banned!?! what??

[cybermouse]

i just recieved this email yesterday (july9th) from blizzard.
i logged in and sure enough i am banned.
what is going on?
why has my account been banned?
i am not a hacker or exploiter of the wow economy.
i am a 34 year old father of two, who plays warcraft in my very limited free time.
that being said,i have devoted tons of hours building up my characters, and i want them back.
i pay every month to play this game, and to have my account PERMANENTLY DISABLED without any kind of notice or talking to me is TERRIBLE TERRIBLE business practice.

to make it worse, there is NO phone number for support for this.
you are forced to respond through email.
any ideas? suggestions?



***Notice of Account Closure***

This is a notification regarding the World of Warcraft account ######. Access to this account has been permanently disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation. While we try to be as lenient as possible in our assessments of the results of exploitation investigations, exploitative endeavors on your accounts have ultimately lead to their closure. The recurring subscription on the account has been disabled to prevent further charges.

As a result, this account will no longer be able to access any aspect of World of Warcraft. This action has been taken in accordance with the Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) and our game policies (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20309). According to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use, to which all players agree when installing World of Warcraft, Section 5, Paragraph C [Rules Related to Game Play] states that you may not do anything that Blizzard Entertainment considers contrary to the "essence" of World of Warcraft.

Any disputes or questions concerning this account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/21505

Thank you for your time and understanding of our position in this matter. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

[mmorpg man]

yet another person feels the banning rod on their ass. all the advice i can give is get them to investigate the account closure and hope they relent and take off the ban. good luck

[cybermouse]

i am just floored.
i have no idea why MY account would be suspect in the first place, unless i DID get hacked, in which case, isnt asking a customer to change their password or account info a better solution, as opposed to treating them like criminals?

ive done plenty of reading up on this since my ban yesterday, it looks like this is pretty common.

unbelivable.

[clevins]

I'd pursue this heavily. I strongly disagree with Blizzard's no warning/no details stance on this. Yeah, I've heard all of the reasons.... but I've also seen enough mistakes by them that I think they need to get off the high horse a bit and give some details and some warnings.

I'm not really talking about the temp ban, we think you've been hacked thing. But the instant, no warning perma-bans seem harsh. And, frankly, they come across as infallible when they're not. See, for example, here (http://www.worldofwar.net/forums/showpost.php?p=4018505&postcount=21).

Oh and before anyone starts the "it's their servers, you agreed to the ToS...." line. Yes, I KNOW. But there has to be some acknowledgment that

1) we put a lot of time into toons if we level them to 70 and gear them at all so taking them away permanently is a pretty big deal,
2) Blizzard is, in fact, wrong in some cases (see the above link) and
3) there's no real reason not to treat people well. That means starting out with a 'we've noticed something suspicious and if our suspicions are accurate you'll be banned. We have reason to believe you've (bought gold, are using 3rd party software etc). If you want this account to remain open, you will stop these activities at once. If you feel this is an error, contact us.'

That at least gives the person who IS guilty a chance to correct their ways (and some people may not realize what's allowed and what isn't... no, not everyone thoroughly reads the EULA) and it gives the unjustly accused person a chance to contact Blizzard and straighten things out without a permaban hanging over them.

[mmorpg man]

I think the problem is that people are getting hacked by gold sellers who break the rules and get the account banned but then they just move on to a new account and the real owner of the previous account is left in the mud trying to get their account back. yes I have noticed a severe drop in gold sellers around but is this the price we have to pay for getting rid of them? I'd rather have loads of gold sellers around than have innocent people getting banned

[cybermouse]

I think the problem is that people are getting hacked by gold sellers who break the rules and get the account banned but then they just move on to a new account and the real owner of the previous account is left in the mud trying to get their account back. yes I have noticed a severe drop in gold sellers around but is this the price we have to pay for getting rid of them? I'd rather have loads of gold sellers around than have innocent people getting banned


dont get me wrong, i appreciate that blizzard works hard to keep the gold sellers and hackers out of the game.
i see the level one characters spamming about gold in the cities on a semi regular basis, and i find them just as annoying as anybody.
and i dont want some kid with cash going and paying for wow gold, when i have worked so hard as a leatherworker, tailor, engineer, miner.

what i dont get is why they would ban someone like me, who has played wow for about a year and a half, with not a single incident before.
my highest level character is a level 54 druid on firetree. i think at the time of banning,i had all of 54 gold..... again, how am i a suspect??

why not a warning at least?
that way, whatever they think was going on can be resolved.

from what i hear, if i am LUCKY enough to get my account back, all my hard played and loved character will be gearless and have an empty bank.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

from what i hear, if i am LUCKY enough to get my account back, all my hard played and loved character will be gearless and have an empty bank.

Not necessarily. That may be true if your characters were deleted/hacked. But re-enabling your account, you'll fid everything where you last left them.

[Valas Azuviir]

from what i hear, if i am LUCKY enough to get my account back, all my hard played and loved character will be gearless and have an empty bank.

If, that were to occur, you having been emptied out, than you can petition Blizzard to have your gear restored. It's unlikely to be a 100% match, items with variable enchantments come to mind won't be exactly replicated. (enchantments will also be missing I might add)

So say you have a Mage with of the eagle gear, you might end up with tiger stuff instead.

It all depends upon the workload that you'd represent. If you have 8 characters all on the same server and all of them have been emptied out, including their banks, then it wouldn't surprise me, if you didn't get everything back. As opposed to say you only had three characters on that server with the same predicament.

[cybermouse]

Not necessarily. That may be true if your characters were deleted/hacked. But re-enabling your account, you'll fid everything where you last left them.


well, that may be the closest thing to good news ive heard today.
of course at this point, id just be happy to get my account back.

[Kodonn]

It all depends upon the workload that you'd represent. If you have 8 characters all on the same server and all of them have been emptied out, including their banks, then it wouldn't surprise me, if you didn't get everything back. As opposed to say you only had three characters on that server with the same predicament.

Just an extra 2 cents worth. Keep Valas' words about workload in mind when asking why they would just ban first instead of sending out warnings and notices. Some of the typical bannings in the past were in the 10s of thousands. Imagine the extra workload that would entail if everyone of those actions involved multiple Blizzard-to-account owner, Account owner-to-Blizzard exchanges.

Let's say they do a group of 10,000 bannings, and then let's stretch reality a bit and say 10% of those are mistakes (that's 1000 innocent players).

The outcome would be ~8900 cheaters/hackers/etc who just move on realizing they've been caught, and maybe ~100 cheaters/hackers/etc who figure they have nothing to lose by proclaiming innocence and trying to keep their accounts. Then there are the other 1000 players who have to email Blizzard and work through the red tape to get their names and accounts cleared.

Now, let's look at this same group with the softer approach. Blizzard sends out 10,000 emails warning that (insert customers name) account will be closed if any further breakage of the EULA / TOS is observed. You still have the 1000 innocent players who will email back saying, "Hey, I didn't do anything wrong". But you also will have most of the other 9000 cheaters/hackers/etc also emailing back trying to stall Blizzard while they continue to buy/sell gold etc.

From a business perspective, Blizzard hasn't accomplished anything yet at this point (unless their "You better stop...or else!!!" email actually does scare off a few hackers) and they have already expended a serious amount of time. Now they have to follow that up with 10,000 possible customer interactions which (as some would have it) they must investigate. More time invested.
THEN...they could finally get around to banning the gold sellers.

From a "perfect world" point of view it would be great if they could handle it that way. But in reality, it means they would have to hire 9x the number of customer service personnel, postpone the actual gold seller banning, and delay most of the other services that they could be doing if they didn't have to hold an investigation and a trial for each account they want to ban.

[elsegundo]

call them. pester them.

in terms of warning. i think they are smart not warning people before they ban them. think of all the things that would happen if real criminals get warned that they will be busted for say... money laundering. haha. cops dont warn criminals before a bust, i dont think bliz would either. but in bliz's case, they dont really need to be 100% sure its you that's doing it. its not law enforcement.

well hope you get your things back.

[cybermouse]

what you say makes sense.
but really, i could care less.
this is what i care about.
im a 34 year old divorced day of two.
i work very long hours at work.
between kids, a job, a mortgage, an ex wife, and everything else,
when its all said and done, my only real "my time"
is after the kids are asleep late at night.
my unwinding time is playing wow.
i play for fun.
i dont cheat.
i dont hack.
im a paying customer.
i have invested god knows how much time and energy into this game.
i have really good friends ingame i cant contact.

so again, i dont care if its more work to send out warnings.
ive put alot into this game, and to have in taken away for NOTHING infuriates me.

its like buying an old car to fix up.
putting your time and energy into it.
and then having the car stolen before you were able to put the final coat of paint on.


Just an extra 2 cents worth. Keep Valas' words about workload in mind when asking why they would just ban first instead of sending out warnings and notices. Some of the typical bannings in the past were in the 10s of thousands. Imagine the extra workload that would entail if everyone of those actions involved multiple Blizzard-to-account owner, Account owner-to-Blizzard exchanges.

Let's say they do a group of 10,000 bannings, and then let's stretch reality a bit and say 10% of those are mistakes (that's 1000 innocent players).

The outcome would be ~8900 cheaters/hackers/etc who just move on realizing they've been caught, and maybe ~100 cheaters/hackers/etc who figure they have nothing to lose by proclaiming innocence and trying to keep their accounts. Then there are the other 1000 players who have to email Blizzard and work through the red tape to get their names and accounts cleared.

Now, let's look at this same group with the softer approach. Blizzard sends out 10,000 emails warning that (insert customers name) account will be closed if any further breakage of the EULA / TOS is observed. You still have the 1000 innocent players who will email back saying, "Hey, I didn't do anything wrong". But you also will have most of the other 9000 cheaters/hackers/etc also emailing back trying to stall Blizzard while they continue to buy/sell gold etc.

From a business perspective, Blizzard hasn't accomplished anything yet at this point (unless their "You better stop...or else!!!" email actually does scare off a few hackers) and they have already expended a serious amount of time. Now they have to follow that up with 10,000 possible customer interactions which (as some would have it) they must investigate. More time invested.
THEN...they could finally get around to banning the gold sellers.

From a "perfect world" point of view it would be great if they could handle it that way. But in reality, it means they would have to hire 9x the number of customer service personnel, postpone the actual gold seller banning, and delay most of the other services that they could be doing if they didn't have to hold an investigation and a trial for each account they want to ban.

[clevins]

Sorry Kodonn, but if the rationale for banning in the first place is to preserve WoW for legitimate players, then banning 1000 innocent players does far more harm, I think, than the 9000 cheaters.

I despise cheaters, let's be clear on that. But punishing the innocent to catch the guilty seems ethically and morally wrong to me... The same rationale leads to 'let's jail some innocents if we have to catch more criminals...' and from there to 'let's accept the execution of innocents in order to make sure all of the guilty are executed too.'

WE need to remember in all cases WHY we want to catch the guilty - damage to society. And we have to ask ourselves whether the damage to the WoW society is greater by letting some cheaters continue and distort the economy a bit or by banning players who've done nothing wrong. Beyond that approach is an ethical stance that I realize not everyone shares... I'd much rather not harm innocents even if it means we let loose some guilty (and yes, I know all of the counters to this position, thanks).

But ona more practical level, I don't CARE about the operational difficulties that my suggestion would entail. I'm the customer... I'm the reason that all of those people get paid and have to worry about the integrity of WoW in the first place.... And I shouldn't be summarily cut off from an account I've paid for when I've done nothing wrong without some warning. If treating me as a valued customer is too much for a business then perhaps they need to look hard in the mirror and ask themselves what they're doing and why they're doing it.

call them. pester them.

in terms of warning. i think they are smart not warning people before they ban them. think of all the things that would happen if real criminals get warned that they will be busted for say... money laundering. haha. cops dont warn criminals before a bust, i dont think bliz would either. but in bliz's case, they dont really need to be 100% sure its you that's doing it. its not law enforcement.

well hope you get your things back.


