What to do if you get hacked and trophies pop, screwing your list…

[Gray-Fox-44]

I thought that it could be a good idea to make a post where people learn about this, simply because we got this new “dispute your flagged games” feature and I’ve seen many people claiming that “I was playing an online match and a hacker in the lobby made my trophies pop, it’s not my fault, please remove my flag.” Now… I DO BELIEVE that it’s not your fault, but the site’s rules are clear, and there is no way to prove that you didn´t do it on purpose. Therefore, “there was a hacker” IS NOT an excuse IN THIS SITE to get a flag removed. Piece of advice: If you see the trophies popping up on screen, then you are at least aware of the situation, so set the trophy’s notifications TO SHOW UP ON SCREEN.

Let’s begin… If this ever happens to you, DO NOT SYNC YOUR TROPHIES. Why? Because once your trophy list is synchronized you won’t be able to delete the trophies from the PSN server.

Ok now, what do I do then if a filthy hacker pops my trophies against my will? Well, the best thing to do is ending the match as soon as possible and going offline. Then MAKE A BACKUP of your SAVE FILES using a USB Storage Devise (Pendrive, external HHD, whatever). Why? Because deleting your account also deletes your save files.

Then you should DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT. Why? It’s actually simple. Your PS3 keeps an internal record of your trophies and if you delete your account, those illegitimately earned trophies will disappear in thin air

Afterwards you’ll want to create your account once again (with your username, email, password, etc.) and sync your trophies. Why? Because the PSN server keeps a record of each one of your synchronized trophies. Therefore, your list will be back to the way it was THE LAST TIME YOU SYNCHRONIZED IT.

 

Now an easy step-by-step:
 

1. Trophies start popping on the screen. You are playing an online match and a hacker tries to ruin your gaming life… (Remember to have your trophy’s notifications set to SHOW UP ON SCREEN or else you won’t notice!)

2.a. Hurry up and go offline. Don’t even take the trouble of ending the match, just hurry up and go offline!  Then exit the game.

2.b. Check your updated trophy list in a PSN trophy-tracking site (e.g. PSNProfiles) to see whether your trophies were auto-synched or not. But for the life of you DON'T SYNC YOUR PSN ACCOUNT IN YOUR CONSOLE. If they are in your updated profile, then you can't remove them so there is no point in going further into the next steps. If they are not there you are good to go, so proceed to step 3.

3. Make a backup of all your SAVE FILES using a USB Pendrive. (Don't use the PS+ online storage cloud)

4. Delete your user profile:

On your PS3: Go to the far left on the XMB -> Highlight your hacked account’s username -> Press triangle -> Delete -> Confirm -> Done!

5. Create your account again, using your ID, username, password, etc.

5.b - Optional - Check your trophy list before logging in. That will show that the hacked trophies are not in your system, since there should be zero trophies there at this step.

6. Log in to PlayStation Network.

7. Sync your trophies.

8. ENJOY YOUR CLEANSED TROPHY LIST

 

 

Throwback: If you don’t sync your list often you might end up losing more trophies than only those that popped due to the hacker, because PSN servers keep record of your SYNCHRONIZED DATA.
Solution: Sync your legitimately earned trophies often!!

 

I hope this helps all those honest players that care about their gaming and don’t want a stained profile on their backs! 

 

Side notes:

1. Using PS+ online storage cloud might result in an accidental sync of your trophies, so don't risk it and use a USB device! Thanks to @mking_63 for pointing this out and to @Saionji for providing an answer to it.

2. Trophies earned while playing through PS Now cannot be deleted. While playing a game with PS Now, it syncs your trophies as soon as you earn them. (Thanks to @kuuhaku for sharing this info)

3. This method does not work on PS4 since recent updates made the console auto-sync each time you earn a trophy (Thanks to @Cuddlez227 for sharing his experience with the auto-sync update)

4. On PS4 this method still works for trophies earned while being offline.

These are the steps for deleting your PS4 profile: Settings -> Initialization -> Delete user -> Select your account’s username -> Confirm -> Done!

