XBox hacker alert from Bristol mum

A Bristol mother is warning other parents to beware of online hackers after someone used her son's XBox Live account while the family were on holiday.

The hacker got into 12-year-old Robert Best's account and was able to access his mum's credit card number and use it to buy 20,000 points for XBox Live games.

Juliet, 40, of Barrs Court, discovered an extra £170 had been racked up on her credit card without her knowledge.

She immediately reported the fraud to Microsoft and cancelled her Nationwide card.

Mrs Best, a student nurse, said: "Because Robert is only 12, a parent has to register with Microsoft using a credit card.

"This enables Robert to buy Microsoft points to use in XBox Live games."

People play against each other online and can be in different countries.

Mrs Best said: "Robert buys 1,000 points at a time from his pocket money.

"We were on holiday for a week and when we came back Robert found that he couldn't get into his account.

"We discovered somebody else had used my credit card details to buy four lots of 5,000 points at a cost of £42.50 a go.

"I reported it to Microsoft and have had to cancel my credit card.

"I want to warn other parents how easily this can happen."

Microsoft said there had been "isolated incidents" in which some XBox Live players had gained the trust of other players to gain access to their accounts, though that had not happened in Robert's case.

Company spokesman Nik Thakkarsaid: "We are actively investigating several isolated incidents where malicious users have used social engineering to gain access to Live accounts.

"While unrelated to this incident, we would like to use this opportunity to remind all of our 12 million Xbox Live members that they should never give out any of their personal information, and reassure all of our members that we have found no evidence of any compromise of the security of our Live network."