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Post by 10 on Feb 21, 2018 21:11:55 GMT -5
Fam, I have played Neopets of and on for 17 years. I still have the first pet I ever made, way back when. She's old enough to drive!!! A lot of things have changed in that time, including many new rules being made to address a variety of issues that occurred as the site grew. When I first joined, the site was mainly a time-sink for bored college kids, and so there were no rules against things like sharing accounts. It actually became pretty commonplace for people to give away their "aged" accounts because there were certain things that you needed an older account to do, such as adopting rare pets, and there was a certain amount of prestige that came with having an older account. Nowadays, of course, any kind of account sharing is against the rules, but that was a rule that was made after I'd already gotten one of my several side accounts from someone who was leaving the site.
Over time, when you were no longer allowed to earn Neopoints on all your accounts, I ended up making that account my main. I used that account to publish my comics to the Neopian Times. I used it to join in plots and collect avatars. I never had any problem accessing it, even when I got scammed out of a couple of my sides. But this recent debacle with having two of my sides frozen for safety while I took a two-year hiatus made me realize that having this secondhand account puts me in danger of being locked out of it for good.
After I got my other two accounts back, I asked the staff member for advice on my secondhand main, and she said she couldn't give me any advice on it because account sharing isn't allowed. So now I'm trying to figure out what to do with this account. Do I try to shuffle all the pets and items and Neopoints to another account, and kiss my avatars and trophies goodbye? Will this trigger a freeze, as it'll look like I got scammed?
I discovered recently (like I said, I've been gone a while) that we can now have five pets on each account, right? So maybe I should just move my pets to my sides and leave that one as my main, but with no pets on it. That way I can still have my trophies and things, but if something ever happens to the account, I at least won't lose my beloved pets.
I suppose I've been gone so long, it won't matter if I submit to the Neopian Times the same comic with a different username... will it? What do you think I should do?
Thanks in advance!
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Post by Zoey on Feb 21, 2018 23:02:28 GMT -5
I personally think that if you've been the sole person playing this "secondhand" account for so long and it hasn't been flagged yet (even through hiatus), then I think you're good. I don't know how they track "suspicious activity" but users regularly switch computers/internet providers, so it's not like they flag you as soon as you log in from a different IP address or anything. I think maybe your other two sides were frozen because someone tried to hack into those accounts or something, but your "main" wasn't targeted?  |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Feb 21, 2018 23:48:39 GMT -5
Well first make sure you have as much info about all your accounts in case something happens and you need to fill out a frozen ticket form. As for what you should do, that's tricky. I'd lean toward agreeing with Zoey; if you've been the only one playing on the account for so long, you got the account before they started getting strict on passing down aged accounts or only having one main, and you aren't doing anything against the rules than you shouldn't have a problem. However, if you're worried that isn't enough to keep it from being frozen but want to keep it as your main then I would suggest slowly transferring all non-essential things off the account to a side account. Don't know how they track suspicious activity but if you're worried sending everything over might trigger something you can do things gradually. First I would get the Neopets off the account I don't want on it at the moment (maybe transferring one or two per day), than important items in batches (if you have multiple side accounts maybe also spread out which account gets what items), and finally doing the same with NP. |
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Post by 10 on Feb 22, 2018 0:57:13 GMT -5
I personally think that if you've been the sole person playing this "secondhand" account for so long and it hasn't been flagged yet (even through hiatus), then I think you're good. I don't know how they track "suspicious activity" but users regularly switch computers/internet providers, so it's not like they flag you as soon as you log in from a different IP address or anything. I think maybe your other two sides were frozen because someone tried to hack into those accounts or something, but your "main" wasn't targeted? My "main" wasn't targeted because it's not the account with the nice pets on it and my two sides had the nice expensive pets (I also have two other sides that were not targeted). When I was trying to get those two back, I was telling the staff member everything I could remember -- battle items, pets I'd made, Neofriends I'd had, but the requirement was to name the e-mail I'd made the account with. At this point, it's not the ethics of using an account that I didn't originally make, but the concern about getting locked out of it forever should it get scammed or something else happen to it. The way to get your account back if it's been compromised is to provide the e-mail address you used when you made it, bottom line. I can do that with every single one of my other accounts except this one. If I made a new account to serve as my main, transferred all my stuff over and then froze "silverqueengalaxia" (which is secondhand) I'm pretty sure they'd think I was just scamming myself! |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Feb 22, 2018 11:38:53 GMT -5
