suspended for mailing guild?

meaghs

Heya.. today I was mailing my guild in-game and was disconnected with 'You have been suspended from the site' message on my account. Because it happened while sending out the mails I'm thinking this must be some kind of automated filter... All I can say is.. wut? I received a suspension / ban from the game for mailing my guild? A) you guys should have built a 'mail guild' function into the game and what the heck... I have a three month sub and have violated no terms.. this is nonsense.

I submitted a ticket and I'm on the phone waiting for support to answer.. but players need to know that they should not mail too much cus whatever filter/rules were put in are not that "smart". I hope / pray they better fix this. I would like my game time back please.

meaghs

I received an email telling me 'We're sorry to inform you that your account has been permanently deactivated for violating the Terms of Service of The Elder Scrolls Online. You will no longer have access to the game or forums.'

This is crazy it was an email to my guild not spam....

GossiTheDog

@meaghs, go to help.elderscrollsonline.com, open an email ticket. Look for the appeal a suspension/ban category, and put your information in. They will unblock the ban, but you may need to wait a few days.

Did you send some gold via bank?

Basically, some kind of automated system has banned you, or somebody reported you.

Hilandra

sad to read.. just sad..

meaghs

Nopes.. no gold via the bank. I was basically thanking my guildmates for doing an AvA activity tonight and asked them to send some screenshots for our guild web gallery. The biggest upset for me is that they have not said, "We will investigate it". The preform email they sent says I'm permanently banned. I just don't understand how they do that when you are doing something normal in an mmo (a guild leader mailing his guild).

KerinKor

Zenimax's automated ban-bot strikes again .. how many more innocent victims are there going to be before you do something about it Zenimax?

GossiTheDog

That's a copy and paste reply. The forum is full of them. People get banned, they protest the ban, they all got the same copy and paste reply. The 2nd dispute ticket gets a response, but it takes a few days.

It's weird and broken.

meaghs

Well at least that is somewhat reassuring... some faint hope that I might be able to get my account back and get back into the game...

GossiTheDog

You will get it fixed. The problem is sometimes how long it takes to get resolved.

The bans aren't immediate, by the way (I think they're doing them once a day), so it may be something prior you've done or been reported on which triggered it. I got reported as being a bot. The reason was another player saw me stood in a dungeon and presumed I was a bot -- such is all the Bot Hysteria online, people have just started reporting each other.

jarrellj

So sorry to hear about this.

meaghs

@GossiTheDog that's it.. I will no longer report suspected bots if I get this thing overturned. I also didn't realize that you could get put on a ban list for going afk..

That said.. if they aren't immediate and you can get suspended for going afk then i don't know.. As an adult gamer I go afk alot - since I have to get stuff done irl. Still I think it likely it was the mail especially since @Trouvo situation so closely resembles mine. I am betting more guild leaders get banned as well, simply because mailing your guild is a natural thing to do.

GossiTheDog

Yeah, I don't discount the idea that some kind of spam mail filters have gone wrong. I get regular gold spam mails (and guild invites) in game so it wouldn't surprise me if they're trying to deal with it, and got it wrong.

Trouvo

yeah, same boat here, and only reply I got back was

Greetings!

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team.

Because of the time this ticket was received and to respect our customers, we wish to not bother them at an untimely hour. In the meantime we will attempt to resolve your problem via email.
However we will be more than glad to call you back upon an immediate response to this email or at a specified time that is best for you

What I'm going to need to do is verify your account, if you can please provide me with the following information we'll take a look in our database and see what's going on with the account suspension.

First and last name
UserID
Email associated with account
Answer to security question
Date of birth

We look forward to hearing back from you soon

so even tho I mailed them 20mins prior to this reply and did not state a time not to call me cuz i dont care when they do just do it, they still chose not to call me...

Eris

At least they seem to have stopped asking for credit card information. That was really preventing people from getting timely support as they often stopped to ask is this real or is it a gold spammer.

Really, they shouldn't be asking for First and Last name. They should start the email off with Dear <First Name> <Last Name>, so that people can be less suspicious that it is from a gold spammer or hacker. If they can answer the other questions, that should be good enough.

They should also ask the security question when asking for the answer, because I honestly don't remember what the question was so I won't likely remember the answer. I'll have to go back and look, so many systems use security questions these days that I forget which system uses what question.

UserID, In Game, Forum, which?

Just sayin...

meaghs

I hope they don't send me that kind of message.. I would need some kind of hint for the answer to the security question... im an older gamer and my memory isn't so good.. oh btw.. after two and a half hours on hold with support I got disconnected
this is not a good weekend.

Sassyvixen70b14_ESO

Really would be nice to have our guild leader back..... I am really not impressed at this point with customer service. If you are going to auto ban people before a real person has looked over the issue then you really need to have customer support to fixed the accounts getting ban without them having to wait weeks. What happen to having a real person make the ban call instead of trying to fix a broken system with a mass ban. Its a great game..... but terrible customer support.

kryptly

Sorry meaghs, really crappy this is happening. Posting in support of restoring our guild leader. hope this issues is solved quickly.