Two different things. First off, the police don't also act as judge and jury moving from arrest straight to jail. They do, in effect, warn you by charging you. There's then a process for determining whether they're right or not.

You also are wrong when you say Blizz doesn't need to be 100% sure... in fact it's the cops who don't need to be 100% sure... just sure beyond a reasonable doubt (at least in the US). However, since Blizzard not only accuses but convicts and carries out the sentence they SHOULD be 100% sure. Let me put it this way - if cops arrested you and immediately shot you dead as the punishment... wouldn't you say they should be damn sure about what they're doing? A permanent ban is the WoW equivalent of that after all.

Lastly... what's so urgent about banning a botter or gold seller anyway? So it takes a nother week or two to ban someone who IS cheating? Why is that a big deal and how is not waiting so important that it's worth banning some innocents?

[elsegundo]

ahh.. indeed. your logic makes sense. but in a videogame, they shoot first and asks questions later.

[clevins]

Not true! I throw knives...

[cybermouse]

I'm the customer... I'm the reason that all of those people get paid and have to worry about the integrity of WoW in the first place.... And I shouldn't be summarily cut off from an account I've paid for when I've done nothing wrong without some warning. If treating me as a valued customer is too much for a business then perhaps they need to look hard in the mirror and ask themselves what they're doing and why they're doing it

EXACTLY! just like what clevins said!

[elsegundo]

Not true! I throw knives...

rogues.... :rolleyes:



*faerie fire*


jk.


but to OP. good luck with this man. again, pester them. gold sellers will just move on to the next hacked account, while the original owners will usually try to get their account back.

[mmorpg man]

ahh.. indeed. your logic makes sense. but in a videogame, they shoot first and asks questions later.

I think what you mean is they shoot first and ask (and answer) questions never.

[cybermouse]

i found this article on askapadwe.com.
two days before i had my account banned i had an automatic update of adobe flash player install.

i wonder if this is what happened to me??
has anyone else heard about the flash bug?


"New Flash Player Exploit Targets Your WoW Account
Posted on May 29, 2008 by Apadwe
There is a new flash player exploit that is currently being used on more than 200,000 websites and can target and steal your World of Warcraft account. Learn how to protect yourself…"


"Yesterday, Adobe found a new exploit in their flash player (version 9.0.115.0). This exploit redirects flash users to to malware and keyloggers through embedded Flash. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you update your Flash player to the most current version in which the exploit is fixed. You can visit adobe.com to get the new version, you can find out which version you have, or update from right here.

The new "safe" version of Flash right now is version 9.0.124.0. This has been such a big issue that even on the WoW login screen today it reported news about this. After you update your flash version you also will want to do a virus scan as well to be sure your computer is not infected.

Here's to safe and happy gaming!"

[elsegundo]

no i doubt it has anything to do with your pop-up that says your flash update is ready to install.

but if you havent been updating your flash, it could be the case. months before there were issues with certain WoW database sites that, if you mouseover their flash ad banners, you'll get infected somehow. yep, just mousing over was the claim. i have no doubt that these guys have people's passwords stored somewhere and will use them when the need arises. maybe you were the victim of this? i dont know. you might want to scan your computer with different virus softwares. but yes, again, call blizz, or work through their channels of communications. you need to express your anger to them (though not rudely) so that they will investigate.

[mmorpg man]

the flash exploit has been known for ages. if people are still being caught by this then I have little sympathy for them if they get hacked

[cybermouse]

the flash exploit has been known for ages. if people are still being caught by this then I have little sympathy for them if they get hacked


i have no idea if that is what happened to me.
quite frankly, im just grasping at straws trying to figure out what happened.

[Justinledwards]

Ok, well what blizzard do if an account is showing suspicious activity is close it. They don't neccessarily know it's been hacked.

Not sure how old your kids are, but if they are internet-savvy I would have a quick talk to them about if they did anything on your account.

It seems likely you have been hacked, but Blizz don't know that - what they know is YOUR account is doing bad things. However they know that accounts get hacked a lot. So the first thing they do is close it.

If you think about it, this actually protects YOU. It means the hacker cannot continue to do destructive things to your characters (e.g. xfer them to different accounts, servers, vendor all your gear etc). If you have to get the gear restored, xfer reversed etc this can be an extra weeks or months of waiting around.

If you have any questions on the restoration process, the best place is the WOW forums customer service forum - it's very actively monitored and there are quite a few customer service community members there willing to point you in the right direction.

[cybermouse]

i agree temporarily closing an account if it is hacked is a smart move.
its the PERMANANTLY BANNED part that is getting me.

i sent an email to wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com.
as far as i can tell, all i can do is wait (for what sounds like a long long wait)
and hope for the best.

if that doesnt work, i am going to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.im holding off for now and hoping blizzard will come through.

http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=13050668



Ok, well what blizzard do if an account is showing suspicious activity is close it. They don't neccessarily know it's been hacked.

Not sure how old your kids are, but if they are internet-savvy I would have a quick talk to them about if they did anything on your account.

It seems likely you have been hacked, but Blizz don't know that - what they know is YOUR account is doing bad things. However they know that accounts get hacked a lot. So the first thing they do is close it.

If you think about it, this actually protects YOU. It means the hacker cannot continue to do destructive things to your characters (e.g. xfer them to different accounts, servers, vendor all your gear etc). If you have to get the gear restored, xfer reversed etc this can be an extra weeks or months of waiting around.

If you have any questions on the restoration process, the best place is the WOW forums customer service forum - it's very actively monitored and there are quite a few customer service community members there willing to point you in the right direction.

[Valas Azuviir]

Don't count on the BBB being able to do anything. They have no enforcement capabilities and they're non-governmental. Matter of fact, it's companies like Blizzard that keep them afloat by paying them for accreditation, and I've read articles about how they wrote to businesses and essentially tried to extort money from them.

Pretty much the either you pay us, or we're going to write something bad about you. Irrespective of the facts of the case. Blizzard for instance has a bad rep with them, for banning numerous bot and hack users on Battlenet.

So don't hold your breath if you do get them involved.

[Justinledwards]

Cybermouse, why would you temporarily ban an account (temp bans are 3 days) that was performing suspicious activity? Say the user is on holidays for 3 weeks, their account gets hacked, they find a ban and re-activate and more damage is done.... you would scream just as loudly at blizzard.

Or perhaps you closed your account for 6 months... a hacker reactivates one month in and has their way for 3 months... Just how long SHOULD a temp ban be? Permanent is the right thing to do.

Remember, they don't know you've been hacked - at the moment, they belive it's the account owner doing the naughty stuff.

From what I have seen this can take a couple of weeks to work out.

If you want more attention, re-post your situation as explained above on the WoW customer service forums, the folks there can give you some comfort, and you may get a 'blue' response.

But threats of BBB and rants don't go down well over there, a friendly warning.

Keep your cool, keep following it up, and if the situation is as you say it is, this will come to light and you will have an eventual resolution.

[cybermouse]

this is one of the things i find very irritating, i can't go to the WoW customer service forums because my account has been banned because of this mess.
to post there, you have to have an active wow account to log in.

but.....if anybody wants to go on there and plead my case.......
on second thought, dont do that.
you will probably get banned too. :undecided:


Cybermouse, why would you temporarily ban an account (temp bans are 3 days) that was performing suspicious activity? Say the user is on holidays for 3 weeks, their account gets hacked, they find a ban and re-activate and more damage is done.... you would scream just as loudly at blizzard.

Or perhaps you closed your account for 6 months... a hacker reactivates one month in and has their way for 3 months... Just how long SHOULD a temp ban be? Permanent is the right thing to do.

Remember, they don't know you've been hacked - at the moment, they belive it's the account owner doing the naughty stuff.

From what I have seen this can take a couple of weeks to work out.

If you want more attention, re-post your situation as explained above on the WoW customer service forums, the folks there can give you some comfort, and you may get a 'blue' response.

But threats of BBB and rants don't go down well over there, a friendly warning.

Keep your cool, keep following it up, and if the situation is as you say it is, this will come to light and you will have an eventual resolution.

[Justinledwards]

this is one of the things i find very irritating, i can't go to the WoW customer service forums because my account has been banned because of this mess.
to post there, you have to have an active wow account to log in.

but.....if anybody wants to go on there and plead my case.......
on second thought, dont do that.
you will probably get banned too. :undecided:

Ahhh of course. Sorry Cybermouse, as I do not know you I am not going to do that.

But, if you have any friends that play WoW - why don't you ask them to do that?

One thing you could do to keep you busy in the meantime is open another account, or even a trial account, 2 weeks free - can you post on forums from trials?

[cybermouse]

Ahhh of course. Sorry Cybermouse, as I do not know you I am not going to do that.

But, if you have any friends that play WoW - why don't you ask them to do that?

One thing you could do to keep you busy in the meantime is open another account, or even a trial account, 2 weeks free - can you post on forums from trials?

i have thought about asking my (real world) friends i play wow with but i am legitimately worried that it may cause them to get banned. especially since in the email from blizzard it states
"or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation"
which even though i and my friends know im far from a hacker, blizzard seems to think i am. (again, my highest level character has probably no more than 50 gold)

i thought about doing the trial account to see if i could post in there,
but seeing as how things have gone so far, im betting blizzard has thought of that before.

im really not trying to rant too terribly much....
but....
imagine going to log in tomorrow and finding you are banned also.
trust me....even if you are doing NOTHING wrong,
it CAN happen.

[Redhole]

It's the 'exploitation of the WOW economy' bit that worries me. What exactly is this? On my main character I frequently load up on vendored cooking recipes from high level zones and then sell them on the auction house at a profit - I regard this as fair, but might Blizzard consider it exploitation? What about buying cheap greens, disenchanting them and selling the mats for a profit? Or buying out a particular commodity and relisting them at a higher price? Even farming for gold, could that be considered exploitation?

I just wonder if any method of money making other than questing could be considered 'exploitation'.

[mmorpg man]

It's the 'exploitation of the WOW economy' bit that worries me. What exactly is this? On my main character I frequently load up on vendored cooking recipes from high level zones and then sell them on the auction house at a profit - I regard this as fair, but might Blizzard consider it exploitation? What about buying cheap greens, disenchanting them and selling the mats for a profit? Or buying out a particular commodity and relisting them at a higher price? Even farming for gold, could that be considered exploitation?

your guess is as good as ours. it could be as trivial as playing the AH by buying cheap items and selling them for more money. the problem is whenever anybody tries to get an answer out of blizzard for an exact reason for a ban they just avoid the question. I've had more successful conversations with GMs ffs

[Justinledwards]

Buying and selling gold for real money, that's exploitation of the economy. That's it.

[Tikki]

Hmm....so much to say..

1) Blizzard seems to have lost the attitude of, "Treat the customer as if they are always right"...regardless of the act of being banned, as paying customers to Blizzard (who enables them to be in business)- if we are banned for 'x' reasons, we should still have the opportunity/chance to have them reactivate our account. It shouldn't be a "we're Blizzard, we've banned you for good, and that's that".

2) I can agree with Blizzards automatic ban if you to x,y, or z. That's fine, we know what we should and shouldn't do, but for people who don't then there should be exceptions. BUT regardless, I agree with an instant ban. I think an instant ban will flush out cheaters/hackers/etc...if one of them gets instantly banned, they move on to the next sucker- bam bam bam. For people who are either innocent, or legitimately didn't know they were doing something wrong they'll contact Blizzard and fight. If people in these situation knew that the account wasn't perm banned, but yet a bit of elbow grease would get it back.

So- to sum up, blizzard should have the policy of "instant ban, but if you want to fight to get it back, we'll give you the chance and our attention".

Blizzard has SOO much money, and could/does have lots of man power, so I don't see how they couldn't assign a section to handle this (maybe they do- customer service?).

My advice to you is to fight it if you're innocent. If you don't, Blizzard will just think they slowed down another gold seller.

