced in a huge blog post. They also threatened they might one day charge for upgrades and expansions, which they still could, but in alpha you got them for free. Games like Minecraft help people connect and make friends, and learn all kinds of cool things. Plus, Mojang is a small business with a great idea. At the time I was playing probably about 3-5 hours per day. I absolutely wanted to support Mojang and Minecraft and Notch but it wasn't 'just' that. I still expect I'll get to use the codes I bought. I saw this saving me hundreds of dollars overall. I don't think that buying more codes than I need is a valid reason I shouldn't be able to use the ones I do need.

And I absolutely needed one more account for my shops. On the multiplayer server I play on, building space is provided on a per-account basis, and I was right ready to launch the next shop, only needing the space. I planned things out based on the knowledge I had extra accounts if I needed them, and indeed the last time I had checked my account they were all there and unused. Starting over a month before, I spent a lot of time and energy generating buzz for the launch of the shop, and I attempted to set up the account a full 2 weeks before I needed it. I left a code unused on the second account too, with a separate password, and now none of the codes on either account worked.

In the end, when it became clear that this whole process was going to take more than 2 weeks to sort out, I had to go and beg my friend to let me borrow his account so I can keep my promises I made to other people who depended on the shop, and break the pattern of naming with some random name. People kept asking me if I knew someone was copying my design, and they couldn't find the shop because the name was different. And now, there's the unlikely possibility my friend can steal all my stuff from that shop. I spend a lot of time on that server. I'm competitive but I also have a lot of fun. My friend was only willing to let me use the account for a while until I got the codes back, and we had an argument a few weeks ago, and he changed his password. My shop is now locked in a broken state. That impacts me a lot because of the time I've spent on it.

I had left the one code on the second account as a backup even in case this did happen, and even that didn't work. So I ended up spending hours and hours trying to work around not having this one account, and at this point, it's become a tremendous loss, all over this simple matter. And maybe - it's just a game, whatever. But I actually care about it. And the idea that this whole time, Mojang could have spent a couple minutes to look up a code I asked about, to save me days of effort. That's what I'm so upset about.

This is not so much about the codes themselves, but the human element. Like you said, if I haven't used the codes, why do I care so much? Well the reality is, had the support been handled properly and professionally, had my questions been answered, had Mojang helped me with the account, or even been willing to let me have the one account activated, it probably wouldn't matter as much. At this point, I probably sound crazy for my rants, but the truth is I'm more than anything, disappointed because I loved Mojang in a way people wont even understand. I still love the game, I thought they were the best people, I had aspired to meet the creators of Minecraft one day. I even wrote a report for one of my classes about Mojang. This is what hurts so much.

I have done everything reasonable to secure my account. I migrated the account. I used a unique password with letters (both uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and digits. I engaged their additional security questions feature, which is the only protection they have other than the password. I never accessed the website on any computers outside of my home PC, and I kept my home PC regularly free of all viruses or malware. It was still clean when I last checked after the gift codes were first noticed gone. And I reported the issue as soon as it happened. There is nothing more that I could reasonably have done.

I know you say I should use the codes and I did set up a lot of accounts. When I set them up, I set up 10 and thought that was way more than I'd ever need personally, but I was wrong and I needed one more. In additional to the logistics of setting up and remembering dozens of different email accounts, I wanted to leave the other codes unused, because it's tacky to give someone something used. Think about it - giving away a used Minecraft account for a friend for their birthday versus a brand new Minecraft account? The first feels a lot like giftwrapping some piece of junk I don't use in my house, and the second is a thoughtful gift I went out and bought. I haven't ended up giving them away because most people I know don't play the game anymore. But I don't think that's my fault.

A company has an obligation to provide the products or services which it promises. In this case, I was promised the ability to register Minecraft accounts, or give away to anyone this right. There were no restrictions placed on when I could use the codes or what I could do with them, other than I couldn't sell them. The blog post for the Beta release is on and on about how Minecraft provides lifetime upgrades and expansions for free. Clearly that's what I'm to expect. There is no expiry, mentioned at any point, now or in the past. And if they want to add one, well they have at the very least an obligation to let me know.

