Got suspended by bots/ gold farmers

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1

Hey guys, I am an alliance mage in the sod Crusader strike. And I was suspended for two weeks on 3/11 for “buying gold”. I found crafting and selling on ah very interesting so I’ve been doing business on the AH for a while now, accumulated a good amount of gold that I would ever need.

On 3/11 in the middle of our guilds Naxxramas raid I got disconnected and saw the suspension. Immediately opened a ticket, got a response that seems to be very generic so opened more ticket. In the span of 3 days I got a few gm to take a look at my account and they assured me that the suspension is warranted and they’ve confirmed it.

I still have no idea why I got the suspension and I kept asking but it seems like the gm cannot get into details.

Today I got my account back, raided again and life is good again. So I was sorting through my mail and checking if I have any expired mail and I saw that on 3/12 midnight, I received a mail from a person I don’t know that sent me 10k gold. Now I have yet to confirm the time of its my time zone (I’m +8) or the games time zone. But I’m 100% sure I did not even see this mail as I usually prep my toon outside naxx and just go to bed before raid. When I woke up, I go straight into naxx and start the raid.

I didn’t see the mail, did not even open the mail. Yet I was suspended. Even though I have more than 15 times the amount of gold that was sent to me.

I hope I can get a gm to response to my question. How can I avoid it, if they deliberately send me gold and report me, because I’m their competitor on the auction house?

They obviously checked if I’m offline first, then send me the dirty gold, then reported me. There’s nothing I could have done to avoid it except to not sell and compete with them on the auction house.

So what should I do? Just not craft and sell I guess? Just raid log and give in to the demands of these bots/ gold farmers?

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Don’t accept it the mail? Be more vigilant. If you are unsure - return to sender.

Now, you honestly don’t know who reported you -because Blizzard will never tell you.

Not via the forums, there are no GM’s here.

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No I did not even have the chance to see the mail in my mailbox. They sent it to while I was sleeping and the night before my raid so I parked my toon outside of naxx. When I logged in, I went straight into naxx to raid so I never had the chance to even check my mail. I’m only seeing it now as I’m going through my expired mail. It looks like the gm classified it as bought gold and just made the mail “expired”

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That would probably be enough grounds for the suspension. Good luck if you appeal again. And always be vigilant on any mail you receive from now on.

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I get the impression a lot more is happening that what you’re saying.

Generally, it can take a long time before an account is actioned after being reported. Takes time for the ticket to get to the front of the queue, and takes time for the report to be investigated by a GM. It’s often something weeks ago that could have triggered/been reported.

You might have also been reported for multiple things, and the recent action against you was only just investigated.

Maybe a forum SFA (Moderator) might be able to shed a tiny bit of light on things for you, when they’re on duty later.

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I didn’t even had time to see the mail in my mailbox and I was suspended. How can I prevent it if I’m suspended before even reacting to the dirty gold mail?

I think the only way to avoid it is to let the bad guys in and not compete with them on ah. Lay low

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If you didn’t see or open the mail then it’s unlikely that it’s the cause. They will only give you a general category that your suspension falls under and won’t go into details as to the cause. What did the email that you received regarding why you were suspended say?

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Sorta agree with some others there seems to be more to this. Account actions aren’t normally reduced from permanent to 6 months for no reason, something isn’t quite right.

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Open a ticket of you recieving large ammounts of gold and explain the situation we had someone else that this happened to but they werent suspended.

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Thanks for the reply! Ya it is possible that something else may have flagged my account. But I’m 100% my account activity are legit and I’ve never done anything in game that would even be close to breaking the tos.

I’m so confident that if blizzard can prove that I did something wrong in game, I’m willing to donate 200,000 usd to the charity of blizzards choice.

What happened to me was simply unavoidable on my end.

I did not even see the mail yet. Well, that is assuming that’s the reason I got suspended. But I can’t think of any other activities that may lead to me being flagged

The original emailed said I was suspended 2 weeks for buying gold/botting

I’m quite certain the cause of my suspension is the dirty gold from the mail because, I never saw the mail, and it’s showing expired even though it was sent two weeks ago. So a gm must have “expire” it for me, or removing the gold in my mail.

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You’re speculating what the cause was.

Blizzard can see everything we do in-game.

As I said before, I feel there is a lot more going on that you’re revealing. The last thing Blizzard wants to do is perm-ban anybody. They don’t take account action lightly. Yes, sometimes mistakes are made, but with respect to the overall number of actioned accounts, it’s relatively small percentage - but this is why there is an appeals process. You can keep appealing until you are told no more appeals will be accepted.

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My suspension was a two week ban. Not permanent, I’ve tried to appeal multiple times and was told to stop so I stopped.

I’m coming to the forums now to hopefully have insights as to how to avoid it in the future, not seeking to get unbanned as the suspension period is over now….

Ya it’s true I’m only speculating the reason of my suspension. But to me it’s a lil obvious cause the initial email says I bought gold, and now I’m checking my expired mail and saw someone tried to mail me 10k of gold a few hours before I got banned. And I never had the chance to even see the mail. And if that was not the reason then the mail should have been still in my mailbox, however, it’s not and it’s showing in expired, after only being sent 2 weeks ago.

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Doubtful it’s the cause.

Because (as mentioned above) it takes a lot longer than a few hours for a report to reach a GM, then the GM’s investigation. It can takes weeks…

Generally, this is information that gold buyers want - to avoid detection. You’re not going to be much insight I’m afraid. Blizzard is, by policy, very tight lipped on what is detected and how.