[mmorpg man]

what I don't like is that blizzard doesn't seem to have a proper reason for banning someone. they act as if they are just guessing that someone is doing something wrong in the game which is why they give answers like "exploitation of the economy". they honestly don't have any evidence (or very little) to justify the banning of an account.

you don't see police sentence a criminal to 30 years in prison on suspicion of murder. they make absolutely certain, without any shadow of doubt, that the person is guilty before giving the sentence out.

blizzard could, instead of instantly banning someone, take a small amount of time (say 1 week) to investigate an account that they think is doing something wrong and that way they would have more evidence to ban an account than bull**** responses like "exploitation of the economy".

is it too hard to give a straight answer to a question? if there are any blizzard employees looking at this (which there most likely won't be) then I would like to know what the **** you people are thinking.

[Kodonn]

Ok, just to clear some things up...

Sorry Kodonn, but if the rationale for banning in the first place is to preserve WoW for legitimate players, then banning 1000 innocent players does far more harm, I think, than the 9000 cheaters.

I picked the 1000 number out of thin air for the purposes of my explaination. I thought I made that clear, so please don't start throwing that number around like it's a statistic. In reality the innocent to cheaters ban ratio is probably 1/10 or even 1/100 of that. No one but Blizzard knows for sure.

But punishing the innocent to catch the guilty seems ethically and morally wrong to me... The same rationale leads to 'let's jail some innocents if we have to catch more criminals...' and from there to 'let's accept the execution of innocents in order to make sure all of the guilty are executed too.'

Your analogy is close, but still off. It would be more correct to say..."We don't know who here is guilty, so we're going to take you all downtown and THEN sort it out. If you're innocent we'll cut you loose."

The fact is, they don't really care if the player on the other end of that account is a hard working single parent of two with a sick grandmother and a three-legged dog, or a rich spoiled teenager who multi-boxes three accounts because no one else will play with them. (:rolleyes: just examples, I'm not judging anyone) All they see from their end is suspicious or unallowable activities on an account and they have pre-defined courses of action that their people are supposed to follow.

You have to remember that even a permaban is not strictly permanent. We've seen evidence of that here on these forums many times. It's the equivalent of holding everyone in custody until they can sort out who is guilty and who isn't.

WE need to remember in all cases WHY we want to catch the guilty - damage to society. And we have to ask ourselves whether the damage to the WoW society is greater by letting some cheaters continue and distort the economy a bit or by banning players who've done nothing wrong.

Here again you've distorted what they are doing. Sorry if I'm misreading that, but you make it sound like Blizzard randomly picks accounts and just bans them. They don't. From their criteria something or some activity on ALL of those accounts triggered the banning action. Further investigation (which comes when the account owner emails them back) might reveal that the account was hacked and it wasn't the real owner who was guilty. Or they might discover it was guilt by association (i.e. someone with bought gold purchased an AH item from an innicent player) But in any case, they DON'T know that until after they take some action.

But ona more practical level, I don't CARE about the operational difficulties that my suggestion would entail. I'm the customer... I'm the reason that all of those people get paid and have to worry about the integrity of WoW in the first place....

I'm sorry to break the news, but they don't care, that you don't care. You are only 1 out of millions of reasons those people get paid. You want to up your monthly fee by a couple $1000, then maybe they will worry about you. Other than that, they have a business to run. They have to run it from a business perspective, not a "care bear" organization. It simply isn't practical or cost effective to contact every single account that triggers the EULA / TOS violation alarm and hold a full discourse with the owner before they can take any action.


You also are wrong when you say Blizz doesn't need to be 100% sure...

No, he's right. They don't have to be 100% sure. Read your EULA / TOS again. They can deny you use of their services for any reason they want.

Lastly... what's so urgent about banning a botter or gold seller anyway? So it takes a nother week or two to ban someone who IS cheating?

You and I don't really know how long it actually takes for them to ban someone. Only someone who was banned and knows exactly what they did and when, that was the cause of the banning, could figure that out.

The simple fact is, they have a procedure and they've tried to make it as fair, as efficient, and as cost effective as possible. They even HAVE a means for dealing with their mistakes. Is it 100% perfect. No. Is everyone who has ever been effected by it 100% happy. No. Is it good enough to serve and satisfy the majority of the WoW community without making our gameplay and our monthly subscription rates unbearable. Most likely

[elsegundo]

what I don't like is that blizzard doesn't seem to have a proper reason for banning someone. they act as if they are just guessing that someone is doing something wrong in the game which is why they give answers like "exploitation of the economy". they honestly don't have any evidence (or very little) to justify the banning of an account.


how do you know they do not have a proper reason for banning someone? do you work for them?

[clevins]

Els... of course you're right the might have... but it IS annoying that they give vague reasons (vs 'we believe you've been selling gold'). It's hard enough to prove you didn't do something, but what they won't tell you the thing you're accused of doing...

As I said above, I really don't like a lot of the out of game Blizzard. But, luckily, I've not had to deal with it myself.

[cybermouse]

it is now day three of not hearing back from blizzard.
ive noticed in alot of the "banned" postings on here, the person banned coplains, then dissappears without posting the final outcome.
i am going to post on here until i get a final outcome.

[mmorpg man]

how do you know they do not have a proper reason for banning someone? do you work for them?

they aren't exactly providing much evidence to the contrary. if they want to prove me wrong then I'll gladly accept it. which do you think sounds better, saying

"you were banned for displaying an advert to sell gold in the game on this character at this time"
or
"you were banned for exploiting the economy"

they can dress it up in any amount of flowery but all they're saying is "we suspect you might be doing something illegal so we're going to ban you which decreases our customers and gives us a bad reputation". I might be missing something here but I'm sure the idea of a good business is to get a good reputation not a bad 1.

here's something else I would quite like to see. when blizzard reactivates an account they send an email to the owner of the account saying something like

"we apologise for the inconvenience caused by closing your account. the problem is we are far too paranoid for our own good and don't realise that gold sellers hack accounts and when the account gets banned they move on. we'll try to do better next time we ban you for absolutely no reason."

[elsegundo]

it is now day three of not hearing back from blizzard.
ive noticed in alot of the "banned" postings on here, the person banned coplains, then dissappears without posting the final outcome.
i am going to post on here until i get a final outcome.

thank you. no seriosly... thank you. i hate seeing threads get debated about and then never hearing back from the OP.


clevins/mmorpgman... yes i know. their responses sometimes suck. but it doesnt mean they havent gone through the necessary procedures in order to make the assumption, without a reasonable doubt, that someone may be cheating. i find that they could be better. heck, dealing with creditors seem a lot better than dealing with blizzard. im kinda glad we have topics like this. if i ever get banned i'll know what to expect. their hit game has been going strong for almost three years, correct? it seems that its about time they upgraded to the next best customer service service pack. we'll see what happens. i'm hinting that they're growing a bit too fast and they havent expanded enough to meet the needs of the customers? yes.

[Kodonn]

"you were banned for displaying an advert to sell gold in the game on this character at this time"
or
"you were banned for exploiting the economy"

I agree with you mmorpg, more details would be a great help in the cases where someone was banned incorrectly and now needs to plead their case.

Unfortunately, such a "personalized" notice would require a lot more human input than I suspect they are using. It's more likely that they are running several programs (like Warden) that look for certain traits/tells on an account. That probably flags AND classifies the account for future scrutiny. The second time around the automated system would most likely place the offending account into 1 of several categories and then send out the appropriate pre-written one-phrase-covers-all ban notice.

Since I just finished lunch, here's a good analogy. Ever notice when you go through the drive-thru at a fast food joint, you get your meal somewhat faster if you just ask for the combo # 4 (or whatever) instead of listing out what you want? Better yet, stand around inside for a while and watch the person at the register as people order their meals. "Hey Bob, this guy asked for a burger with no lettuce, but I can't find a picture of a burger with no lettuce on the cash register. How do I ring this up?" :grin:
(No offense intended to anyone who works in the fast food industry. I realize all of that is done that way to speed up customer service.)

[mmorpg man]

clevins/mmorpgman... yes i know. their responses sometimes suck. but it doesnt mean they havent gone through the necessary procedures in order to make the assumption, without a reasonable doubt, that someone may be cheating. i find that they could be better. heck, dealing with creditors seem a lot better than dealing with blizzard. im kinda glad we have topics like this. if i ever get banned i'll know what to expect. their hit game has been going strong for almost three years, correct? it seems that its about time they upgraded to the next best customer service service pack. we'll see what happens. i'm hinting that they're growing a bit too fast and they havent expanded enough to meet the needs of the customers? yes.

sometimes suck? there's no sometimes about it. we'll see what happens in the future but from what I've seen, I don't think things are going to change

[elsegundo]

mmorpgman, you're still assuming things. you dont know if this happens all the time. you base this on responses from the people who got banned and posted on this forum. what of the people that have gotten banned and never posted on these forums? what of the people that got banned but waited until bliz fixed things and got them going again? you say they always do this, but you really dont know. did everyone who got banned report this to you so you know the statistic? dont mix up feelings for facts.

[mmorpg man]

10 bannings in 2 months that have been posted on these forums.all of them that have posted the email they got from blizard was basically the same for all of them. coincidence?

[elsegundo]

10 bannings in 2 months that have been posted on these forums.all of them that have posted the email they got from blizard was basically the same for all of them. coincidence?

Yes mmorpgman, its totally coincidental. its coincidental that 10 people received bans and all of them received the same email stating clearly that they are banned and giving them a brief explaination as to what caused the ban and what they can do to resolve this issue. totally coincidental because obviously, those 10 people should not be getting the same email. /sarcasm.

[mmorpg man]

Yes mmorpgman, its totally coincidental. its coincidental that 10 people received bans and all of them received the same email stating clearly that they are banned and giving them a brief explaination as to what caused the ban and what they can do to resolve this issue. totally coincidental because obviously, those 10 people should not be getting the same email. /sarcasm.

brief explaination? saying "exploiting the economy" isn't an explaination. and saying "if you have any queries then feel free to email us" when they just don't reply isn't helpful

[Valas Azuviir]

I just wonder if any method of money making other than questing could be considered 'exploitation'.

As mentioned it can be gold buying. HOWEVER, the charge can and has also been used against those folks who exploit certain bugs, like killing certain npc's because they drop an unusually high amount of cash. So much so, that it should've raised some alarm bells about it possibly being a bug, and that subsequently killing said npc 40 times in a row, isn't exactly the most prudent thing to do in such a situation.

MMORPG Man, it's a form e-mail. It's no different from some of the ban notices we use here. Whether someone is selling their orc figurine, or an e-book or Nokia phones etc etc. When I ban such folks, I use the exact same reason for all of them. It saves time. They might not like it, but it's not as if I have to care about the opinion of someone who has violated the forum rules.

And as Kodonn has pointed out, lot of things are probably done automated, so human involvement is most likely minimum, except for probably clicking name and ok to confirm the ban and sending someone the form e-mail.

And I know that you and Clevins don't like the vagueness of the form e-mail. But the main problem is, the more detail they provide, the easier it becomes for the bad guys to figure out, how they slipped up and how not do so in future, whilest still continuing with their nefarious doings.

You hold that it's better to let some bad guys run free, rather than to harm some innocents. Blizzard thinks the opposite, neither party is likely to give an inch and considering that Blizzard is the one calling the shots. Well, that makes the argument moot, considering the only alternative you then have is voting with your wallet.

And considering the size of the population, the continued growth, and that most folks tend not to have any objections to giving away some of their freedoms for more security. Well, your protest will be like a grain of sand in the Sahara desert. Never noticed and easily forgotten.

[clevins]

Valas,

the excuse that "the more detail they provide, the easier it becomes for the bad guys to figure out, how they slipped up and how not do so in future, whilest still continuing with their nefarious doings" is convenient... and silly.

If you're buying or selling gold you KNOW what you've done. An email saying they caught you isn't going to enlighten you further. But killing the same NPC over and over? Um... how is someone supposed to know that's not OK? After all, imagine you were questing in, oh, Feralas and you found an NPC that was dropping 1g. It's your first toon... this is a LOT of gold for a single easy kill. Why WOULDN'T you kill it a few times? What about that says "Oh no, I'm exploiting the economy?" to anyone? Nothing. If Blizzard wants to stop that, send the person a warning saying "repeatedly killing of that npc should not be done."

