Unable to get response for appeal regard account closure - guild level

Support Customer Support
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I am an organizer for the Reunion guild on Benediction US server. Wednesday morning at 9 AM Pacific Time, my account was banned by Blizzard. The official statement from the World of Warcraft CS team stated that I had disrupted the game’s economy by directly or indirectly participating in RMT, leading to the ban of my account. When I logged into our guild discord, I found that every single member of our guild had also been banned for the same reasons. It seems to us that this was a targeted ban wave against our guild. To date, all feedback from our active members (who are unable to post on Forums due to the bans) indicates that their appeal tickets only receive automated rejections, stating a violation of community standards with no room for dispute.

From the perspective of customer service emails, Blizzard’s support unquestionably views our guild as focused on Gold Farming, suggesting most accounts are merely robot operations without real human activity behind them. I find it absurd to refute this, given our guild’s history on the Benediction server, documented through our activity logs:

*classic.warcraftlogs.com/guild/id/635799

Our guild primarily consisting of players from Farlina, Thunderfury, and Whitemane servers, has been active since the level 70 era, continuing until January 2024 when we paused due to significant player attrition, planning to resume with the new expansion. The guild ban occurred during this inactive period. The interesting is that many accounts that had not been active for a long time, some up to 18 months or more, were also banned. It was nice to reconnect with old friends, but it’s heartbreaking that it was under these circumstances. I cannot fathom how players who haven’t logged in for over a year could impact the game’s economy.

I’m sharing my story in hopes of connecting with anyone who can try to take a look of our issues, and also because of the social pressure I’m facing. These days I receive dozens of messages on my personal Discord asking about my “communication” with Blizzard, though I have yet to speak to any human customer service representative. I also face inquiries and even sarcastic remarks from those I’ve gamed with, asking what we did to deserve to be wiped out in the server. I can’t answer these questions; for unknown reasons, my guild and I have lost our reputation in this virtual world, which hurts far more.

I sincerely hope anyone who knows how to reach Blizzard’s customer service will leave me a message so I can resolve this issue as soon as possible. I would be profoundly grateful.

Ticket sumbitted relsted to this issue right now: US98504837 US98480613 US98503821 #98495449 US98544576 US98478817 US98482112 US98480789 US98480404

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the only way that you can reach customer service is via a ticket and you have done so already. you will have to wait on your appeal.

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Organizer of what? Were you organizing carries for gold? GDKP runs? Other services for gold?

Yes, it does seem that way. I would guess your guild was involved in what Blizzard thinks is large scale RMT services, illicit gold laundering, etc.

None of you will be able to get a real time conversation about this with Blizzard. They use templates when replying. Someone does check though - that there really is a flag on your account stating they detected the violation category listed.

Now, if that detection criteria was incorrect and it is a false flag, they usually overturn it along with an apology. That is rare, but it can happen.

Your only option, and that of your guild, is to continue putting in individual tickets. Flooding them with tickets won’t help. One ticket at a time per account.

Edit - tickets take several days to be answered. Just keep that in mind.

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They’re not automated. Templated responses are sent out via the real live humans who conduct each appeal. Templated responses are more time effective rather than writing out dozens upon dozens of the same thing over and over again, all day every day. It also keeps all of the information going out uniform.

Uh, no? Manipulation of the economy is more than just botting. RMT, on either side of the equation (meaning either actively participating in RMT or being an unknown receiver of tainted or illegal gold) - it is far more expansive than just “gold farming.”

Unfortunately there are NO GMs on the forums. The SFAs folks see active here on CS have no hand in investigations/sanctions/appeals. Nor do they have any dog in the race of escalating issues, let alone anything else in regards to appeals.

I will say, I think this is the first time I’ve seen nearly an entire guild hit in my years on this forum, so this has me kind of intrigued, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.

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Oh, that’s awful lot a tickets, you really only needed to submit one, more just confuses things.

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I am aware of it happening, but it is super rare and I have never seen anyone actually talk about it here on this forum. So yeah, I am super curious too.

If Blizzard is actually going after organized RMT/gold laundering then that is great. If this is a false positive I feel terrible for the guild.

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  1. Organizer of raid activities. GDKP. We are most likely guild run with stable member like mostly all the others in this server, pretty clear in the log.
  2. I think your explanation make sense. Do you possibly know any similar situations happens, i think i might can figure out how to solve it if same thing happens before. As for appeal ticket, fore sure we send it, but all template reply.
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This should stop them in their tracks if Blizzard is doing this. I don’t think they get that they are supporting gold sellers/buyers while participating or organizing these things.

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I thought there are rules not allowing this.

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Not nearly, it’s an active guild with about 100+ subs, some accounts are for more than 10 years, or i won’t seeking for help everywhere, I sent the request to everyone I knew who might have contact with their CS.

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It’s only for SoD, Phase 2. We are at WotLK, if GDKP need to be banned, they can just close the whole server.

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Please don’t start here with that garbage

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Gdkp not been allowed since season 2. Also are youvtransfering gold from retail to classic.

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No, and how. It’s not my personal issue nor i will put a Guild Level before that.

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For SoD, not for WotLK. GDKP alone won’t do it except in SoD.

The most likely issue is that the “customers” for the guild were all using illicit gold to pay the guild. Guild was essentially receiving and laundering dirty gold maybe?

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Well. I can’t validate players who’ve been offline for extended periods, but if the whole guild has been hit - then my pure conjecture is if you guys are not knowingly pushing RMT or the like? It reads more that you’ve received illegal gold. While the practice hasn’t been nixed in all game iterations as of right now, that doesn’t absolve you guys of receiving illegal gold due to the unsupported mode of play.

While you’re incorrect - what anyone thinks is of little consequence. Regardless of what people like to screech from the mountain tops, real people use the game data to investigate things. Real people sanction accounts. Real people send out the templated letters. And real people investigate again with each appeal.

Because it’s uncommon, I would put my money on that they were even more mindful of the situation - if only due to the fact that they would have had to coordinate everyone being sanctioned at the same time. Most instances of even raid groups, they’re more staggered it seems, folks only being sanctioned as each individual investigation is completed.

If you only knew how many people would decry other people from a raid group not being hit at the same time as they themselves were, or their BFF didn’t get hit and they did X together (only for the BFF’s sanction to come down days later).

The coordination that would have been required to nuke an entire guild, this is not the norm by any stretch.

OP - I do wish you and your guild luck in going forward with your appeals. Perhaps one of our SFAs will pop in with some sort of insight? But I know I’ll be keeping an eye on this thread.

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I don’t know why i cannot link wcl here in my post, it’s in the top article. But we stopped all guild raid for 3 months since Jan cause lack of attendant.

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Adding my ticket related to this: US98498967

It is super frustrating as I have been playing classic from MC to Black Temple (5/2022) and the account contains many memories. I stopped playing classic since then and still got banned by this. Now my SOD experience has to stop and I need to level a new character before next lockout. As I’ve heard, some of our guild members were excited and prepared for the new version coming up next week in retail wow. Now everything is wiped

I believe it is fair to ask Blizzard to do a more thorough investigation into each account instead of blanket ban every account that owns a character that currently sits in Reunion.

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That’s what the appeal ticket is for. There are no GMs on the forums and you cannot appeal an account action here.

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