How Scammers Work in Genshin Impact and How to Detect Them

From r/GenshinHacked by u/genshin-hacked

How Scammers Work in Genshin and How to Detect Them

So in this post, I will explain briefly explain some known methods that scammers use to fool people and hack their accounts. So far I have found 3 ways that they do it. I will add more as I find them. Be sure to read them carefully so you can avoid them if they were to happen to you in future.

Before getting into the methods, lets look into how they do the hacking part. These scammers will say that they use Top-Up Center to purchase whatever price they say that you won.

Now Top-Up Center needs your email linked to your HoYoverse account and password of the HoYoverse account to make the purchase. But apart from this, the scammer will ask you to give you a verification code that you received inside your linked email inbox to complete the purchase. However, they are fooling you since verification code is not needed for purchases in reality.

HOW THEY HACK INTO YOUR ACCOUNT

Here is what they actually do :

1. They ask your linked email and password.
2. They don't login into Top-Up Center, instead the open the HoYoLAB Page.
3. Now they use the email and password you provided to login into your HoYoLAB account. HoYoLAB login unlike Genshin Impact in-game doesn't require verification code even if you use a new device.
4. Now, if you haven't linked your phone number, here they will add their own personal phone number. If you already had one they will unlink that and link their own. In the latter case, they will say that the transaction failed so send verification code again since they need 2 codes, one to unlink your phone number and another to link their own phone number.
5. This is where they ask you to send a verification code. They say its to complete the purchase but in reality it's to linked their own phone number to your HoYoverse account.
6. They use the verification code to successfully link their own phone number to your account. Now, this there are two ways to receive verification code, one is through linked email and other is through linked phone number.
7. Now they will use the phone number they linked to receive verification codes to unlink your email and link their own email. They will have already blocked you at this time since they don't need you anymore.
8. Now they have successfully managed to link your account to their own email and phone number and hence you no longer have access to your own account.

NOTE :

TOP-UP CENTER OR ANY OTHER ONLINE PURCHASE SITE DOES NOT REQUIRES A VERIFICATION CODE / OTP TO MAKE PAYMENTS.

So never share any verification codes with anyone. Verification codes are only to change your account credentials not to make purchases. HoYoverse mentions the purpose of the verification code / OTP with the email so if you just read them properly you can know that you are being scammed by someone.

So just read your emails properly and never share OTPs / verification codes with anyone, they are always meant to change account credentials, purchases don't need OTPs / verification codes.

SOME KNOWN METHODS USED BY SCAMMERS

1) GIVEAWAY SCAMS ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Many social media platforms especially Twitter host many giveaways daily with prices ranging from 60 Genesis Crystal Pack to Welkin to 3280 Genesis Crystal Pack. Most of these giveaways are legit and are hosted by various Genshin Impact Content Creators so they are safe.

These giveaways are hosted via posts and a random winner is selected among all participants. On Twitter, this is done using a Retweet Picker. These are fine, but there are few people who will send you a private message out of nowhere and say that they wish to gift you a Welkin just because they are in a good mood - Already so SUSPICIOUS.

They will various reasons like its their birthday, or they just selected you from some comments at random, or they liked some comment or post you made as a reason that they want to gift you a Welkin. If you agree to take their "generous" offer, they will ask for your linked email and password and the rest goes the same way as I mentioned in the HOW THEY HACK INTO YOUR ACCOUNT section.

These scammers even have a FAKE previous giveaway proofs to make you believe that they are legit. If you show some signs of suspicion and are quite skilled at persuading you but as soon as they ask or even mentioned verification code, it's a red flag that they are a scammer. Its better to avoid talking to strangers at together.

How to Detect Them?

All legit GIVEAWAYS take place via posts, no legit giveaway host will DM you unless you won some GIVEAWAY that they had previously hosted. So anyone who DMs you and says they will gift you is DEFINITELY A SCAMMER. Also, if at any point they ask for verification codes, its 100% a SCAMMER.

2) THE "THIS IS FOR A YOUTUBE VIDEO" SCAM

There are many YouTubers who create content for Genshin. They do various types of videos varying from some surveys, challenges, and 'types of players' videos.

There are people who will join your world and falsely claim that they are a YouTuber who are here for a YouTube video they are working on. They will put up some kind of challenge whether it be answering some questions or a Damage Showdown and in the end. If you win the challenge, they will gift you some nice juicy primogems or pull for you (duh same thing).

Now, those who watch YouTube know such types of videos are done by many legit Genshin Impact content creators so you probably won't be surprised this happening to you. Plus, these scammers also say that there were others before you that took part in the challenge and then lost it, which makes you feel like its a legit challenge that others also took part in.

