Banned - how long does an investigation take?

Logan9a

Rather than doing an investigation concurrently with trying to establish my identity, they started it afterward.

Sigh.

They don't know why I've been banned and my account cancelled and neither do I as I've done nothing which violates the TOS (though I do switch countries more often than some people clean their home and am wondering if that might be it) so I'm feeling mental anguish over this. Like a kicked puppy that just wants to gather herbs.

Any feedback to this would be appreciated as it's been several hours.

Incident: 140604-001848

Thank you.

Logan9a

I've got the strangest feeling this may take longer to correct than I originally had thought.

RubyTigress

Sorry to hear your travails, and hope it is all sorted out soon.

Logan9a

It came as quite a shock to me. I'd played earlier this (soon to be 'that') same day and all was well. Go for a walk...and everything is hosed. That'll teach me never to leave the house.

Magdalina

Account cancelled?o.O I'm not sure what you mean there...like, it no longer exists or what? Or that's just another wording for "banned"?
They seem to ban people by accident all the time, usually when fighting bots and spammers I suppose(I have yet to see a decrease in their numbers, but they already managed to ban me and a few hundreds other innocent people so they're obviously trying very hard).
In my case it took them about 12 hours, I think, not sure - gave up and went to sleep. A few more hours after that I even got an apologetic email, and in a day they even did me the favour on unbanning my forum account. I have heard some players complaining they'd been banned for days though, so here's sincerely hoping that's not what happens to you=/

Logan9a

magdalina157eb17_ESO wrote: »

Account cancelled?o.O I'm not sure what you mean there...like, it no longer exists or what? Or that's just another wording for "banned"?
They seem to ban people by accident all the time, usually when fighting bots and spammers I suppose(I have yet to see a decrease in their numbers, but they already managed to ban me and a few hundreds other innocent people so they're obviously trying very hard).
In my case it took them about 12 hours, I think, not sure - gave up and went to sleep. A few more hours after that I even got an apologetic email, and in a day they even did me the favour on unbanning my forum account. I have heard some players complaining they'd been banned for days though, so here's sincerely hoping that's not what happens to you=/

It did indeed say cancelled.

I have seen a marked decrease in multi-boxers and gold spammers. But yes, I've heard of them banning lots of innocents as well.

Did you get anything other than an apologetic e-mail? No extra game days for them doing this thing to you?

Hopefully they won't ban me for days, but we'll see how lively their customer service is.

Thank you for your support!

Magdalina

Logan9a wrote: »

magdalina157eb17_ESO wrote: »

Account cancelled?o.O I'm not sure what you mean there...like, it no longer exists or what? Or that's just another wording for "banned"?
They seem to ban people by accident all the time, usually when fighting bots and spammers I suppose(I have yet to see a decrease in their numbers, but they already managed to ban me and a few hundreds other innocent people so they're obviously trying very hard).
In my case it took them about 12 hours, I think, not sure - gave up and went to sleep. A few more hours after that I even got an apologetic email, and in a day they even did me the favour on unbanning my forum account. I have heard some players complaining they'd been banned for days though, so here's sincerely hoping that's not what happens to you=/

It did indeed say cancelled.

I have seen a marked decrease in multi-boxers and gold spammers. But yes, I've heard of them banning lots of innocents as well.

Did you get anything other than an apologetic e-mail? No extra game days for them doing this thing to you?

Hopefully they won't ban me for days, but we'll see how lively their customer service is.

Thank you for your support!

Huh. I dunno, as I remember, I got kicked out of the game(in the middle of the anchor, btw. Thank the Eight it wasn't a dungeon at least) and got told smth about someone else logging into my account or smth, scared the hell out of me, thought I'd been hacked. After that it just told me my login info was incorrect(it would've been really cool if they bothered with an e-mail first so I'd know I hadn't been hacked, at least>.>)

I'm not so sure on gold spammers and co. Haven't seen (m)any lately, but that might be just because I'm to vet zones now(I did see some bots even there, but rather few), when I go to lower lvl zones I still see them every once in a while.

No, nothing, far a compensation goes. Well, as you probably remember, they gave all of us 5 extra days and guess thought it was enough for everyone. Maybe I could go scandalous and ask for compensation, but I guess it was just a single gaming evening lost in the end(and a ton of nerves, but hey, who counts that), and they apologized(and even publicly to all of us) so nothing to be angry about in the end, but it did leave a bitter aftertaste, so here's really feeling for you.

Best of luck, hope it gets resolved soon^^

Logan9a

It would be nice if it did, but I've the feeling everyone has gone home for the night who deals with such things.

Bryong9ub17_ESO

It took me 3 days to get my account after I was mysteriously and falsly banned out of no where. And that was after 4 emails and sitting in hold with customer service for 40 minutes. They never apologized or even said why or how I was banned.

Logan9a

Bryong9ub17_ESO wrote: »

It took me 3 days to get my account after I was mysteriously and falsly banned out of no where. And that was after 4 emails and sitting in hold with customer service for 40 minutes. They never apologized or even said why or how I was banned.

I'm surprised you returned to the game after that. What a horror story.

