Recently my account was banned, not suspended, but banned, for something I did not do. I have appealed, stating I did not do these things, but all I have gotten back are AI generated or copy/pasted responses stating they will not discuss and that their decision is final.
Is there a way to escalate past GM’s to someone? At least someone that breaths and has a pulse? I am almost 100% positive a real person has not even sniffed at my appeals. It’s pretty awful to dedicate so much time to a game to then be unjustifiably banned and get no response as to why.
No. If you’ve appealed several times, then it has indeed been looked at by real people. They have, since the ticket system was setup, always used templates for account action appeals.
The reason for your account action would have been part of the original e-mail. They will not, nor have they ever, given more specifics on why an account action has taken place aside from the category it falls under and is provided when the account action is taken.
Oh they told me why in the original email, which again, was something I did not do, nor have I ever done. My son was banned for the same reason, however, he was justifiably banned, and that has been taken care of.
My assumption is that since we play from the same IP my account was also targeted for what he was doing. I explained this in my appeal, and was given a canned response. I reappealed, and was given the same response.
The appeal process is not intended for you argue your innocence. It allows a different GM to review the action against your account and determine if the evidence from their logs merits the action taken.
You received a templated response, these exist to help speed up the process of response times and help keep information consistent.
You can always continue to appeal until you are informed that further appeals will not be considered.
And you would be 100% wrong on you guess. Your appeals are being looked at by real human eyes.
They normally send you a email giving you general idea of what the subject of ban is. It is a very broad area. But it is normally enough for people who have read the ToS/EULA to understand where they went wrong.
So, my best advice to keep appealing, one at a time until they tell you to stop.
No need to be a troll… Why would I mean that? I would think a real person would explain why they banned my account, not just copy and paste the same response that was in the original ban notice.
Lets say someone accused you of murder, but you never murdered anyone. You go to trial, and you ask for the evidence of this murder you are accused of, and the judge just says, “You murdered someone”. You appeal and say, I didn’t please tell me why you think I murdered someone, and the judge just ignores you and says again, “You murdered someone.”
And now you are in jail, for something you didn’t do, and something that even the judge can’t explain to you.
Does your son play on their own computer or do they use yours? Or have you played from the same machine at all? Depending on the situation or reason for account action, I’m just wondering if you may have played using a computer that had some sort of illicit software that may have been running at the time you played. This indeed cause an account action.
Yes, Game Masters are real, and they use templates to help with easier communication and understanding between them, and the player.
They have access to everything. Everything you do in game, they have access to that data. And they look at that data before sending you a response. Sorry, but if you have done something wrong, and have been caught, then there isn’t anything anyone here can do.
Speaking of sharing a PC, I have a question. I have to send in my PC to a computer shop for some cleaning and fixing of some of the fans, and I was thinking of heading to a nearby internet cafe to play WoW while waiting for my computer to be fixed. Since it is basically shared computers, if someone was caught at that internet cafe violating any of the rules or the EULA, would anyone who attends that internet cafe who want to play World of Warcraft be at risk of possible account action because of that one person, or is there stuff Blizzard would factor in before making any judgement of that sort?
To keep the comparison closer to Apples to Apples. It would be akin to going to arbitration and the mediator relying heavily on verified text messages that were sent from participant A to participant B.
Edit:
So even if someone else was using "A"s phone to send those messages it would have to be more examined to make the determination that it was actually someone else, “A” just made up the second person or finally they just can’t tell.
It’s why you are allowed to file multiple appeals, sometimes things need to get elevated for a more comprehensive review of the facts at hand.
I suspect the issue is he installed something on the PC. It was running - even if you didn’t realize it.
I see you have an appeal in, but yes - technically, this is a valid action. If you had bad software on the machine/in memory - and played, it would reflect on your license.
Thank you for the response Orlyia, I really appreciate it.
So in their eyes (and I get it), there is no real way to prove that I didn’t do something illicit (outside of my word), and vice versa, there is no way for me to prove I didn’t do something illicit, as my son was using the computer, and there could have been times I logged onto my account and there was something running in the background. I assumed I was banned because he was banned and we share the same IP.
I would think they would look at your entire history though. I have been playing classic now for a few years, and have never had so much as a warning against my account. I have played retail on and off since 2004, and again, never had an issue with anyone/no EULA violations/ etc. It is crazy to me they would jump straight to a ban, and then not really provide context.
Don’t lose hope, there is a chance it may get overturned. I am not aware how high or low those chances are. But you have a appeal in. And with luck they may determine that your account did not benefit from this.
I’m not saying get your hopes up there with the clouds. I’m just saying it is possible.
Edit
Ahh Orlyia already responded. I still wish you the best of luck.
In that case, why does your son have admin on that computer? If he’s going to try and use stuff like that, which generally requires admin permissions, if you take those away, it’s much harder for him to cause trouble.