If you win (which you most likely do), they will ask you to come on their discord or some other social media platform and then they will ask for your linked email and password to do the purchase of your price. Again, red flag they will ask you some verification code that you received in your linked email and rest is as mentioned in the HOW THEY HACK INTO YOUR ACCOUNT section.

How to Detect Them ?

If someone joins your world and claims to be a YouTuber, just ask them their YouTube channel name. If they give you a name, search it on YouTube and see if that channels even exists and if it does, do they have any previous such challenge videos.

Furthermore, check the UID in the videos and the UID of the one who joined your world. If its the same, its probably safe (but don't be so sure yet). But if its different, ask them to DM you using the UID inside the YouTube videos.

At this point, if they refuse to do so, just kick them out of your world - its a 100% SCAMMER. All YouTubers who do such challenges always use the same account. So no matter what reason they give you for using a different account, don't be persuaded by them, its all a lie.

The person might even say it is their very first video so don't listen to them.

These people are very good at lying, it's their daily job. Worst case scenario, they might have a channel and might have posted some FAKE challenge videos since some scammers are known to work in groups so they can easily make such videos if they want to, not to mention they already have access to many account that they have previously hacked. They can easily use these to create fake videos, they don't have anything else to do all day anyways.

Also most obvious, IF THEY ASK FOR VERIFICATION CODE, KICK THEM OUT. ITS A 100% SCAMMER.

3) THE "I CAN GET YOUR ACCOUNT BACK" SCAM

Now if your account got hacked, i'ts very likely you will find this subreddit and make a post about your account being hacked and asking for advice on what you should to get your account back.

But not everyone here is nice. The same way how scammers disguise as YouTubers and GIVEAWAY holders, they also disguise themselves are "some nice people who can get you your account back".

• They will DM you and offer you to recover your account for you with the help of some talented person who they happen to know.
• They will ask your account details. Spin your head with some technical questions pretending to be professionals who know what they are doing. They will ask you to pay them some amount in advance to do the procedure since they are professionals (they are not duh).
• They will confuse you with some technical stuff you probably never heard about and give you hopes till very end and before the final step ask you to do the payment for "their services" and after the payment is done they leave you and they don't recover your account.
• They take your money and run off. As mentioned in the post I mentioned above. I do not think they have access to any sort of backdoor to HoYoverse. They simply know some technical stuff that usually most people don't and they analyze their targets before making their move. They most likely target people who got their forms rejected and are very desperate to get their account back since these are easy targets for them.

I also found out they "suggest" you to use payments options that are non-refundable, like Pay with Friends and Family option on PayPal which is non-refundable so you cannot take your money back after discovering the scam.

Now in few cases, these people might be the very same people who hacked your account in the first place. They can create multiple distinct identities for themselves on the internet so this possibility is quite good. In this case, they will link your account back and give it to you but will charge you a good amount.

How to Detect Them ?

The post above has a YouTube video linked which tells us very clearly that any account recovery has to go through the strict procedures that the company has implemented. Any external person who claims to know a other way around is just lying.

Should I Just Hire a Hacker to Recover My Account?

All companies have a standardized procedures when it comes to account recovery and in HoYoverse's case its the Account Recovery Form, there is no other way to achieve it so anyone who claims to know a other way around is simply lying.

So just fill your form properly and wait for the results. Don't respond to unknown offers about recovering your account, it might put your account in more danger than it already is.

SUMMARIZING

Now that I have mentioned the ways in which scammers work, this should give you a rough idea of how they work. They basically disguise themselves as some legit people and trick you into giving your account details.

I hope this post helps to avoid such misfortunes to others but this post is most likely of no use to those who have already have their accounts hacked so I request you to share this post so that we can prevent more victims that are a results of these scammers' schemes.

They are clearly the worst kind of the people on the internet and they are actually proud of the their "deceiving" skills which just tells how bad these people are. Since "no one will know who they really are", they think its makes it okay for them to do such things to others.

Make sure to read another related content

1. What You Should Do If Your Account Got Hacked

• Part 1 | All About Email
• Part 2 | All About Recovery Form
• Part 3 | Additional Information

2. A Guide to Secure Your Genshin Impact/HoYoverse Account

• Part 1 | How To Secure Your Account
• Part 2 | How Do We Get Hacked?
• Part 3 | How Can I Secure My Account Better?

3. How Scammers Work in Genshin Impact and How to Detect Them

• Link to the article

4. How the Account Stealing Works

• Link to the article

5. Beware of Giveaway Scam

• Link to the article

6. Frequently Asked Questions

• Link to the article

Kaedehara Kazuha fanart by Koki (@koki0161023)