It’s not GMs who man the Hacks email, it’s literally the Hacks team.
You really think playing whack-a-mole is a good thing? Why not take out all the moles after you’ve identified how they’re popping up out of the machine in the first place? That can take time; you’re not going to see it happen in a few days.
Of course, once you’ve taken out the moles, they’re going to build a new machine and the process starts all over again. The joys of a cold war, I guess. Taking away their source of income hurts them more, but, y’know, people gonna be people and will always wanna take the easy path. /shrug
Hacks team has been notified for some time now. By several sources… I know who he is referencing and I’m the one who originally discovered this person was using botting software of some sort. The OP notified me of a suspected bot, I went down, and broke it. Quite a few times actually. This particular bot has been around more than 69 days…
Watching them go bonkers, walk off the ledge in booty Bay, and drown themselves is hilarious though…
I understand they ban in waves, but now that there is a ban on all software, should be pretty cut and dry. But who knows.
Thank you for clarifying, it can help finding the way for the solution.
While I agree we don’t want to play wack-a-mole, I am myself a Product Owner in a software company, and understand that parallel to the permanent solution, there’s the compromise on customer service we all must take.
The most aggressive, that cause more harm, those would usually be handled manually, to stop the hemorrhage. This hacker is multi-alt, automated, taking all of the legendary kinds of items to himself.
Thanks again for exchanging ideas. I’ll keep on my search to find a contact with Blizzard Customer Services, hopefuly I can get some more light on this forum.
The best way is to right click and report for cheating. The hacks email is for when you can not conveniently report using the methods the provided by the development team.
To be fair, you can only make the assumption that they’re automating something. There are also addons that can help with buying and selling on the AH. Nothing else that you’ve mentioned is actually against any rules. I’m allowed to try and corner a market and set prices at whatever I feel I can sell the item(s) for.
You’ve already done everything you need to do. You sent your suspicions to the hacks team and that’s the only recourse unless you see them in-game and right-click report them for cheating.
There’s also the possibility that they’ve looked into your report and found no wrongdoing. My best advice would be to report and move on.
To be honest, there isn’t anything to search for. You’ve done all you can and all that you need to do, the rest lies in Blizzard’s hands. As Perl said, all you guys have is your assumption they’re doing something wrong because they’re an aggressive seller. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using multiple toons to go ham on the AH. The only thing in that that would be illegal is if they’re using some sort of illegal software/hardware to control the toons.
While investigations do take time, they happen in Blizzard’s time - not ours. You guys are so sure they’re doing something illegal, but it could very well be that they’re not, which is why they’re allowed to continue on as they are without sanction.
I have two or three AH toons I shuffle between on each of my main servers. I’ve got a fairly good relationship with most of the other folks who like to corner the legendary market, while we do always cycle through listing and relisting for who’s at the top, if we see one another on, we kind of let the other get some time to sell before we go about the cycle again. But I’ve sat there at times, afking and just staying logged in to work it. No botting, I just manually log in and out between toons because I’m not quite as vicious as the person on your server.
Now it may be that you guys are fully in the right that this person is doing what they shouldn’t be, but they could just as well be minding their own business and rocking the AH harder than you guys. And there isn’t anything against the rules about that. People would be surprised how hard some people play the AH game, and they do it within the rules and regulations set down by the game.
Either way, you guys reported them. That’s all you need to do. Go on and play the game and if they’re still there? It’s not that Blizzard is ignoring you. It’s more than likely that all of your assumptions are incorrect.
There are a number of threads just like this one where people have come here in their frustration that ‘nothing is being done’. Posting a response from Vrak:
If that player is not cheating (i.e. not botting) then they won’t be removed.
If that player is cheating, they won’t retain their gains. Blizzard removes their gold and any other ill-gotten gains.
Additionally, if the player is using a botting program, Blizzard would work on detecting the software and patching the hole(s) being used. This can take time because the patch has to block the botting program but not hinder regular players.
If the player is using an addon, Blizzard may consider looking at how to change how addons interface with the AH. They have done it before.
Provide as many details as possible about the situation."
Sure, you can’t right click to report you can submit a video or a screenshot with details if you can’t right click report them. But, to state that is the only thing it’s used for is not accurate according to blizzard’s own TOS link.
If I could post the video the OP is refering to here, it’s clear as day it’s a bot. You kill the auctioneer it starts jittering forward, randomly clicking players, walks itself into the water and drowns.
Doesn’t always drown will sometimes stand and click random players til it auto logs off. It’s pretty obvious. It doesn’t even attempt to target the bruto standing 2 feet from it.
Right and that’s completely fine. It’s TSM. But does TSM make a character jitter around and fall into the water and control the character? No… no it doesn’t.
And that part is absolutely true. It’s part of the AH… however using hacks / cheats to do so is definitely against the rules.
