This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.5
PTR
10.2.6
Account Closed
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
1144074
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Berndorf
My condolences on losing your account in this fashion. It does seem crazy that they would do this to a longtime customer such as yourself without real evidence but companies which get as large as Bliz has become generally find it harder to maintain fairness in all areas of customer service. You might want to write a letter or forward your post to the email of someone reasonably high up in the Bliz food chain. Often someone higher up will take these sorts of things more seriously than someone far lower on the totem pole will. Maybe try reaching GC or someone like that.
Post by
Eccentrica
Despite the fact that you are clearly more literate and of a more mature age than the average person who posts this type of thread, some aspects are quite similar.
1. You don't not 'own' your account. You have not 'invested' money into playing WoW anymore than your average Joe 'invests' money into his monthly cable bill so he can watch Survivor. You paid a monthly fee for access, you got it. Now you don't.
2. After the first time you were banned, you blithely went on as if nothing had happened. Did you thoroughly cleanse your computer to ensure that it was clean? You say your wife is pleased at the turn of events. Did she have access to your account information? I am not one to sow seeds of marital discord, but this wouldn't be the first time someone's spouse deep-sixed them.
3. Companies are free to choose not to do business with someone. Blizzard is not legally obliged to keep you as a customer, despite your history.
4. If you think this is some massive new-account generating conspiracy on the part of Blizzard you should perhaps lie down for a while
Post by
ElhonnaDS
From what I understand, Blizzard's policy to not outline how botters were caught is a conscious decision to keep from helping them circumvent the detection process. They will never tell someone how they were caught, or disclose evidence, because it hinders further investigations. And because the TOS/EULA says that you agree they can close your account for any reason, or no reason, at any time, there is nothing that compels them to do so. In your example of the $1,000,000.00 you would be discussing someone taking something of yours in an unauthorized manner. In this case, they're shutting down your access to something of theirs, in a way you previously agreed they were authorized to do. Apples & oranges.
In terms of a marketing ploy, the battle chest with the first three games is what- like $20? And then even if you pay normal price for Cata and MoP, that still comes out to less than a year of subscription. As irate as you are right now, can you imagine that so many more people are willing to just keep paying on a new account rather than show their anger by not buying in again, that this would be profitable? I can't. Blizzard is already showing a subscription decline because newer games with newer graphics are giving them more and more of a run for their money with gamers who haven't gotten invested in any one MMO yet. A lot of the appeal they have is for players who have already sunk a lot of time into WoW, and would rather not start brand new in a new MMO. Asking someone to restart with a new account removes that appeal.
As someone who works in marketing for another company, your proposal that they are pissing off customers by banning innocent accounts in the hopes it will net them another new game sale seems ludicrous. It most definitely would lead to more people leaving the game than re-subbing, and they would immediately notice that their plan was costing them money if in fact it had ever existed. I know that I, if I lost my account, would likely start over in a different game, rather than re-grind out all the things I did once in WoW, and I think a lot of people feel the same way even with no animosity towards the company. Part of the hassle of starting a new game is having done so much work on your old characters. Close the account, and nothing holds you to one game over another other than the quality.
I understand you're upset, but I find the idea that there is some malicious master plan to turn old subscribers into new subscribers to be silly. Not because I think they have some kind of moral opposition to it, but because it would absolutely not do anything but cost them money. WoW is not a monopoly anymore- they have stiff competition for people who are starting fresh. Making their easiest to retain customers into their hardest to retain customers on the hopes that they'll make an extra 70-90 bucks off them one time is just not financially sound.
There is no doubt both that Blizzard really believes that you were botting, and that they did more than just roll the dice to decide that. It's possible that they got a false positive, and that would be a topic worth discussing. But starting off with the accusation that they did it to you on purpose to make you buy the game again makes it easy to discount your other claims. If we take them at face value however, there are a couple of things that I imagine might be a reason any detection efforts on their part might have flagged you:
1) Excessive macro use- it's quite possible that if you used macros for some repetitive action, especially related to farming, that it might have suggested botting.
2) Being actively logged in for long periods of time- like 24 hours plus- might look suspicious. If you share the account with a minor, or a roommate, and they log in when you log out, that could make it look like you're on nearly nonstop.
3) Excessively farming. And I imagine it would have to be quite excessive, because I spent weeks fishing up those four fish pets and logged a lot of time doing that. If you were pulling in large quantites of materials it might have looked off.
4) Do you have kids? Are you sure they weren't on your account at all? They might have done something suspicious.
5) Are you using any new add-ons that might be seen as crossing the line?
