Ban system perma-banning clean accounts since Monday

Bug Report
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Hi,

Since this Monday (22nd of April), a lot of people, myself included, have been hit out of the blue with a permanent ban that lacks a justified reason. It’s the standard: ‘Recent activity on this account has shown various and continued actions deemed inappropriate for Overwatch. These actions violate our Code of Conduct and create an unacceptable detriment to our players.’ I have thoroughly reviewed the Terms of Use and In-game Policies but remain unclear on the justification for this action.

I’ve been very actively playing OW2 on PC since it got released. I’ve got 1100+ hours, always max endorsement, never ever had any chat mutes/warnings/suspension, obviously don’t cheat and have grinded all the battlepasses/events/Twitch drops/purchased skins/etc. So you can imagine how disheartening it feels.

Given my clean record and dedication to fair play, I suspect my ban may be related to the recent changes in gameplay mechanics, such as the new Defense Matrix, which could have triggered a false detection. Alternatively, it’s possible that unjustified reports from other players led to this outcome. Coincidentally or not coincidentally, a lot of people also have been banned from competitive without any reason, and I think there may be a connection.

Of course, I immediately sent an appeal through support, but I, as all the other people, only got a standard and automated reply back after a few hours. Which I also replied to 2 days ago, but I haven’t heard anything yet. I know the moderators here won’t be able to check what’s going on, but I hope someone will pass this on to someone from the department who handles it. A human needs to look at this issue and address it. It’s not normal.

I’ve done a lot of searching on Twitter/Reddit/Blizzard Forums, and they all basically in the same boat as me. And it all started since this Monday. They also state they never had any prior offences or warnings, they get banned out of the blue and also only received the standard and automated reply linking to the ToS. Here are links of the recent topics posted in this forum:

That’s already a lot of people (including the people who only commented in one of them, and didn’t make a new topic), without mentioning the people on Twitter and Reddit (but those for some reason always get deleted by the mods).

If anyone else is going through this or has insights into what might be happening, please share your thoughts. It’s important to figure out what’s going on and hopefully get this issue resolved.

Help us, please.
Khashi

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I’m in the same boat, no prior suspensions/warnings, and a strange lack of details given in the suspension email. I’m positive there’s been some kind of issue with whatever automated ban system is used, but it’s near impossible to get in contact with an actual human worker at blizzard, let alone anyone who could investigate the issue. The fact that so many people had their accounts suspended in this manor at the same time is suspicious to me, as well as the fact that - like you said - many people are having issues with competitive bans today.

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Thanks for the post. I hope it gives this issue some visibility and traction.
Banned without warning or explanation. No email, just the vague Terms of Use response on appeal ticket. Waiting on review. Very frustrating. I’ve had this account since the beta of OW1.

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^ That reply is referring to incorrect leaver penalties leading to season bans. OP is referring to permanent account bans which several of us have been dealing with this week.

OP, I would link this post in a tweet and start tweeting at the @BlizzardCS account to hopefully bring it to a human’s attention.

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Thank you, that’s a great idea! Will get on it right now.

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I’ve been 24hour suspended today for: behaviour including, but not limited to, non-participation, going AFK repeatedly, inappropriate Custom Game names, queuing with accounts that have been flagged for cheating, and other behavior which negatively impacts your fellow players’ experience.

Of which I’ve done 0. At least it’s only 24 hours, I feel for you guys who have been hit with a perma :frowning:

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Maybe this is my punishment for standing up for others who had been banned yesterday xD

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My account randomly got unbanned?!!??! I didn’t get an email or anything, I just checked my Bnet and saw that the “account banned” tag was gone. I did tweet the BlizzardCS Twitter earlier today but they didn’t reply so I don’t think that had anything to do with it. I still haven’t heard anything about my ticket since I got the first bot reply.

Hope your account is back too or will come back soon!! What a headache…

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So happy for you!

I checked mine, but alas. This gives me a lot of hope, though!

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All the same, never baned before. Never any action like leave early frequently or rasisms and so an. Geu banned without any clear description. If not, how non trnsparency is that.so sad.

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hopefully this is a good sign for the rest of us, glad your account is back :slight_smile:

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We are very grateful for your sacrifice, I hope after the 24 hour ban your account will return (ノ= ⩊ = )ノ

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Indeed, I read too fast. I deleted my post

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Another update: I just got an email from Blizzard about my ban being overturned. Definitely keep pushing them in your appeal and hopefully you guys will get your accounts back soon. It looks like a real person is the one who overturned my ban and it took about 2 days from my last appeal message.

"Thank you for reaching out to us. We have reviewed the actions that have been taken on this account and found evidence that allowed us to overturn this penalty.

We’ve very sorry for the inconvenience You should have access once more. Thank you for your patience while this was looked into."

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Thanks for the update!

My last appeal message (a reply to the automated one) was also sent 2 days ago, so this is giving me even more hope.

Edit: I wish I was able to link this topic in it, but I don’t wanna send another one and get back at the end of the queue lol.

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GL everyone who was falsely banned<3

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It’s very great that you finally received it, but I can’t send another one because the first one is already hanging, which they haven’t responded to for 3 days, and the second one, which hasn’t even been viewed, and they haven’t responded to it for 2 days

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glad you got the situation sorted for you! if you don’t mind me asking, when did you reopen your ticket? It’s been almost 72 hours since i reopened mine and it hasn’t received any kind of response

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Same. I’m debating whether to open a new ticket referencing the first or to wait it out a bit longer.

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Personally I’m only going to open a new ticket if the status changes from ‘opened’ on my current one, I don’t want to accidentally lengthen the process by making a second ticket if that makes sense.
I’m assuming that it’s taking a while for blizzard support to make their way through every false ban appeal. They may also be prioritising the current issue with competitive bans, which could be slowing down ticket response times, but that’s just speculation on my part.

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