FIFA 11 Ultimate Team: Be Safe!
nerry
2011-01-24
Hundreds of thousands of people are now enjoying FIFA 11 Ultimate Team every day. With any luck, you’re one of them! But as with any game that includes an in-game currency and economy, as well as lots of high-value collectible items, there are those out there who’d try to get what they want without putting in the effort to earn it.
First things first: As far as we know, there’s no way to cheat the game technically. There are no top-secret button combos and no bits of software people can install on their consoles to cheat the game. There’s just the one way people cheat and that’s by trying to con YOU.
Con No. 1: Phishing
The concept of ‘phishing’ is nothing new – operators of online banking have known about it for years.
Phishing involves a conman copying the HTML code and images that make up a website in order to create a visually identical duplicate. They then attempt to direct innocent users to the new site where they will enter their login information. Once the conman has stored that information, they can enter it at the original, authentic site and access the user’s account.
We have seen a number of cases of people duplicating our own website in order to gain the login information of Ultimate Team gamers, sometimes using our own forums [http://forum.ea.com/uk/sections/show/1.page] to link people to their phishing site. We have already taken action on our forum to make this much harder to do, but the only way to make sure you’re not being phished is to be on your guard.
Solution: Whenever you follow a link to the Ultimate Team Web App (here [http://www.ea.com/uk/football/fifa-ultimate-team/play]), make sure you look at the address bar in your internet browser after the page loads. If it’s a www.ea.com address, you’re safe. If it isn’t, get out of there and let us know [backofthenet@ea.com]. Whatever you do, do not enter your login details into any page you’re not entirely sure about.
Con No. 2: The ‘Duplicate Player Glitch’
There is no such thing as the Duplicate Player Glitch. There are people out there who claim to know the secret to duplicating player cards in Ultimate Team. Sometimes they’ll even show you their own teams in the game, featuring perhaps four or five of the same player cards, in order to prove it. They’ll commonly claim to have some special software installed on their consoles that enables them to duplicate cards.
They don’t. They’re lying to you, and they want to con you out of your best cards. It’s perfectly possible to have multiple cards of the same type in your trade pile (such as Ronaldos or Messis) – the game is designed to allow that, so don’t be fooled.
The process is pretty simple. They will offer to duplicate your best card - perhaps, say, a Messi or Ronaldo. They will tell you that in order to do this, you will need to put your player card up for trade and they’ll offer a bronze player in return. They’ll tell you that after the trade has been made, they’ll explain what to do next.
Except, of course, you won’t hear from them again once they’ve got your card. And that’s it. Simple.
Solution: Don’t fall for it. And don’t believe the strange myth that duplicating cards is possible. It isn’t, and the existence of the myth is in itself allowing bad people to con more innocent victims!
Help Us Beat The Cheats!
If you spot a phishing website, or see someone attempting to promote this type of site, take a screengrab and let us know straight away. And if someone attempts to convince you they can duplicate your cards, whether through this website, a forum, or via console messaging, take some quick photos and let us know about that, too.
Send all scam reports to backofthenet@ea.com, and remember to include evidence so we can take action.
We have already banned the EA accounts of more than 100 people for attempting to scam innocent Ultimate Team gamers. An EA account means those people can no longer play any EA game online. And, should the offence warrant further action, we can seek the removal of these individuals from online play altogether via Microsoft and Sony.
