Ironman account scammed / hacked by FancyHire , osrs services discord owned by DuckM

Apologies for not conforming to scammer report template format. I'm currently in a state of disarray.

Incident happened between 30/03/2021 - 01/04/2021
Short explanation:
Was using FancyHire to train smithing. Found out that I received a 'caution'* role on the FancyHire
discord. Logged in to my OSRS account and found tbow and ely missing. 'Caution' role was applied to me
BEFORE i found out about the hacking, strongly suggesting that the hack was premeditated by FancyHire.

*The 'caution' role is a role given to disruptive people in the discord. I have sent 0 messages in the discord.

JMod confirmation that I was hacked(to prove i didnt hack myself) : imgur.com
Full discord exchange with DuckM : imgur.com
Proof of caution role : imgur.com

While searching for the sythe ID of DuckM, I've found that fancyhire was already listed as a scam site on sythe here: Websites/Discords to avoid!
and that the owner (DuckM) had a long long history of scamming clients as found here : DuckM Ban Appeal

By this point, I realize that not much can be done about my case as my evidence is not entirely conclusive, and
fancyhire is already blacklisted/banned from sythe. I suppose this post simply serves as another offence on the list.

**If mods require other information/detail, I'll be happy to provide them.

 

Hi Potato,

Thank you for raising this on Sythe, here at FancyHire we do aim to reintegrate into Sythe in the near future. And I would now like to take the time to explain the situation to the Sythe community and then allow people to make an informed decision with their opinion of our service. I'm also happy to clarify anything and answer questions posted by the relevant persons publically and privately.

You've utilised our services and spent over $1000 with us since June 2020. You've made several orders with no problems and you understand yourself that the FancyHire Service is a legitimate service. We do have occasional incidents which are dealt with professionally and fairly. And we closely follow the ethos of the Sythe Marketplace to ensure we provide a high quality service where our customers feel safe and also want to provide us repeat business.

Firstly, Let's clarify that you informed Alexander before you received the Caution role. You informed AlexanderSales that you were missing items. Therefore, as per default policy of our service and to prevent drama in our communication channels. Alex set you to Caution role. Due to the timing, Alex went to bed straight after. Next morning you inform me and we starting discussing the situation. You explained that a TBow and Ely missing on your Ironman, which results in 1k loss of playtime for your account. Also to note your bank was worth around 6 billion prior to the missing items.

Then later on in the day, Alexander initiates a full investigation. Now after our full internal investigation, it was determined that nothing of foul play has occured and that we're not at fault and ultimately FancyHire accepts no responsibility. The specific details of our investigation and what bought us to make that ruling will not be disclosed publically but we're happy to disclosure information privately to Sythe Administrators.

As a result of your situation and how bad we felt internally within FancyHire and amongst the management team, we concluded a terms change was in order. We therefore implemented new terms as outlined on our website:

Account Wealth:

• You should remove any unnecessary account wealth prior to your order starting.
• If the above is not possible, provide us the Password Reset Link to your account for exclusive account access with the wealth on it.

This moving forward will protect us further from accusations and will aim to prevent any allegations in the future moving forward. We already have customers utilising the Password Reset Link option and we hope for increasing adoption as new orders with our existing large customers are made. In terms of bank value and overall account value and their dollar value purchased through our service.

-----

Now to address the wider concerns regarding our Sythe Reputation. An incident did occur in May 2019 and a recent Ban Appeal has been submitted as outlined via: Here.

FancyHire is a legitimate OSRS Power Leveling Service that is here to stay, there are no reasons at all to suggest that we're not. We have almost 75+ active/pending at all times and receive consistant vouches internally and externally. We also have frequent word of mouth vouches which provide us with new custom.

-----

I am open to receiving communication regarding any further questions or clarifications.

Regards,
DuckM

 

I'd have preferred to respond in a concise manner, addressing each defending point(?) you've brought up. However I may try, your post simply reads as a block of filibuster/fliff text that can be interpreted as "We've investigated ourselves, and found no wrongdoing".
Nevertheless, I'll make do with what is presented here.

-"You've utilised our services and spent over $1000 with us since June 2020. You've made several orders with no problems and you understand yourself that the FancyHire Service is a legitimate service."

I have indeed spent over $1000 on your(fancyhire)'s services. Up until this incident, it *has been* a legitimate service. In retrospect, with the hack occuring just days after the Jagex announcement of banning player-run services, this seems like a plausible exit strategy.

-"We do have occasional incidents which are dealt with professionally and fairly. And we closely follow the ethos of the Sythe Marketplace to ensure we provide a high quality service where our customers feel safe and also want to provide us repeat business."

