Friend's account was closed for exploitative activity: unauthorized cheat programs (hacks)

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My friend’s Ticket ID: #104182210 (marked as resolved) and #US104205203 (currently opened)

I understand I might not be able to do anything for him, and that he’s only able to help himself by submitting an appeal (which he did), but he’s at his wits’ end, and he can’t post on the forums because his account was closed, so the least I could do is to help him create a thread here and try to get the attention of a Blizzard CS rep. I beg you to listen as my friend believes he was wrongfully banned (cheating/hacking was the reason given to him).

My friend and I were farming war supply crates for conquest on the 1st of April. After we parted ways, he was suddenly disconnected from the game, and he received an e-mail telling him that his account has been closed for Exploitative Activity: Unauthorized Cheat Programs (Hacks). I would like stress that he has never used any cheats/third-party program, and he is very very strong in his denial. We believe that he is the victim of a false positive detection that might have led to his account closure.

Here are some things that have happened to him, or what he did prior to getting banned:

  • The day before he got banned, he was mass reported by players on the other side in an Epic Battleground as he was accused of running with premades (which players argue it is an exploit), but the fact is, he was solo queuing.
  • On the day he got banned, he downloaded an addon Rdy’s Crate Tracker which is use for tracking the timer for war supply crates in each zone.

We do not believe that him getting mass reported or downloading that addon (which many including myself use it) led to his account closure. Hence we are puzzled as to why he suddenly got banned, when he does not, and never have used any third party cheat program. He submitted an appeal.

The first response he got was:

This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673 ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players. Our Battle.net Terms of Use can be found at https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html

So he re-opened the ticket and continued to maintain that he used no hacks/programs, and asked what program did he supposedly used that resulted in his ban? He got the exact same response above, and the ticket was marked as Resolved and he was unable to re-open the ticket.

My friend is really feeling helpless, and he keeps getting a template response. Please, please, Blizzard CS team. I beg you to help my friend out! He has played this game for many many years, spent too much money and time on this game, he would never use any hacks/programs to risk his account. I know many here will be skeptical of his innocence and I don’t blame you. There are many people who actually cheated, and they deny it, and they’re not helping those who are wrongfully banned. We appreciate it if the Blizzard Hack Team is able to review his case so that he will at least know what know what he was banned for.

The ticket ID is #104182210, which was marked as resolved by the GM. He has since opened a new ticket to further appeal his case (#US104205203). Please help out! We strongly believe he was wrongfully banned, and we ask for a further review of his case!

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No one on the forums handle appeals, each ticket is handled by a human being in the appeals team. They go over the logs they have - it’s a black/white thing, its they found something or they didn’t. Your friend can appeal until they’re told to stop.

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This is a player to player help desk with occasional assistance from SFA Blues. This is not a place for appeals.

If a SFA blue comes around they will not share detailed information with a 3rd party. All your friend can do is keep appealing until they ask him to stop.

As per policy Blizzard uses template responses when dealing with account actions. These are sent by actual GM’s who have reviewed the logs and every time a different GM reviews it.

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Support Forum Agents doesn’t handle appeals, they don’t escalate appeals, nor they can change the outcome of the appeals. All appeals are handled via the ticket system.

With that also being said.

The hacks team is never going to reveal exactly what the logs say, and there is multiple reasons exactly as to why. But this is between your friend and the hacks team. And the appeals process is not for your friend to plead their case. It is there incase Blizzard has made an error, which your friend can only appeal in case this was an error.

Now, if you want to pass this information along to your friend, there could be a few factors that triggered for action to be taken against his account:

  • Any programs used to streamline or automate gameplay, even if not being used for WoW, can flag the account for action.
  • Work Software. This has been responsible too. Usually best to have computer for gaming and a computer for work seperated.
  • Streamlining any gameplay in any way.
  • Keyboard/Mouse Macro’s set up outside of the game.

Like, these are some examples. But Blizzard will never reveal exactly what. But as others have mentioned, only thing that can be done, is for your friend to keep appealing. But nobody here, including the SFA’s, can change the outcome or escalate, or unban your friend, and the forums are not a place to appeal.

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I know you are just trying to help, but when it isn’t your account, you really can’t.

Your friend still has appeals open. I’d have him keep an eye on that for responses.

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Also just wanted to add so you know, what a person was doing in the time leading up to an account action for exploits or cheats typically does not have anything to do with it. This is so that people who make exploitative software cannot just go run it and see if they get immediately actioned, thereby knowing that it was that exact software that flagged.

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I appreciate the response and I understand your point.
His latest ticket got a response.

Your ticket has received the following response:
Greetings,

We sent this along to our hacks team and they did come back with a modification of the penalty.

This license is no longer banned, it is, however suspended for 6 months, ending 9/30/2025.

I know this wasn’t what you were hoping for, but you should be able to play again at that time.

Thank you.

And then he received this in his email

Action Taken: We have temporarily suspended access to this WoW account.
Your account was reported multiple times by your fellow players for gameplay sabotage. Some examples of gameplay sabotage include intentionally preventing your fellow players from enjoying the game (griefing or blocking team progress), or repeatedly going AFK in a group-based game.

Suspension expires on: 09/30/2025 19:38:35

I understand this is not the place to appeal. But I just feel the need to say that, he has never engaged in any form of gameplay sabotage over the countless of times we were doing epic battlegrounds together. He is a team player and he is consistently among the top DPS/heals in the team. So we are both blown away by the ban he has received. He will never AFK, or block team progress, in fact, he’s a big contributor to the team’s victory.