And that’s true as well. It’s ultimately out of his hands and my hands because I have also submitted a report as well. In my earlier comments you can see what I’m referring to. Zul’jin is extremely bad for bots and RMT and I bust it whenever I find it if I’m able and send it all to blizz.
Then wouldn’t it be nice to have somekind of feed back stating they found no wrong doing? That the person was 100% doing things legit and to say “hey sorry for the mix up, we know how this looks and we investigated and spoke with all parties. Everything is fine.”
Also we have reached out to the person, no responses back no whispers back nothing… least when I whispered them but that isn’t always an indicator of botting. I’m just saying it as I tried to be like “hey you ok over there?” type thing. You know, whisper the person ask how they are everything peachy, over there?
No one said it is the only thing the email is used for. They just stated similar information to what you quoted from the page you linked.
Blizzard prefers players using the right-click report method whenever possible because it automatically includes relevant log files specific to the player being reported and the activity that was happening. Any other reporting method requires manually obtaining those logs, some of which are gone already when an investigation is done.
The email helps in cases where you can’t click the player, like with AH issues. Players can not be in every AH location at once. Players could be accessing the AH from the mount, or from their garrison.
There is no rule that requires them to reply to a random whisper. Them not answering doesn’t make them a bot any more that them actually answering doesn’t mean they aren’t botting. I’m not saying you’re wrong. The other activity you mentioned does make it sound like they may have automation software. But someone not answering you proves absolutely nothing.
So that hacks email is for when you can not conviently report using the methods provided by the development team. Meaning, if you right click reported that would be the only thing you need to do and that this quote would mean the hacks email is only for what is described in the quote.
After all why submit a video / screen shot report if you right click reported in game? I have always reported in game then sent video / screenshots to blizzard with the time stamp of the report so they have not just ingame server stuff to check but also video conformation of what I saw on my side. That way if their side looks completely fine but my side I see x y and z wrong they can fix it.
This is why if you include a time stamp of your report or report while video recording they can easily go back and find the time, date, server, location everything needed to find the log and match it with what’s on the video.
You can report from your friends list if you’re able to add them. I agree with you that it isn’t always a thing of being able to right click report and players can be accessing from a different location. However, this player was down in booty bay with an auctioneer bruto 2 feet from them but after killing the auctioneer in booty (btw people were slighly mad but they had a bruto so they just switched to the bruto and I didn’t spam kill it either, just once to break it) they performed what I stated earlier (sorry missed completing this sentence earlier so had to come back and fix that).
I said that
I understand people don’t have to respond. I completely understand. If they don’t want to that’s fine and it’s not an indicator of botting what so ever. Person may not be able to physically type or they are very shy… that’s fine. The reason I stated what I said was due to this:
Like we had reached out received nothing, put in reports, and it appears nothing is done with the video, screenshot evidence emailed in and no clap back from blizz with “hey yeah everything is chill it’s fine don’t fret.” That’s why I said what I said.
Yes exactly. It’s a very obvious hacker, that has videos with plenty proof, and can be easily tracked by the software on the memory of his computer.
I may call Customer Service next, because this problem is really growing bigger, and for too long. It’s affecting this server for sure, and since this guy is a professional gold gatherer, how many other servers may he be found on, if tracked his main character, that gave the gold to boost all his alts. Yeah and all that is in detail in the e-mails I’ve been sendind hacks@blizz.
To be utterly frank, the CS forum isn’t going to get any account action to happened, let along a member of the hacks team to look into it. The blues here have no power or is able to reach out to any given department because someone post on the CS forum.
More to the point, trying to fight about it here on the CS forum won’t change that fact. There’s no phone to call, no email to get the results one is looking for.
Except that there is more than one log file. That was my point. The right-click report links them all. Not all log files are kept for more than a day or two.
You can’t call them. Blizzard hasn’t had an in-bound number for years.
The ones you reach for call-backs are Billing and Technical Support. They do not handle bot reports.
I understand you’re trying to help, but your answer is pretty plain and obvious, and almost unmakes all the work I’ve made so far. Of course I went thru all those steps, and when you read and interpret my post you can see I’m far beyond basics. Me and at least other 3 people produced many videos, proof, and we’ve been reporting and re-sending e-mails. The problem even grew from one set of legendaries and one alt to multiple professions and multiple automated alts.
So please, if you want to help please do, but at least read the post beforehand to see on what step people are. It was almost like you answered another post into this post, made no sense. Thank you anyways, I understand the good will.
Ultimately you’re correct. CS can’t do anything and the hacks team whatever they are doing over there I would assume they are doing (or have already done). It even states on that TOS link I stated earlier that there’s no guarantee of receiving any kind of response:
" Due to the volume of reports, you may not receive a response from our team. However, we take all reports very seriously. Thank you for your vigilance!"