he think he had about $1500 in his account but he wasn't sure.
anyway he tried to claim his account, but got an email from mt gox that his request failed.
then someone else (the thief) emailed him gloating that he took over my friend's account, with a screenshot of mt gox's email to the hacker that the hacker successfully claimed the account.
my friend is furious but tried to contact mt gox but got no replies.
he is seriously thinking at this point to go to japan to set things right.
Hmmm. My success notification was not in an email (had to click through), and neither the email nor the recovery site with confirmation identifies the account name.
Sounds phishy to me.