Many game functions stopped working days ago (have we been social banned?)

Evenfall · August 2020

Fixing this issue before our ESO Plus renewal is due is the only factor that determines if two of use renew at the end of the week. A guild member searched the forums here and found numerous people reporting identical problems to ours that people have talked about over the past year or so. She suggested we include @ZOS_BillE on this message since he often helped others with this same issue.

Several days ago everyone here started having the same problems with all of our characters.

-when trying to initiate a trade we get the message, "Trade failed"
-when accessing the city bankers the guild bank is not shown as an option anymore
-when trying to send in-game mail we get the message, "Sending mail is currently disabled"
-when we go to any guild trader the only option to choose is "Goodbye"
-Whisper messages to other players will appear sent but the recipient doesn't receive them

We have all tried the following but nothing fixed the issues.

-we unchecked all Add-Ins & Libraries and then restarted the game
-we ran repair from the ESO Game Launcher
-we verified we were running the latest game files (additionally all games updated this morning after the new release)

We each play on our own computer (i.e. we do not share computers)
We do share a Spectrum 1 gigabit internet connection coming into the house
We are all ESO Plus subscribers. Two of us have played since August 2017. The third started her account about 7 weeks ago.

All three of us opened support tickets yesterday. The ticket numbers are:
200823-000518 (@evenfall-1) [me]
200823-008522 (@summerle****)
200823-008630 (@shell2****)

Two of us have received cookie-cutter responses to the tickets which had nothing to do with the problem. One was about items missing from the bank and the other was about ensuring your account is not invisible to others when trying to send or receive Whispers. My ticket, which was submitted half a day before the two other two has not received a response at all from support.

Questions:
If our accounts haven't been "social banned" what else can we do to try and fix this issue?
If ZoS is limiting our accounts, why and how do we get this cleared?

Two of us have our ESO Plus renewal coming up in 6 days. If we can't trade gear after a Trial and can't use Guild Traders what's the point of paying a subscription for a game we can't really do much with??

-It's frustrating doing Trials with the guild and seeing other members get the lightning staff and jewelry I've been needing but I can't trade.
-It's frustrating not being able to dump all the Intricates I get into the Guild Bank for guild lowbie tunes to use to increase their crafting skills.
-It's frustrating not being able to buy the Motifs or Style Gems that my crafter needs to complete some of the 60+ Master Writs he's walking around with.

Beardimus · August 2020

Sounds like a social ban.

Evenfall · August 2020

Beardimus wrote: »

Sounds like a social ban.

I agree and if that is the case I am just astounded that they have put something in place that takes away functions of the game from us without so much as notifying us why or that it's even happened. This resulted in spending hours removing add-ons, repairing the game, dropping out of trials, skipping gear runs and helm runs with the Guild, trashing intricate gear others could have used, etc. All while we are each paying $15 a month for ESO Plus and spent $40 or $50 two months ago for the latest zone.

ChimpyChumpy · August 2020

Whatever you do don't do a charge back for the game, that will get you completely banned.

I could have sworn I saw a recent thread like this with multiple accounts in one household. There was speculation about that somehow being the problem.

ZOS_Adrikoth · August 2020

Hey there @Evenfall

We can confirm that these tickets are in the right place, and a support agent will reach out as soon as they can.

Please be aware that updating your ticket will put it at the end of the line and delay the response time. With this in mind, we recommend only updating your ticket as necessary.

Evenfall · August 2020

ZOS_Adrikoth wrote: »

Hey there @Evenfall

We can confirm that these tickets are in the right place, and a support agent will reach out as soon as they can.

Please be aware that updating your ticket will put it at the end of the line and delay the response time. With this in mind, we recommend only updating your ticket as necessary.

Support change social permissions back to normal about 90 minutes ago and the game is functioning normally for all three of us.

Evenfall · August 2020

ZOS_Adrikoth wrote: »

Hey there @Evenfall

We can confirm that these tickets are in the right place, and a support agent will reach out as soon as they can.

Please be aware that updating your ticket will put it at the end of the line and delay the response time. With this in mind, we recommend only updating your ticket as necessary.

In the past 30 minutes it appears all three of us are "social banned" again.

All I've done on my tunes are daily crafting writs, put extra recipes in the guild bank, broke down items at crafting stations, and bought some recipes from the NPC Chef in Vivec City. Then I took a shower to find nothing works again just as before.

