Account Hacking for PayPal Fraud on Xbox LIVE

It has been reported by a twitter user, Justin (@BigMastadon) that PayPal has confirmed to him that Xbox LIVE accounts are being hi-jacked for payments used by the electronic payment service today.

He, himself was aware of the problem after his own Xbox LIVE account was used in a phishing scam to transfer funds from his PayPal account linked to his Xbox LIVE profile – in total he was scammed out of $241.00.

Quoted by Justin to VideoGameWriters:

When I spoke with the Microsoft agent, he noticed the charges and didn’t even question me about them. Immediately he recognized the fraud and sent it on to the investigation team. He described the situation as someone recovering the account and purchasing all the Microsoft Points shown. Then they purchase the Gold Family pack so they can transfer the points to another Gamertag on their console.

Because the fraud seems to involve the use of transferring the profile to another console, if you are unable to sign into Xbox LIVE today – it might just be that your profile has been tied to another console. To safeguard yourself, please change your Windows LIVE ID and in our opinion, it’s better to completely remove the PayPal account from your Xbox LIVE Payment options. This can be done via visiting Xbox.com, then My Account, and editing the Manage Payment Options screen.

Jason Andrews

Founder of ThisisXbox.com (owner from 2010 - 2014), now writer and reviewer with an interest in writing thriller fiction. Two addictions; Diet Coke and Call of Duty. All views expressed everywhere are my own and not that of my employer!

Mlovacheff

Most likely, people have been able to con the CSR’s into resetting their password and sending the info to a new Windows Live ID. It only takes 5 semi public pieces of info to do this. This happened to me on the 18th and I found out exactly what it takes to recover a password. Anyone can do it. Especially if you keep calling until you build a rapport with a CSR or pull the “I never use my Windows Live ID, I can’t remember what it was!” Line
Jason

Shocking !! – but I suppose if people appear real enough, sound legit enough and provide enough basic info then they're in…

There should be better payment procedures on Xbox LIVE, like linking up to one of those banking 3d payment systems which require a separate password or combination of digits before the same goes through.