 

List of games with known hacked lobbies that make trophies pop:

- Call of Duty (mainly Black Ops 2 and Wold at War)

- Red Dead Redemption

- Warhawk

- Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA)

- Little Big Planet 2 (apparently)

-Dark Souls - The hack in this game doesn't pop trophies per se. I works as follows: it's mainly with players dropping hacked equipment pieces (which can relate to the relevant trophies) with the 'victim' per se picking them up without knowing (Thanks to @wackt1 for sharing this info)

 

Any confirmation on whether this list of games is correct or incorrect is welcomed. I'm not a frequent online player and I'm having a hard time finding info about this on the internet, but so far this is the list. The Flagged Games Dispute threads was mainly my source for this. If you know of any other games with trophies popping due to online hackers please leave a comment and those games will be added to the list. I'm sure that many honest players here will appreciate it.  

Edited July 16, 2017 by Gray-Fox-44
Added info

[Saionji]

I would advise turning off the power for PS3 at once once your trophies start to pop, then dont log in at all until you delete your profile and create it again because PSN sometimes autosync your trophies so you might be doomed if that happens after joining hacked lobby.

[Midnightwards666]

Excellent post, I think it should be stickied in the Flagged Game Disputes forum. Luckily none of this has happened to me yet, and hopefully never will. 

[Gray-Fox-44]

45 minutes ago, Saionji said:

I would advise turning off the power for PS3 at once once your trophies start to pop, then dont log in at all until you delete your profile and create it again because PSN sometimes autosync your trophies so you might be doomed if that happens after joining hacked lobby.

I guess that could happen, but simply going offline as soon as trophies start popping should be enough. Anyways, good contribution, as long as you don't unplug the AC power cord your method is good too  thanks 

 

1 minute ago, Midnightwards666 said:

Excellent post, I think it should be stickied in the Flagged Game Disputes forum. Luckily none of this has happened to me yet, and hopefully never will. 

Thanks! Luckily this never happened to me either, but I've used this "deleting user" method to erase a trophy list with glitched trophies of which I didn't know about  (Dragon Fin Soup) :cough cough:  Nowadays I always check for glitched trophies before adding a list to my profile (lesson learnt) and if there were any of those I would just play the game on my secondary account (which has quite a low completion percentage)

[Midnightwards666]

It's a good way to delete trophies regardless of the reasons. Seeing your average completion, I see why you play on two accounts.  

[Hogie838]

Yeah great post. A lot of people (myself included) are not aware of this. I agree it should be stickied. There will be no more excuse now! Well done ✅ 

[Crispy_Oglop]

As someone who has never been hacked but hears it being used a great deal - how does someone end up hacked?

Edited April 5, 2017 by Crispy_Oglop

[New display name]

Great idea.

[wackt1]

21 minutes ago, Crispy_Oglop said:

As someone who has never been hacked buy hears it being used a great deal - how does someone end up hacked?

Well for Dark Souls, its usually when on co-op when your allies drop gear that has been "hacked" per se and you pick it up. Usually you won't know if its hack or not and by the time you find out it can be too late as bandai and Fromsoft can ban your account. 

 

With the call of duty games (this is from personal experience with MW2, MW3 and BLOPS1 though this is purely multiplayer and not zombies or co op modes and I've gained no trophies from hack lobbies) weird shit starts popping up on screen; like random ass codes popping on screen and gaining massive EXP and other stuff on separate occasions. 

 

With GTA5 on PS3 (also personal experience), it was super annoying because one of the players would teleport everyone to the said player then everyone but the player who did the hack is instantly killed.

 

(BTW I know you were asking this in relation to the trophies but I just wanted to share my personal experiences)  

Edited April 4, 2017 by wackt1

[Remilia Scarlet]

I wish I had known about this when Fuel was hacked on my account. I don't kwn the game, never have and never will because any accomplishment I may have felt from legitimately playing was dashed when the fuck who hacked my account autopopped 95% of the trophies and then synched them before I could get control back.

 

Luckily I quickly figured out how to put an end to this shit.

