Account Suspended With No Explanation And Much Sadness

Halibrand

I've been suspended, and don't understand why.

I already submitted my tickets about this (140418-065956 and -066669). I've played many games before, and the only time this ever happened to me was when I was hacked in WoW, so I just assumed that's what happened here. Made sense to me, seeing as this game makes our account names public, that it'd be easier for hackers to get accounts in ESO.

After submitting my tickets, I looked on the forums (really uncertain why I can log into the forums and post, but cannot log into the website: you'd think those two would be connected). Apparently many other people are experiencing the same thing, with no e-mail explaining to them what happened, or how long they've been suspended. Like many of the other posts I've seen, I have no idea why I was suspended. Because I have a lot of time to kill waiting for a response, I may as well brainstorm why:

I don't use profanity or mean behaviour in the game. I do not use add-ons of any sort and never will. I've never used a guild bank.

I have advertised motifs for sale in /zone chat. But I'm mindful of spamming people and tend to wait 5-10 minutes before reposting, so I'd be shocked if that was the reason. So far I've had nothing but positive interactions with people, selling motifs this way. Some of them were very friendly!

I have six characters and many times each day I have used my personal bank to transfer items between them. If anything ever duplicated this way, I likely never would have known (sooooo many crafting materials, Provisioning gets crazy). If this was the reason, I'd be surprised and very curious as to how it happened and what extra items I supposedly got: probably two Capon Meat, or something equally silly.

Yesterday, I bought a 'Racial Motifs: Orc' off the AH because some crazy person threw it up for 50g. My mail showed up immediately for a change, so I pulled it out of the mail, and then zoned out of the bank and ran towards the Blacksmithing Station. On the way there, I got a notification that I had mail, and there was that racial motif again. At the time I figured it just never came out of the mail because of lag, but after reading these posts, it probably duplicated. I certainly didn't cause it to happen, and have no idea how I could, but it's possible I got a duped item. I never actually looked in my bags to see if I got 1 or 2, because that character has lots of motifs in her bag. I spend a lot of time when I'm feeling like crap (person with a disability) running around town looting crates and barrels, so she already had a lot of motifs. Its possible I was suspended due to this, but I'd be surprised, as it only happened once and not because of any action I undertook.

Sometimes when I'm getting my butt kicked in a PvE fight (I haven't gone to Cyrodiil yet), I sprint away and use line-of-sight to try and buy some time to regen some Magicka and Health. This to me seems like a great playing strategy, but it's possible they've decided that using trees, wagons, buildings and rock outcroppings in this manner is an exploit. If so, then I'd be very guilty of it.

I belong to four guilds: three Trade guilds and one Werewolf guild. The only thing close to a negative interaction I've had in any of them, was when a fellow and I had a difference of opinion about the recent provisioning changes. We both stated our thoughts, and then stopped. Neither of us used profanity or insults, neither of us pushed an argument, it was civil. Everything else has been quite positive, friendly, fun, and either me answering the questions of others, or others answering my questions. I scan the AH of all my guilds a lot, looking for new bargains, and have spent a lot of money that way. I can't imagine my time in guilds would be the reason I'm banned.

I just wrote a very longwinded forums post. If this was a preemptive ban because they knew it was coming, then... well played.

I'd love to hear an official response of some sort, at least to let me know what happened and why I can't play any more. This is supposed to be my distraction from permanently feeling like crap (when I feel well enough to play), but now I feel that much crappier. I help out other players, and think I'm a generally positive addition to the community. Maybe someone will read this, feel the guilt, and give me that response (or at least a digital hug)... and of course, the usual comments about how I must be a horrible person, and that's why I was suspended.

Halibrand

Most of us that posted about having this problem subsequently had our forums account suspended as well. Thankfully, I now have forums access again, as well as access to my game account. I got a nice reply from a Gamemaster, which helps to set my mind at ease.

Here's the response I received:

After reviewing your case, we've lifted the ban on your account. As it turns out, during the course of removing players that were exploiting a bug in the game, we inadvertently banned the accounts of a number of players we now believe to be innocent. We'd like to apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for filing an appeal. As more players contacted us with appeals, we were able to quickly identify the flaw in our process, identify the innocent players (such as yourself) and we were able to lift the bans relatively quickly.

Etchesketch

/gratz

Glad it worked out and you have a good attitude about getting caught in the net. Wish there were more like you. +Awesome

Halibrand

Etchesketch wrote: »

/gratz

Glad it worked out and you have a good attitude about getting caught in the net. Wish there were more like you. +Awesome

Thanks, Etchesketch!

Yesterday there were a lot of forums posters being quite abusive in threads to those dealing with this problem, which they really didn't need: they were already quite upset enough as it was.

People like you that take the time to post something positive and supportive are what helps build a community!

Rytfield

When the banhammer strikes there's a good chance that there will be false-positives among them and for their sakes I hope all false-positive bans get undone. Oh and... *digital hug*

speker3

Halibrand wrote: »

Most of us that posted about having this problem subsequently had our forums account suspended as well. Thankfully, I now have forums access again, as well as access to my game account. I got a nice reply from a Gamemaster, which helps to set my mind at ease.

