A guildie of ours had his a/c banned due to using VPN because he was lagging in raids and he tried opening couple tickets and GM was just giving generic responses and not overturning the ban even when he provided the VPN logs for the hours he was trying to use it. We are on a Oceanic server and players from Asia often get latency issues and GM’s did “suggest” trying VPN so we asked him to try and as soon as he tries he got banned. He’s had this account and all the progress in it for 13 years. Tried to find a blizz contact number which is not available now. Just want someone (gm) who would actually take it seriously and look into the case.
Is there anything else he can do?.. or anyone experienced a similar case? …
The most your friend can do is keep appealing until Blizzard states they will no longer entertain any appeals.
Despite the name of this forum, there is no Blizzard staff here that can offer support for this and the staff that is here will just refer you to the appeal system.
All he can do is keep trying till they tell you no more apeals will be heard even if there was a # to call it was never to deal with ban. And just for clarification all apeals are taken seriously despite what the internet trolls would lead you to believe. Blizzard only takes logs into account not players words. The problem with vpn is that they can cause problems.
Actually funny thing is some of us had latency issues before and GM “suggested” us to use VPN. We play on oceanic server and some of us are from Asia and we get like 150+ latency so we sometimes use Australia VPN to get the latency lower which works. I think it was the “trying which location is better” triggered the ban.
So atm he provided the VPN logs to show which countries/ server he connected to during those time on top he has a authenticator attached to his a/c as well but ya no hope atm even by providing all these details.
Yeah, I’m not sure what to tell you there. VPNs are commonly used with no issues, but there is always the risk of using a VPN service and being given the same IP used by banned accounts, etc., so who knows. I hope the appeals end on a good note and best of luck.
I wondered if that was the case vpn hoping can cause issues long as u use the same VPN 100% of the time alot of those gold sellers vpn hop. Once again all he can do is apeal and hope for the best.
thanks for the giving hope haha. its just frustrating when you see all these gold farmers and bots farming primals at hellfire not get banned but someone whos trying to prepare a better gameplay for the upcoming phase 2 release in classic tbc gets hammered like this
The gold farmers and bots do get banned! They have multiple accounts, so when one gets banned they have others to switch too. You think it is the same one but they just use names that are very similar to each other so it looks like the same account.
Not in our region or our server at least. I know because I’ve been killing the same group of farmers since Winterspring of classic vanilla lol. When you kill them enough they will hop from hellfire to nagrand and then to shadowmoon valley. With 2 layers it was harder to kill coz they would switch layers. I mean yeah it’s good honor but they certainly do not get banned or a good amount of number get away with it.
They just need to appeal, Amaley. We can’t really recommend VPNs, although it is something a player could try. They aren’t forbidden for WoW - but aren’t supported either. The biggest issue is the bad guys use them too.
That can normally be sorted.
There are a few things about VPNs that make it less likely to have an adverse side-effect, but no guarantees it won’t set off something.
If you are going to use a VPN, usually best to stay away from the freebies. Those tend to be the ones criminals use.
If you are going to use a VPN, better to always use it - or never use it.
Have an authenticator.
While I understand this is a guildmate - this may also be totally unrelated to that and is for activity you know nothing about.
That is why we can only deal with the account holder on appeals. It’s admirable you want to stick up for them, and you may be totally correct - but someone else, you can never be absolutely certain.
Thanks for the reply! But we are pretty certain he didn’t do anything incorrect except for maybe trying different countries on the VPN to see which is better.
Actually we are on an Oceanic server and a lot of people including myself don’t have the best latency playing in Asia and one of us once did open a ticket to ask if there were any ways we can improve that because Oceanic server is the only server that is closest to us and the GM who replied actually suggested us to use VPN such as TunnelBear, Haste or NordVPN. We do have a screenshot of that suggesting VPN usage ticket. My friend provided the VPN logs of those hours he switched too and he does have an Authenticator set on his account. The responses from the appeal tickets (3 times) seems more copy & pasted. We tried live chat the support dude literally spent like 2 minute and just cut hm off. We just going through all this effort to appeal because he is really innocent and just feels bad hes had that account for 13 years and all his memories and progress was in there. All he wanted to do was improve his latency for the upcoming release of SSC/TK
Templates are often use because they provide a consistent answer to common issues, do not become stuck on the “Copy/Paste” nature. Most use some form of personalized contact, but when the answer is the same over and over again, it does also save time.
That is because Live Chat is for Billing and Account Access issues. Blizzard does not engage in live chat or phone callback for appeals.
They only take tickets for it, and always have, despite people trying to go around the triage system. That is why the live Chat GM ended the conversation. It is not the proper avenue for an appeal.
Unfortunately, you don’t ‘know’ anything technically unless you were standing directly over their shoulder, and even then still people can find ways that would get themselves in trouble. We’ve seen that plenty here, and while some people are vindicated in their speaking up for their friends in a suspension or ban, we’ve also seen it come to light when this friend really was doing what they were accused of and this guildie meaning to do good ended up with mud on their face.
It’s great you want to champion your friend, but you really don’t have any say in this matter. Blizzard will only deal with your friend as the account holder. Nothing anyone else says or does has any bearing on the appeals process.
The big thing to remember here is that while VPNs are not necessarily against the rules - neither are they supported. So by using them, it opens the door for problems. It may be the only thing that helps with your latency, but it does up the potential for your accounts to be flagged. Even if the GM suggested trying it as a fix, it’s still one of those things.
I had a guild member, in my previous guild, who we all knew and adored. We all thought she was an author, as she told us over the years (twelve years we all played together, give or take.) Traveling for book signings and such. She even gave us her pseudonym (pen name) that she used, which we all Googled. We thought she was an accomplished author.
Well, she passed away. For a while, nothing. Then a family member of hers logged in to thank us for being friends with her grandma for so many years. Author? Travel? Pseudonyms? What, no, she didn’t know anything about that. Just lonely old grandma in her house, as it had been for the last twenty years or so.
Anyway, I’ll be quiet now, but the moral of this story is that you never, ever, ever know what is actually going on behind someone else’s screen. You may think you are sure, based on what they’ve told you and even your own observations, but…
Gonna have to go with this, 100%. It’s the absolute truth.
don’t give up guys!