[Metal Slime King]

Good info to post but I have a question. In step two you go offline but in step three you back up your saves. Wouldn't this preclude backing up to the cloud with PS+? I don't have + myself but I assume you need to be online to use that feature.

[Saionji]

14 minutes ago, mking_63 said:

Good info to post but I have a question. In step two you go offline but in step three you back up your saves. Wouldn't this preclude backing up to the cloud with PS+? I don't have + myself but I assume you need to be online to use that feature.

You should use USB stick, if you log yourself in again PSN might autosync your trophies

[Gray-Fox-44]

16 minutes ago, mking_63 said:

Good info to post but I have a question. In step two you go offline but in step three you back up your saves. Wouldn't this preclude backing up to the cloud with PS+? I don't have + myself but I assume you need to be online to use that feature.

 

1 minute ago, Saionji said:

You should use USB stick, if you log yourself in again PSN might autosync your trophies

 

I think that's a good point... I'll edit the OP right now and remove that option (PS+ cloud). I've never used the online storage myself, so there is no way for me to be 100% sure about that.
Thanks for pointing that out!

 

To everyone else, thanks for the support!

1 hour ago, Hogie838 said:

I agree it should be stickied.

I wouldn't know how to do that...

[Hogie838]

Just now, Gray-Fox-44 said:

I wouldn't know how to do that...

 

Only the devs can do that I think it's a good idea if they do.

[Kittens Are Awesome]

I'm not sure how many people have actually tried to do this, but in my case, it has not been successful. Somebody started a ps+ game I had no intention of ever starting on my account. They had earned some story related trophies. I did exactly as stated in the OP. Sure enough, as soon as I synchronized my trophies the next time, there was that unwanted game with a handful of trophies.

 

I don't think deleting the profile is enough. I think you'd have to completely reformat the HDD. I may even be skeptical about that working. It's very possible it is held in internal memory. You would probably even have to remove the built-in memory battery as well. Who knows.

 

I can confirm that the above mentioned method does not work on the 60GB model ps3.

Edited April 4, 2017 by Phil

[New display name]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

I'm not sure how many people have actually tried to do this, but in my case, it has not been successful. Somebody started a ps+ game I had no intention of ever starting on my account. They had earned some story related trophies. I did exactly as stated in the OP. Sure enough, as soon as I synchronized my trophies the next time, there was that unwanted game with a handful of trophies.

 

I don't think deleting the profile is enough. I think you'd have to completely reformat the HDD. I may even be skeptical about that working. It's very possible it is held in internal memory. You would probably even have to remove the built-in memory battery as well. Who knows.

 

I can confirm that the above mentioned method does not work on the 60GB model ps3.

I think having ps plus means your trophies will auto sync. Maybe there's an option to turn off the auto syncing feature? 

[thegirlruka]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

I'm not sure how many people have actually tried to do this, but in my case, it has not been successful. Somebody started a ps+ game I had no intention of ever starting on my account. They had earned some story related trophies. I did exactly as stated in the OP. Sure enough, as soon as I synchronized my trophies the next time, there was that unwanted game with a handful of trophies.

 

I don't think deleting the profile is enough. I think you'd have to completely reformat the HDD. I may even be skeptical about that working. It's very possible it is held in internal memory. You would probably even have to remove the built-in memory battery as well. Who knows.

 

I can confirm that the above mentioned method does not work on the 60GB model ps3.

I've done it while planning out my 1337 trophy. I accidentally earned an extra trophy that would have messed up the milestone so i deleted my profile. You need to be sure that you don't connect to the internet at all between closing the game and deleting the profile. It would also help to have your trophy setting to offline mode by default.

[Kittens Are Awesome]

1 minute ago, Smithy said:

I think having ps plus means your trophies will auto sync. Maybe there's an option to turn off the auto syncing feature? 

 

It definitely didn't auto sync. I checked on this site beforehand to make sure.

[Saionji]

It would be a good idea to completely turn off your router or plug off ethernet cable, my trophies are set to offline mode and still they autosync randomly when I m loged in. I never really tried deleting user and hopefully I wont have to because of stupid situation like joining hacked lobby.