And, frankly, if it bothers Blizz... adjust the drop. It's like the chests in Mech a couple of patches ago - a rogue could stealth to them and get the chests and usually get a blue and some gold. A exploit? Maybe... but it all they had to do was alter the encounter.

Oh and please, let's not resort to the "Blizzard can do whatever they want" cant ok? We KNOW that... it's banal to state it as it's obvious. But we're talking about what we feel they should do... I don't think anyone here has any expectation that they'll change because of it... it's a discussion.

As for the "I use the same email because it's easy and I dont have to talk to them ever again anyway...." Um... that's the problem. It distances the person doing the banning from the (real) person being banned. IN the case of this forum 1) we're not paying you and 2) you don't seem to ban many. I don't expect Blizzard to do personal emails... but the form emails could be tailored more closely to the actual issue. And no, I really DON'T believe the 'oh that will give baddies clues' silliness.

[mmorpg man]

if I have any experience of mmorpgs (which I think I do), big gaming companies (Blizzard, ArenaNet, etc) hardly ever take note of anything the players have to say and instead wait untill all the players start to leave before doing anything about it. I don't expect blizzard to do anything about this but I still would like something done.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

it is now day three of not hearing back from blizzard.
ive noticed in alot of the "banned" postings on here, the person banned coplains, then dissappears without posting the final outcome.
i am going to post on here until i get a final outcome.

Good to hear, always nice to see when these things turn around.

Oh, something to note, Blizzard *has* had false positives in their system before. Blizzard banned, in one fell swoop, probably 70 - 80% of their customers running WoW in Linux (through WINE, CrossOffice [sort of WINE Pro], or Cedega). Warden picks up and identifies activities where some application is affecting WoW's operation. The thing is, in order to make WoW work at all in Linux, you have to run an application that affects WoW's operation -- the ones I mentioned. Because WoW expects the MS Windows API calls to be available to do things, and these applications provide that layer to make it possible. Warden identified them, and bam, thousands of customers found their accounts locked.

Of course, TransGaming (which makes Cedega) and CodeWeavers (which makes WINE/CrossOffice) forum communities went up in arms in a heartbeat over this. TransGaming and CodeWeavers contacted Blizzard, and explained the situation. A new agreement was reached with those groups, their apps were made to not cause false positives in Warden, and Blizzard also has been sending both groups detailed information on how to make them work with WoW (and other Blizzard products) better, advancing the development of their DirectX compatability libraries a thousand fold.

What about the Linux users who were affected? Well... Blizzard reenabled every single last Linux-platform WoW account that was improperly identified... it took like 2 - 3 weeks for this to finally all be done. Blizzard also credited every account with the time they lost due to the mass banning.

So... Blizzard *has* made masive, incorrect bans before. But it does eventually straighten out when they know about it. Blizzard likes to improve their detection algorithms, and unfortunately false positives can happen. Identifying the false positive, veryfying it, and then figuring out how to abvoid it in the future all are things that take place... sometimes before the account gets reactivated. Plus, Blizzard won't necessarily respond (what would they say, a periodic "we're still working on it" spam-like email?), at least not until it is done.

Patience is the key, and pestering Blizzard. If you are in the right, it will pan out as such, and Blizzard *will* reverse the original incorrect decision. Further, your inconvenience might very well produce a solution that prevents other people from experiencing the same thing in the future.

if I have any experience of mmorpgs (which I think I do), big gaming companies (Blizzard, ArenaNet, etc) hardly ever take note of anything the players have to say and instead wait untill all the players start to leave before doing anything about it. I don't expect blizzard to do anything about this but I still would like something done.

FYI, Blizzard has historically shown that they do take their customers opinions and positions very seriously. Blizzard has shown themselves to be far less of the ostracized and detached corporate superpower that ignores their customers. My example above shows one such case. Bear in mind that taking their customer's situations seriously, and replying instantaneously, are two fundamentally different things.

[mmorpg man]

did blizzard ever apologise for something that their system did wrong? no. even when they are blatently wrong about something they ignore it and carry on as if nothing has happened. why don't they have the curtusy to admit that they made a mistake?

[Valas Azuviir]

the excuse that "the more detail they provide, the easier it becomes for the bad guys to figure out, how they slipped up and how not do so in future, whilest still continuing with their nefarious doings" is convenient... and silly.

If you're buying or selling gold you KNOW what you've done. An email saying they caught you isn't going to enlighten you further.


Hey, if you're botting, then you also know what you've done. Doesn't change the fact that I've seen some botmakers make comments about them regretting that Blizzard doesn't go into more details, because it would make their lives easier.

Information is ammunition. How that ammunition is subsequently used is the difference between the "good" guys winning or the "baddies".



But killing the same NPC over and over? Um... how is someone supposed to know that's not OK? After all, imagine you were questing in, oh, Feralas and you found an NPC that was dropping 1g. It's your first toon... this is a LOT of gold for a single easy kill. Why WOULDN'T you kill it a few times? What about that says "Oh no, I'm exploiting the economy?" to anyone? Nothing. If Blizzard wants to stop that, send the person a warning saying "repeatedly killing of that npc should not be done."


They chalked it up to use some common sense. They banned a guild who raided Jaina Proudmoore all the time. Who with the help of some folks over on the Alliance side was repeatedly lured outside of Theramore (due to a quest) and killed for the money she dropped. Which even taking into consideration the size of the raid group, was quite a considerable amount of dosh per person. This was Pre-TBC.



And, frankly, if it bothers Blizz... adjust the drop. It's like the chests in Mech a couple of patches ago - a rogue could stealth to them and get the chests and usually get a blue and some gold. A exploit? Maybe... but it all they had to do was alter the encounter.


They have since altered the drop rate, but they still consider it an exploit. No different from folks climbing onto walls and jumping back off in time to whittle down certain elite mobs with long range fire.



As for the "I use the same email because it's easy and I dont have to talk to them ever again anyway...." Um... that's the problem. It distances the person doing the banning from the (real) person being banned. IN the case of this forum 1) we're not paying you and 2) you don't seem to ban many. I don't expect Blizzard to do personal emails... but the form emails could be tailored more closely to the actual issue. And no, I really DON'T believe the 'oh that will give baddies clues' silliness.

2) You'd be surprised at how many folks we ban on a monthly basis. Granted, it's wave formed, sometimes it's quiet for a while, and then we get swamped and have to start feeding folks to Fluffy like crazy. But it's not as seldom as you seem to think.

So if form responses help speed things up on our end, than it would speed things up even more for Blizzard. We have a current membership of 284,243, and that doesn't include banned accounts. That's what? 3% of the total WoW population?

(If, I had to make a comparison to our manually banned folks who show up in our banned list as opposed to those nuked by the spam thread option, we've had ever since the board upgrade, and those don't show up in the list afaik. Then the total of number of folks we've nuked is roughly the equivalent of 2% of our membership. Our entire membership is equivalent to roughly 3% of the entire WoW populace. So, if it's a time saver for us, then it would be even more a timer saver for Blizzard. Cost - Benefit equation essentially, and the benefit of tailoring e-mails doesn't weigh up against the costs that it would entail.)

did blizzard ever apologise for something that their system did wrong? no. even when they are blatently wrong about something they ignore it and carry on as if nothing has happened. why don't they have the curtusy to admit that they made a mistake?

Guess, you've never seen the Morhaime apologies whenever there was a big muckup have you? They do apologize, and Morhaime explanations on what went wrong could teach their CMs a thing or two about explaining things accurately, yet succinctly.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

did blizzard ever apologise for something that their system did wrong? no. even when they are blatently wrong about something they ignore it and carry on as if nothing has happened. why don't they have the curtusy to admit that they made a mistake?

I'm confused, first off, as to why Blizzard, as a corporation, would need to apologize for every mistake made. Mistakes happen, they get fixed, and people move on with their lives. Plain and simple.

Second, for real big things, Blizzard *has* apologized. The Linux thing I mentioned previously, ended with Blizzard apologizing to the Linux community for that oversight. When there was massive server outages in year 1 of WoW, Blizzard apologized for it (and credited the time lost to all affected accounts). They do apologize, if it is big enough. But if it isn't big enough, they just move on. It would take more time away from getting things done, if they spent the time to apologize for every glitch or mistake in the system.

[cybermouse]

i went last night and created a trial account on wow
with the sole purpose of having an account log in so i can post in the official gm moderated wow customer support forum.
suprise suprise.
you can NOT post there when all you have are low level toons.
so....to post there, id HAVE to start playing a NEW character to get high enough to post....
i am NOT going to start playing a new account.
if i dont get mine back, i am done with wow for good.
more insanity.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Actually, I think Trial Accounts can't post on the official forums anyway.

Your best choice is to nag Blizzard, and be patient. Things will work out, but it takes time for them to check things. Giving up before that time transpires is no sweat off Blizz' back.

[elsegundo]

i went last night and created a trial account on wow
with the sole purpose of having an account log in so i can post in the official gm moderated wow customer support forum.
suprise suprise.
you can NOT post there when all you have are low level toons.
so....to post there, id HAVE to start playing a NEW character to get high enough to post....
i am NOT going to start playing a new account.
if i dont get mine back, i am done with wow for good.
more insanity.

yes, do that. there are other things out there, games or not, that you can do. show bliz your discontent and spend your money elsewhere. its hard leaving a character you've spent so long building up, but hey... life's more than just WoW. accept nothing less than a full reactivation of your old account.

in any case, good luck.

[mmorpg man]

Second, for real big things, Blizzard *has* apologized. The Linux thing I mentioned previously, ended with Blizzard apologizing to the Linux community for that oversight. When there was massive server outages in year 1 of WoW, Blizzard apologized for it (and credited the time lost to all affected accounts). They do apologize, if it is big enough. But if it isn't big enough, they just move on. It would take more time away from getting things done, if they spent the time to apologize for every glitch or mistake in the system.

I'm not talking about glitches in the system. I'm talking about innocent people getting banned. its common curtasy to appologise to someone after causing them an inconvienience of this nature. I can't blame the OP for not wanting to get a new account and have to start again from scratch after working so hard on his characters. imagine this senario:

2 people walk around a corner and bump into each other.

person A: sorry I didn't see you there
person B: you should have looked more carefully then. its your responsibility to be careful of other people in the street. I'll let you off this time so get on your way

in this, blizzard is person B. now how would you feel if you were person A? you wouldn't like the attitude of person B would you.

P.S. you don't need to put words in between stars. I was born in england and (surprisingly) can read english.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

I'm not talking about glitches in the system. I'm talking about innocent people getting banned. its common curtasy to appologise to someone after causing them an inconvienience of this nature. I can't blame the OP for not wanting to get a new account and have to start again from scratch after working so hard on his characters. imagine this senario:

But the innocent bannings are because of glitches. You can't have it both ways. The OP's situation looks like a glitch, which needs to be resolved, and unfortunately won't be very quick to do so. I also can't blame the OP for not wanting to get a new account and have to start again from scratch. But all I can say is patience is a virtue, and for the OP to pester Blizzard to keep them aware that the problem is persisting. Once it is done, everything will be OK, as has been shown time and again on this very forum.

2 people walk around a corner and bump into each other.

person A: sorry I didn't see you there
person B: you should have looked more carefully then. its your responsibility to be careful of other people in the street. I'll let you off this time so get on your way

in this, blizzard is person B. now how would you feel if you were person A? you wouldn't like the attitude of person B would you.

Your analogy isn't really very good for this. If you go over to somebody's house, and that person has you leave, does that person have to give you any reason whatsoever as to why? Blizzard banning people is much closer to a person kicking someone else out of his/her house. An explanation is a courtesy, but not a right, or a requirement.

P.S. you don't need to put words in between stars. I was born in england and (surprisingly) can read english.

It is an old, old, old habit from the late 80's/early 90's I still occasionally do. so sue me.