The way to get your account back if it's been compromised is to provide the e-mail address you used when you made it, bottom line. I can do that with every single one of my other accounts except this one. If I made a new account to serve as my main, transferred all my stuff over and then froze "silverqueengalaxia" (which is secondhand) I'm pretty sure they'd think I was just scamming myself! Have you changed the email since you got it? |
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Post by 10 on Feb 22, 2018 22:30:56 GMT -5
The way to get your account back if it's been compromised is to provide the e-mail address you used when you made it, bottom line. I can do that with every single one of my other accounts except this one. If I made a new account to serve as my main, transferred all my stuff over and then froze "silverqueengalaxia" (which is secondhand) I'm pretty sure they'd think I was just scamming myself! Have you changed the email since you got it? I have, of course, multiple times, but the key to recovering an account, as I said, seems to be remembering the e-mail account it was made with. Alice unfroze one of my accounts but didn't unfreeze the other until I could give her the proper e-mail, even though it's almost identical to the e-mail I used on my other account (so it was obvious that the account was mine). So, a word to the wise, if you've been playing Neo a long time, you should make sure you know the e-mail you made the account with! Thankfully since I started playing as an adult, I've been using the same e-mail accounts for many years, but I know people who started as kids may have used their parents' e-mails or something silly that they don't use anymore. When she reset the password so I could access my account again, she also sent the new password to the e-mail I'd made the Neopets account with. So, again, not having access to the e-mail the account was made with could be a problem. |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Feb 23, 2018 1:34:34 GMT -5
I have, of course, multiple times, but the key to recovering an account, as I said, seems to be remembering the e-mail account it was made with. Alice unfroze one of my accounts but didn't unfreeze the other until I could give her the proper e-mail, even though it's almost identical to the e-mail I used on my other account (so it was obvious that the account was mine). So, a word to the wise, if you've been playing Neo a long time, you should make sure you know the e-mail you made the account with! Thankfully since I started playing as an adult, I've been using the same e-mail accounts for many years, but I know people who started as kids may have used their parents' e-mails or something silly that they don't use anymore. When she reset the password so I could access my account again, she also sent the new password to the e-mail I'd made the Neopets account with. So, again, not having access to the e-mail the account was made with could be a problem. I swear a lot of TNT's practices are so outdated... Like, that sounds like something only reasonable for a site that's a few years old, not one that's over a decade reaching 20! Because, as you said, some players don't even have the original email for their account anymore (FUN FACT: AOL now deactivate accounts which haven't been logged into for 3 months, and who knows when they finally delete them) or some were made using their parent's probably now old email. I can understand in case of a "frozen for suspicion" sending the password reset to an older email, but only if the email was changed recently. I think if an account changes to a different email and it had that email for over a year that should become its default email. Also, any old email should count if they're a year old, why does it exactly need to the original? What's so special about the original email the account was created with that it's the linchpin in unfreezing an account?! GAH! |
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Post by Huntress on Feb 23, 2018 5:29:50 GMT -5
When my 14-year-old account got frozen a few months ago, I could get it back by providing the original email I'd created the account with (which was a massive lucky shot for all reasons already quoted here). I didn't actually have access to the email per se, though; the way that e-mail provider worked, you had the main email and then you could create secondary addresses on that account that all still got mail into the same inbox. My Neopets account was made with one such secondary address which I later deleted. All of which I explained in my ticket and got the account back nonetheless, so at the very least having actual access to the account doesn't seem to be that crucial. Of course, in my case I could still go back through my ancient inbox and was actually able to provide my very-very first password, which probably helped.
All that aside, I strongly suspect that the recent slew of freezings, particularly of old accounts, has something to do with a combination of wonky security (Flash y u so stupid?) and older accounts simply having had more time to accumulate potential breaches from any given source. In other words, what I try to do is change all of my Neopets passwords regularly, in order to (hopefully >>) deter freezing-for-your-own-protection. When my account went kablooie, I did remember that a few days earlier my site language had inexplicably switched to German - changed it back and didn't think twice about it, nobody had actually accessed my account so I figured it was some weird glitch - but in hindsight I reeeally should've changed the password at once.
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Post by 10 on Feb 24, 2018 9:58:53 GMT -5
The two accounts that were frozen were my ones with the nicest pets (one has gray, Halloween, faerie and desert pets, the other one has a UC pet) so I'm guessing if they were hacked, that would be why. All of my accounts are roughly the same age so if I was frozen for not being around for so long or because of some glitch, I'd think that it would affect all of my accounts and not just those two. Who knows, though!
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