They couldn't tell me why I've been banned - it seems to be some sort of automatic thing. I've no idea.

But these horror stories are freaking me out.

Logan9a

And into day 2 with no word and no response to my e-mails. This makes me a sad panda.

GossiTheDog

It normally takes a few days. If it's a complicated issue it may take longer.

Fairydragon3

Logan9a wrote: »

And into day 2 with no word and no response to my e-mails. This makes me a sad panda.

take that as a good sign, means your response was most likely handled correctly, and is waiting in queue

everytime I get moved up, and my responses go unanswered, they eventually get seen by the next rep

Logan9a

You would think with all the people who are being erroneously banned, they'd have streamlined the system by now.

Logan9a

Fairydragon3 wrote: »

Logan9a wrote: »

And into day 2 with no word and no response to my e-mails. This makes me a sad panda.

take that as a good sign, means your response was most likely handled correctly, and is waiting in queue

everytime I get moved up, and my responses go unanswered, they eventually get seen by the next rep

That sounds like "no news is good news"? I'm a bit confused - I'm to understand that if they ignore my constant whining, this is better than CS reassuring me that they are indeed working on it and perhaps giving an ETA?

I'm trying to understand if that is what you are saying.

Fairydragon3

Logan9a wrote: »

Fairydragon3 wrote: »

Logan9a wrote: »

And into day 2 with no word and no response to my e-mails. This makes me a sad panda.

take that as a good sign, means your response was most likely handled correctly, and is waiting in queue

everytime I get moved up, and my responses go unanswered, they eventually get seen by the next rep

That sounds like "no news is good news"? I'm a bit confused - I'm to understand that if they ignore my constant whining, this is better than CS reassuring me that they are indeed working on it and perhaps giving an ETA?

I'm trying to understand if that is what you are saying.

I'm saying that at least the ticket is waiting for a more experienced person to get to it, not the first level of CS, which seems to be the main source of all the robot, repeat responses, and mishandling of tickets

Cously

I don't see bots anymore. But I did move to VR region a week ago. I went to Khenarti's Roost at US peak time to harvest some low level resources to stock my guild bank and I didn't find one single bots in the nodes, and spent a few hours there. Whilst I think there is some bots out there due what I see in forums and Zone Chat I believe whatever they are doing it's working. On the other hand they should unban people that call them asap, since the chinese gold farmers wouldn't call.

Logan9a

That makes more sense. Thank you for clarifying it. Up to tier 2!

Well, let us hope so.

Logan9a

Joolio wrote: »

I don't see bots anymore. But I did move to VR region a week ago. I went to Khenarti's Roost at US peak time to harvest some low level resources to stock my guild bank and I didn't find one single bots in the nodes, and spent a few hours there. Whilst I think there is some bots out there due what I see in forums and Zone Chat I believe whatever they are doing it's working. On the other hand they should unban people that call them asap, since the chinese gold farmers wouldn't call.

Give Joolio a cookie!

Yes. I'd probably unban the account then investigate it. I'm guessing they have loggers so they can keep track of what is done in the meantime.

Phinix1

It sounds like you are disputing that the actions which led to your account being banned were undertaken by you, and are implying that because you change countries, perhaps that alone would make you more susceptible to getting hacked?

I am sorry to say it, but end-user account security is the responsibility of the end user. If someone DID get your account info and do something against the TOS from your account, you will likely have little recourse for getting it reactivated after the investigation shows there was in fact illegal activity.

The reason for this is simple: Imagine if every botter, exploiter, gold seller, and cheater were to simply claim "It wasn't me boss, I been framed!" Nothing would ever get done about the problem. Also, allowing one exception to the rule you risk choosing the wrong person to let off the hook, and then word gets out that there is an exploit to getting around bans for exploits, and pretty soon all the bots are trying it.

Sorry to hear about your situation, and I hope it gets resolved positively, if it turns out the ban was in error. However, I would advise you to immediately begin taking the following precautions on your PC:

* NEVER use the same username and password for multiple sites or accounts.

* Download Malwarebytes Anti Malware and buy a decent antivirus and after updating do a thorough scan of your system for keyloggers and the like.

* Invest in a firewall or learn to use the built-in firewall if you have Windows 7 or later.

* Make sure you always do all critical Windows updates.

zhevon

I have also seen far fewer bots lately - in fact none in the past 2 days; last weekend there was a rumor in our guild that botters (bot-controllers) were reporting non-botters. If true it was presumably to increase the workload of the CS people and try to actively discourage agressive bot-crackdowns by causing an outcry.

Its funny I lost the ability to report botters a couple of weeks or so ago when they started combining lightning speed with underground mining plus flying.

Logan9a

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

It sounds like you are disputing that the actions which led to your account being banned were undertaken by you, and are implying that because you change countries, that perhaps the alone would make you more susceptible to getting hacked?

Incorrect.

You have started with a completely faulty premise.

My account was not hacked.

The reason I mentioned that I switch countries really, really often is in some games they become concerned when a user logs in from different IP addresses over time. Most of the population is fairly static. I am an exception.