Here's the response I received:

After reviewing your case, we've lifted the ban on your account. As it turns out, during the course of removing players that were exploiting a bug in the game, we inadvertently banned the accounts of a number of players we now believe to be innocent. We'd like to apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for filing an appeal. As more players contacted us with appeals, we were able to quickly identify the flaw in our process, identify the innocent players (such as yourself) and we were able to lift the bans relatively quickly.

It is great to hear you had success! Congrats!
Although i am wondering how you managed to get a reply from a game master so soon? I have been waiting for 5 days now and i was only able to post on the forums with my account in question because i created the forum account after the suspension was in place which automatically logged me in through creation, but upon logging out the forum access was denied.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/81112/stay-away-from-bosses-report-system-trolled/p1
My friend is posting this message on my behalf with his account.
Which method did you use to contact the support? I tried the call back service but after 2 days i gave up and reposted as an email back ticket and a day later i made my forum post
(which is just a rough estimation as to why i was suspended although perhaps my mass mails of decon could have triggered some sort of spam filter)
and shortly after the post they escalated the ticket to the Terms of service department and 2 days later i am replying to your post XD It has been a very boring weekend for me, i was expecting this to be resolved before the weekend to be honest.

Halibrand

@Rytfield: thanks for the hug!

@ScrubyMcBubble: I first made a ticket with Support under the category of My Account Has Been Hacked (because I thought that's what happened at the time) with an e-mail response. Then I thought, I should try the other way too, and made another ticket the same way, asking for a telephone callback instead. Then I started peeking around the forums, read a bunch of posts, and made this post. Then I got did some more forums reading, went to give a supportive comment for another person and found that my forums access had been removed. Right about then is when one of the moderators posted a small guide for how we should be doing our tickets for this, and since the way I did mine was quite different, I made a third ticket following these guidelines and mentioning that I'd now been suspended from the forums too.

It took several hours before I got my first response, and oddly enough it was an e-mail response to my second ticket, the one where I asked for a phone call. It said my issue was being escalated. Hours later, I found I was able to log in to the game (not the forums). I hadn't received any explanations yet or a response to my first or third tickets. A while later I got an e-mail to answer a survey about the service I received, so I checked the "no" boxes on my survey and wrote about how I was still suspended from the forums and what I'd been hoping for more is an explanation of what happened than immediate game access. It was the next day before I got the apology and explanation e-mail (after which they made a similar public apology about the issue). I got another survey e-mail from them, and this one I checked the "yes" boxes and thanked them profusely, again clarifying that my first priority was to understand what happened in case there's anything I can do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

That was my whole journey! So, if you count my first survey response as another form of ticket (in case they were monitoring those), I put in four different kinds of tickets before I was back to normal.

speker3

@Halibrand‌ Wow that sure was a journey! Mine sounds quite similar although perhaps i should read that guide you mentioned.. On the 15th i sent a ticket on call back for being hacked because the game itself just claims a wrong password, after trying to login the eso homepage i find that my account says I am "Suspended" so after realizing what happened i posted another ticket on the 16th again on call back asking what i did wrong and made sure to list my previous tickets reference code to avoid confusion. Another day passed and neither of my tickets both with 12 hour call windows promoted a call back so i tried the customer support number and the line was dead (perhaps it was an old number) so i made a third ticket under email back on the 17th again listing the reference code of both my previous tickets, and upon this day i created my forum account using the invitation in my email and made the forum post about possible report system abuse. Shortly after making the forum post and having the discussion escalate to the point of a Moderator joining the conversation i received a response for my email back ticket claiming that it was escalated the issue to the Terms of service team and two more responses to my call back tickets closing them to reduce confusion as it was being taken care of through the 3rd ticket. It has now been 3 more days (the 20th) and i am still waiting on a response from the Terms of Service team.

Perhaps i wasn't part of the same crossfire you were caught in.. Maybe bumping into a few bugs like falling through the ground or being catapulted across the map to my death were seen as speed hacks?
I record allot of my gameplay for nostalgia purposes being a gamer from multiple mmo's that have been discontinued so i actually managed to catch the catapult bug on footage and so i've used my free time away from the game to learn how to make .gif's just so i could share it XD

Other then this incident (which happened in a major town) i could have been reported for farming loot by the people who think they can report people for farming.. (unless people actually think the bots engage in full conversations and rants with each other) hahaha

Halibrand

@ScrubyMcBubble: Its not fair, but my issue must have been an easier one to identify and deal with than yours, seeing as it happened to many people over a specific error. If that error'd only happened to four people instead of the much larger amount that it was, I'd still be waiting like you. I'm sure they're forced to put aside the longer, slower, more-difficult-to-identify fixes for people when a big mass problem comes in.

I do hope you get an explanation soon, because you certainly deserve that much!

speker3

@Halibrand‌
Thanks! I really appreciate the support.
I must not be part of the mass suspension list on priority for review at the moment, but they will have to get around to it eventually.
I've been having allot of fun with my new found knowledge for making gif's so at least it's keeping me busy and entertained. I just finished a pretty funny one i'll share.
My in game character is named "Crassius Curio" named after the character in Morrowind by the same name who also authored the in game book series "The Lusty Argonian Maid" which is in every elder scrolls since Morrowind. (Including ESO which contradicts the timeline the books were published)
So upon finding a very well done portrait someone had made of him on the web i transformed it into a gif haha