I wish I could help him, but I know I can’t. All I can say is, we are both still shocked. First, his account was closed due to hacking/cheating, then it was downgraded to a 6-months suspension with the reason of gameplay sabotage. We know he has been mass reported the day prior to his ban, and I even witnessed it. I was in an Ashran battleground with him, and one of the players told him that he was reported by many players in an earlier battleground (they accused him of running with premade. Is that considered griefing, and bannable?).

I’ll tell him to keep appealing his case. But we’re confused. Why was he first banned for cheating/hacking, and his permanent ban turned into a suspension with a different reason (gameplay sabotage)?

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That first is from the overturn.

The second is an automatic system message when the downgrade was applied.

This had nothing at all to do with what you’ve listed in this thread.

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So his ban/6-months suspension is still due to “hacking/cheating” (which he is accused of), and not gameplay sabotage? And this “gameplay sabotage” is just a standard system generated message (and not necessarily the reason he got the ban/suspension for) for anyone who gets downgraded from a permanent ban (for whatever reason they were banned for)?

In any case, I will advice him to continue appealing. I really do appreciate your follow-up on my posts.

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While welcome to, I don’t think it’ll help.

The account was changed from perm-ban to a 6 month suspension upon the last appeal review. So something has indeed been detected and investigated by Blizzard.

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This here can not result in a direct Cheating/Hacks ban. An account does not get actioned in the Anti-cheat (Hacks) category unless Blizzard’s software detects something it is programmed to look for, and flags the account. The reports for cheating ARE used, but they are used as part of learning about a new bot, botting location/behavior, exploit, etc. They use the reports to do the research, identify unique components they can flag, then program the anti-cheat software to detect it. All the reports in the world won’t just get someone a Hacks ban.

The Hacks team CAN have false positives, but it is not related to reporting.

Social penalties for chat do have an automated squelch (pending GM review) that can kick in if enough unique Bnet accounts report something in a short enough period of time. That has been in the game for well over a decade as an anti gold spammer stop while it is in queue to be reviewed.

Correct it seems.

That will likely not help. It has already been escalated to the Hacks team and reviewed. They were willing to lower the penalty to 6 months, which means they don’t think the account is purely exploitive - they realize a real player is behind the account. There is still something valid that set off that anti-cheat flag though and they confirmed it.

If someone keeps appealing eventually the GMs will tell them to stop - and if they don’t it crosses to GM harassment and can have Bnet account penalties. Please be careful not to cross that line.

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While he is riding out his suspension, he should look at his system and see what is running in background and remove any nefarious software, if it’s a work computer also he should change it so that he uses one system for work and one for gaming.

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I just want to reiterate a part of what was posted by Ayukama above:

It’s important to note that ANY program that your friend uses for work, another game, or something that was downloaded out of curiosity, even if not used for WoW can be picked up by Warden.

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He maintains that he is innocent, so he will continue fighting to save his account as he thinks that any suspension is unwarranted. As you mentioned, false positives can happen, and I have seen multiple cases of people being falsely banned for cheating/hacking being completely overturned, with some being overturned very fast, some took couple of weeks (after their appeals have been rejected for a few times). My friend believes that he happens to be one of them.

I showed him the post you quoted. He insists that nothing out of the ordinary is going on in his computer, and that he’s using a gaming PC. Of course I cannot verify anything as his computer belongs to him, not me. The least I could do is to tell him to keep appealing.

I appreciate the input here from the forum community. I know I cannot do much but to just support him and wish him all the best in his appeal.

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The thing is this: It isn’t a matter of nagging to get what you want - they see something on there that flag it and is it seen in their logs but wanted to give your friend another chance. They’re not going to remove it if they keep putting in appeals to get it fully removed, that isn’t how they work and can easily get his battle net close if it crosses the line into GM harassment.

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All the advice given is solid and should be carefully considered. We as fellow players would hate to see you or your friend return here in six and a half or seven months with the same issue.

We all wish your friend the best of luck though.

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Just remember that windows 11 installs workflow software by default and some other stuff that could possibly cause a flag I only today found a workflow automation program on my own system and removed it. Luckily I haven’t been playing since before I started using windows 11.

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Your friend has his answer. He needs to come back in 6 months.

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Keep in mind, each action is completely different. Even if the reasoning seems the same, each action is completely different, as it is what the logs tell Blizzard for the individual player. Yes, Blizzard does make mistakes, but if you’re friend had their action reduced to a 6 month suspension, there is something on his computer that is a red flag for Blizzard, and would be unlikely a false positive. And as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t even have to be related to World of Warcraft, or even used for World of Warcraft.

Your friend can keep appealing if they like, but if they get told that their action will no longer be reviewed, it means it is time to stop, otherwise they could risk further action towards them, but on the Battle.net account level.

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Name the softwares? Because as far as I know, there’s nothing in the default Windows 11 installation that’s going to get your account flagged… For a very tiny moment, the “scroll inactive windows when hovering over them” mouse feature potentially false flagged a few accounts, but Blizzard seems to have fixed that(Blizzard never confirmed one way or the other if it was or wasn’t an issue, just a theory some people had since it could have potentially been used by multiboxers and botfarms). I use the feature all the time in multi-monitor workflows, so that I don’t have to click away from a window.

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