Evenfall · August 2020

"We have made the necessary adjustments to account to prevent this issue from happening with this account (and the others). You should be good to return to normal gameplay."

That was supports response to me asking how to prevent this form happening again and 48 hours later we are back to not seeing the guild bank, can't use guild traders, can't send in-game mail, can't trade with other players, and can't Whisper to other players.

Savina · August 2020

@ZOS_Adrikoth @ZOS_BillE @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom And anyone else that might be able to help with these undeserved social bans.

It seems something was changed in the last 6 months that is causing innocent people that play ESO from the same house hold to get social bans. Roommates from the same house hold all banned at the same time. Then all have the ban lifted at the same time and they are told...

"We have made the necessary adjustments to account to prevent this issue from happening with this account (and the others). You should be good to return to normal gameplay."

And 2 days later all are social banned again. We are seeing more and more of these situations not less. Even after being told the accounts have been adjusted so it will not happen again ....It happens again.

Why do I care? These 3 people are in my guild and they spend endless hours on line helping our members, with all kinds of gear runs, helm runs, and farming of anything our members might need. After being social banned twice in less than 2 weeks time, they are now ready to give up there ESO+ subs and going to find a different game to play. I would think ZoS would be just as tired of losing paying customers as I am tired of losing good guild members (since this isn't the first time)....to a anti-cheat software that is catching more innocents than it is actual cheaters.

I hope someone at ZoS gets these social bans figured out and fast!

Evenfall · September 2020

This was fixed a second time on 8/31 and when asked what we can do to prevent this from happening again support said, "There are not really any suggestions I can make in this matter. The situation is directly related to the multiple accounts logging into the game from the same location. This matter should be resolved now."

Now it's 9/6 and the three of us can not trade gear from two trial runs again. Nor can we use guild traders, send mail, whisper, or use the the Guild Bank. We are each paying for ESO+ but can only play half the time.

8/22 - first occurrence of being social ban
8/23 - ticket opened (200823-000518)
8/26 - issue fixed ("We have made the necessary adjustments to account to prevent this issue from happening with this account (and the others). You should be good to return to normal gameplay.")
8/29 - issue returned (used same ticket to report)
8/31 - issue fixed ("The situation is directly related to the multiple accounts logging into the game from the same location. This matter should be resolved now.)
9/6 - issue returned (used same ticket to report)

Savina · September 2020

@ZOS_Adrikoth @ZOS_BillE @ZOS_GinaBruno

Evenfall wrote: »

This was fixed a second time on 8/31 and when asked what we can do to prevent this from happening again support said, "There are not really any suggestions I can make in this matter. The situation is directly related to the multiple accounts logging into the game from the same location. This matter should be resolved now."

Now it's 9/6 and the three of us can not trade gear from two trial runs again. Nor can we use guild traders, send mail, whisper, or use the the Guild Bank. We are each paying for ESO+ but can only play half the time.

8/22 - first occurrence of being social ban
8/23 - ticket opened (200823-000518)
8/26 - issue fixed ("We have made the necessary adjustments to account to prevent this issue from happening with this account (and the others). You should be good to return to normal gameplay.")
8/29 - issue returned (used same ticket to report)
8/31 - issue fixed ("The situation is directly related to the multiple accounts logging into the game from the same location. This matter should be resolved now.)
9/6 - issue returned (used same ticket to report)

These folks have been social banned 3 times in 15 days! This is unacceptable and a great way to push your customers to leave ESO for another game. They have asked several times if they are doing something that is causing it and how they can fix it. They continue to get auto-mated responses that tell them the problem is fixed.

When they ask me if I have any ideas how to help them and/or why this keeps happens......all I can do is tell them it is unacceptable and I totally understand if they leave. Who wouldn't understand when you are social banned every time you turn around.

ZOS_Bill · September 2020

@Evenfall

Thank you for the update and letting us know the issue returned. Support has responded to ticket 200823-000518 and made changes to the accounts affected, so please let us know if that has helped so far.

Evenfall · September 2020

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

@Evenfall

Thank you for the update and letting us know the issue returned. Support has responded to ticket 200823-000518 and made changes to the accounts affected, so please let us know if that has helped so far.

That has resolved the issue again. I was giving it 48 hours or so to see if it returned. So far things are fine.

ZOS_Bill · September 2020

We appreciate you letting us know that the issue is resolved and your character can now login again. At this point we are now closing out the discussion. Those with a similar issue should start a new thread for help.