Been collecting rares as long as I have I've learned to be able to tell whose collection belongs to just by naming a combination of items. I want to tell a tale without violating any rules hopefully.

About 6-8 months ago a new rare collector (old time player) started collecting rares. I mean, he was one of those serious type where he used up all of his gold and also cash buying things he liked. Thus, those of us who sold rares took an interest in him because well, for the lack of better words, he was a "big spender and an overall pleasant guy to deal with".

Anyhow, he ran his collection up towards 200 or so items including a variety of major items. One day I went to his museum and poof half of the items went missing. At the time, I thought he was re-decorating so I thought nothing of it. About 12 hours later, I icqed him asking when he was going to finish decorating and he replied "I just got back from a short trip, what are you talking about". I knew then bad things had happend. I told him to log in immediately, he said the accounts were blocked and couldnt get in. About couple of hours later he told me he just got off the phone with EA and they told him his account was banned because of excess use of bad language (apparently his character was swearing at Brit bank).

So in other words, he got hacked. We spent the next few days trying to figure out what happend, finally he recalled getting a random icq about new UOKR screen shots. He clicked and whola, you can figured out what happend next. He was sad to say the least and basically said goodbye to me a week later.

About a week after that, a thread showed up on stratics with rares for sale on Europa. They were locked down at a house for view in the mountains East of Luna. Well guess what, just so happens 6-7 items locked down were the ones he also had in the musuem. Now one might say but 6-7 items is common, but its not that common if the combination is a certain way. Its almost like a personnel signature. For example, if I were to say today "hey I saw someone selling the Royal Explorer's Suit", immediately Trevelean comes to mind. Or brazier that shoots flame, immediately JC Builder comes to mind.

As the story continues, this guy puts his auction on UO-auction 2 and anyone who bid on it looses because some lady outbidded anyone with amounts that was just rediculous. Some of you may even remember that. So that facade lasted about 2-3 weeks. Then nothing was heard from again until......

Ok so here is the punch line that got me pissed. I am running around on GL today inside luna city I find a fairly new musuem with over 75 Event Items. Guess what, the items looked 90% verbatum of what my friend had lost back then. So one starts to think, if this owner was not the hacker, and the hacker allegidly sold those items on uoacution 2 for 3-400% above full retail, then this person must be crazy. But if that was NOT the case then there are only so many colclusions one can come up with. Anyhow what pissed me off was that the musuem made it sound like it was hard earned and legit. Well I won't go on anymore just sickens me to see this. This collection he lost was worth well over 2 billion GP. He paid over 1 billion alone for the Captain Bartholomew's hat and its currently locked down at the musuem.

Sorry, too lazy to correct the grammer just typing as memories came to mind.

Sorry to hear of your friends loss Manticore. Sucks nothing can be done either.

Manticore, I feel very bad for your friend.

It really amazes me the lengths some will go to over greed without any concern whatsoever about the person they are harming. I guess I should know by now that's the way alot of people are...downright jerks. I find it very disturbing. Honest collectors will eventually not want to display their finest rares in museums anymore if it's going to make them a flashing target to hacks and exploits. Even worse, many people just say forget it, and quit, leaving another hole in our community. We lose the good people while the leeches hang around.

I've always had an interest in UO Rares, from first playing back in '98. Server births caught my curiosity as a techy right away. I'm sad to hear about this. Someday I'd like to have the opportunity to start a small collection, myself. I think I'll start with one thing...like mushrooms, for example.

I hope the people involved with this get busted. And I hope it's both publicly humiliating and costly for them.

Send Jeremy an email with as much detail as you can. See if the incident can be reviewed. Good luck to your friend. It's painful to see greed hurt the honest folks.

I really feel for your friend

The problem is that virtual items can be converted to RL cash- thats why these criminals go to such lengths.

How many got hacked and lost everything?
I can account for 17... including myself... but I got him right after he/she/it unlocked my special tubs (2004) and had a second character picking the items... and my only loss was the top tub... was also the first time I recalled to destard and died to the dragons with a grin... then kept logging in...

Some had rares, some had 120s/stats/artefacts, some had incredible pvp suits... common denominator... GREED.

Hackers knew exactly how to steal and never took their house.

Sons of a Gun.

Hi Manticore,

Sorry to hear that news. Sad when players lose so much.

Have you guys figured out the method of attack yet?

Sadly, although the hackers and scammers are miserable little jerks who the world would be better off without, several of them are fairly intelligent as well as utterly dishonest, so my suspicion is they duped the rarest items as well. Why settle for a huge payoff once when you can get it every month...

Sadly, EA/Mythic are hopeless at tracking down and stopping these sort ofantics, and unspeakably worse at recompensing people for what they lose. They seem to think 'it's hard to track what happens so we'll claim we have no responsibility for it' - yet look at the ToS, every virtual item is their property, not the players! Talk about a huge double standard, the customers get ripped off and EA stand around going 'nothing to do with us' - and take the subs money from cheats, hackers, and people 'laundering' the stolen stuff without any qualms or questions.

Great game, excellent community, terrible company running it.

its horrible when you get hacked.. i got hacked years and years ago, i'd been playing since uo came out and had loads of really nice things, went away for a week, came back and everyone of my chars banks were empty and the sod even killed them all. My house had been cleared out, but they did leave it on the account. It was right next to Vesper, but i was so sad that someone had taken all the stuff it took me years to collect, that i quit there and then. Just left my house to fall because i couldnt bring myself to log in..

Then i came back and quit again then started playing again... hehe..

Sorry to hear about your friend... Someone was telling me the other day that hacking a uo account is actually a crime and that it can be reported to the police. But i guess they wouldnt put too much time in as i doubt they would really care after all its only a game?

I can feel sadness for all those who have been victims of hacks. I don't know, this particular one it just hit home more because I see specific items from that musuem that I sold him for after him begging me weeks and weeks of wanting it. I brought couple of other dealers who also sold items to him to that museum last night and they were getting the same feeling. Quotes like:

"damn, I remember he bought that from Gencore's auction after a 2 weeks of bidding war agaisnt me".

Or

"ya, I remember selling that item, jesus that pisses me off thats sitting there now".

I mean its one thing to see artis or some of the more common items but to see one-of-a-kind items there just hits home that much harder ya know.

I guess my purpose of all this was to just let people know. Somehow I think its a tribute to my friend that this story gets told. And may be next time when someon is there at the museum and runs into the owner they can challenge the validity of his collection and make him feel like a piece of sheet.