[Gray-Fox-44]

14 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

It definitely didn't auto sync. I checked on this site beforehand to make sure.

I'm sorry that it didn't work for you 

In my case (and others that I know of) it works mainly because trophies are connected to PSN accounts and not to particular consoles (PS3/PS4) That is to say, once you delete your account your trophy  list is definitely gone from your internal storage. Are you 100% possitive on having checked your PSNProfiles page UPDATED AFTER DELETING your account and not before? Maybe your trophies synchronized before deleting your account and you didn't notice.

What I infere from your 1st post is that someone played on your account for more than a few minutes (you said story related trophies and that usually takes some time) and simply staying online for some time after earning trophies is enough for PSN to grab your data. Did (whoever played with your account) connect more than one time? Because every time you go online your trophies sync.

[Kittens Are Awesome]

1 minute ago, Gray-Fox-44 said:

I'm sorry that it didn't work for you 

In my case (and others that I know of) it works mainly because trophies are connected to PSN accounts and not to particular consoles (PS3/PS4) That is to say, once you delete your account your trophy  list is definitely gone from your internal storage. Are you 100% possitive on having checked your PSNProfiles page UPDATED AFTER DELETING your account and not before? Maybe your trophies synchronized before deleting your account and you didn't notice.

What I infere from your 1st post is that someone played on your account for more than a few minutes (you said story related trophies and that usually takes some time) and simply staying online for some time after earning trophies is enough for PSN to grab your data. Did (whoever played with your account) connect more than one time? Because every time you go online your trophies sync.

 

I definitely checked. It was just one session, probably a few hours.  They don't care about trophies so they definitely didn't look at them to accidentally sync. Also, it was a while ago. I have since soldiered through and plat the game myself.

[Gray-Fox-44]

19 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

I definitely checked. It was just one session, probably a few hours.  They don't care about trophies so they definitely didn't look at them to accidentally sync. Also, it was a while ago. I have since soldiered through and plat the game myself.

Well, I hope that never happens again to you! Just in case let me remind you that trophies can sync even if you don't go to your trophy list, so keep that in mind in the future  Anyways, shall something like this happen to you again don't give up and give it a try, at least there is nothing to lose

I had your same experience a couple years ago with my nephews playing on my account and adding The Sims 3 and CoD BO2 to my list  Platting The Sims 3 was a burden, but at least I enjoyed BO2. Nowadays I have my account set to offline as default and my trophy list set to offline mode until I decide to sync

 

[TVDex252]

Im new here so I have two questions regarding this topic. How do you know if you have been flagged? And can you get flagged if a trophy pops early due to an error on the developers side.

 

For example, I was playing Gone Home the other day to finish off the trophy list and the trophy for getting all the journals in under 10 minutes popped for me even though I wasn't going for it and I know for sure I missed several journals. 

 

 

[B1rvine]

Just now, TVDex252 said:

Im new here so I have two questions regarding this topic. How do you know if you have been flagged? And can you get flagged if a trophy pops early due to an error on the developers side.

 

For example, I was playing Gone Home the other day to finish off the trophy list and the trophy for getting all the journals in under 10 minutes popped for me even though I wasn't going for it and I know for sure I missed several journals. 

 

 

 

I think there's a huge warning notice when you log in.  It's supposedly hard to miss.  As far as how it happens, if someone looks at your trophies and think you've cheated somehow, then they'll report you.  If the staff agrees, you'll get the flag.  There's a dispute process and it's removed if you can prove you've earned them legitimately (ie saying exactly how you got trophies that look wrong.  Typically if there's a bug in the game, then every trophy website knows about it, and nobody will flag you.

[FawltyPowers]

This is a good topic. Would you take it one stage further please. Could you add to the bottom a list of known games that have hacked lobbies and auto-popping occur.

 

From the recent disputes we know about Black Ops 2 and World at War but if there are other games that are going to cause this is there any way of knowing what they are?