Appeal Process and Talking with a GM

Hi, long time vanilla wow player here. Since I’ve never had my account suspended for 14 days (or at all), I’ve now had to appeal for this, what’s the time frame for replies from blizzard side like?

I remember I had once compromised my account during BC and someone from blizzard side helped me restore and was in constant communication through email during that time till the entire process was done.

Is there any way to contact an actual person at blizzard customer service these days or is it always this ticket process and having to wait on a reply?

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Replies can take anywhere from a few hours, to several days. There is no way at all anymore for a direct communication line to Blizzard, and hasn’t been for years. Went from the best CS team, to what feels like the worst, so good luck on your appeal.

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Damn, that kinda sucks I can no longer contact with any CS directly.

Sigh guess I have to wait on this appeal process and hope for a reply and to get it resolved who knows by when.

The appeals process has always only been handled by tickets.

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That is incorrect. There was a time, eons ago now, that you could call Blizzard up, and they could help over the phone. Can’t do that anymore.

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You could call them yes, but it was meant for billing issues. That didn’t stop people from calling them for whatever other reasons and insisting on getting helped over the phone though.

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You’ve never been able to talk to anyone in the appeals them. They’d not be able to talk about what they found or tell you what stage of looking at the logs beyond of the upheld or removal of the account action. No, the phone nor live chat wasn’t there for this kind of thing, just to nip that idea in the bud.

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Not for appeals. That’s one of the reasons why the phone lines were eventually shut down - because people were calling in with issues that the phone lines weren’t meant to address. The people whose matters were appropriate for the phone contact could never get through.

Appeals are only meant to go through the ticket system.

Last I heard appeals were hanging around a week’s turnaround right now. I’m not sure if that has been dwindling down at all of recent or not. Perhaps one of our SFAs will pop in at some point to offer some sort of insight into your appeal/sanction. Good luck to you, regardless of how it goes.

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I am new to this whole “Appeal” process.

But there was a time during Vanilla/Burning Crusade/Lich King if a player got banned you could talk with a Customer Service Representative through though email back and forth and get the issue resolved. I’ve seen and had it done with multiple guild members back then. Am just new to this entire “Appeal” process.

Appeals can run about a week, although you may get the initial warning email with cause and instructions on how to appeal. Then an initial automated response with information about the rules of the game.

Appeals and compromise investigations are completely different, but they do involve reviewing the logs. Appeals are not a back and forth discussion, only a review of said logs and the penalty involved.

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Appeals have never been a one on one interaction, Dafti.

I can tell you your ticket is open, but this one isn’t likely to be overturned.

I can also tell you that the 1,500,000 gold you received from a level 1 character was from an exploitive account.

Really a bad idea to deal in those kinds of transactions with a level 1. If someone says - let me get my alt, tell them to transfer the funds to their main and have THEM make the trade.

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Yeah that’s about what I thought. They did, in fact, go with some RMT.

That is the problem of taking gold from people you do not know. As far as blizzard is concerned you engaged in RMT! Gold from a exploitive account = very bad things. No way for you to really know. But this is why you do not trade with people you do not know and never with level 1s

Especially in a transaction with so many huge flashing red flags.

Anyone who claims to have not understood what was happening is either deluded or lying.

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So, why isn’t more being done to get rid of exploitive accounts? I mean, it seems to be no problem punishing people who get taken advantage of by the exploitive accounts.

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Obviously the exploitative account was punished too, probably with permanent closure.

Then they go and steal a new one.

The only way to stop RMT is to kill the market of people buying their ill-gotten gains. That’s what happened here. People get a slap on the wrist (a 14-day suspension is not bad at all considering RMT can get your account shut down forever) to remind them to pay attention and understand that if a deal has this many red flags, they should walk away.

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Because its a multi billion not a typo black market industry untill player stop looking for the easy way out and stop trying to cheat the system there will be cockroaches that will prey on the stupid.

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Exploitive accounts are closed monthly. There used to be posts on the classic forums with monthly updates of account closures close to 100,000 accounts in the beginning.

But there’s more incentive for these organizations to continue their criminal gains, and apparently still not enough awareness in the player base that no good comes from buying insecure gold on the black market.

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Because there isn’t a magic bullet to fix this. It’s players going to the shady sites and handing over their account/CC info. Blizzard isn’t sitting there letting it happen, they’re going after those places when they can, legally, to shut them down. If they can snap their fingers to make it stop for good, it’d have been done years ago.

And yes, other MMOs have this issue, too. This isn’t a WoW thing.

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Account and billing yes but apeals are completly different.