Epic Games warns Fortnite players about V-bucks bot scam

Steal the Brainrot has found itself at the center of yet another Fortnite controversy

It's been a rough couple of months for Fortnite fans since Epic Games enabled creative island creators to offer in-game transactions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the drama centers on a single creative map: Steal the Brainrot came under fire back in January for seemingly allowing gambling via a prize wheel and loot boxes. Epic Games updated its creator rules to address some of the issues, but now another problem has popped up.

Over the last several days, a number of users have reported online that large amounts of V-bucks have gone missing from their accounts, seemingly spent on the Steal the Brainrot creative island. The issue is that, according to these particular users, they've never actually played on that island.

Among those speaking out are a trio of players on Reddit who claim to have lost anywhere between 12,000 and 28,000 V-bucks each without their knowledge. In the case of those three Reddit users, the V-bucks were all spent on Steal the Brainrot. The culprit, according to Epic Games, is likely third-party bots manipulating accounts they have access to.

In short, as put by Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney in a social media post, "It’s Discord bots going bad." Though, the full answer is a bit more detailed.

In a post on the Fortnite Status X account, Epic Games said, "Some people are using unauthorized third-party bots on Discord or Telegram to automatically buy items in the Shop, join lobbies, or perform other actions on their behalf. These bots are *not* made by Epic Games, are *not* official, and can spend your V-bucks outside of your control if you provide them with access to your account. We’ve observed an uptick in this recently, in particular spending V-bucks on in-island items."

The post further notes that users should log out of Fortnite on all devices and end all active sessions in order to restrict bot access. As the post mentions, there are a number of reasons players may be using bots created by third parties. Two of the players who spoke out on Reddit specifically noted they were longtime players who had previously spent a lot of time in Save the World mode — the looter shooter mode that predates Battle Royale.

A number of bots exist for that particular mode to help with previously available daily rewards. However, one affected player doesn't think it's as simple as needing to disconnect bots. According to Reddit user MiniBrAAko-_-YT, he disconnected bots some time ago, added two-factor authentication to his account, and changed passwords, only to still lose V-bucks.

All that said, Epic's instructions for how to solve the issue don't actually answer the larger question. What are these players who claim to have lost tens of thousands of V-bucks supposed to do about it? Fortnite's support site notes that purchases made on developer-made islands cannot be canceled or refunded. The best you can do is report the item you purchased to Epic, though it's unclear what (if anything) happens from there.

Polygon has reached out to Epic Games for comment on whether the existing creative island transaction rules will be updated again to close this loophole and if it's possible for those impacted to restore their V-bucks. This story will be updated, should they reply. In the meantime, you can take a look at your account to see if any in-island purchases have been made without your knowledge.