Corithna

Well with it being only two months into the game after launch that's not much time to streamline anything. Also something to think about is the fact that in order to slow down the rates at which they get banned the gold spammers and botters also put in claims of being wrongfully banned every time around. That alone slows things down considerably.

@Logan9a‌ It's a terribly complicated process to weed these parasites out. We all pay the price in terms of the in game economy, hacked accounts, real life identity theft, server capacity consumed both by the activity of the characters used but also by the efforts to catch these yay whos. It's not just a few disorganized hacks in their basements doing this stuff either, these guys have full fledged data centers dedicated to leaching every penny they can get their hands on, regardless of the legality, or morality of their methodologies. In a very real way these guys are evolving into one of the new faces of organized crime. There is real money involved here, especially from the identity theft they perpetrate on a regular basis upon their hapless customers.

I wouldn't worry about your lost time, once they confirm that you're account was or was not incorrectly caught up in their screening process you'll be compensated appropriately.

Logan9a

zhevon wrote: »

I have also seen far fewer bots lately - in fact none in the past 2 days; last weekend there was a rumor in our guild that botters (bot-controllers) were reporting non-botters. If true it was presumably to increase the workload of the CS people and try to actively discourage agressive bot-crackdowns by causing an outcry.

Its funny I lost the ability to report botters a couple of weeks or so ago when they started combining lightning speed with underground mining plus flying.

The first paragraph made sense.

The second just confuses me. I'm now seeing in my mind some sort of flying tunneler thing.

Phinix1

Logan9a wrote: »

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

The reason I mentioned that I switch countries really, really often is in some games they become concerned when a user logs in from different IP addresses over time. Most of the population is fairly static. I am an exception.

That is also a false premise. 90% of the internet accounts in America use dynamic IP addresses which change every month or so. If they banned people from using different IP addresses most of the population would be banned, as would anyone that ever took a vacation.

There is something more going on here.

Fairydragon3

Corithna wrote: »

Well with it being only two months into the game after launch that's not much time to streamline anything. Also something to think about is the fact that in order to slow down the rates at which they get banned the gold spammers and botters also put in claims of being wrongfully banned every time around. That alone slows things down considerably.

@Logan9a‌ It's a terribly complicated process to weed these parasites out. We all pay the price in terms of the in game economy, hacked accounts, real life identity theft, server capacity consumed both by the activity of the characters used but also by the efforts to catch these yay whos. It's not just a few disorganized hacks in their basements doing this stuff either, these guys have full fledged data centers dedicated to leaching every penny they can get their hands on, regardless of the legality, or morality of their methodologies. In a very real way these guys are evolving into one of the new faces of organized crime. There is real money involved here, especially from the identity theft they perpetrate on a regular basis upon their hapless customers.

I wouldn't worry about your lost time, once they confirm that you're account was or was not incorrectly caught up in their screening process you'll be compensated appropriately.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if it would be better if MMO's never existed, so those problems wouldn't occur. But where would we be now?

Logan9a

Corithna wrote: »

I wouldn't worry about your lost time, once they confirm that you're account was or was not incorrectly caught up in their screening process you'll be compensated appropriately.

I'm sure if they looked at my logs they would say "You poor thing. You are fairly inept at fighting and seem to spend more time wandering around lost than anything. We left a cookie in your inventory to make you feel better."

If they did say "We are sorry you were caught up in all this, here is five days for your two lost, I would be pretty mollified - however from what others have said on this site, they felt lucky just to get a 'whoops, sorry'.

Logan9a

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

There is something more going on here.

On this I have no clue. I did nothing outside of my normal pattern of what I do earlier that day (log in and look for chests, dressers, etc with several alts) then wander around picking up collectables. Log out, go for a walk, come back and shazzam! Problems. And me without any alternate MMO's to go sulk in while they fix it.

GossiTheDog

At one point Zenimax banned a group of players who fell through the world (due to map geometry bugs) as it appeared they were speed hacking.

Truthfully, mistakes happen. They should fix it in next few days and refund you the game time. If that doesn't happen, obviously, you have an issue.

theyancey

I was banned just from the forums briefly. Somehow it did not pick up that I had purchased a 6 month sub and muted me just as if I had quit ESO and gone to one of those cartoonish crap online games. It took 2-3 days to fix it. No big deal since I could play the actual game. BTW, the customer service people that helped me with this, both on the phone and via e-mail, were fantastic!

Bryong9ub17_ESO

Don't expect any kind of compensation or apology . You might, but i know i got none when i was falsely banned. In fact i'm surprised they haven't locked this thread here on the forums yet. I did the same thing when i was banned, i came here on the forums and made a thread about it asking for help. Within the day they had locked my thread saying it was against the policy to discuss disciplinary actions or some crap like that. And to top that off they had banned my forum account after that!!

Can you imagine how frustrated and angry i was that not only was i falsely banned from the game and then banned from the forums FOR NOTHING! Needless to say i was furious.

A simple apology would have made me feel at least a little better, but NO they are way too good for that, to admit fault.

Yet here i am still playing the game and giving it one last chance, but i am hanging on by a thread now. Any simple little thing and i'm gone. No more of my money will be given to this company and i will move on to one of their competitors.