EDIT: 6) Per Eccentrica's post, I would wonder if your wife has the knowhow to get you banned for botting. How tech saavy/game-aware is she?(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
Berndorf
While I agree with some of the above statements regarding a conspiracy on Bliz's part I don't think its beyond the pale to think that a gm may have decided to ban him for some off the wall reason which amounts to abuse of authority. While I generally think wow has very good customer support and some very dedicated and considerate gms I've also heard stories such as this one before and any company the size of Bliz is going to have a few bad applies slip through every once in a while. Same way the cia has people willing to sell highly damaging top secret files to other country's for thousands of dollars. Some people just can't help but to abuse authority.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
While I agree with some of the above statements regarding a conspiracy on Bliz's part I don't think its beyond the pale to think that a gm may have decided to ban him for some off the wall reason which amounts to abuse of authority. While I generally think wow has very good customer support and some very dedicated and considerate gms I've also heard stories such as this one before and any company the size of Bliz is going to have a few bad applies slip through every once in a while. Same way the cia has people willing to sell highly damaging top secret files to other country's for thousands of dollars. Some people just can't help but to abuse authority.
I think that it's true that someone may issue a ban based on some erroneous reason if they're having a bad day- not every employee is perfect. But in almost every large company, appeals of something like this are handled by different people than issue the initial ban. For multiple people up the chain to hold up a wrongly issued ban, and for such a ban to be issued twice for the same account 3 months apart (likely by different GM's) seems statistically unlikely to be based on someone's power trip. If the customer's response was extremely vitriolic after the initial ban, then that kind of language might have made the second and third person to look at the case decide to back a poorly supported ban, but other than that I don't know why they would.
I know that the Blizzard CS rep that they assigned to hang out on Wowhead has looked into accounts of accounts perma-banned for our members. A couple of times, frequent travel or something else gave a false positive for account sharing, and his review got them overturned. Other times, he looked at the evidence and said he couldn't do anything because it was solid. The more layers of customer service you go through and are still told you're in the wrong, the more solid the reason they have has to be to stick.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
Berndorf
I think that it's true that someone may issue a ban based on some erroneous reason if they're having a bad day- not every employee is perfect. But in almost every large company, appeals of something like this are handles buy different people than issue the initial ban. For multiple people up the chain to hold up a wrongly issued ban, and for such a ban to be issued twice for the same account 3 months apart (likely by different GM's) seems statistically unlikely to be based on someone's power trip. If the customer's response was extremely vitriolic after the initial ban, then that kind of language might have made the second and third person to look at the case decide to back a poorly supported ban, but other than that I don't know why they would.
I know that the Blizzard CS rep that they assigned to hang out on Wowhead has looked into accounts of accounts perma-banned for our members. A couple of times, frequent travel or something else gave a false positive for account sharing, and his review got them overturned. Other times, he looked at the evidence and said he couldn't do anything because it was solid. The more layers of customer service you go through and are still told you're in the wrong, the more solid the reason they have has to be to stick.
At the same time I think they could at least give the player some idea of what the perma ban is being based upon or why they think he is a botter or w/e the reason is for the ban. Its not required to do so but given his history as a loyal customer I think they should be willing to admit it could be a mistake. Having layers of review does help but to use my analogy above, I think the cia has more layers of security for classified data than Bliz uses reviewing bans but things still slip through.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Well they do tell you what the ban is for- botting- but they don't describe the circumstances for the reasons I stated above- they don't want to help you not get caught next time.
What I was saying about the CS rep having bans overturned, and also having seen letters people were send after regular CS overturns a ban, is that when they think they have made a mistake they DO admit it. The reason that the OP's note doesn't say they might have is that having looked at the evidence, they don't think that's the case. They only should admit it may be accidental if it in fact, in their opinion, may have been accidental. And even then, the first time they did overturn the ban despite ruling it was a justified ban, so they did once before make an allowance to keep him as a customer even though they felt he was cheating.
Post by
Eccentrica
They told him the reason why. 3rd party software, ie bots. If they got into the practice of telling people how they found it bot authors would be able to circumvent detection.
In the long run, destroying the game for everyone else to satisfy the natural curiousity or doubts of one previous customer is simply not worth it.
Post by
Berndorf
Well they do tell you what the ban is for- botting- but they don't describe the circumstances for the reasons I stated above- they don't want to help you not get caught next time.
What I was saying about the CS rep having bans overturned, and also having seen letters people were send after regular CS overturns a ban, is that when they think they have made a mistake they DO admit it. The reason that the OP's note doesn't say they might have is that having looked at the evidence, they don't think that's the case. They only should admit it may be accidental if it in fact, in their opinion, may have been accidental. And even then, the first time they did overturn the ban despite ruling it was a justified ban, so they did once before make an allowance to keep him as a customer even though they felt he was cheating.