I'm unsure about this. You employ the practice of silencing disgruntled customers in the fancyhire discord. In some cases, like mine, before a word has been said in the discord's public chat. You have full control over what information is shared and/or possibly manipulated.

-"Firstly, Let's clarify that you informed Alexander before you received the Caution role. You informed AlexanderSales that you were missing items. Therefore, as per default policy of our service and to prevent drama in our communication channels. Alex set you to Caution role. Due to the timing, Alex went to bed straight after. Next morning you inform me and we starting discussing the situation. You explained that a TBow and Ely missing on your Ironman, which results in 1k loss of playtime for your account. Also to note your bank was worth around 6 billion prior to the missing items."

In the DM gif(in the original post), you did not contest this. I've mentioned that from my POV, fancyhire was aware of the hack before I was.

-"As a result of your situation and how bad we felt internally within FancyHire and amongst the management team, we concluded a terms change was in order. We therefore implemented new terms as outlined on our website:

Account Wealth:
You should remove any unnecessary account wealth prior to your order starting.
If the above is not possible, provide us the Password Reset Link to your account for exclusive account access with the wealth on it."

This seems like an unnecessary 'cover my ass' clause when you do not have any intention of taking responsibility of the account damages that have occured under your care to begin with. This is demonstrated by your verdict of this case.

-"FancyHire is a legitimate OSRS Power Leveling Service that is here to stay, there are no reasons at all to suggest that we're not. We have almost 75+ active/pending at all times and receive consistant vouches internally and externally. We also have frequent word of mouth vouches which provide us with new custom."

I'm unsure about the first part, and it is not my place to decide. Regarding vouches, the negative vouches are quickly purged. Obviously i cannot prove this without audit access.





Closing comments:

I've lost all motivation to continue the game after these items are gone from a unique password I specifically set for your service, as well as your requirement to remove authenticator.

It has been an infuriating experience, and you have made your resolution clear; you claim no fault, and see no need to compensate.

I'm leaving this here regardless to warn all ironmen with stacked banks before considering your services, that the risk of losing their items is no longer a matter of probability, and none of your comments can or will undo or change the outcome. Since you're not going to be transparent about the investigation, and have no way to prove that the worker could've either taken it by himself, or were instructed by someone within your organization, it is what it is.

 

Hi Potato,

We'll be in touch to provide you a refund in BTC for any remaining hours of service we owe you. I would also like to express that there is no exit stratergy and that Jagex's words are just fluff and only fluff. However, we've already taken steps to mitigate increased risk as a result of comments within the Jagex's news section and relevant Q&A discussions surrounding it and wider community. FancyHire will continue to operate for the foreseeable future.

Regards,
DuckM

 

As mentioned in dms, this is NOT an act of resolution. It is merely a refund for the outstanding balance owed($60) in service time (a minuscule fraction of the damages here).

Honestly not quite sure what the objective is here, you/fancyhire have had a no-refund policy for the longest time. I presume this is an attempt at buying credibility at a steep discount under the guise of goodwill.

A satisfactory resolution has not been achieved, and this thread along with its allegations shall continue to stand.

 

The reason for the refund in BTC, although our policy is no refunds and only credit is because we're no longer doing business with yourself for the foreseeable future. An exception has been made with this individual case. And two days ago we offered to resume your order and you didn't reply, therefore we made an agreement internally to refund the remaining hours in Bitcoin. There is no guise of goodwill, we're a professional service and will continue to be.

I'll now be awaiting Sythe Staff

 

No refund has been returned yet, I need to resync our Bitcoin Node but it's taking forever. I will refund a little extra for the extra wait time incurred by Potato. I have the Bitcoin address already too. Also the terms agreed are found via Terms - FancyHire minus the new terms which are "Account Wealth" and "In-Progress -> Completed".

I have a screenshot of our terms being agreed to if necessary.

 

I have not received a refund. DuckM explained that there was "an issue with their bitcoin node" but I'm not crypto literate so I have no idea what that means.

The ToS I've agreed to can be found here : Terms - FancyHire
However, it may have been modified at this time of writing.

 

As DuckM has mentioned in his initial post reply, the terms have indeed been modified after this fiasco.

 

Bitcoin transaction is being processed, ended up using a third party for a quicker refund for OP.

Edit: Bitcoin fee's are way too high, $100 of Bitcoin turned to $30 ;(

 

Remaining balance has been paid via Stellar (XLM).
@Andy

 

I do. I'll dm you the requested information.