We’ve seen dozens of people that have been wow customers for nearly 20 years, and blizzard customers for nearly 30 years, getting banned for no apparent reason. We have seen the hackers and botters and gold sellers mass reporting innocent players, resulting in the innocent player being banned. We have seen people “appeal a ban” when there was actually no ban, and they are told that the ban was legitimate even though there was no ban. We have seen guilds test this process by all mass reporting one person, and that one person is told that the ban is legitimate.
We know your ban review process is to simply uphold all bans. This has to change. We can’t have gold sellers and botters mass reporting innocent players who have been loyal customers for 30 years resulting in a ban.
No one is banned for no reason. There is a reason for every single account action. Whether or not that reason holds up to an appeal is the question, and the only way to have them look at it is through a Support ticket.
No you haven’t. First off, hackers and botters do not want any attention from Blizzard, so they are unlikely to report. Also, the very intent of hitting is to have the game played with no human input. It’s unlikely there is even a human at the computer to report anyone, let alone a vast network ready for a big mass report.
Second off, mass reporting does not result in anything more than a squelch. While this is inconvenient, it is not an account action. It essentially quarantines the account from social features until a GM reviews the situation. Then, the GM removes the squelch, or applies an action like a silence, suspension, or ban.
If you have any suggestions to improve the process, you’ll want to post in the General forum. But you’ll want to start with factual information, not random social media BS.
Don’t know how people don’t understand the streamer M.O. in the year 2024, but here it is yet again: they will say/do/manipulate anything for more clicks/views/donations/subscriptions. They are not obligated to be honest, and they rarely are.
If people are getting banned, then there is a reasoning to why they are banned. Each report is reviewed manually, and if there is something in the logs that does violate the In-Game Code of Conduct, then action will be taken appropriately.
But there is no such thing as “banned for no reason.” Sometimes, Blizzard does make an error, but that isn’t “no reason”.
Because of false information being peddled by the OP.
Ie - mass reporting resulting in bans.
Regardless if it’s one report, or multiple reports - it has to be investigated by a GM before any account action is taken against the reported player if rules have been broken.
This has been said over and over, on this very forum.
Yes, people still think there is a grand conspiracy because streamers say so?
It’s tiresome to see this topic get posted several times a week, at least. Same as “Blizzard uses AI to answer tickets” - absolutely false too.
You tried claiming this in May here on the CS forums and the Blues removed your misinformation, so I expect it to happen again. This post retains a quote of your removed post.
So far, we have not seen that here. We do see an almost formulaic set of posts citing:
Customer duration/loyalty
Accusations of mass reporting by people or bots
assumptions that Suspensions or License closure is automated.
Almost like these are a template or something people keep using.
Reality:
Enough reports in a short enough time can get an account temp SQUELCHED. That is automated and was put in for gold sellers and their ilk well over a decade ago. It has been “tested” and abused by streamers and guilds, although rarely. The streamers then get Suspended for abusing the report system - an actual penalty applied by a GM.
Silences, Suspensions, and esp License Closure are done by GMs only. The duration is dependent on past account history. Past infractions mean longer ones each time.
Appeals - are handled by GMs for chat infractions. Hacks team is responsible for cheating/hacking/exploit bans. I am pretty sure when queues are REALLY high they do sometimes use a template/auto decline for a first appeal, if queues are long enough. So that is not false. Re-opening the ticket can get someone to check that the account really was flagged as cheating/botting/exploiting. Chat appeals go through a different queue and are verified by a GM. All appeals get a template reply though, regardless of answer.
GMs do make mistakes. False positives can happen with the anti-cheating software and scans. Those are rare though and are handled on appeal - or group unbanned when the Hacks team realizes what happened.
What we actually see here when people claim “mass report” is that their account was breaking the chat rules. We see that over and over and over and over.
We even have frequent visitors who keep trying to claim that, despite being shown over and over their own behavior is at fault.
I think it is used when Queues are REALLY high. Not all the time, so I should correct that part.
People really do get “appeal denied” auto replies when they ticket for an appeal - even though the account has no infractions on it. There is no check for “is this account actually penalized in any way” before replying.
Not false when queues are really high, esp for cheating bans where the flags are most certainly on the account.
Social infraction penalties usually go to a GM straight away but may not if queues are super long, for the first try.
They use key word first line template or auto replies to other tickets when queues are high too - like tickets that seem to ask for game hints get a template that asks them to try resources like Wowhead.
What is FALSE is people saying the actual account penalty for chat infractions is automated. That most certainly is NOT.
The thing that always strikes me is that people seem to forget that NEARLY EVERY GUILTY person claims innocence.
Please note I said nearly.
Let’s be honest. How many people will go to the various social sites and say they got banned and they absolutely deserved it because they were trying to scam the system? Instead they tell their friends they are innocent and those friends tell everyone else and a new conspiracy is born.
I get it. No one wants to admit they are leaving their raid group hanging because they unknowingly helped move illegal gold or used illicit services. It’s embarrassing.
