Former #1 Trophy Hunter, Hakoom, Is Retiring After PlayStation Employees Allegedly Stole, and Sold His Personal Data

PlayStation’s former #1 trophy hunter, Hakoom, has announced that he is retiring (again) from trophy hunting, or more so specifically, retiring from PlayStation, as the company has terminated their partnership with him, all because he found out that someone at PlayStation was allegedly being bribed to sell his personal information, which came with an unexplained ban.

Edited – The story has been revised to include some of Hakoom’s past interactions. While we shouldn’t dismiss the possibilities of his data being breached and stolen, it has come to our attention that Hakoom may not be entirely telling the truth about his past when it comes to legitimately earning trophies, as a few community members have come forward to point out this out in his statement. Again, while it doesn’t disprove what Hakoom is saying as false, it does mean we should be more cautious of his statement given past allegations about him being misleading to the trophy hunting community, which have included prior bans and removals from PSNprofiles’ trophy leaderboards 

This Is More Than Just About Trophies, This Is About a Breach of Trust

While many may shrug off the news of Hakoom’s retirement, the circumstances surrounding it should not be taken so lightly. In a lengthy post shared on X, Hakoom, whose real name is AbdulHakam, explained that after 17 years, he’s quitting his trophy-hunting journey and PlayStation. The reasoning? According to AbdulHakam, it’s because an employee at PlayStation stole and sold off his personal data, which led to a ban last September and that also saw him kicked out of the PlayStation partner program he was part of. At the time, Hakoom wasn’t aware of the circumstances. However, a few days later, he mysteriously received a message saying that his data had been breached, with the user apparently bribing PlayStation employees to steal and sell his user data. He mentions that the image that he was sent contained sensitive systems that he believes to be part of administrative systems at PlayStation.

“On sept 9 my acc was permanently suspended for no reason and i received no email at all.. even when i talked to customer support they didnt help at all i was then lucky to get in touch with another department and they said they will look in to the matter few days later i received a msg on whatsapp from a random person saying my datas are leaked on the internet and the user is bribing playstation employees and stealing user datas and selling/banning them ( all photos and evidence are in the video) The photos clearly show playstation admin computers which no user can access on a normal computer this information was all forwarded to playstation for investigation.. the scammer even called me and tried to get private datas from me which is show in in the video too and that was also forwarded to PlayStation.”

With the newfound evidence, AbdulHakam reached out to PlayStation support once again in hopes of resolving the situation, but things didn’t go as he had hoped as the rep then gave him a new reason for the ban, stating that he illegitimately earned trophies. In this case, they were trophies that would have taken hundreds of hours to achieve that were earned in mere minutes.

AdbulHakam did provide an explanation in that those trophies were earned on the PS5, with some games granting instant platinum if you previously earned all the trophies on the PS4 version and transferred your save over to the PS5 version.

“I was like wth? what is the game which i platinum in few hours and req 100? psnprofiles would insta flag me for that… then i remembered something called auto trophy pops or platinum pops which all of you trophy hunter know.. If you platinum Spiderman for example on ps4 in 50h then boot up the ps5 version you earn it in 1min that’s something normal and the system is implemented by playstation them selves.. ( google auto trophy pop) so auto pop is a ban able offense now? and regarding the 0 min games there are loads of games on PlayStation which can be completed/platinumed in 10 seconds 20 seconds 30 seconds etc… every trophy hunter knows this.”

However, it is important to point out that despite him saying this was the reason why he unlocked several trophies in minutes, he has been removed in the past, on multiple occasions, from PSNprofiles’ leaderboards over cheating, with users pointing out trophies from other games being unlocked with the same timestamps, and other inconsistencies that led to many believing that there were multiple people using his account in addition to cheating.

This was also one of the reason behind his PSN being banned as he detailed that PlayStation said his account has showed up across multiple systems, along with thousands of accounts being logged into his own system.

Ultimately though, for AbdulHakam, this wasn’t really about the fact that he was booted from his partnership with PlayStation or banned, but more so about how a company could throw him under despite the evidence he provided (some shared in his Instagram video) and how this could happen to any other user.

“What i see from this is playstation is running away from the real issue which is user data leakage and just threw me under the bus so they put this issue under the rug and get it over with.. companies will always blame the user for there mistakes If your acc gets banned or email changed for no reason that is 100% stolen with this method and your datas are on the blackmarket there is no other explanation and its over for you. so as you see guys how can i trust a company who sells user datas to some scammers on the internet and get away with it. Even after the mountain of evidence i showed they still wouldnt accept it and just told me we will raise the ban after 45 days.. they also removed me from the partnership program.. My account is back, yes, but I can’t live with this oppression and corruption! So I had to share the story with everyone”

For many, it’s just a trophy, but for AbdulHakam his journey, which started 17 years ago, has led to some incredible life-changing opportunities. Understandable that he would be frustrated over this outcome, and if it is true, then that’s a unfortunate way to have things end.

But of course, this is just one side of the story, and though it’s unlikely we’ll hear about the other side from PlayStation, this could very well end up being completely fabricated, with he ban justifiable, even if it is being lifted.

Though whether he cheated his way to the top or not, the biggest concern here is if there’s any validity to the claims that a PlayStation employee(s) is selling customers details illegally. It’s a scary thought, but sadly, it’s the kind of world we live in where that could happen anywhere and to anyone.

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