It's not only possible but probably that not just one but multiple people search the gift code space. This is also not a hard thing to fix. Limit the number of searches per IP per day. Keep track of how many searches people do and throttle it back. Add a simple lock on the codes the account owner can invoke. Make them longer. Email people when codes are used. Compare the IP of who's registering the code and who bought the code. There's no excuse why, in a day of such interconnectivity, I can't find out my codes are used except by logging in repeatedly to check, which is an absurd expectation.

But I think the brute guessing is least likely. They're all gone 100% from my account. I would expect some of them to be left. The search space was still 4 trillion, and there is a limit of 10 per day per IP address. It's more likely the codes were pseudo-random instead of cryptographically random. The difference is well documented. A cryptographic random algorithm is designed by a security expert so it can't be reverse engineered, while a pseudo-random algorithm simply uses a seed to efficiently spit out numbers in a given pattern. Anyone with the seed can get the same sequence of numbers, and the seed is usually something like the computer's timestamp. So, in short, if you correctly guess when the algorithm was started, you know the seed, and if you know the seed and the formula (which is probably something like a simple modulus on each number) you can generate one gift code after another. In a typical program, the random seed is assigned at the start and used throughout, which means finding one seed would generate you potentially thousands or even millions of valid codes at once. You'd get every code generated in that session until the server was reset, and servers are typically reset at most once per day. Think how many copies of Minecraft are sold in a whole day. Of course, most would be used. But they'd all be valid codes from one point. If you found even 1,000 unused codes, and set up accounts which you sold for $5 apiece, you made an easy $5,000. And you can keep doing it. I think Mojang has a responsibility to ensure they use proper algorithms and to be aware if they mess this up. I've specifically asked about this possibility, and it's been completely ignored. It would be easy to disprove if they showed me that other gift codes around the time I set up mine weren't used, or verified the algorithm they were using.

What's also possible is that someone got ahold of my username from my thread where I stupidly mentioned having the codes. (I was actually hoping I'd find decent people to give a few of them away to.) From there, they got my email, which is not hard to find. Because it's publicly available. From that, they used hacked databases to get hashes of passwords I've used on other websites. That's not as hard as you think to do - I was the other day able to confirm at least 30 hashes exist out there. Having the hashes means they can perform a ton of computation on them and ultimately break the password in a brute force manner. It says it would take 8 months to guess my password from a hash, but I have to imagine it can be done faster, particularly if some of those sites use poor security, more than likely as evidenced by their databases being compromised. From there, they know what types of passwords I used to use, and can then make 'educated' guesses as to what my Mojang password was. The last and final step is the security questions, which have been proven over and over to be trivial to get past by guessing answers. So if that's true, it has implications for everything, and I could have known 4 months ago. But the way to defend against that is to notify me when people try to log into my account from other places, or require an email verification for suspicious logins, or even just hide the codes if the login is suspicious. Not to do what they did and say 'everything' is in order with my account but also not answer whether they track logins and then just ignore me entirely.

If they had said they wont replace the codes but still answered my questions and helped me through this, that would probably be within the realm of what I could accept. I was, after all, mainly trying to set up only one account.

Even if they sent me a skeptical email like the one you did, I'd be a lot happier with that. We'd back and forth. I'd get answers to my questions, and know what I can do differently. But they aren't even doing that. I get the feeling like they're hiding something, because they don't answer simple questions. Like, maybe they know there's a vulnerability. And it's not right. And again, I have no idea if it's true, except that all my codes are gone, and they don't even want to figure out what happened. Mojang recently had to suspend accepting PayPal due to fraud, so there are some serious issues going on there for sure.
1
11/16/2016 3:34 pm
Level 52 : Grandmaster Prince
Prince Oceanus
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-snip-.
1
11/16/2016 12:09 pm
Level 22 : Expert Blockhead
raidarr
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Ok then.
1
11/16/2016 5:32 am
Level 1 : New Miner
azoundria
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Wow!

