Pokemon Go trainer claims hacker is holding his account for ransom

A Pokemon Go trainer has taken to Reddit with claims that a hacker is holding his account for ransom, and Niantic isn’t helping him get it back.

With the growing popularity of the internet, an increasing number of bad-actors have found ways to potentially take over just about any one of your accounts.

This includes a Pokemon Go account, as they might want a way to get ahold of other Pokemon without having to play the game themselves.

One Redditor has learned this the hard way, as they claims a hacker is holding their account hostage and Niantic isn’t helping to get it back.

Pokemon Go trainer claims hacker is holding account hostage

Posted on March 2, 2023 in the Pokemon Go subreddit, Neither-neck8316 shared a screenshot of a conversation between them and the alleged hacker.

In the messages, it shows the hacker requesting .0068 bitcoin in order for the owner to get their account back.

According to the value of bitcoin at the time of writing, that would be about $151 USD worth of the cryptocurrency.

In another post just a day before, the Redditor mentioned that they reached out to Niantic support for help but every reply they’ve received just mentions that the account no longer exists.

However, other Pokemon Go players have offered their time to try to figure out who the hacker is, using the crypto payment as a means to track the hacker.

“Let me know the bitcoin address he wants you to send to. Its possible to track transaction’s through block chain explorer. If he doesn’t know what he is doing it might be possible to ascertain his real identity this way at no further risk to you,” said one user.

However, at the time of writing there has been no update regarding the situation or whether the player has managed to recover their account.

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