I'm sure Bliz takes it all seriously before handing down a perma ban on a 7 yr customer but I just think he should have a chance to plead his case in the face of w/e evidence they have. I'm sure they are tracking patterns of behavior but players getting a ban for botting while actually playing the game themselves is something that goes on often in wow. Why do I feel like I am arguing against the nsa right now?
ps I'm willing to give the op the benefit of the doubt when he says he uses no third party software that allows for botting or other anti eula activities.
They told him the reason why. 3rd party software, ie bots. If they got into the practice of telling people how they found it bot authors would be able to circumvent detection.
In the long run, destroying the game for everyone else to satisfy the natural curiousity or doubts of one previous customer is simply not worth it.
If they have solid proof he is using botting software then I could understand them not revealing it but I am going off of his assertion that he uses no such tools in game. Of course its possible that a hacker is using his account without his knowledge while using botting software.(##RESPBREAK##)2060##DELIM##Sas148##DELIM##
Post by
1132470
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
SoCalWoWGal
Account security is both our responsibility as players and Blizzard's responsibility as a company.
No
company that provides internet access to any account (gaming or otherwise) wants to "
steal legitimate accounts to force us to buy new ones
".
Blizzard Representative
Araxom
, wrote the following in response to
this post
Firstly, now would be a good time to pitch the
authenticator
and the
SMS Protect
- both are excellent utilities to help protect the accounts. Now, to summarize the notes here - basically, we want to keep our players in the game, however our system can and will lock an account down if it looks like it's being accessed from a location that is not generally in the area of where the account is associated.
Resetting the password
is generally sufficient to get around this. Now, if an account is reported as compromised, we'll do our best to look at the activity on the account and provide the necessary restorations. These are not guaranteed to get an account back in the exact shape it was in, and the sooner the issue is reported, the better shape the account will likely be in after we attend to it.
As was previously stated in the thread, if we cannot verify the account was accessed from another location, then this is considered a domestic compromise, (i.e. shared account). It would not matter if the account owner had knowledge of the issue or not, as we would be unable to verify that either way. I hope that sheds more light on the issue.
From reading your post, it seems that you have a security issue at your residence. Just because your account was closed during a time when you were not accessing the account, does not mean that the activity that caused Blizzard to close the account occurred at that time.
The initial breach was discovered by Blizzard's internal systems and you were notified of the discovery. Regardless of when the second violation of the
ToU
occurred, you were informed that the account had violated the ToU in the past, and it is
your responsibility
to follow the rules. Blizzard did their due-diligence to determine if the account was closed in error, and instructed you to do your due diligence to determine what happened on your end.
Post by
1144074
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Eccentrica
+1 for rational and calm response.
I do actually know the feeling of being account banned. I was keylogged once and the account thief got my account banned within 10 minutes of seizing it. I was playing at the time, got d/ced, tried to log back in and found the password no longer worked. Reported the theft immediately and regained access within minutes, only to discover the ban. I then had to go through the process of appealing the ban, attaching the account recovery emails as evidence. Whole thing happened so quickly, and I was enraged at being stolen from, devastated at the loss of the acccount, and utterly relieved to have it back.
Post by
1144074
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Berndorf
To be clear: The account does have an authenticator, I seriously doubt that it was "Hacked" as usually a hacker would strip all of the characters down and move on, not run a Bot program on it in hopes that Blizz will catch on and Ban the account... At least I have never heard of a Hacker doing this. While it was never specifically stated I can make some assumptions based on the verbiage. I am quite certain they have the ability to track the Log in IP and MAC id of the machine logging in. When the GM said he had done research to determine if I had been "Hacked" I assume this is what he meant, and had concluded that whatever infraction had taken place had happened from my machine. I am not tech savvy ebough beyond that to speculate what may or may not have happened. The only thing that I know is that I did not break their TOS, and I honestly don't know what triggered the actions against me. and I do say with all sincerity and honesty wish that they could/would explain to me what happened to me to prevent it from happening to any one else. I have said it before , but I will say it again: I do believe that Blizzard is 100% convinced that I used a BOT, and I have no idea why, because I did not.
Do you ever do anything that could possibly give the impression of being a bot while playing? ie spending an hour or so just farming materials or things that people sometimes get reported for?
Post by
1144074
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Aerozia
so... does anyone else have your info? access to your authenticator? you haven't answered that straightforward. so I take it you're QQing because you let someone play on your account and they screwed you over.
Post by
517094
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
842375
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.