Some script kiddie tried to hack my PayPal account today to pay for their online computer game!

The transaction was reversed and I'm not out any money. I have changed my very secure password to something very, very, very secure and also my secret question information. 

I don't click links in any PayPal emails, even if it's an email that has my full name, so I know it wasn't "Phished", but I don't know how this person came to have my PayPal information.

Anyway, I have enough information I think to bury this person, and I do mean to!!  But I need some help.

The information accompanying the payment indicated it was a computer game:  "Game Server: Sparta"   and included the character's name.  The company the payment was made to is:  ***hong kong net-flying investment & consuiting limited

*** Anyone have any idea what computer game this was for?  Once I have that information I can file a complaint with the local police and they can pursue this "hong kong net-flying investment & consulting limited" and PayPal for ISP and contact information of the person who logged into my PayPal account.

I'm a gamer Acadia but it doesn't ring a bell with me. Google said there is an online game called Sparta, but that was in 2007 (???).

Good luck getting the little bugger.

Same here.

Only thing I found was a guy talking about gameserver Sparta on a forum.

The game was called Silkroad, but on there homepage there was no conection to the company you mentioned.

Good to hear it got solved for you so far

Seems to be a known issue with this particular game server:

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157418

There is also a thriving trade in in-game items for Silkroad Online:

http://www.silkroadforums.com/viewforum.php?f=7

It is likely to be payment for in-game items that is being made to this rather oddly named company rather than for access to the server.

Valerian70, I ran into that forum bit to.
Well I am not a Sherlock Holmes but I think that is Acadia on that forum.
Almost exact writen story, both from Canada and both cat lovers..just a wild gues

But you might be very right about the selling of items.
This is quit common in such games.

Acadia, I have the link to that forum.
That guy talked about the Sparta gameserver and he left a e-mail adress on the forum.

Maybe you can contact him for more info or maybe he knows the game name.

Just let me know and I pm the link to you.

I think it is just as likely that it only appears to be a game, and is simply a place to dump your transaction money.  I strongly urge you to cancel that Paypal account since it's already been compromised once, and if you absolutely must continue to deal with Paypay, then do it through an entirely new account.

I was reading a news article not long ago about how bunches of people in China and HongKong are creating items and improving people's characters for online game playing and them selling these things to people who don't want to take the time to build up their own characters, but instead want to start with powerful characters.

Does this make sense to anyone except me?

Anyway, its a shady business with unscrupulous people on both ends.  People who want to cheat in games buying things from people who specialize in helping people cheat.

I think this is what you've been caught up in.

As such, the game does not matter.

Servers for online games around the world are given different code names, and greek names are very popular.  There are probably numerous servers named "Sparta" for countless games.

You only lead is the Business name.  I'm betting they specialize in this sort of cheating.  A polite name for it might be "consulting", so it even makes sense.

Good luck.

Quote - Valerian70, I ran into that forum bit to.
Well I am not a Sherlock Holmes but I think that is Acadia on that forum.
Almost exact writen story, both from Canada and both cat lovers..just a wild gues

Very well deduced Dr. Holmes!  :)

Quote - I strongly urge you to cancel that Paypal account since it's already been compromised once, and if you absolutely must continue to deal with Paypay, then do it through an entirely new account.

It should be ok now. It's a really, really, really long and complicated password consisting of capitals, small letters and numbers all mixed up.  Let me put it this way. I had to write it down for myself at home because there is no way I would ever remember it!

I have scanned my system for virus and trojans and Dr. Web is currently running. Everything is clean.  I also have no adware on my system either. I ran Lavasoft. 

I'll have been roaming around that silkroad site. I'll look into the merchandise purchasing aspect of it. 

There was a hotmail email address shown in the PayPal notification of payment.  So it does sound like it was a private person who was selling some game stuff and might have gotten ripped off or something.  I was scared to contact that person out of fear that it was a phishing expedition. I'm still not sure if I should or not.

Quote - I was reading a news article not long ago about how bunches of people in China and HongKong are creating items and improving people's characters for online game playing and them selling these things to people who don't want to take the time to build up their own characters, but instead want to start with powerful characters.

Does this make sense to anyone except me?

No, that makes perfect sense.  Some people are too lazy to work their skills up themselves, so they want a character that is ready to go with maxed out skills and stats.

There are lots of sites who cater to players who don't want to spend time leveling thier chars, sometimes just lazy or impatient and sometimes they are folks who don't get to spend a lot of time online so want a char they can jump in and play. I know of at least 16 players in Dark Age of Camelot who work long shifts and just want to go on raids and such when they get a chance to play, which you can't do with a small char. I just heard the silkroad thing on a game I play called GuildWars. Someone mentioned that a person should play there since they were saying they wished they could play on the Korean server. There are actually folks who work 12 hour shifts in China and Korea farming cash and items that are then sold on sites. They don't own the accounts, the company they work for does, it is just a job.

Side note - imo it is a blatant sign of bad game design, when people are willing to pay extra money to avoid playing your game.  Unfortunately these companies keep cranking out dull, repetitive games.

Quote - Side note - imo it is a blatant sign of bad game design, when people are willing to pay extra money to avoid playing your game.  Unfortunately these companies keep cranking out dull, repetitive games.

Years ago when I played computer games I didn't mind skill building. In fact I liked it. My ex and his friends hated it, so I used to log into their accounts and build up their characters' skills and stats to the max, especially new characters they were creating.  I could max out stats and skills in 2 or 3 days. This way they could go out and do their monster hunting without dying all the time :rolleyes:

Quote - Side note - imo it is a blatant sign of bad game design, when people are willing to pay extra money to avoid playing your game.  Unfortunately these companies keep cranking out dull, repetitive games.

Not necessarily.  It really depends on the game mechanics.

For instance in City of Heroes/Villains, getting up to the highest level is the game, and once that's done...well, it's done.  There's a few things for a high-level character to do, but most people start anew with a different character and work their way up again.  The levels are fairly decently balanced (although there are some levels that are a real grind, literally, to get through) and the way the game economy is set up, there's only a few things that high level players are the only ones able to get.

In World of Warcraft there's lots of stuff for a high level player to do, there's a market for people who want to take a character that's jumped over the low-level grunge work in order to play near the end game with all the good loot, pvp and raiding.
CoH/V is about the trip, WoW about the stuff you can do when you get there.
Other games are much the same.  Another thing to remember is that a lot of the players in these games have already reached the highest levels.  They have no choice but to repeat the same low-level crap again, something I can understand and sympathize with.  The game can be truly innovative, but innovative gets old when you have to repeat it.

Yes, the "low level grunge work" is exactly the bad game design that I'm referring to.  If it's worth paying someone else more money to allow you to avoid playing the game than the game itself costs, then that's kind of not very game-like.  Companies fail to see this over and over, and regrettably there are a fair number of consumers who have now been trained to accept this kind of crap.

City of Heroes was in what I'd have considered the better end of the scale, although recently they've gone the way of uberness and phat lootz (inventions system).  A tragic downturn for a great game.

Just a note - you can get a hardware token for PayPal and Ebay for very little money (abeut 5$, if I remember right). It's a small device which generates a login number every time you press a button on it. The number changes every Minute or so, and you need exactly that number for each PayPal / Ebay transaction.

Not totally foolproof, as some phishers already try to adapt, but much better than without. No monthly costs, not too complicated. And noone can guess your password anymore.