FIFA Ultimate Team traders say they're being targeted by hackers who are clearing their accounts of FIFA Points and coins
UPDATE 7TH JAN 2022: EA has said it's investigating the recent spate of FIFA account takeover attempts.
In a statement issued to Eurogamer, EA also pointed players to its official advice on how to secure your account, including how to enable two-factor authentication.
Here's the statement: "We've been made aware of recent account takeover attempts and are currently investigating."
ORIGINAL STORY 6TH JAN 2022: A number of high-profile FIFA Ultimate Team traders have reported being targeted by hackers who have cleared out their accounts of FIFA Points and coins.
Reports indicate that in the past week the top 100 traders in Ultimate Team have been targeted, with several saying they have lost access to their accounts and thousands of pounds worth of in-game currency.
FIFA 22 x Sheffield FC: No Goat without the FOAT Watch on YouTubeAffected traders include Fut Donkey (the current top FUT trader on PlayStation), Fut FG, Bateson and Nick RTFM.
Just got hacked boys, finally people can stop blaming me for the hacks xD
I plan to take legal action, they gave my account to a random person via the live chat, a clear breach of data protection laws
Was a fun ride, see u guys in 23 I guess❤️
Woke up this morning to see my account has also been hacked :) what a lovely start to 2022
— FG (@ThisIsFG_) January 2, 2022 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settingsThis hacking thing has really pissed me off. I did a good comparison on stream today
Its like ive locked all my work tools to do my job in my work van. Only for the van company to go ahead and hand the keys to a random person on the street without informing me
Fuming
Hacked :/
Goodnight 😭
What appears to be happening is the hackers are obtaining players' gamertags from the in-game FIFA leaderboards, then heading to EA chat to assume their identity and claim they have been locked out of their account.
It seems some people have been successful in convincing EA support staff to hand over the email address associated with the gamertag, and to reset the password on the account.
With the email and the reset password, these people then log in and empty the account of FUT Coins.
Fut Donkey sounded particularly exacerbated in a series of tweets issued yesterday:
"I told EA live chat two times to add notes to my account to put that my account was being targeted by hackers and to not change any details, and they still did it," they said.
"Nothing more I could have done and tbh I shouldn't have to do anything. It is basic security, disgusting stuff."
Fut Donkey also provided an image of their inbox showing a raft of EA Customer Support requests.
People spam the livechat asking to change my account details until some incompetent advisor finally gave them the account pic.twitter.com/jqOoKKcv6s
— FUT Donkey (@FUTDonkey) January 5, 2022 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settingsIt appears Fut Donkey has also been signed up to a number of websites without their permission:
EA leaked my email address to some random guy with no verification or anything, he then used it to sign up to loads of random sites like IMDB, Quora, Pornhub etc. These guys are breaking GDPR laws and they don't care lol pic.twitter.com/4WVHu7Zc2Z
— FUT Donkey (@FUTDonkey) January 2, 2022 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settingsAs you'd expect, the FIFA community has reacted with deep concern at the apparent ease with which account access was gained, and have called on EA to issue a statement on the matter.
Eurogamer has asked EA for comment.
