GGG asking money to unlock account, is it fraud? scam alert

A friend of mine, who can't write on the forum because the account is locked, have this problem.

> He bought POE2 early access at lauch
> After 15 days of playing, he got his account blocked
> This proably is related to the guy that hacked GGG admin account: as Jonathan said in a live, there was around 66 people who got their data compromised. Idk if this is one of the 66 cases, but the fact is that the 2 step authentication didn't blocked the intruder, so i don't think that was a "normal" unauthorized access to my friend account
> Anyway, the hacker bought some packs for a total of 90$ with my friend account
> My friend contacted GGG support (still on 6th december) asking for a refund and the unlock of the account
> After some time without a reply (yep, I know you were busy guys) he asked for a refound to Paypal, before the legal time to get the refound expired
> Paypal refounded those 90$
> Now, after almost 2 months with the account locked, he got an aswer:

The mail is from bounce [dot] helpscout [dot] net, signed by grindinggear [dot] com, from Thomas.
In the mail basically they ask him to:
- make a new account
- rebuy the 90$ of packs he refounded
- send a reply, so they will close this new account and reactivate his old account
This let me intended that those 90$ will be lost.

This seems all very suspect. My thought is that is another scam, maybe from the same guy who compromised the account the first time.

My friend just want to play the game.... of course he won't spend again 90$, even because he still didn't get the refound for the key he really bought (60$) but only for the ones he got scammed.


Can someone help and clarify this?
Thanks in advance <3

"

Vinky_GGG wrote:

Unfortunately, we aren't able to assist with this issue over the forums. If thy've already contacted us via support@grindinggear.com they will need to wait for a response from the appropriate team members.

Thanks for the reply!

Obviously i don't expect to have assistance here, expecially for an account not mine.
I just wanted to understand if this thing is legit of is another scam mail, before he does anything.

After the fake link that was posted in your steam page with your official account (still in poe1) I'm suspicius of everything, expecially such a strange procedure like this.
And if I may, it is also a bit absurd to ask for a disbursement from a user whose account has been compromised not through his fault but due to a security breach.

Anyway, thanks again.
I still love you guys at GGG and your wonderful game, i just hope that my friend can join us again.