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Blizzard would never share what the logs would say for a reason, and would never give full details into what the actual logs would say.

Customer Support cannot provide game logs, chat logs, or voice chat records. Visit our Privacy Policy for more information.

And this is not the caught of law either. Appeals process are only there incase Blizzard has made a mistake, not for you to plead your case.

And thirdly, there is something entirely fishy about your entire story. Reading through this entire thread, I have a feeling that you did something that you do know about that you don’t want to admit, but I am not going to speculate on it either.

If it was for Real Money Trading, it is possible that you’re account got flagged by another player who would’ve been caught carrying illicit gold and trading it with you.

If it was for botting, or Cheats/Exploits, then it is also possible that there is something on your computer that you may have that has flagged your account for review.

Either way, you can only appeal via submitting a ticket, and this will either determined to upheld the decision, or revert the decision, depending on whether the logs does say you were in breach of the policies.

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Sir, with all due respect, you’re making it sound like I’m a gold buying and looking for tips to avoid getting caught, which I am not. If you have a sod toon I’ll be happy to show you I can easily make 2000g a day on sod with crafting.

I don’t need to buy gold.

and replying to Ayukama, sorry im not familiar as to how to tag you in my reply.

There’s nothing fishy that I did in game. I just skipped on a lot of details cause it’s a long story.

Long story short:

I was a regular wow player during bwl, having around 3-4000 gold which is pretty average for players who are active and does daily quests to earn gold and reals.

During AQ Launch, I decided to do the scarab lord quest line and get the mount. When I was done with the quest, my gold grew from 5k to 11k, from selling extra bug parts and farming for chimaerok chops.

From there, I got into crafting and selling. My main toon was an enchanter and tailor. I was never serious about professions but one day I decided to farm the crusader enchant. I was lucky enough to farm 2 of them in about 4 hours. So I learned one, and sold the other. Then I realized there’s a lot of gold to be made as an enchanter, so I usually hang out in storm wind advertising as enchanter and making enchanted leather/enchanted thorium to craft and sell on the AH.

During the time it was also when they launched the world buff system so there was a lot of gold to be made from buying rune cloth, making them bandages, and selling them for a profit. So my gold grew steadily every week. I was crafting/making steady gold and was really into collecting all enchanting mats so I made a deal with my raid team, to have enchanting recipe priority in exchange of world buffs for the entire raid weekly. That gave me access to multiple rare recipes from AQ40. Which then I started crafting and selling for even more profit.

From December to the time I got suspended, my gold grew from around 20k to 167k. While I have around another 50k worth of mats. It’s normal for me to be online for several hours a day undercutting competition on the AH. As I just find the AH game quite interesting, so it became a hobby to go online daily, buy mats that are low in price, craft and sell on AH and trade chat.

Then the suspension happened, in the middle of the raid. At the time I had 167k gold and when I got my account back today, it still has 167k gold. Which means the dirty gold never got to my toon. It was just sitting there in the mailbox and the gm removed it by expiring the mail. It was a total accident too that I discovered it as im just checking if any of my world buff mats like rune cloth bandages expired while I was suspended.

I feel like many people just assume that you’re guilty when you’re suspended. But if I did something wrong, the forums would be the last place I go to to look for answers. At least for me.

I’m a dedicated gamer, and I would never do anything to mess with my account which has the scarab lord mount and soon to have atiesh.

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Only one way to never get cought buying gold , by never buying gold.

You could have received gold from someone who purchased it. Yes you will get suspended for that.

They do not just randomly send larg amounts of gold to players.

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17

I work tickets for my job (though it’s not gaming-related). I take them by priority, then age. So if six tickets come in at once, all for different issues, I take the oldest ticket, investigate, act; rinse and repeat. Blizzard’s GM and hack teams likely work the same way, but with significantly higher volumes (there aren’t millions of people working for my company).

So account actions take time. Suspensions happen when the report is investigated and found to be valid. They do not, as people claim, happen the moment you do something wrong, or get “mass reported”; all mass reporting can do is place a temporary squelch on your account, preventing you from chatting in-game until a GM can investigate the issue. And as noted by Vorsol, even unknowingly receiving “dirty” gold from a character, i.e. gold someone purchased from an illicit source, can result in an account action.

Another thing to consider - you say you were suspended for “gold buying/botting.” ANY automation can result in a suspension for botting. Make sure you don’t have any automation programs on your PC - even programs you might use for work or non-WOW related purposes. Blizzard’s Warden looks for those kinds of applications and will report them. We’ve even seen speculation here that even using the scroll wheel to “streamline” actions can result in a suspension/account closure. And if you are using a keyboard or mouse with programmable macro keys/buttons, you could run afoul of automation rules. Remember, one click, one action.

(Edit: you say they’ve reached a final decision.) The best advice we can offer is to continue to appeal until the GMs tell you the decision is final and will no further appeals will be considered.

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I thought it might be worth it to ask if you always sell on the AH or if you sometimes do trading through the trading window to get paid? As others have mentioned it’s unlikely the 10k in your inbox would have flagged you if you didn’t accept the gold from it. But if someone buys your crafts with “dirty” gold using the trading window instead of the AH, I believe you can then get into trouble. Hopefully someone will correct me if I’m mistaken.

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That’s the general consensus. I recall seeing posts saying there are some “protections” built into the AH (though a quick search doesn’t turn up anything, but I’m probably doing it wrong :rofl:).

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If you never even looked at the mail, how would you know how much gold is in it or who sent it?