I’ve been playing this game for 20 years. I’ve been playing with friends who have been playing for 20 years. None of us have received false bans. I’ve said some rather troll-y stuff in trade chat, including during the last American election.
Truth. I have know azreluna for 20 years now in game. At one time our server was the largest pvp server. It takes work, or a lot of spam, to get penalized.
Do you know if this second check is done by someone from Risk/Hacks, or is this just someone a few steps up the ladder in CS just looking at a note and going “Yep, flagged right here”
I don’t know all the details of how the Cheating/Hacking/Exploiting appeals are done. If I had to GUESS, it next goes to the standard GMs who verify there is a flag on it.
The GMs can’t see the code details that determine if something is a false positive or not - that requires the Hacks team to dig into it. GMs can see the flag, and sometimes a bit more - but they don’t share what that is. I only know that - for example - GMs can see that an account is flagged as interacting directly with a gold selling account. They can see the details about the account interactions, not just the flag on that one. Botting? I don’t know what the GMs can see.
I am not sure what triggers a review of the whole ban criteria, but we have all seen it happen where the Warden (anti cheat) software catches the cheat - but also picks up something else as a false positive. It is rare, but happens. When it does they fix it, run it again, and unban the false positives. They also issue an apology and game time usually.
Again, some of this only applies when ticket times are super high as a means of triage. So there are a lot of moving parts.
There is no “bullying” going on. If someone keeps putting in appeals to the point CS tells them to STOP and that any further tickets on that issue will be considered GM Harassment then they need to stop.
We have the right to appeal, and they allow us several appeals per account action. We don’t have the right to submit unlimited appeals and harass GMs because we don’t like being told “no” or “that is the final answer”.
I suspect you are fishing for some sort of loophole or “got ya” to use against Blizzard. There really is not one. Nothing I am talking about is secret. Templates are used. Triage is used in high ticket volume situations. None of that is an excuse to excoriate CS or deluge them with duplicate tickets.
Being told “no” and that future contacts on THAT issue will constitute GM harassment, is not “bullying”. No means no sometimes and people need to accept that.
But also as MVPs, we may know some truths better than most.
I’m not speaking to anything in particular (such as in this thread); I’m only pointing out that we can privately discuss many things directly with Bliz. Suffice to say, many systems, policies, etc are often more complicated than what’s publically visible.
You’re absolutely right—there’s no “gotcha” moment here. Blizzard has the authority to revoke access at any time, for any reason or even no reason at all. They certainly don’t need to hide behind such blatantly consumer-hostile policies like the CSIP.
Anyone who harasses or abuses customer service should absolutely be held accountable. However, I don’t believe that submitting a limited number of respectful and appropriate tickets to individuals who are literally paid to handle customer service inquiries constitutes harassment. Of course, that’s just my opinion.
Here’s my personal experience:
I requested a refund and was initially told by customer service that refunds are only granted in rare exceptions.
I reopened the ticket, citing the refund policy, and a manager informed me that I was ineligible for a refund because I had already used the game time (Epic Edition).
I resubmitted the ticket, asking for a prorated refund to account for the game time. The ticket was then canceled, and I was warned for violating the CSIP.
To me, that doesn’t seem like harassment or abuse. It seems more like the CSIP was being used to discourage me from further contacting customer service.
They can’t give you pro rated refunds. They are all or nothing.
If you are trying to get a refund after your account has been penalized, that invalidates the refund - usually.
There is probably a lot more to your story than you are saying here.
It does boil down eventually to - no means no. Your account was not eligible for a refund when you tried the self help/automated first take. It was not eligible for a refund the second time you put in a ticket for a manual GM review. It was not eligible for a refund when you had a GM look again on your 3rd ticket. The 4th ticket asked them for a pro-rated refund which they can’t do - at which point you say they told you this issue was not one they would talk to you anymore about.
If the answer has been no 4 times, then it is not likely to change.
The tools they use don’t even have pro-rated as an option I don’t think. They can only refund a whole purchase back to the purchase card/method.
I’m going to leave this topic alone after this final reply because I genuinely appreciate the honest discussion taking place here and the fact that this thread has remained up. I don’t want to derail it with my personal situation or turn it into a debate over the CSIP. I really do value your honesty and, of course, your knowledge.
I was unaware of that and was never informed.
There’s been no action on the game license, would be a bit silly to expect a refund on a banned license.
I would share the tickets and responses, but again I don’t want to clog the thread anymore. I’ve accepted the ol “You don’t have to agree but you have to respect it”
My purchase wasn’t within the window for the automated refund self-help tool. The first time I was denied a refund, the reasoning given contradicted Blizzard’s own refund policy. The second time, I was given a legitimate reason, but I don’t think asking for a prorated refund was an act of stubborn defiance.
In any case, simply responding with “We don’t do prorated refunds” would have been a more appropriate and straightforward reply.
