Rockstar Under Fire After Social Club Accounts Stolen, Customer Hangups

Complaints about stolen accounts began popping up in droves on Reddit and the Rockstar Forums, with some estimating that thousands of accounts had been hacked. The affected users were locked out of their accounts after their information on the Social Club was changed. The Social Club is the account which allows players to access GTA V’s multiplayer content. Initially, accusations were leveled that someone had hacked Rockstar and stolen the accounts through them. Rockstar responded, saying there had been no security breach, and that the accounts had likely been accessed if the player was using a shared password. The turnaround to reinstate access, Rockstar claims, should be within 24 hours of contacting customer support.

"We are aware that unauthorized attempts have been made to access Rockstar Games Social Club accounts using email and password combinations sourced from unaffiliated, compromised websites or databases elsewhere on the internet. For the accounts affected, we are in the process of reverting those accounts back to their original owners. As a result, the ability to change email addresses for Social Club accounts has been temporarily disabled. See the following Rockstar Support article for more information here. As a reminder, it is a good policy to ensure that the Rockstar Games Social Club account username and password is not shared across multiple websites on the internet. For accounts affected with this issue, we are working to respond to customers to reinstate full user access within 24 hours of contacting Customer Support. Please continue to look to the Rockstar Support website for more information as it develops."

With the rising number of complaints however, many have gone to Rockstar seeking support, including utilizing their support number to get expedited service. One GTA player took issue with their call center, however, after the call was abruptly ended when the representative finished what appeared to be a scripted statement. The player investigated, calling several more times to see if the reaction would be the same for every representative. Eventually, one representative stated they were instructed to hang up after completing the script. The script essentially informs users who call for support that their ticket has been transferred, but that there is nothing else they can do for them. The player also asserted several other allegations. One of those concerns was that the lack of email confirmation on Rockstar's end when changing account information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89x1lxd7ajA&ab_channel=GamersNexus

The original reporter at Gamers Nexus reached out to Rockstar and received a response:

"We are aware of recent issues players have experienced when trying to contact Rockstar Support, and we take these issues extremely seriously. We have absolutely not instructed support staff to hang up on players who are reporting compromised Rockstar Games Social Club accounts. We have added a large number of new staff to help with the launch of Grand Theft Auto V on PC and in this case some of these new staff members didn’t respond appropriately. We sincerely apologize that these players didn’t receive the high quality experience they deserve, and we have taken steps to remedy this immediately."

Rockstar reminded its users to use a secure password when signing up for their new Social Club account.

Have you been affected by the account hacking? What has your experience been with Rockstar customer support, by e-mail or phone?