[timebomber]

i went last night and created a trial account on wow
with the sole purpose of having an account log in so i can post in the official gm moderated wow customer support forum.
suprise suprise.
you can NOT post there when all you have are low level toons.
so....to post there, id HAVE to start playing a NEW character to get high enough to post....
i am NOT going to start playing a new account.
if i dont get mine back, i am done with wow for good.
more insanity.

My wow account was band for exploiting the wow economy a day after Cybermouse got band for the same thing.
I dont bot, hack, sell /farm gold or play the ah. No warnings just an email saying it was closed.im seriously devastastated to lose my account that i have played for two years and just got in BT with. I feel upset that blizzard has given me a ban as harsh as this and put my name in the same group as people that do break the rules constantly when i have done nothing wrong and never intented on doing anything to arise such a situation.
Ive emailed two different gm's with no reply or conformation email to go on. i dont know what to do but sit and wait for something to happen. i also will post my outcome on this matter. hopefully some light shines our way :cry:

[mmorpg man]

Your analogy isn't really very good for this. If you go over to somebody's house, and that person has you leave, does that person have to give you any reason whatsoever as to why? Blizzard banning people is much closer to a person kicking someone else out of his/her house. An explanation is a courtesy, but not a right, or a requirement.

building on your analogy a bit. say the person who asked you to leave thought you had stolen something but it turned out to be someone else who had stolen it. the person allows you to visit the house but never appologises to you for the mistake they have made or admits they were wrong. how would you feel about that?

@timebomber
sorry for the loss of your account, if you are innocent then I hope you get it back soon.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

building on your analogy a bit. say the person who asked you to leave thought you had stolen something but it turned out to be someone else who had stolen it. the person allows you to visit the house but never appologises to you for the mistake they have made or admits they were wrong. how would you feel about that?

The problem with analogies is that eventually they all fail. But if that person was to have 10,000,000 other people who had come over to his/her house, and did the same as you describe, I'd really be very shocked that the person had the time to be able to apologize.

[MrBCorp]

Your analogy isn't really very good for this. If you go over to somebody's house, and that person has you leave, does that person have to give you any reason whatsoever as to why? Blizzard banning people is much closer to a person kicking someone else out of his/her house. An explanation is a courtesy, but not a right, or a requirement.

Depends whether or not you paid money to get in.


I'm confused, first off, as to why Blizzard, as a corporation, would need to apologize for every mistake made. Mistakes happen, they get fixed, and people move on with their lives. Plain and simple.

"As a corporation". Say what? So someone makes a mistake but doesn't acknowledge it and moves on. Everyone gets on with their life, right? Wrong. Part of the process is acknowledging the mistake. Without this, you can't really move on. Just because they're a big company doesn't mean they can skip things.

How simple is it do simply say "we apologise for the inconvenience caused", or something similar?


"Damn bugs! They're getting in my way" SQUISH!

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

I understand your point of view, and I can agree with it. But in practice, companies will *only* apologize for mistakes if and when it is deemed of high enough importance to do so. Little things are easily just fixed and people move on with life. The Software Development industry is by far the most notorious for this.

[mmorpg man]

I understand your point of view, and I can agree with it. But in practice, companies will *only* apologize for mistakes if and when it is deemed of high enough importance to do so. Little things are easily just fixed and people move on with life. The Software Development industry is by far the most notorious for this.

so what's more important than the people who make you who you are? they made the game for people to play and their first priority should be please the people who are keeping them in business.

[TPMdm]

so what's more important than the people who make you who you are? they made the game for people to play and their first priority should be please the people who are keeping them in business.

That's where the cost/benefit analysis comes in. Am I going to stop playing because a few people got "wrongly banned"? Nope. How many people reading this thread and others like it are really going to quit WoW and never play another blizzard game again? From blizzard's perspective they've ditched a botter/spammer/account sharer/TOS breaker and lost almost nothing else.

Believe me I understand principle and customer service. I quit EvE online due to the Developers playing and cheating. Canceled all 3 of my accounts. A few others did aswell, but 100% of the rest of my guild kept playing. These were people I've gamed with online since nearly the introduction of internet gaming. CCP never apologized for the handling of the "T20 Affair", basic whitewash, and the jerks keep emailing me with "come try Eve now that we've got a new patch"..... sickening, but that's the way companies work.

[cybermouse]

it is now day five, and the only response i've got so far is the automated response that was sent to my email five minutes after i emailed them five days ago.

[mmorpg man]

if blizzard get GMs to respond to tickets in person to help people out then why can't they do it with bannings? there must get far more tickets in game for GMs to deal with than emails asking why accounts got banned.

[det]

Hang in there...I vaguely remember a thread with somebody being successful because he could get his friend as a lawyer involved.

As for corporations...yes...something like "Sorry for the inconvinience caused" and payback of a few free days (like they did on "realms down" wouldn't hurt. But I don't know how corporations "tick"...maybe like states and countries governments. They are faceless and have their own internal rules. Maybe admitting to a mistake will set a whole snowballing system in motion. Sometimes it is so hard to follow this with common sense.

[clevins]

...Maybe admitting to a mistake will set a whole snowballing system in motion. Sometimes it is so hard to follow this with common sense.

Malpractice suits against doctors in the US have been esclating for a while now and insurance for malpractice is now a very large expense for most doctors, even the good ones with no complaints. As a result, a few studies have been done focusing on why people sue and what the expect since a lot of the damages are for emotional/mental distress. The top response was that patients wanted to the doctor to admit that they'd made a mistake and apologize. The patients felt like they were a cipher to the doctor and that the doc felt no remorse for something that had really hurt the patient. IN most cases, patients would not have sued had doctors simply acknowledged and apologized (and perhaps covered expenses that were a result of the mistake). BUT! Doctors were reluctant to apologize for fear that doing so would mean admitting liability (legally) and that would be used against them. So a simple human interaction was stifled due to legal and bureaucratic reasons.

As for the effect on WoW.... there are two sides to that. Great service can help you get new customers as people spread the word on that, poor service can make people run you down or not spread the word. Nordstrom in the 1980s (US retailer for those of you not familiar) got a GREAT rep for service... taking things back without a receipt, etc. The stuff they carried was not really much different or better than other department stores... but the service drew people in, got press, etc.

[Kodonn]

Wow! Sometimes it really amazes me how many people think the world needs to bow down as they pass. :shocked:



"As a corporation". Say what? So someone makes a mistake but doesn't acknowledge it and moves on. Everyone gets on with their life, right? Wrong. Part of the process is acknowledging the mistake. Without this, you can't really move on. Just because they're a big company doesn't mean they can skip things.

How simple is it do simply say "we apologise for the inconvenience caused", or something similar?


"Damn bugs! They're getting in my way" SQUISH!

MrB, this isn't directed at you personally, but you posed the question.

It's not very simple at all, for them to do individual apologies. It would probably cost them a lot, and to be blunt...why should they care? We are game players, not dinner guests.

By going to the trouble to write back and try to get a banned account back, the individual has already demonstrated thet they wish to keep being a customer, so they really don't have to worry about losing that person.

But what if, by doing a personal apology for that 1 person, the customer service rep doesn't get to the rest of his job and 5 or 10 other customers have to wait yet another day (or 2) to get THEIR accounts back? Now where is the cost/benefit?

We each pay about $0.50/day for our accounts. Let's say Blizzard pays really terribly for customer service jobs and they make $5.00/hour (and let's all hope it's really more than that :sad:) Even if your entire $0.50/day went towards custermor service, that would only buy you about 6 minutes of their time. Maybe...just maybe....that would be enough time for them to personally deal with you in a one-on-one basis and write you a nice apology.

Since you used the squishy bug reference, here's something to think about. Next time you drive your car anywhere at night, I want you to think about all the bugs that seem to accomplish their death wish on your windshield.

Now, imagine how much longer it would take for you to get where you're going if you pulled over to the side of the road and got out to clean off each bug with a paper towel everytime one hit the windshield. Then imagine how ticked off your passengers would be if you did that. Then...try to remember that Blizzard has...what ?....6 to 8 million passengers just here in the US.

[mmorpg man]

Hang in there...I vaguely remember a thread with somebody being successful because he could get his friend as a lawyer involved.


it was his brother is memory serves. but is that what it takes for an appology? are the only things they understand writen in an official letter of complaint with the threat of being put out of business? thats pathetic honestly

It's not very simple at all, for them to do individual apologies. It would probably cost them a lot, and to be blunt...why should they care? We are game players, not dinner guests.


they seem so good at form mails to people who have been banned so why can't they just do the same here? it doesn't need to be much just 1 or 2 lines long.

By going to the trouble to write back and try to get a banned account back, the individual has already demonstrated thet they wish to keep being a customer, so they really don't have to worry about losing that person.

that is totally the wrong attitude to take. every customer should be valued no matter who they are. blizzard shouldn't be so complacent and doubtless that a person will keep playing their game. mmorpgs are a big market and there are loads of great games out there (GW, LoTR online, eve online, final fantasy XI, to name but a few) and if blizzard are not careful they could seriously damage their reputation and make people want to try a different game.

[det]

...on the other hand in Germany it has become some kind of "hobby" to find a problem with anything, for example when on holidays, to get some money back from the travel agencies for an even cheaper holidays.

Never know..maybe it is Vivendi's or whoevers policy behind this...not even Blizzard.

... but is that what it takes for an appology? are the only things they understand are writen in an official letter of complaint and the threat of being put out of business? thats pathetic honestly

.


Could be pathetic, could be just a sign of the times. When I started in animation business (children cartoons) it took a handshake between the partners. Now I sign 10 pages contracts (blindly) probably selling my children's children souls or what not. Definitely pathetic...but since people who were stupid enough to put their dogs in microwaves could sue companies (and win) etc...I understand companies becoming paranoid in return

[clevins]

Kodonn,

The apology doesn't have to be individual. I imagine that there is a form email sent when someone does say "hey, I'm innocent" and subsequent investigation proves that the ban was in error. All they need to do is add some words to that email saying that they're sorry for the error (and perhaps crediting a week's worth of time or something if they want). I think that would satisfy most people who do recognize that there needs to be some efficiency in the process.

As for bow down... no one here is saying Blizz needs to bow down or kiss our ass. and your tone is condescending when I've seen nothing from your that backs up a superior attitude.

What we're saying that common courtesy isn't too much to expect. It doesn't matter whether we pay 50 cents per day or 50 dollars - it's simply NOT too much to expect. Sadly, you and others seem perfectly willing to accept rude, indifferent behavior rather than at least some minimum of courteous behavior.

[ptarn]

I agree with the fact that even though Blizzard is a 'big, faceless company', has lots and lots of customers who have nothing to complain about and that it's a 'sign of the times' that people get more and more distrustful of things, they could try a little common courtesy now and then. I heard some saying about courtesy going 'a long way' and all.

Of course I wouldn't expect them to apologize to each and every wrongfully banned player with an individual apology. That would take too much time and that wouldn't be worth it. Time is money (unfortunately...) and Blizzard makes money by the nanosecond, so to speak. But... BUT! But that doesn't take away the simple fact that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Creating a standardized e-mail with a phrase along the line of "we're sorry for the inconvenience this caused you and hope you will continue to play wow" isn't that much work and guess what? People would feel a whole lot better about the whole affair just by reading it!

I'd say this is a win-win situation for all. Wrongfully banned people get the feeling that Blizzard doesn't treat them as simple numbers but regards them as real persons. Blizzard gains a better reputation by at least acting like they care about their greatest source of income.

I mean, come on! Haven't you ever seen some of those really big lawsuits on tv? The ones where ordinary people sue a big company? It mostly boils down to the simple fact that they WANT AN APOLOGY! And since they didn't get it, they tried a lawsuit. Of course the money comes in handy, but most of the times people don't even care. THEY WANT AN APOLOGY! They just want someone to admit they were wrong and say they're sorry about it! People want to hear that someone made a mistake, they want recognition. And let's be honest: how much does a five-letter word really cost? Even in a world where time is money?

Anyway, just my two cents, really...

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

so what's more important than the people who make you who you are? they made the game for people to play and their first priority should be please the people who are keeping them in business.