So one of the codes that I thought went missing was on a separate account. Just a week ago I sent another email asking specifically about that code specifically in a new ticket, which they completely ignored. (It says they got it, and also that they're answering emails from November 13th, when I sent it on November 7th.) Sure they have the legal right to ignore support emails - doesn't make it right or professional. (So far, they have outright ignored a total of 7 support emails including that newest one - and blatantly refused to assist me in any way in every other email.)

So I thought hey I'll migrate the second account (which was still an alpha account) to Mojang and try the support request from a different email address there. Maybe it'll be randomly assigned and I might be allowed to talk to someone new, other than Amelia who I really have tried to get along with and who has told me nothing and absolutely refused to let me talk to anyone else. And you'll never guess what I found...

Keep in mind this is a code I've mentioned was missing since the beginning. Keep in mind this is a code I've specifically asked about numerous times. Keep in mind I've mentioned on multiple occasions that I only urgently needed one code to set up one more account. Keep in mind this whole issue happened when I was looking to use one single code.

I migrated the second account, and the code...

Was still there! Not only that, but I was able to actually use it.

This means the whole time, Mojang refusing through clenched teeth to give me back even one of the gift codes, with me specifically asking about this gift code, with them insisting 'everything' was in order with my account, all this with me spending days and days on this issue, they didn't even look at that second account to see that there was an unused code still left! So that's the level of investigating they've done for my issue.

It still doesn't tell me anything, because I know I tried the gift code, and I know it was unusable before I migrated. It absolutely 100% wasn't showing up in that account. So it's still entirely possible that all of the 12 digit gift codes in existence are compromised. The fact they had to lock down the codes until migration makes that even more plausible. But it's also now even more likely that someone got into one account, with the email I use for everything. My password is 8 months secure and wasn't reused, but someone showed me LeakedSource the other day, and yeah - it could be possible to crack the hash on other passwords and know the kind of passwords I use. Only Mojang insisted 'everything' was in order in my account, of course without any assurance they even track logins. It's worth noting I've never been hacked before on anything else, that I know of at least. Needless to say, all my passwords are being changed to something even more secure. I really dread getting a password manager because I know I'll lose my phone one day and try to get online at the library in a foreign country with high crime and I wont be able to get into anything because they'll all be super long and unique and I can't remember if it was #!%*("D JF#g#R$J^|{jQ~` or #!*%("D J#Fg#R$J^|{jQ~'. And that, is the story of how I'll become homeless and nobody in my friends or family will be able to find me. Because I'll depend on that password manager and I wont remember the passwords for the sites I use and the ones I do remember wont let me in without verifying on other ones. And I have to do this because sites like Mojang let anyone in the whole wide world log in and don't verify against anything like an email even, using silly security questions that are proven over and over to be pretty insecure unless you put lies in your answers, and don't even notify the user and blatantly refuse to assist when codes they spent hundreds of dollars on get used by people tens of thousands of miles away.

Well I'm glad that 4 months after this issue started, not knowing the status of anything, not getting answers to simple questions, at times wondering if a rootkit was on my PC or someone was stalking me or maybe I really did have an alternate personality that was out doing things with the codes, I at least have the one code I needed for my project, but also - I hope the world is listening to this absurdity I'm dealing with!
1
09/21/2016 4:43 pm
Level 42 : Master Pixel Painter
JozyP
JozyP's Avatar
Murica has a point, and also remember the transition to Microsoft could have messed with stuff. Also, did the codes have an expiration date?
1
09/21/2016 4:27 pm
Level 46 : Master Button Pusher
Leeberator
Leeberator's Avatar
Since when could you tie multiple gift codes to an account? Even back then I'm pretty sure when you bought a gift code, it would not be linked to an account until it was redeemed.

