On the recent surge in Account Bans

[Applebaby-laughing-skull]

@Ayukama-frostmourne

1, I would never trust anything posted on reddit, as most of it is just people trolling and spreading misinformation in regards to Blizzard’s policies. and 2, I am yet to see anyone here actually be proven they were innocent when they have been actioned in-game.

I mean no disrespect, but this is factually incorrect. Below, a couple of cross-posts in this very forum where the OP’s ban got overturned:

False ban for Unauthorized Cheat Programs (Hacks) x2

48 hours before phase 3 my main account was banned for clearing SM GY late at night trying to farm the warlock rune. I made sure to wait for the lockout and I ignored everyone telling me about how to reset my lockout timer and even admonished them in chat not to exploit it. support is totally unhelpful and ignores any attempt to fix it. I gave up and rerolled a totally new account. This is a brand new account with trade restriction still on it. Last night after clearing sunken temple I decide…

Banned after 20 years with no prior warnings

Hello. I’m currently attempting to appeal my ban. I’ve received the first of my form responses: Greetings, 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. In my appeal, I detailed that I don’t really have any idea as to what I’ve done. I l…

I have been banned for buying too many wow tokens

Hi All, I have been permanently banned from a game that I am so passionate about since the last ten years. I have never been issued a single warning or silence in this last ten years. I have always been good at making gold by using professions. But in TWW, i have become a expert in gold making using my army of alts to specialize in one talent at once and earning tons of gold using enchanting and tailoring (6 to 7 min in just one month). Then I did a blunder of buying around 25 -30 tokens withi…

Account banned for abuse of economy

I don’t understand what is going on here. I got banned, I don’t engage in any mass auction house spending, I just list whatever junk I pick up from WQs and treasures. It’s claiming I used irl currency transactions and manipulated the economy. I have been playing since 2006 and never have I ever paid for anything in WoW with IRL money other than to Blizzard themselves.

For what concerns Reddit, a few posts are also corroborated by further evidence (e.g., complete ticket histories along with the overturn notice). As a concrete example, you can look at the post “Here is my Perma Ban Story - Ban Over Turned and I can play again!(Screen shots included)” (I’m not sure I can provide external links here, so feel free to look it up).

@Adelicia-gilneas

You’re right It does, however, the only result is the reported person getting a squelch until a GM can look at the report to see if a silence, suspension, or banishment is warranted.

@Melaesia-proudmoore

And to be clear, this is only for spam reporting. For everything else (name, language, hacking/botting), the most a group of reporters can effect is moving the report up the queue to be reviewed faster.

Anytime a GM looks into reports, the number of players who have reported is completely irrelevant**. The only thing that matters is if the reported player broke the rules. 10,000 players can report you, and if you did not break the rules, you will not be actioned. One player can report you, and if you did break the rules, you will be actioned.

(** - The one exception to this would be name violations on an RP realms. In exceedingly rare edge cases, they may wait to see if there are more reports, as a rough “vote” from the players on that realm as to whether they accept the name or not.)

To be clear: I am not stating that these people got auto-banned after being mass-reported. In line with my answer to Mirasol (above), the only way I can rationalize what happened to them is that (1) the mass-report occurred, (2) a flag was raised prompting a manual review, (3) the manual review wasn’t thorough enough, and (4) a wrongful ban was issued that was later overturned. Given that I have found similarities between my in-game activities and those of these occurrences, and that I have played the game the same way ever since I created my bnet account, that’s also the only logical conclusion I can reach for my case. That’s why I’m asking for a more thorough investigation.