I'm not saying you are wrong. But what I am saying is the corporations look at percentages. What impact would 100 people being accidentally flagged with perma-bans and then corrected do? What about 1,000? or 10,000? I'd guess there are thresholds as to when Blizzard takes the time to make an apology, and when not to. A form-letter apology is no apology, after all...

[Valas Azuviir]

if blizzard get GMs to respond to tickets in person to help people out then why can't they do it with bannings? there must get far more tickets in game for GMs to deal with than emails asking why accounts got banned.

GMs don't handle banned accounts, that would be the Account Administration department. Two different departments. Considering the comparisons you make with law enforcement, it would be like having a traffic cop handle a rape or murder case.

Anyway, as for Blizzard taking their time responding.. Uhm, it's the weekend. The relevant departments don't work during the weekends. Monday to Friday. Office hours.

[Kodonn]

Kodonn,
Sadly, you and others seem perfectly willing to accept rude, indifferent behavior rather than at least some minimum of courteous behavior.

That may be true somewhat, but I hardly consider it rude or indifferent. More like realistic. And how would a form letter make that any better? Everyone is already complaining because they get a form letter for the banning. Why would a form letter apology make them feel any better?

Granted, I've never had my account banned (accidently or on purpose), so I can only guess at how I would feel in deeling with it.

But the simple fact is, I expect them to be like any other big corporation that has a lot of complaints and problems to deal with and doesn't want to spend their profits on providing the ultimate in customer service. I've never gotten an apology from the cable company for everytime my internet or TV gets cut off. Never got one from the phone company either.

When you get right to it, Blizzard probably doesn't want to take a chance on even openning that door. Go through some of the posts over the past months.
First the attitude of people was..."I just want to get my WoW back."
Now it's "I want my WoW back and I want an apology."
What comes next ? You mentioned it yourself. "How about some compensation time?"
After that, people will be asking for their character to get extra levels or something because they..."could have made 3 levels during the time they were wrongfully banned."

For all we know, Blizzard's (or Vivendi's) lawyers have told them never to apologize because it opens up the door for admitting guilt...soon to be followed by lawsuits.

[clevins]

For all we know, Blizzard's (or Vivendi's) lawyers have told them never to apologize because it opens up the door for admitting guilt...soon to be followed by lawsuits.

See my earlier post.

[mmorpg man]

GMs don't handle banned accounts, that would be the Account Administration department. Two different departments. Considering the comparisons you make with law enforcement, it would be like having a traffic cop handle a rape or murder case.

thanks for totally misreading that part of my post (whether by accident or on purpose). I'm not saying that GMs should take control of account admin. I'm saying if the GMs can respond in person to people then why can't account admin people respond in person (instead of using a form).

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

thanks for totally misreading that part of my post (whether by accident or on purpose). I'm not saying that GMs should take control of account admin. I'm saying if the GMs can respond in person to people then why can't account admin people respond in person (instead of using a form).

Because we don't know what the policies which were set down internally for Blizzard are. There is any number of solid reasons that things are or aren't done. As a consumer, you'd like to think that you know what should be done, but that is at one level of things... the consumer level. There are many different facets, levels, and legal scenarios that companies need to look at when setting up policies. Sometimes they get a bit over-zealous, because it is better to err on the side of caution. Whatever the reasoning is, which we don't know, it definitely appears that Blizzard only apologizes for HUGE mistakes affecting large numbers of customers, and their threshold appears to be pretty high as to what that number is in order to warrant an apology.

[Torik]

Do we actually know that the email a player receives when a ban is overturned and their account reactivated does not containe a phrase like 'we regret any inconvenience this might have caused you'?

[cybermouse]

day six.
i could really care less about an apology.
really.
i just want my account back.

[mmorpg man]

Do we actually know that the email a player receives when a ban is overturned and their account reactivated does not containe a phrase like 'we regret any inconvenience this might have caused you'?

I wonder why that is

[Valas Azuviir]

thanks for totally misreading that part of my post (whether by accident or on purpose). I'm not saying that GMs should take control of account admin. I'm saying if the GMs can respond in person to people then why can't account admin people respond in person (instead of using a form).

Misread that, my apologies.

Anyway, GMs don't always respond in person to a ticket. We've seen more than plenty of remarks even on this forum, that folks logged out and when they eventually logged back in, they found an mail message by a GM talking about their "case".

Simply a matter of size of the respective teams, how much time each activity takes etc. For all we know the account admin team is the same team, we checks up on folks when they've been accused/flagged for botting, they could very well be going through the chat logs to see who bought and sold gold etc etc.

Dependant upon what exactly they do and how much time that requires would be the answer to your question of why don't they respond to customers in person.

Well, that and the legal stuff mentioned by others.

[Kasal]

Wow! Sometimes it really amazes me how many people think the world needs to bow down as they pass. :shocked:



And I can't believe how many people can take it up the kiester and keep on smilin', just because it's a big corporation that doesn't have the time to acknowledge a mistake and extend the simple courtesy of an apology for an inconvenience that was entirely their fault.

The thing is this: apologies do matter. And I don't give a rat's south end how big they are or how many customers they have. If I've been paying for a service as a loyal customer for the past 3 years, and I get swept aside in a tide of people they suspect to be cheating, then you're damn right I expect an apology, even if it is in the shape of a form letter.

The fact of the matter is that it's easy to take the corporate side when you're not directly involved. But the OP did nothing wrong, has had no reply after six days, and very possibly may not have his account reinstated. There's clearly something wrong with the process.

[det]

And I can't believe how many people can take it up the kiester and keep on smilin', just because it's a big corporation that doesn't have the time to acknowledge a mistake and extend the simple courtesy of an apology for an inconvenience that was entirely their fault.

Hm..I actually thought it is quite popular to bash big companies and side with the little guy. ^^

The thing is this: apologies do matter. And I don't give a rat's south end how big they are or how many customers they have. If I've been paying for a service as a loyal customer for the past 3 years, and I get swept aside in a tide of people they suspect to be cheating, then you're damn right I expect an apology, even if it is in the shape of a form letter.

Agree...apologies do matter and if they are accompanied by some reimbursement of game time it is all the better

The fact of the matter is that it's easy to take the corporate side when you're not directly involved. But the OP did nothing wrong, has had no reply after six days, and very possibly may not have his account reinstated. There's clearly something wrong with the process.

Call me a troll, but really we do not know it. Cybermouse sounds sincere and as he speaks the truth and I want to believe him/her (see paragraph 1 of this response), but really it is his word against Blizzards. As stated in the other OMG I am banned thread, they take actions against accounts and not persons and they hold you as the owner of the account responsible that no missuse of the account happens.

[Kasal]

Call me a troll, but really we do not know it. Cybermouse sounds sincere and as he speaks the truth and I want to believe him/her (see paragraph 1 of this response), but really it is his word against Blizzards. As stated in the other OMG I am banned thread, they take actions against accounts and not persons and they hold you as the owner of the account responsible that no missuse of the account happens.

Well, maybe an Orc, but never a troll. :smiley:

True enough, I am making an assumption here that the OP is on the level, but I don't see anything to indicate otherwise. And even besides that, I feel quite safe in the assumption that bad bans have happened to good people on more than one occasion besides this one.

Those things are self-evident, though. What gets me is the mindset among some people is that because Blizzard et al are as big as they are, they somehow are exempt from certain fundamental concepts of consumer goodwill. And an apology for a misunderstanding is as fundamental as it gets. I work in the IT service industry and I treat my customers like royalty. I partake in the service industry and I expect to be treated as such. I'm the one handing over the dollars, after all.

[Valas Azuviir]

But the OP did nothing wrong, has had no reply after six days, and very possibly may not have his account reinstated.

Have to point out that two of those 6 days were a weekend, in which the company in question is closed. Hence, why a lot of companies/governmental agencies prefer speaking of work days. So it's been 4 work days since his notification. Depending on internal policies, response time could be as much as 14 work days from the first correspondence by Cybermouse.

*shrugs*

Least, that's my experience with a lot of agencies/companies. They have an utmost limit and in that time they have to respond, sometimes they're quick, sometimes they're not.

[Frubesta]

The company I work for have a service level of 5 working days, in which we have to of made contact to the customer or we get fined for it. I'd assume Blizzard to work in a similar fashion also.

On topic of the thread - You sound like you are sincere in what you say, however and not to sound negative...one of my guild mates was perma-banned without warning for duplicating an item that he didn't even know he'd done. Another guildie was banned without warning for passing through Black Temple invisible wall before it was released.

Both them incidents was Blizzards own programming faults, exploitable or not, they shouldn't be there but they cover themselves in the Terms of Use for it. Blizzard justice for you :rolleyes:

I hope you get your account back though.

[Kasal]

Both them incidents was Blizzards own programming faults, exploitable or not, they shouldn't be there but they cover themselves in the Terms of Use for it. Blizzard justice for you :rolleyes:



While I was waiting for the gates in Arathi Basin to open two nights ago, one of the people in our group surprised everyone when he appeared on the other side of the wall, making a mad dash to the farm. He was able to assault it a full 20 seconds before the gates finally opened. Sure enough, when I checked YouTube later I was able to discover how he did it, using a series of well-timed, and no doubt well-practiced, series of hops and jumps to find the one exact spot that would allow him to breach the boundary.

I found myself wondering what the consequences would be for this guy if anyone at Blizzard found out about it. Moreso, I wondered if the programmers responsible for this oversight would be subjected to the similar corrective behaviour. Somehow I doubt it.

[clevins]

Of course they wouldn't. I remember when chests in Mech could be stealthed to be a rogue - if you did things right, you could loot all 3, reset, do it again. I'm quite sure Blizz would have considered it an exploit - but 3 years in, knowing rogues have stealthed to stuff in the past, shouldn't Blizz get some rogues to, oh TRY that? After all, it's part of a rogue's nature to stealth and pick pocket and steal...

Or the time when someone discovered that the bomb throwing guys in TK could be controlled and used to kill Void Reaver very very fast. Was that even really an exploit since a lock does the same exact thing in Mech to help with those annoying bomb throwing demons?

Yes, yes, I get that Blizz sets the rules, blah blah blah... But sometimes I wonder if they don't have a responsibility to test stuff that can be exploited and, if they miss it, at the very least warn people before permabanning them for taking advantage of things like the above?

[mmorpg man]

their response to exploits seem to be quite varied and random. sometimes they will give a warning and other times they simply ban the account instantly. they should have a system that they will either always give a warning or go with the instant ban. all customers should be treated the same

[jennimoor]

any news on your account yet? must be almost a week, they told me that it shouldnt take longer than this and they have apparently had a bank holiday this week which may cause a bit of a delay

[Valas Azuviir]

any news on your account yet? must be almost a week, they told me that it shouldnt take longer than this and they have apparently had a bank holiday this week which may cause a bit of a delay

Yup. Bastille Day in France, 14th of July. It's a mandatory vacation day in France. So Blizzard EU, which is situated in France has to deal with such governmental demands as well. (The French have a lot of those types of mandatory off days afaik.)

[cybermouse]

i finally heard back from blizzard yesterday.
below is the response from them.

to make a long story short, i was 100% without a doubt hacked.

after doing a password reset i was able to log into the game again.
any guesses to what i found?

Goliad, my highest level character was the ONLY character i had on any server that was left.

instead, i have around 20 different level one humans characters in stormwind
named stupid names like Ajhdkdgjshy on 20 different servers.

anyone that has spent any length of time in stormwind knows exactly what i am talking about.

next time you see one of those bots yelling about buying gold,remember,think about the crap i just went through.
it means its happening to someone else.







Greetings *****,

Account Name:****

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department regarding the compromised account.

Information regarding the status of this account has been forwarded to our account investigation specialists for further analysis. When their evaluation is complete, you will be notified via e-mail of the status of the above account and the possibility of reimbursement.

While we can restore items with random modifiers (of the Bear, of the Eagle, etc.), we cannot guarantee that you will receive the same modifier you had on your original item. We are also unable to guarantee the restoration of trade skills, as well as enchantments or add-ons (such as gems, scopes, etc.) that your character’s items may have possessed. While we will make every effort to provide assistance in cases of loss, the decision to go forward with a restoration is entirely at Blizzard’s discretion.