Saying your gift codes were stolen seems very odd. Are you sure you don't mean that the accounts you redeemed them to were compromised? That seems very believable considering non-Mojang accounts are fairly easy to crack.

EDIT: When reading your most recent post, I noticed that you mentioned the old gift codes were only 12 characters long. Perhaps when the gift code system was updated, the old codes became invalid? If so, that's on you for not using them.
1
11/18/2016 5:09 am
Level 1 : New Miner
azoundria
azoundria's Avatar
Unredeemed gift codes sit in the account until they are redeemed. I had never redeemed these codes. There is no expiry on gift codes, nor time limit. In fact, the original blog post at the time of purchase clearly states all future updates and expansions for free. In short I understood the gift code is a license to give the game to anyone of my choosing, at any point in the future.

The codes are absolutely still valid. In fact, they were redeemed without my authorization by people I don't know. Here is Mojang's own policies which clearly state gift codes act as proof of purchase and entitle the account owner to their copies of the game, as well as I also have the original PayPal transaction IDs. Mojang has never mentioned any dispute of the legitimacy of my purchase nor the validity of the codes.

JosephcreepaMurica has a point, and also remember the transition to Microsoft could have messed with stuff. Also, did the codes have an expiration date?


The codes do not have any expiry, and Microsoft inherits the legal obligations of Mojang when they acquire the company.

Prince OceanusLooks like a crap-post, smells like a crap-post...is a crap-post.


Please explain what you mean.
1
09/21/2016 4:20 pm
Level 1 : New Miner
azoundria
azoundria's Avatar
Hi everyone, thanks so much for your support.

I would love to report that Mojang has helped me or done anything at all in this regard. I can't.

I have gone over my responses and I've not been rude or said anything I could deem as offensive. I have been frustrated and persistent at times, but I think that's to be expected. Previous responses from them simply say there is nothing they can do to help me, and they have now stopped responding entirely.

I am talking to a lady named Andrea and she refuses to let me talk to anyone else.


There is no dispute of the purchase. I provided all the original transaction IDs. I was not aware (would never have guessed) at the time of purchase that reselling was against the terms, but I did became aware of that in 2012, and I have not resold any of these codes. I have a valid use for 10 of the codes (each one entitling me to a residence plot on a multiplayer server which does allow the use of alts), and 6 were given away to friends and family. I kept the rest unused in my account. I did have some hesitations during the later stages of the purchase, but to tell the truth, I think of it like I was supporting the development of one of the greatest games I've ever played. At the time, I spent more time in Minecraft than I did in my studies or sleeping. If I had stopped half way through it still wouldn't make much of a difference to the situation I'm in now. (Unless I happened to exactly guess, 6 years ago, the number of codes I would ever need, in which case I'd instead be kicking myself today for being one code short.)


For my PC, I have scanned with every third party tool I can think of and I didn't find any vulnerabilities. The closest I found was that some years ago a couple of .doc with malicious macros got cached. (I looked up the threat and you have to actually open them then enable macros.) Certainly, no rootkit or ugly browser extensions, or anything like that.

I have never loaded the account outside of my home, never on any public computers. I am somewhat paranoid about that sort of thing. On the other hand, I do online payments from the PC, and I've never ever seen anything suspicious on any account. I have other personal information on there - even in one case my social security number. And I review my statements every month. If someone did get ahold of my PC somehow, the idea that they would get some gift codes for a game and not touch any of that is, at the very least, bizarre.


Yes, this is a migrated account with an email login, and it had a secure password which was not reused. According to Mojang, "everything appears to be in order with [my] account" and they have "no reason to believe [my] account has been compromised". I've specifically given them a login history based on my recollection to confirm against, and asked them outright whether they track logins. They refused to answer either question. So I don't know who, or what, if anyone, may or may not have used my account, or if they even care. I can't think of a valid reason why I can't get a login history for my own account. Is that protected somehow? Unless my account was compromised, it's basically just my own IP address and a confirmation of when I logged in. The only reason I can think of is that they actually, honestly, don't know who accessed my account.


