So as of today, both of my accounts have been chat banned for 1 week. I can’t even invite my alt to my mains group to boost.
The only reason I can think of is because I was trying to sell boosts and this is literally my FIRST DAY DOING IT! EVER!!!
I actually had someone whisper me earlier today complaining about the prices that I was selling boosts at and informed me that I could be mass reported because of it. Was I mass reported by those guys? Is this why I got chat banned? Or is it for trying to sell boosts in trade chat / lfg like the 100 other people doing the same thing?
It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to get silenced for a week for something I’ve been doing for 1 day, with no warning, and as far as I know is not at all against tos.
Like what the actual F?
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The best thing to do is to unsubscribe stating why.
Blizzard needs to ban the sale of Leveling Boosting Services for Gold.
It is common practice for boosters to create false tickets and spam report players who undercut their established prices or advertise free boosts.
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This sounds like your account was Silenced. It might have been from trying to sell runs or it could have been for something totally different.
Note that the silence is the first official offence and that the second is a week-long suspension.
Things like spamming, toxicity and inappropriate language (masked or otherwise), can all be examples of things players will report.
Sometimes the blues over in the CS forum can help better pinpoint the cause of the account action when a silence is involved. And if you’d like to appeal it, you can follow the link below:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/help/product/wow/181/1609/solution
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Like mentioned, you can post in the CS forum if you want more clarity why you were silenced as sometimes they can give some insights. Otherwise just appeal it.
Spamming too often, or posting in the wrong chat channel, are both things that could get you reported.
Simply being mass reported will do nothing on its own but a temporary squelch at most. And of course you won’t get actioned for simply charging lower prices than others.
Just a note about boosting for gold though it’s an inherently risky practice. It’s an unsupported activity so if someone buys gold and then uses that gold to pay you, you are risking your account. I personally would never do things like boosting or GDKP because of those risks involved.
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Assuming you’re on the anniversary server, they are relatively strict about only selling services in the services channel. People also tend to get very annoyed having to listen to people selling boats and other things in other channels, so your chance of being reported is high. So assuming thats what you did, while you should appeal, and good luck, it’s unlikely the silence will be overturned, also not knowing the rules is not an excuse for violating them in this case.
Edit: Also while this hasn’t impacted you (yet), while its not against the rules to boost people, again assuming you advertise in the right channel, its still against the rules to accept “bad gold”. If you do get “bad gold”, even though you didn’t buy the gold and might know have anyway to tell its bad, you will still be actioned if you accept it.
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If you read the post, he claims to have been threatened by another booster that he would be spam reported if he continued to undercut their prices.
Which may or may not be true. It’s feasible since getting squelched has been proven to be automated. Whether it was legitimate for spamming in the wrong channel, or spam reported by some ‘boosting mafia’ is up in the air.
The fact he never did make a thread in the customer support forum makes me think he’s not being honest. Maybe made up the whole ‘threatening whisper’ and ‘first day selling boosts.’ When people get directed to that forum and don’t follow through it’s usually because they know the actual Blizz employee will call them out for any lies or inconsistencies.
It doesn’t matter what people threaten someone with, unless you do something wrong, you’re not getting actioned. Also while a the initial squelch is automated, the silence still requires a review by a GM. The most likely case in this situation is that he was advertising in LFG or Trade on the anniversary server.
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A Squelch is automated, yes. It’s a temporary account action until a GM takes a look at the report. Then it either turns into a week-long Silence or it’s removed. It’s been in the game for a very long time (10+ years now) and is primarily for reporting gold-selling etc.
That said, it sounds like the OP received a week-long silence from a GM based on those reports.
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How temporary is a squelch? Yeah, 10 years ago it was a few hours. But 10 years ago there were a lot more Gms. These days a squelch lasts for days. Could be a week before an actual person looks into it.
But re-reading the OP it does seem to imply he’s been informed it’ll be for a week. So yeah, most likely a silence. And also therefore a legit punishment. So probably was spamming the wrong channel.
I don’t believe a squelch lasts for more than 24 hours. It still gets flagged for a GM to review though and a Silence can still be put into place where applicable.
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Are you sure this is true? That would mean enchanting peoples gear + opening lockboxes for tips, selling mage portals, selling your transmute cooldown, selling your items in trade chat to avoid the AH cut, and every other perfectly innocent activity could get you banned. I have seen people say only take gold from people you trust but you can not 100% trust anyone really. Even your best guildy friend could be lying.
If this is true then this game has entered a seriously bad state where you have to live in constant anxiety for playing the game.
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There is likely a threshold, but there is always a risk of your transacting for moderate to high amounts of gold off the AH. Your best bet for crafting is simply to do it for reasonable tips, but never suppling the items. Also be wary of every transacting with anyone not in a legit guild, only transact high value items with 60s (absolutely no bank alts) or people that remotely looks like they could be a gold seller, as a common way they can launder bad gold is for trading for “items” they can then sell on the AH, where they give you bad gold. It’s also a way they can “give” people the gold they bought.D
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While we do not know exactly how they figure this stuff out, there’s a difference between someone tipping you a couple gold for opening a portal or enchanting people’s gear, and some level 1 giving you 750 gold for absolutely nothing in return (remember that Blizzard cannot see that you’re “boosting” someone, they just see that you get gold for nothing in return).
Basically if you’re getting gold for nothing in return, it’s always going to be a risk. Boosting, GDKP, and server to server gold trading are all things in which someone gives you gold for absolutely nothing in return. You’re not giving them an item of equivalent value in return, you’re not selling something off the AH for fair market value, etc.
All that happens is someone gives you a bunch of gold for nothing in return. So from Blizzard’s perspective you look like you’re involved in RMT. Which you are, whether knowingly or not.
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Thanks for the replies. Shouldn’t you be able to appeal a ban for a boost or GDKP participation though and be vindicated? They can check chat logs and see you sold a boost and server logs to see you actually went into the dungeon with the person and boosted them. Every GDKP I know of uses Gargle so it should be very easy to verify your innocence.
I have only recently been poking into the CS forums so you would know better than me, but have you seen people get bans upheld for this?
From what I’ve seen on the CS forums, outside of actual false positives no I haven’t seen people really have luck with getting handed a bunch of gold from a level 1 and then claiming innocence but of course that’s just going off of the posts there.
Because there’s really no way to prove someone is innocent as people who are involved with RMT would just do the same things.
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