Please make sure that you are the only person using the account and access is not shared with any one else. As a precaution, you may wish to take the following steps to ensure the security of this account:

--Run a virus scan on your computer to remove all viruses, Trojan files, and key loggers.

--Delete any UI modifications you may be using, and check to ensure that all future UI modifications you wish to use are obtained from a reputable source.

Check all characters on the account for damage or item loss, and notify us of any additional discoveries by submitting another petition.

For helpful tips and information on account security please visit: (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl01897p)

For more information about unauthorized account access, please visit:
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01889p.

*** Please do not respond to this email as an Account Investigator will contact you upon the conclusion of their investigation. ***



Regards,
Kythriss
Game Master
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com

[Tort]

i finally heard back from blizzard yesterday.
below is the response from them.

to make a long story short, i was 100% without a doubt hacked.

after doing a password reset i was able to log into the game again.
any guesses to what i found?

Goliad, my highest level character was the ONLY character i had on any server that was left.

instead, i have around 20 different level one humans characters in stormwind
named stupid names like Ajhdkdgjshy on 20 different servers.

anyone that has spent any length of time in stormwind knows exactly what i am talking about.

next time you see one of those bots yelling about buying gold,remember,think about the crap i just went through.
it means its happening to someone else.







Greetings *****,

Account Name:****

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department regarding the compromised account.

Information regarding the status of this account has been forwarded to our account investigation specialists for further analysis. When their evaluation is complete, you will be notified via e-mail of the status of the above account and the possibility of reimbursement.

While we can restore items with random modifiers (of the Bear, of the Eagle, etc.), we cannot guarantee that you will receive the same modifier you had on your original item. We are also unable to guarantee the restoration of trade skills, as well as enchantments or add-ons (such as gems, scopes, etc.) that your character’s items may have possessed. While we will make every effort to provide assistance in cases of loss, the decision to go forward with a restoration is entirely at Blizzard’s discretion.

Please make sure that you are the only person using the account and access is not shared with any one else. As a precaution, you may wish to take the following steps to ensure the security of this account:

--Run a virus scan on your computer to remove all viruses, Trojan files, and key loggers.

--Delete any UI modifications you may be using, and check to ensure that all future UI modifications you wish to use are obtained from a reputable source.

Check all characters on the account for damage or item loss, and notify us of any additional discoveries by submitting another petition.

For helpful tips and information on account security please visit: (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl01897p)

For more information about unauthorized account access, please visit:
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01889p.

*** Please do not respond to this email as an Account Investigator will contact you upon the conclusion of their investigation. ***



Regards,
Kythriss
Game Master
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com


Congrats Cybermouse, this is a substantial step to getting your account and characters back. Yes, you were certainly hacked and Blizzard is generally very forgiving about these incidents. I'm glad you stuck with it, and thanks for keeping us all updated. This can happen to any and everyone on these forums, although we all hope and pray it doesn't.

[det]

A relief indeed. Also a thread to be linked for the next guy who seeks advice after a ban. Whatever you may think, this seems to show a few things:

Blizzard does care
You need to step on their toes to make them care
Even if you feel / are totally innocent / oblivious - you can get hacked / keylogged.

Hope you can enjoy the game again....all the more reasons to get that authenticator, I guess.

[mesonm]

building on your analogy a bit. say the person who asked you to leave thought you had stolen something but it turned out to be someone else who had stolen it. the person allows you to visit the house but never appologises to you for the mistake they have made or admits they were wrong. how would you feel about that?


well, I wouldn't go back to the house....but banned people constantly do, and its because the game is more important than the apparent snub...

But, using the analogy above, and again from blizzard's standpoint, you have to add that there are a (few?) hundred people regulating the house, but there are MILLIONS of visitors...and only a few of those visitors are ever accused of anything....

[clevins]

Excellent news. DO run all of the various scans (not only for WoW, but if you use online banking or anything online that gives access to your credit cards e.g. Amazon.com etc). Do all of the various security updates etc....

They're generally pretty good at restoring toons and gear - I've had a couple of friends get hacked and login to deleted toons... it takes some time, but they get stuff back for the most part.

[cybermouse]

so, i did an ingame petition about my dozens of legitimate missing characters,and blizzard followed up today with this:

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department with your concerns regarding your account status.

Account Name: ********

Character(s) Restored:

(deleting this part out but it listed most but not all of my characters)


We have completed a preliminary investigation of the issue you reported. In order to enable you to resume normal play at this time, we have restored as many characters as possible. We have also forwarded this issue to our Investigation team for further assessment. After a more in-depth review of the situation, a Character Specialist will contact you via email with the details of any possible further restoration.

Please be aware that such a compromise may result from a malicious software program, such as a keylogger, or sharing the account information and password with others. Regardless of the cause of this compromise, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Password, and you will be responsible for all uses of your Password, whether or not authorized by you. Also, note that the security of the Account is your responsibility.

To prevent further account compromises, please refer to the links below:
Account Security: <http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20572>
Computer Security: <http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20569>
Password Security: <http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20574>

To dispute any unauthorized name changes, please use the following link:
Unauthorized Character Name Change Dispute Form: < http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/21647>

Further contact will be provided as soon as possible by the Specialist staff. Thank you for your patience in the matter. We hope you continue to enjoy your experience in World of Warcraft!

For any game play questions, please refer to our site at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/

*** Please do not respond to this email – Further contact will be received from the Specialist assigned to your account***



Regards,

Soracian

Game Master
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com


so that's where it is for now.
so far my other characters haven't been restored, but heck, i did get an email from blizzard telling me they ARE working on it.

ill post on how that progresses.

i have to say, as annoyed as i was with blizzard on how things appeared to be handled,after i was able to log into my account, everything made more sense.

i wasn't falsely accused. there was legitimately bad stuff happening to my account.

i believe blizzard caught the hacker VERY quickly.
the night before my ban, i had a long night of warsong gulch with my lowbie rogue.i logged off at like 3 in the morning (don't judge me, we've all been there!) i received the email about my ban about five hours later.

in that amount of time, all but one of my characters were deleted(actually now that i think about it,i bet they were ALL deleted and blizzard probably just restored my highest character before they gave me my account back to keep me from further freaking out)and in that amount of time all those bot characters were created...and really,who knows what else.

who knows what could have happened if blizzard had to wait until they notified me before they could freeze my account.

it of course would have been nice to have been able to talk to a blizzard rep on the phone.

but this is normal in todays world.most bigger companies handle customer support through email and the internet.

anyway,hopefully my ordeal is almost over.
ill end this post with a little quote from blizzards last email to me.


Thank you for your patience in the matter. We hope you continue to enjoy your experience in World of Warcraft! :thumbsup:

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

FYI, for future reference, when they are back in stock, you might want to look at getting a Blizzard Authenticator, cybermouse. It would stop keyloggers/potential hackers dead.

[cybermouse]

FYI, for future reference, when they are back in stock, you might want to look at getting a Blizzard Authenticator, cybermouse. It would stop keyloggers/potential hackers dead.

haha i was just looking into that!

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=24660&rhtml=true

when they are back in stock i am getting one for sure. i think it may be the ONLY way to stop this from happening to people.
a must have.

sold out from blizzard but $6.50 when in stock.
on ebay for between $31 and $50!!

those people should be permanently disabled for exploitation of MY economy!

[Tort]

haha i was just looking into that!

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=24660&rhtml=true

when they are back in stock i am getting one for sure. i think it may be the ONLY way to stop this from happening to people.
a must have.

sold out from blizzard but $6.50 when in stock.
on ebay for between $31 and $50!!

those people should be permanently disabled for exploitation of MY economy!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Ebay and supply and demand.

[det]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Ebay and supply and demand.

OMG...it is like the AH in RL ^^

[clevins]

FYI, for future reference, when they are back in stock, you might want to look at getting a Blizzard Authenticator, cybermouse. It would stop keyloggers/potential hackers dead.

Yes, but ONLY for WoW. If you suspect you have a keylogger you really need to findit and remove it. I'd go so far as to wipe and reinstall the drive after backing up my data... but then I'm kinda paranoid.

[mmorpg man]

Yes, but ONLY for WoW. If you suspect you have a keylogger you really need to findit and remove it. I'd go so far as to wipe and reinstall the drive after backing up my data... but then I'm kinda paranoid.

I think we can all agree its better to be paranoid and wipe a drive and reinstall it than have our cradit card details stolen (amongst other things).

[batdad]

haha i was just looking into that!

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=24660&rhtml=true

when they are back in stock i am getting one for sure. i think it may be the ONLY way to stop this from happening to people.
a must have.

sold out from blizzard but $6.50 when in stock.
on ebay for between $31 and $50!!

those people should be permanently disabled for exploitation of MY economy!

Gratz on getting things back in order. I have been following your story and hoping it would have a happy ending. Blizz needs to make vast improvements in their customer service/communication when it comes to this sort of thing. As far as I can see, this is their biggest flaw when it comes to their business model. If they can get their CS in line they will be unstoppable.

[timebomber]

Gratz on getting things back in order. I have been following your story and hoping it would have a happy ending. Blizz needs to make vast improvements in their customer service/communication when it comes to this sort of thing. As far as I can see, this is their biggest flaw when it comes to their business model. If they can get their CS in line they will be unstoppable.

Its good to see Cybermouse's account is back up and running. :smiley: Its day seven for me and still no response or conformation email to ease my mind.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Gratz on getting things back in order. I have been following your story and hoping it would have a happy ending. Blizz needs to make vast improvements in their customer service/communication when it comes to this sort of thing. As far as I can see, this is their biggest flaw when it comes to their business model. If they can get their CS in line they will be unstoppable.

It's funny.... because the project I work on at my job, is a customer service satisfaction survey system, designed with the intent of getting feedback from the customers, and from that make improvements to a CS department. We have quite a few customers that use it... I'd love to see Activision Blizzard use it... I should talk to our sales team.

[Kasal]

Let this thread forever be a reminder to those who claim goldselling is a victimless crime.

[elsegundo]

wow, this is great. grats you got your account back! grats you're getting your other characters back. grats you're going to buy the authenticator. i've been waiting and checking every day for the past two weeks. status has always been out of stock. i wish they had a preorder form.

and thank you for replying. im so glad we're not just here for ppl to QQ all day.

i sometimes think this site is God. Post when you're in trouble; forgetaboutit when you're not.

[cybermouse]

well, so far i havent got my other characters back, but im not sweating it, im back in the game with one of my characters, which will keep me busy until the others are restored.

and im not going to disappear from these forums.
i have really appreciated the help and support i found here :)

[gralf]

i finally heard back from blizzard yesterday.
below is the response from them.

to make a long story short, i was 100% without a doubt hacked.

after doing a password reset i was able to log into the game again.
any guesses to what i found?

Goliad, my highest level character was the ONLY character i had on any server that was left.

instead, i have around 20 different level one humans characters in stormwind
named stupid names like Ajhdkdgjshy on 20 different servers.

anyone that has spent any length of time in stormwind knows exactly what i am talking about.

next time you see one of those bots yelling about buying gold,remember,think about the crap i just went through.
it means its happening to someone else.







Greetings *****,

Account Name:****

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department regarding the compromised account.

Information regarding the status of this account has been forwarded to our account investigation specialists for further analysis. When their evaluation is complete, you will be notified via e-mail of the status of the above account and the possibility of reimbursement.

While we can restore items with random modifiers (of the Bear, of the Eagle, etc.), we cannot guarantee that you will receive the same modifier you had on your original item. We are also unable to guarantee the restoration of trade skills, as well as enchantments or add-ons (such as gems, scopes, etc.) that your character’s items may have possessed. While we will make every effort to provide assistance in cases of loss, the decision to go forward with a restoration is entirely at Blizzard’s discretion.

Please make sure that you are the only person using the account and access is not shared with any one else. As a precaution, you may wish to take the following steps to ensure the security of this account:

--Run a virus scan on your computer to remove all viruses, Trojan files, and key loggers.