Ysne58

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌ @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ This is another thread about people getting suspended/banned for sending email to guild members.

ZOS_JasonI

Hey there, everyone. If you would like to appeal a recent ban or suspension on your account, you can do so by following these steps:

• Open the Support page on the official ESO website and click on Email or contact Customer Support here.
• Once the support e-mail opens, choose Account / Billing under "What kind of problem are you experiencing?"
• Choose "I Would Like to appeal a suspension/ban." from the Select a Subcategory dropdown menu.
• Describe the problem in the space provided.
• Click Submit Question to send the appeal to Customer Support.

As soon as we receive that appeal, our Support Team will be able to investigate the request. Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

Mailmann

GossiTheDog wrote: »

The bans aren't immediate, by the way (I think they're doing them once a day), so it may be something prior you've done or been reported on which triggered it. I got reported as being a bot. The reason was another player saw me stood in a dungeon and presumed I was a bot -- such is all the Bot Hysteria online, people have just started reporting each other.

Wow! I better stop reading books then. That really sucks too... there is some really neat reading material in the game.

meaghs

@ZOS_JasonL thank you for the response here. I did file an appeal the way you have said and I have now received what looks like two prefab mails. The first saying only that I was permanently deactivated for violating the Terms of Service and the second saying we[support] will investigate this matter and take appropriate action...To protect individual privacy, we do not disclose the outcome of our investigation.

At the footer of the second it says the status is solved

Question Reference # 140412-041025
Date Created: 04/12/2014 08:34 AM
Date Last Updated: 04/12/2014 12:22 PM
Status: Solved

It's not solved. I am still banned. I responded to the first response via email and I have been on hold for five hours... Should I be reusing the same submission on the support page instead of replying to support via email?

Trouvo

so they respond to 2 of you guys and im still left hanging...same situation except mine says suspended not banned when trying to log in

YourNameHere

Mailmann wrote: »

GossiTheDog wrote: »

The bans aren't immediate, by the way (I think they're doing them once a day), so it may be something prior you've done or been reported on which triggered it. I got reported as being a bot. The reason was another player saw me stood in a dungeon and presumed I was a bot -- such is all the Bot Hysteria online, people have just started reporting each other.

Wow! I better stop reading books then. That really sucks too... there is some really neat reading material in the game.

There is a difference standing in front of a bookshelf reading, and standing in front of/on top of a boss mob for over half an hour and killing it over and over.

Lumifer

This happened to me too. I sent mail to my guild's members who were offline because I was going to merge my guild with another guild so I had to inform them about it. I sent a ticket to the support and I'm hoping it will be solved quickly.. I'm sorry for any trouble I have caused.

pecheckler

Using a heuristic spam fighting system to alleviate the customer service workload at the cost of customers is disgusting. Obviously implemented as an emergency workaround after launch, because I can't believe anyone would sign off on implementing a system that so greatly inconveniences innocent customers. Even if the false-positive bans are 0.01% that's still too much. You should immediately make a special form on the ban appeal page so these tickets are priority #1, and then re-think the entire auto-banning mechanism.

Lumifer

My account was fixed. That was fast! Thank you support Erin!

arktisch

I'm glad to see that someone got their account fixed, I however am still waiting, and been waiting since Monday. I assume I was banned for sending a guild mate a mail with a 1,500 gold c.o.d and a Redguard motif because he was in Stonefalls and I was in the southern area of Shadowfen and didn't want want to teleport. I guess the thing to take away from this story is never send mail...ever...it's a trap.

meaghs

Looks like they've restored my account also! Thank you to the support staff ( @ZOS_JasonL and anyone else) who gave attention to and fixed this.

Trouvo

meaghs wrote: »

Looks like they've restored my account also! Thank you to the support staff ( @ZOS_JasonL and anyone else) who gave attention to and fixed this.

wtf....seriously? and im still waiting after 15 hrs today and no response at all

Alyrn_Grey

I'm guessing that sending a lot of emails in a short time trips an automated antispam thingy. It probably autobans at that point. ZOS_JasonL is giving you the correct procedure.

meaghs

Trouvo wrote: »

wtf....seriously? and im still waiting after 15 hrs today and no response at all

@Trouvo are you waiting for a call back? If so try the email procedure that ZOS_JasonL posted as well. I sent in two and responded to all the emails they sent me asking for an appeal. Seeing the mistakes their new anti-spam strategies are causing they are probably now giving these email ban appeals a high priority.

Also keep checking your account. On mine they did not send me a mail saying they made any mistake or anything. I woke up this morning, checked my account and it was fixed. In this case, that was the only response I needed.