My wife and I have played WOW for over a decade and while my play time has diminished she continues to Raid and play daily… Well until yesterday.
We were sitting on the couch and she got an email from Bliz stating that her subscription was cancelled so she asked me if I did it and after promising that I did not (common threat in our household is to cut off each others gaming) we checked to see if it was a fishing attempt but it was not it was real. No biggie we thought just need to re-authorize our sub but then she got the following email:
Account Action: Suspended until 2020/03/19
Offense: Use of Bots or Third-Party Automation Software
Blizzard Entertainment has suspended this World of Warcraft account after identifying the usage of bots or other cheat software.
After trying to log into her account and realizing that this is real we tried to figure out what in the world was going on. We know that she is not using any cheating or bot software. We maintain active antivirus and she has no desire to take the “gaming” out of her Game.
We logged into her account assuming that it had been hacked and to our surprise it looked perfectly fine. She had SMS auth setup with an old phone number so she added the 2FA app and re-secured her account but it did not seem like she had actually been hacked. I logged into my account (I rarely play these days but maintain an active sub) and checked the login times on her characters and they all seemed roughly correct.
She took the logical step of appealing the Ban but was summarily denied with no explanation. So at this stage she is just completely screwed out of the characters that she spent a decade building up and so pissed off at the situation that she doesn’t want to deal with it anymore which means drifting away from the friends that she has cultivated over the years in this game that she loved.
The only thing that is weird that we run on our network is Pi-Hole which is a blackhole for common spyware/malware/tracking domains. It runs network wide and I am thinking it may be possible that it is interfering with one of the tools that Bliz uses in order to return telemetry data on players to make sure that they are not cheating. Doesn’t anyone else know if Pi-Hole might cause a legitimate player to get banned?
Unfortunately, the suspension can’t be appealed via the forums. The reason that they are so vague is so that others cannot try to bypass Blizz detection.
Keep in mind, appeals are only for a second/third/etc. set of eyes to look at their data and see if the suspension is appropriate. It’s not an opportunity to plead your wife’s case or ask if specific programs can lead to account actions.
The thing is though, Blizzard won’t tell anyone if that software could cause a ban, so even if someone said that they had a similar situation, that still doesn’t prove anything as Blizz won’t confirm if that software did it.
From what I’ve glanced at so far on google, it doesn’t look like something that would cause Blizz to think that your wife is using bots or third party software. Not to mention that they likely would have hit your account too if it’s running on your network.
Thank you for your continued correspondence. After an additional thorough review of the action taken against this account, we have arrived at the same conclusion. The account action will not be removed under any circumstance. Since the use of unauthorized third party programs was taking place while the account was being accessed from the normal play location the suspension will be upheld. There is no evidence of a compromise and the authenticator and phone number have been on the account throughout the duration. The suspension will expire after 2020-03-19 05:58:57 (GMT). As for the subscription being cancelled, that was from us because it was to avoid having you paying for game time on a game license that you would be unable to use. While we understand that you may have concerns regarding the nature or application of the policies related to this account action, we must reiterate that it is the result of a breach of the Terms of Use (https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/legal), which all players accept before accessing the game environment. As this issue has been reviewed by multiple representatives, it is now considered closed. Should you have any questions regarding a different account or issue, please feel free to contact us again. Further inquiries regarding this issue will no longer receive a reply.
To clarify, Konoo, this was a suspension, not a ban/account closure. I’m afraid that our team found evidence that indicated a violation of our policies.
When appealed our teams reexamine the evidence provided to confirm if their original action was warranted. Thus far, that does indeed seem to be the case. I believe she has another ticket open so hopefully they’ll be able to find something that says otherwise. Good luck.
I am just trying to make sure that I didn’t get my Wife banned from her favorite past time with my silly network security. We are parents/old people and are not looking to work around anything legitimate it’s just frustrating when a significant part of what you enjoy in life simply disappears and you don’t know why.
Man, if nothing truly happened, and I have no reason to believe it did by your attitude, I hope it gets figured out.
That said, by chance do you have a gaming keyboard or mouse that has the ability to make macros? We have seen macro’s made with that software appear to be the culprit in the past. Macro’s created with these can bypass the 1 button one action rule. And that would fall under automation.
If so, perhaps that helped shed some light on it. If not, be careful with the appeals as the line…
Continuing to submit appeals would be considered GM Harassment and can lead to further account action. I would hate to dogpile onto an already bad situation.
I had this exact same thing happen yesterday, i came here looking to see if there was anyone else with this same issue. I did the same appeal process and got a flat denial, i have appealed again but haven’t heard anything back.
Can you share the resolution or at least what the cause may have been? I don’t use PI-Hole or any other firewall beyond my netgear router which hasn’t changed in 3 years. I honestly have no clue what could have triggered the guardian to think that i was botting, i have had my account for 14 years, i have never botted nor do i ever intend to bot, the only thing i can come up with is that something falsely flagged my account but i can’t get an answer to what that was as i just got the cookie cutter response on my first appeal. I really just want to get back to playing, if there was something that triggered the ban i can remove it, i just need to know what it is.
Blizzard generally won’t tell anyone what triggered it. They’re deliberately vague on purpose - people want that information to help avoid detection or lawyer the rules.
Sounds awfully familiar. I had an account of mine banned a few months ago, summarily and with no proper explanation. At first it said words to the effect of abuse or manipulation of the economy, then changed to use of 3rd party software (ie : the reason was inconsistent). I naturally challenged the ban and was shut down with basically “we are right, you are cheating, we won’t explain anything more”. After asking again, I was threatened that my whole battle.net account would be banned if I continued to re-apply for a review as it was considered abuse of Blizzard staff. At that point with no recourse I was stonewalled. I most certainly wasn’t abusive, very upset I still vehemently deny any cheating (after playing for 15yrs), and nobody could give me a genuine or reasonable explanation for the ban. It still sits badly in my mind, I quit the game for several months, then relented and returned. But to hear other people experiencing similar issues it’s a real shame.
The problem is that giving you insight into the detection system helps those who wish cheat. They stalk the forums and ask people who buy their cheat software to report any GM feedback to help them learn to avoid bans.
I am not accusing you. I am just stating why they don’t share detection details,
If you got to the point they were thinking of banning your whole Bnet account, then you kept contacting them way after they said the issue was closed and they would not take any more appeals. That takes quite a few appeals for the same issue before that happen. Sometimes, no is no.
Hopefully your current account is free from issues and this never happens again
Try to make a fuss on Reddit. If you get enough attention there’s a good guy CM there that almost always review wrong doings like yours seems to be. Good Luck!
What strikes me as odd, is I multibox (freehand, no addons), and one account was banned (I mean banned, not suspended), yet my other accounts untouched, yet as Blizzard “sees all” surely they would presume all my accounts are corrupt by whatever inexplicably horrible thing I’ve been banned for and thus banned them all (no that’s not an open invitation but that’s logic). There’s so many inconsistencies in my experience, that’s why I asserted strongly (but respectfully) and got nowhere. Not sure making a fuss matters but I appreciate your thoughts. And Mira I appreciate your comments also, it just feels bad from where I sit. But dredging it up doesn’t fix anything (I merely wanted to give the OP acknowledgement they’re not alone, but sounds like they fortunately get some resolution). Sadly I don’t get that consideration.