--Delete any UI modifications you may be using, and check to ensure that all future UI modifications you wish to use are obtained from a reputable source.

Check all characters on the account for damage or item loss, and notify us of any additional discoveries by submitting another petition.

For helpful tips and information on account security please visit: (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl01897p)

For more information about unauthorized account access, please visit:
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01889p.

*** Please do not respond to this email as an Account Investigator will contact you upon the conclusion of their investigation. ***



Regards,
Kythriss
Game Master
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com

Congrats Cybermouse.
I too had my acc closed and was just wondering what you did?
did you pester blizzard to get a response or did you just wait for a reply?
I had an email saying not to send emails about the same subject cos it would just be spamming and they would delete it or it would lead to my response being delayed.
to be honest i need all the info i can get just now and would appreciate anything.and once again congrats on getting things sorted:thumbsup:

[Zelissa]

My husband just had the same thing happen to his account. Thursday night we played (2 accounts, 2 computers) and logged off around 11pm. Next day we get our daughter to sleep and try to log in at 8pm. His password wouldn't work. I said to him "Hmm...have you checked your e-mail associated w/ the account?"

So he does, and first he sees the "You have been permanently banned for exploitation of the economy." :shocked: Then he sees the e-mail stating that his password was changed at 1am.

So he e-mailed account admins on Friday and now we wait.

The scary part is we can't find the source. We ran McAffee and Kaspersky (after I read cybermouse's other update thread), and MULTIPLE spyware detectors. NOTHING has been found. So how do we know when the threat is gone? :embarassed:

I use Firefox on my computer, he used Internet Explorer even though I had been trying to get him to switch to Firefox. We both updated our Flash players when the news came out about the potential threat...

Anyway just wanted to post and say it happened to us too. Glad to hear you found the source of your threat.

[cybermouse]

My husband just had the same thing happen to his account. Thursday night we played (2 accounts, 2 computers) and logged off around 11pm. Next day we get our daughter to sleep and try to log in at 8pm. His password wouldn't work. I said to him "Hmm...have you checked your e-mail associated w/ the account?"

So he does, and first he sees the "You have been permanently banned for exploitation of the economy." :shocked: Then he sees the e-mail stating that his password was changed at 1am.

So he e-mailed account admins on Friday and now we wait.

The scary part is we can't find the source. We ran McAffee and Kaspersky (after I read cybermouse's other update thread), and MULTIPLE spyware detectors. NOTHING has been found. So how do we know when the threat is gone? :embarassed:

I use Firefox on my computer, he used Internet Explorer even though I had been trying to get him to switch to Firefox. We both updated our Flash players when the news came out about the potential threat...

Anyway just wanted to post and say it happened to us too. Glad to hear you found the source of your threat.

i wish i knew what else to tell you.....
are you 100% sure the virus definitions are current?
did you try running ccleaner or hijackthis ?

also keep in mind that although our stories sound similar, i assume that what happened to me is just one of many different ways WoW is hacked,it is possible you were hacked in a totally different way....:shocked:

[clevins]

There are really only a couple of ways someone's account can be hacked:

1) You've got a keylogger that watches the input and sends the username and password somewhere.

2) Your username password is easy to guess and you fell to a dictionary attack. For example, if your password is 'password' or if it's similarly easy... any word that can be found in a dictionary is a poor password.

3) You shared the account info with someone and THEY got hacked.

If you didn't share the account info (EVER) then I'd bet on #1. Google for your OS and the work keylogger... for example

"Windows XP" keylogger

Also hit the help forums for Kapersky etc and see if there's help there.

[mmorpg man]

bare in mind that people are making new virus' all the time which could slip past any anti-virus software untill it is discovered and the anti-virus software is updated.

[Zelissa]

cybermouse-We haven't tried ccleaner or hijackthis yet. Will try those soon.

clevins, I am assuming it is #1, since his password is not a dictionary word, and I am the only one who knew it other then him (before this happened, obviously)... I will try googling for Vista (bleh) keyloggers.

mmorpg man- we will keep updating our software definitions.

Thanks for the tips.

[clevins]

Most tools have a way to automatically update their definitions. If yours do, turn this on. That way you're always up to date.

Do NOT do what Cybermouse did - he didn't initially solve why he got hacked... so he got hacked again. Getting hacked isn't some magical thing - you have a piece of software on your computer that transmitted the information. You need to find it and get rid of it. And if you use other online services (banking, Amazon or other stores that might store your credit card info) you need to change those passwords after you clean your computers.

Of course, always keep up to date with security updates for WIndows (turn on automatic updates for Windows). And i really would get rid of IE... It's much better, but still a point of vulnerability. At least update to IE 7 if you can't bring yourself to leave it.

[mmorpg man]

actually thats a point, what OS are you using? might make a difference

[Zelissa]

We have Windows Vista. I always use Firefox, and my husband downloaded it last night and has started using it. (Finally.) So we won't be using IE anymore.

Yes, we do auto-update windows and our anti-virus. In fact, we just updated the anti-virus and are scanning again now.

[timebomber]

We have Windows Vista. I always use Firefox, and my husband downloaded it last night and has started using it. (Finally.) So we won't be using IE anymore.

Yes, we do auto-update windows and our anti-virus. In fact, we just updated the anti-virus and are scanning again now.

:grin: So after a lenthy two week wait for AA to sort though the que and give my account an investigation they removed the actions against my account from seeing my point of view. So to all u guys out there that get the exploitation email. Reply back to AA stating your case and sit tight for two weeks. AA will take awhile since its swimming in investigations such as these but they will give your account a fair investigation and get back to you with there findings in due time.
Innocent untill to proven guilty :thumbsup:

[Zelissa]

My husband's account was just restored as well. They said they did find evidence of the account being compromised. As far as our computers, we never did find the source, so we reformatted and upped our security.

[timebomber]

My husband's account was just restored as well. They said they did find evidence of the account being compromised. As far as our computers, we never did find the source, so we reformatted and upped our security.

Hmmm they didnt give me a reason why they banned me. All they said was they understood my point of viewand removed the actions against my account.
Anyways i recieved a Acccount Ownership Verification email today. I have all the details besides the secret question. When i go to the link to see what my secret question was it requires your account login name. I type it in and it keeps giving me a "this account name is not on our records" there for not allowing me to see the question and give the answer needed for the account details i need to send back :undecided: More emails and time spent waiting for me i guess. Did u have any problems such as this Zelissa ?

[waflob]

This sounds like a phishing mail to me.

DelBoy

[det]

Blizzard EU had Autenticators briefly...I wanted to order 2 but by the time I had my order set up, only 1 was available. Just as well, because afterwards I found you can assosciate it with as many accounts as you like...we have 2 in our household and you just need to have the authenticator ready.

If there is any gripe...then it is the fact that shipping fee is 8 Euros..to a guildmate in Poland even 26 Euros !!!!!!

[Zelissa]

Hmmm they didnt give me a reason why they banned me. All they said was they understood my point of viewand removed the actions against my account.
Anyways i recieved a Acccount Ownership Verification email today. I have all the details besides the secret question. When i go to the link to see what my secret question was it requires your account login name. I type it in and it keeps giving me a "this account name is not on our records" there for not allowing me to see the question and give the answer needed for the account details i need to send back :undecided: More emails and time spent waiting for me i guess. Did u have any problems such as this Zelissa ?

No, we did not receive an e-mail like that...at least not to my knowledge. We received an e-mail stating that the penalty was reversed and the account restored, and they said they would be sending us a new password, which they did in another e-mail. Then he just had to change it for security reasons and then he was free to log in.

When he logged in he found that everything was fine, nothing stolen or deleted. But he did have a bunch of new level 1 characters on many different servers. We deleted all of them. We were very surprised they didn't steal any of his gold.

[mmorpg man]

timebomber if you put the email you got up here we can tell you if its authentic or not.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Anyways i recieved a Acccount Ownership Verification email today. I have all the details besides the secret question. When i go to the link to see what my secret question was it requires your account login name. I type it in and it keeps giving me a "this account name is not on our records" there for not allowing me to see the question and give the answer needed for the account details i need to send back :undecided: More emails and time spent waiting for me i guess. Did u have any problems such as this Zelissa ?

FYI -- whenever you get things like this, Warning Flags should pop up in your head. Things you should check are:



Where is the From Address from. Sometimes, phishers are lazy and don't hide the fact they are phishers, and leave this exposed. However, most of them know how to hide this well. Typically, most email programs (or webmail sites like I believe hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc.) let you view the original headers for the email. If the headers show that the email was *not* sent originally from a Blizzard server, but some bizarre domain name that looks unfamiliar in the extreme, odds are.... this email isn't legitimate. This, however is not strong evidence that it is illegitimate, it just is a first step.
Check the links in the email. And I mean, check where they actually send you. Some email programs let you copy the link's address, then you can paste it somewhere safe, like in Notepad. If the domain name for the address is not a blizzard address, you should not click on the link, nor trust anything about what the email claims it is.

What is a domain name? It is part of the address. When you see something like this:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/


The host and domain name of the address is between the "://" and next "/", so in this case, it would be:


www.worldofwarcraft.com


The host name is the first letters/numbers before the first period:


www.worldofwarcraft.com


This more or less translates to being a specific computer/server you are connecting to. In this case, "www" often means "web server", which handles world wide web connections. The domain name is the rest of it, often ending in .com, .net, .org, .edu, etc.:


www.worldofwarcraft.com


You can take that domain name part, and run what is called a DNS lookup (also called a "whois") on it. What that does is tell you who owns the domain. A good site I tend to use to check these is:


http://www.whois.net/


Once you've done this a lot, you get more and more familiar with what is, and what isn't a valid Blizzard address. For instance, if your links have:


www.worldofwarcraft-admin.co.it in them.... don't click the link.
www.wow-europe.com - this one is OK, it is the European web access.







Why do I say "don't click the link"? Because typically, a good number of people use Internet Explorer. I won't go into great detail exactly what all the problems are, but suffice to say, Internet Explorer is about the least secure & most unsafe way to browse the world wide web. It is horrible, and rife with so many security holes it isn't funny. It is very possible that if you are using Internet Explorer, just going to a web page and letting it load someone could have it install a trojan, keylogger, or other kind of malware... without you knowing it. Another big warning is FLASH -- there has been an increase in FLASH being used to do the same thing, and it works in any browser that supports it (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.). So just going to the page will infect your computer. So you want to check where the links are actually going *before* you click on them.

And don't rely on what the status bar says the links are. It is possible in all web browers and most email software to tell it what you want the status bar to say... so it is possible that the status bar will look like you are going to a valid world of warcraft site, but the link really is going somewhere else.

People can be really good at making a web page look like another one. For instance, doing the following will take you to an interesting site:


Go to google.com
Type: Find Chuck Norris
Click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" link.
Once there, notice how everything looks like it could be Google's site. But look at the location bar. It isn't a google.com address, it is a www.nochucknorris.com address!


So it may *look* like Google, but it isn't, it is a harmless little joke. But the same tricks used in this joke to make it look like Google, there are even more advanced tricks that phishers can use to really make it look like you are going to a legitimate World of Warcraft page.

I hope this helps. Using these simple little techniques: checking the from address, checking the real headers for the email, and most importantly checking out the links in the email to confirm that yes, they are legitimate... these things will protect you from phishers and scams. In a perfect world, you wouldn't need to do these things. But we're unfortunately not in a perfect world.

[timebomber]

Well the email was fine, it was just the link. It had Europe.com on the end of it so i tried going through the community site password retrieval and it took my account name and gave me my secret question.
I then emailed it off with the other account details and the next day i recieved one stating everything was good to go. Just needed to set up my payment details. Thank god its over and everything is back to normal. :)
I would like to say a big thank you to the guys that posted with help and explanations. I'll keep checking back in and hopefully no one else has there account closed till next ban wave :(

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Europe.com = BAD. wow-europe.com = OK. *if and only if* the actual link had it, and not just what is written in the email for you to see.

Glad to hear that things are going good for you now.