Stolen Pet: looking for advice

[Kengplant]

So. I got my account back. And I go in. And my first pet is missing.

I find it on another account and message the TNT member who helped me unfreeze my account, with a link to the only comic I had in the NT that actually used that pet's name. (Why did my characters never refer to each other by name? Horrible branding work from past me there)

They checked it out and reported that they don't have sufficient trade records to trace it back to me. I haven't followed up since. (There was no new pet in its place. So either they abandoned the transferred pet, or more likely it was released directly into the pound)

I have since learned all about the chaos that is unconverted pets. Its quite likely my account was frozen because someone stole my pet long ago when I wasn't active, because it was unconverted.

It's possible I have more proof of ownership, but it's not the strongest. Mostly links to old pages with dates, from outside neopets where I talk about my pet, and original physical copies of NT artwork. Weirdly this pet is two days younger than my account. No idea why. Did I make an account then wait two days to make a pet??? Who knows. It's been over 20 years.

I could message the current owner, but I'm not quite ready to take that step yet, plus I don't see much evidence that that user is active. (I'm leaving out names, please don't go searching)

My question is mostly this:

What steps are available to TNT to move the pet back to me without leaving it's current owner high and dry? I was all ready to offer up trades of a new equivalent pet to it current owner by messaging them on neomail, painted and ready until I noticed the unconverted thing. I have no equivalent exchange for that. Maybe they'll still be cool, but that requires them to be active.

Is TNT able to provide the current owner with a new unconverted pet? I heard something about them planning to make unconverted pet art available again but information on that is sparse and not guaranteed.

I'm not concerned with getting the "UC" pet back. I want my pet back and would probably convert it if I did to avoid the drama and avoid a repeat.


The other thing is, I'm enjoying my return visit to NP, but I don't know how long I'm going to stay, or how far I want to pursue this. So I'm looking to talk it out here while I decide how much time to put into this. It's been hard to think about anything else this past week to be honest.

Overall, I don't think my prospective of getting it back is great.

Has anyone else had experiences with retrieving long lost pets?

[Duke Pikachu]

I don't have much experience with this nor heard many stories either (ones I have heard was they were able to confirm the Neopet used to belong to the account so reversed the transfer).

Best you can do is try and gather as much evidence as you can. Little evidence is still evidence. Also push them to check to see if the Neopet has any info about what accounts it used to belong to (I think it should have that info).

If that Neopet belonged to you then just worry about getting it back. Harsh to say, but it's not your fault the other user had a stolen Neopet. Hopefully the account is abandoned so there will be no problem. If it's not abandoned, and that user is an innocent player who traded another Neopet for it, it'll be on them to try and get the Neopet they traded back.

[Kengplant]

Thank you. I've been looking around for more accounts of lost pets, but there isn't much info on current policy in the past couple years other than articles about the insanity that is UC trading and trade reversals.

It seems pets dont save much data to the individual pet as far as I can tell.

The ones you know about, do you know if they had to provide any additional proof themselves or was it a case where they caught it intime for an easier reverse?

[Duke Pikachu]

Sadly I don't have any specifics. I do at least think the Neopet was on another account so TNT did have to transfer the Neopet between accounts.

[Breakingchains]

I only just saw this and am a little late. I've lost access to my main and had to prove my way back in but I never had to have a pet transfer reversed unfortunately.

I would second that you should absolutely gather up all the small evidence. Check old machines/hard drives/accounts if you need to, see if you have old neolodge emails or contest notifications, check fansite accounts (like if you have any D2I customizations saved for that pet for instance.) If it was ever on a side account see if you can prove that part. A lot of little pieces of evidence can build up to a compelling picture. And yeah, the chance is small and people are cynical but even if TNT can't ultimately use it for enough proof to take action, it still might be enough to sway the new owner.

I totally sympathize with you, wishing you the best of luck.