Earlier today at 11:09 A.M MDT my brother’s account was permanently banned for “Exploitative Activity: Unauthorized Cheat Programs (Hacks)”. He can’t even make a forum post here because you cannot post on forums if your battle.net account gets suspended so I’m making it on his behalf.
Before you guys comment on the hype train saying “haha you probably were botting you deserve it”, obviously there’s no way to prove that this wasn’t the case since you don’t just randomly put together proof that you’re actually playing the game legit as you log on day-to-day (an actual blizzard employee looking into it and realizing the mix-up would be the only way to rectify him), but I thought this was a joke at first and can’t believe it actually happened and I got to witness it first hand. It’s actually crazy that either 1 of 2 things happened:
1). His account was flagged by some automated system (since he had been gold farming stratholme dungeon, he has done 85 runs and got the mount to drop, and I’m guessing there may be bots doing it and he was lumped into the pile?)
2.) His account was mass reported by players and was deemed worthy to permanently suspend AUTOMATICALLY via an automated response system with no prior infractions or history of any wrongdoing at all. (We are on skyfury-PvP server and mass killed a raid that was summoning their group near a stone not too long before this ban.)
Either way both of these options are scary, and the worst part is that since he isn’t a streamer or popular person in the community, if the ban (for doing nothing wrong at all) does ever get reversed, it will take weeks, and definitely won’t happen before WOTLK launches in less than a week. And that’s IF it does get reversed. There’s no reason for the ban to not be reversed other than not being able to contact customer support and receive needed important help on issues like this. Everything is automated and it is very hard to get a response from a GM. All it would take is 5 minutes of a person looking into the situation to fix the problem, but instead this will probably be strung out into multiple weeks due to their automated system putting a PERMANENT ban on his account. I’m hoping that maybe this post will bring forth some attention to someone who can do something with the situation and help out.
EDIT:
Just in case a GM or anyone with power sees this that can do anything about the situation his in game name is Burgersniff-Skyfury on WOTLK classic (the new fresh server) and ticket number is US86092142.
If I read this a few years back id be in the camp of “Yeah right buddy” but honestly, I believe you. I’ve seen too many youtube videos and twitch streams with this kinda crap happening, I mean just look at what happened and is still happening with alterac valley
I edited my post and also added this link, but I’ll put it here too
This topic from a year ago still has the same technology and automated banning process of players plaguing innocent players since stratholme farming because popular for almost every class in the WOTLK pre-patch. It’s unreal that you can be banned for farming gold because of an automatic detection system to catch bots that isn’t looked over by anyone at all.
In the recent Wrath Classic Dev Interview - Aggrend aka Josh Greenfield (Producer) says “When asked about queue times disappearing over night on Wrath Classic during the Pre-Patch, Josh explains that Blizzard is implementing new technology to ban bots, which means on locked realms those bots can’t make new characters and would have a drastic impact on realm queue times”
This is actually something that may have had a direct result on the innocent banning of a player for doing an activity that also may have a lot of bots doing it aswell. PSA to be careful farming gold guys, you may just be permabanned like a bot
I have had a handful of Horde members on Atiesh experiencing the same thing. Banned for exploitation or gold farming when they were legitimately farming and making money. Its outrageous that Blizzard has this feature as I have seen plenty of bots starting to report people interfering with their money.
Players cannot automatically ban other players with right-click reports. Players do not have the power to permanently ban an account with no prior infractions by simply reporting it. Players do not have GM banning powers with extra steps.
Considering the number of false and reversed banning recently, I can believe this. Sadly your most likely right, IF this is the case, it will probably take weeks, which means the launch is out, they will have to play catch up, if they even get the chance.
Moral of the story, don’t do anything excessively in game, could get ban. Reason I avoided AV was the false bans, reason I avoided farming Stratholme, was those bans. Is unfortunate, but it is what it is. Your taking your account in your hands doing anything excessively it seems.
If Blizzard is implementing new technology to ban bots then as part of oversight and ensuring the compliant customer experience is not negatively impacted more GMs should be hired.
Farming stratholme 85 times is definitely not normal! So I think you need to post more info, over what span of times did he complete 85 runs? With friends or with random people or worse yet with accounts that he made himself? Oh and in the case of him using multiple accounts of his, they have labeled multiboxing as a bannable offence, not everyone is fully aware of that from my understanding.
GMs almost NEVER go to these forums. In the rare case that one does, it will be a GM who is playing WoW on their WoW account and is browsing the forums. And if you run into a GM (Game Master) who is doing all of that stuff, they still are highly unlikely to help you. Only ONCE in my entire life has a GM contacted me in game without a ticket based on what I said on the forums… and that was during TBC times, 10+ years ago.
Post on CS forums for a BLUE response. But that blue will still not be a GM.
Actually one other time a GM helped me from a forum post I made here. Also over a decade ago. I was trying to exploit in WoW and go under the map to a place where I wasn’t supposed to. Toon was lost, no GY, nothing. And it was always falling and moving so couldn’t log out once I logged into it. GM saw, and fixed it.
Chances of a GM seeing this now may be less than 1%. I actually think they may not legally be allowed to do it that way anymore.
Only way to get banned with right click reports is if a GM investigates and sees wrong was done. Getting lots of reports will auto silence you in game or remove you from an instance. But will not ban you without a GM looking over it first.
A post on the wow subreddit caught the attention of a GM and they were able to reverse the ban. He has been unbanned as of 9/24. The ticket still has an estimated response time of 8 days and has not been responded to at all even though an additional email was received from blizzard informing about the lifting of the permanent ban.
Yes it is. Just because it’s not your normal gameplay doesn’t mean it’s not someone else’s. I can imagine someone kicking back and spamming 30 runs a day while watching YouTube or Netflix.