The third possibility is, of course, that the gift codes were guessed. If that's the case, it's a serious problem. I don't know the timeline for when the codes were used, since Mojang has also not provided that. All they have said on the matter is that "the chance of guessing the correct gift code is close to zero" and they "have no reason to believe that the gift codes have been stolen due to a security breach". Statistically, if the culprit were just randomly guessing, then we would expect some gift codes to remain. The fact there aren't any would seem to indicate that either:
(a) Sufficient time has passed that almost all unused 12-digit gift codes have been guessed. or
(b) The culprit has a more sophisticated way of generating the codes. In short, they're not random guesses.

Now, how could someone generate a gift code? Based on the security I've observed in Mojang's early days (like sending the codes over email in plain text) it could be a simple pseudo-random generator (like Java's Random), likely unchanged from the default method of seeding. And so, by using the same seed with the same algorithm, you'd get the same codes as Mojang did. You would test a seed and when you got one, you kept generating more codes until you got all the codes generated from that seed. All it takes is one person discovering it. This is why Java has a SecureRandom to use instead. Warnings about this kind of vulnerability are posted on the documentation of Java's website and this is all publicly available information. (Same as about plain text emails.)

The codes don't feature the letters A, E, I, L, N, O, S, U, or the digits 0, 1, or 5, and they alternate letters and numbers. The search space is therefore only 4 trillion, smaller if any further pattern can be discerned. Minecraft has tens of millions of players. Nothing stops the creation of new accounts other than that someone needs a lot of IP addresses. This is all an old algorithm that Mojang has replaced. New gift codes are now 25 characters long.

This possibility could of course be discredited if anyone here has an old length-12 gift code sitting in their account unused. But I think it's a reasonable assumption that anyone who had an old gift code either used it or doesn't care anymore. Mojang does nothing to notify someone if a gift code is used. (Otherwise I would have been all over this the day it happened.) And of course if anyone has a old gift code that was also used without their approval it would support the possibility.


In any case, it's all speculation. The worst part is that I really have no idea and Mojang has a number of very easy things they could do to help me and they are refusing to do anything.
- I've asked for a single gift code to activate the one account I was attempting to set up at this time. No way I can see providing one code hurts anyone. So now I'm stuck unable to set up the account for more than 2 months.
- I've asked if they track logins, and for my account login history. Unless the account was compromised, which they have "no reason to believe", this would only be my IP address. No valid reason not to provide this.
- I've asked to know when gift codes were used. No valid reason not to provide that.
- I would like to know more about who activated the gift codes. Why can't I know this?
- I asked to talk to someone else. No reason was provided why I can't talk to anyone else.
- And now, I'm not even getting an answer.

I paid a huge chunk of the money which helped found this company back when it was a small startup, and now I can't even use what I purchased. This is absurd. I paid thousands towards a game and the company doesn't even help me. I would be hard pressed to imagine a court that supports Mojang's refusal to assist me and decision to now ignore me. If that's not negligence, I don't know what is. And that's all in written record. I loved this company and this game so much!
1
07/28/2016 6:29 am
Level 57 : Grandmaster Cyborg
Pepijn
Pepijn's Avatar
I'm sorry, but why? Why would you buy so many giftcards for hundreds of dollars? It looks very very fishy and I can't blame Mojang for not taken any action without you providing evidence.
1
07/28/2016 6:36 am
Level 47 : Master Mlem Mlem Bat
Karrfis
Karrfis's Avatar
probs to sell on and turn profit when minecraft gets more expensive,


@op if you have proof that you bought them you can reach out to mojang about it, even though its been on your account for two years they still need proof

i mean if they didn't i could contact them and say "hey! i lost 500 minecraft giftcodes plz refund" this is why they ask for proof

if you purchased them with intentions to sell on for profit e.g when you bought them they were like £5, not they are like £20 and selling them on (without their permission) is probably a breach of mojang's terms and conditions regarding gift codes and products in general
1
07/28/2016 6:06 am
Level 6 : Apprentice Miner
YummyOreos
YummyOreos's Avatar
Hello,
Unfortanatly, Mojang takes security very seriously too.

