16 Years of Hard Work Wiped Out! Global PS Trophy Leader's Account Permanently Banned by Sony

IT House, March 12 — David Tremblay, who once held the record for the most PlayStation trophies worldwide, has had his PlayStation Network (PSN) account permanently banned. The former top trophy hunter blames hackers and Sony’s “incompetent” customer service and security teams for the incident.

According to PC Magazine, earlier this week, Tremblay’s PSN account dav1d_123 was permanently banned for violating platform rules.

Before the ban, Tremblay was once the top scorer of trophies on PSN globally and was even listed in the Guinness World Records for having the most Platinum trophies.

However, in October last year, after his account was reportedly hacked, Tremblay announced he was quitting trophy hunting.

“Your PSN account isn’t secure; anyone can hijack it,” Tremblay said on Twitter. He claimed hackers bypassed his two-factor authentication (2FA) and gained access through phishing via PSN online customer service.

Just last week, Tremblay gave an interview to PC Magazine, revealing serious security issues with PSN and publicly exposing hackers’ attempts to extort him. It is believed that these actions led to his PlayStation account being permanently banned.

PC Magazine reported that a hacker who previously negotiated with Tremblay—returning control of his account after demanding ransom—told the media: “This former top trophy hunter lied, so now his account is gone again.”

Tremblay suspects that hackers used a “bombshell message” tactic to get his account banned. The method involved hackers sending messages violating Sony’s PSN rules to a secondary account, which, even after losing control of the account, could be used to report these violations to Sony at any time, resulting in a ban.

Tremblay stated that the hacker had previously threatened to do exactly that if he exposed the incident to PC Magazine.

As of this writing, Sony has not publicly responded to the ban or related security issues.

Since the ban last week, Tremblay said his trophy count has been reset to zero. “I’ve been collecting trophies on PlayStation for over 16 years,” he said. “I’ve spent tens of thousands of hours on it—so much that I don’t even want to admit—and I even hold all five related Guinness World Records. It’s truly heartbreaking. Worse, I repeatedly warned customer service that any messages sent from my account during the theft should be considered invalid, but they completely ignored it. Everyone would think my account should be better protected with proper security measures, but apparently that’s not the case.”