Mason teen scammed playing Fortnite

Jake Bates sat in his bedroom inside his Mason home. He wore a headset over his ears and had a game controller in his hands as he rapidly fired away and changed weapons frequently.

The 13-year-old is trying to master the secrets to survival in one of the most popular video games of all time, “Fortnite.”

As he and his mother, Amy Bates, learned this weekend, it’s easy for teens to let their guard down when in the midst of intense battles.

“Fortnite” players, including Jake, are able to chat with others from around the globe.

Last weekend, another gamer built up Jake’s trust and convinced him to hand over his username and password so the gamer could give him more skins, which are used in the game.

“When he logged into his account, he took everything over,” Bates said. “The guy took over his account, but also took over his email account and changed the passwords, changed the recovery passwords and the phone number.”

Any personal information that was in Jake’s emails, the hacker now had, and since Bates’ credit card number was attached to the game, the scammer had access to that too.

“It’s really scary,” Bates said.

Not to mention, the crook ended up killing off Jake’s character, in which the teen had invested hundreds of dollars since starting the game last year.

“I think he just feels violated,” Bates said.

Bates said she and Jake wanted to tell their story so scammers don’t play other children while they’re playing the game.

“It says on the game not to give your information out and, ya know, I’m like, it’s a lesson learned,” Bates said.

Bates filed a complaint with Epic Games, the company that developed “Fortnite.”

Gaming websites recommend that gamers use throwaway credit cards — ones that aren’t tied to a bank account. They also recommend that players do not use their game password on any other sites and not share any personal information, even with friends.

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