So, What evidence can you give them?

1) Transaction ID. If you bought it online, It should have been emailed to you. If you bought it at a shop, It would be on the back of the gift card.

2) If you have security questions set up, Know what type of computer you registered the account on and know roughly when and where you registered it, Email them with the answers to those questions, Then they will know that you really do own it and can unlock it.


Hope you get it back soon.
If not,
1
07/28/2016 5:41 am
Level 1 : New Explorer
TheBlazingEnder
TheBlazingEnder's Avatar
Wow, that's so bad. A year ago someone stole my account, and I thought I was the unluckiest person in the world. I felt so bad. But your problem is even worse. Well, I can't help but wishing you good luck because I'm in the same situation as you (well, kinda)

Also sorry for my bad English.
1
07/28/2016 3:48 am
Level 37 : Artisan Modder
ModDog
ModDog's Avatar
I would suggest investing in a Anti-Malaware software, or if you want no one to be able to trace it from your pc, Copy the codes down to your phone or piece of paper and delete the code from your PC.
1
07/28/2016 3:28 am
Level 2 : Apprentice Network
Drum
Drum's Avatar
Maybe somehow upgrade your anti-malware software?

(I'm really bad at suggesting things, lol)
1
07/27/2016 3:01 am
Level 1 : New Miner
azoundria
azoundria's Avatar
So upon further investigation, it seems that none of the code generators work. Even the ones hosted on .edu domains, open source, multi-platform, with videos, etc... I thought there were hundreds, but every single one of them is a dead end.

The only other possibilities are access through my account or access to my computer where I kept a list of codes after the first time they were replaced. When they disappeared the first time, they literally disappeared from my account. Mojang stated that "everything appears to be in order with my account". I have to think about the possibilities:
  • Someone, somewhere, figured out the Minecraft gift code algorithm. They just didn't publish it. (I don't know why they would.) I still think this is the most likely, given that the codes have been sitting there for multiple years.
  • There indeed was a single unauthorized login to my account, but Mojang couldn't detect it as unauthorized.
  • There exists a computer virus sophisticated enough to extract Minecraft gift codes, and my virus software fails to detect it.
  • Even though my laptop was never in the hands of anyone I don't trust, and I don't know anyone in person who really plays Minecraft, someone took the codes from my PC.
1
07/27/2016 2:01 am
Level 1 : New Miner
azoundria
azoundria's Avatar
What kind of evidence could I have? They were on my account for 2 years, and now they are not.

I have seen online a lot of tools that generate Minecraft gift codes. I haven't actually tried them, but there are videos where people have. Everywhere I go I see tools and resources to do this. I just did a search for 'minecraft gift code length' and almost every result had to do with breaking them. It's true I haven't tried any of these apps, but I went far enough to know they work on every platform. I don't think a virus maker would bother with a version for Mac or Linux. Edit: I also found some that are open source! These definitely exist and work.

I have done analysis on the codes, and they're not even close to random. For example, the letter G is followed by only 3 possible numbers in all codes! In the first message, which is the only message where they said anything, they assert there's a close to zero chance at guessing them, but that's not at all true if you know the algorithm which is used to generate them. Then, you just plug in seeds until you find one that works, and can easily break codes. I assume seeds are generated sequentially - therefore if you broke one code, you broke them all.

But the greatest piece of evidence comes from Mojang itself, in the fact they've beefed up the security by producing 25-character gift codes, more than twice as long. Why would they do this? Just for fun?

But I do want to say thanks for your post. I think this may be a part of the issue. But I did mention all of this. I suspect they didn't read my whole message.
1
07/26/2016 9:39 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Network
Drum
Drum's Avatar
Have you showed them any evidence that your gift codes have been stolen?
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