Suspended For Receiving Too Many Crown Gifts

Stanko

I purchased an "alt account" on Saturday, August 10, 2020 with the intention of developing a second account to do additional writs. My main account makes 2,000,000 gold per week doing writs for all 18 characters.
Utilizing gold from my main account, I paid gold and had the following gifted to me from other players within about 24 hours:
Summerset DLC: 3,500 crowns
Packrat: 1,200 crowns
War Boar: 1,200 crowns
Banker: 5,000 crowns (I noticed that this is currently discounted to 4,500 crowns)
Merchant: 5,000 crowns (I just noticed that this is currently discounted to 4,500 crowns)
10 extra character slots: 15,000 crowns

Shortly thereafter, my "alt account" was suspended. No reason was given. The "alt account" currently only has two level 3 characters that made it through the tutorial and fed their horse for the first time. I don't bot and I've never run bots. My main account (2517CP) is unaffected. My kids' accounts (400+CP) are unaffected. The other five accounts that I purchased to establish my personal guild bank are unaffected. The only possible explanation is that the "alt account" was suspended for receiving too many crown gifts.

So, what's the hidden cap on receiving crown gifts? I can assure you that it's not in the Terms of Service (which I've read in its entirety).

Support Ticket Reference #: 200810-006477 has not received an answer yet.

Taleof2Cities

You should post this in the General Help forums, @Stanko.

There’s usually a friendly forums mod that stops by once per day.

(Maybe a forums mod is watching and can move this thread for you ...)

Ackwalan

From ZOS's point of view, a new account with no real play time is suddenly moving millions in gold and crown gifts. You should just as well park an icecream truck outside a middle school. Sure you might being selling icecream, but any cop in the area should also knock on your door. Give time for the ticket and investigation to do its thing.

redspecter23

Wouldn't it be just absolutely fantastic if every account banning came with an email with an explanation of what you did wrong?

ZOS logic.

TheRealPotoroo

redspecter23 wrote: »

Wouldn't it be just absolutely fantastic if every account banning came with an email with an explanation of what you did wrong?

ZOS logic.

It's simple decency to explain why someone got banned. It shouldn't even be a discussion point because it's so obviously the right thing to do.

Room_101

Surprise bans, surprise server outages.

Stanko

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

You should post this in the General Help forums, @Stanko.

There’s usually a friendly forums mod that stops by once per day.

(Maybe a forums mod is watching and can move this thread for you ...)

I think that this belongs in general discussion, because I suspect that this is not an isolated case. I can't be the only person that wants to know what the "hidden cap" is for crown gifts. ZoS should at least give us some guidelines. Like, maybe if they actually stated that an account needs to be active for a period of time, or there is limit per week. There's simply no guidance that I'm aware of.

So, this isn't about my support ticket. I expect that to get resolved. This is about letting us know what the guidelines are so that we can introduce a friend to the game (which I've done), and gift them some things (which I've done) without fear of getting them banned.

What if this was actually a friend of mine that I was introducing to ESO, and he or she decided to never play again?

Flaaklypa

Stanko wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

You should post this in the General Help forums, @Stanko.

There’s usually a friendly forums mod that stops by once per day.

(Maybe a forums mod is watching and can move this thread for you ...)

I think that this belongs in general discussion, because I suspect that this is not an isolated case. I can't be the only person that wants to know what the "hidden cap" is for crown gifts. ZoS should at least give us some guidelines. Like, maybe if they actually stated that an account needs to be active for a period of time, or there is limit per week. There's simply no guidance that I'm aware of.

So, this isn't about my support ticket. I expect that to get resolved. This is about letting us know what the guidelines are so that we can introduce a friend to the game (which I've done), and gift them some things (which I've done) without fear of getting them banned.

What if this was actually a friend of mine that I was introducing to ESO, and he or she decided to never play again?

Absolutely agree. (Snip) has a tendency to act like a forum mod, even though he really is not

Taleof2Cities

Stanko wrote: »

I think that this belongs in general discussion, because I suspect that this is not an isolated case.

*** shrugs ***

If you want a longer wait time that’s certainly your choice.

Intha1313

It's about 35k a week per toon for daily writs ...... where does the 2 million come in? Sorry for derail, genuinely curious.

bmnoble

Intha1313 wrote: »

It's about 35k a week per toon for daily writs ...... where does the 2 million come in? Sorry for derail, genuinely curious.

Selling the gold/purple upgrade mats, master writs, intricates/recipes and other things you get doing the writs, I make a bit over a million in sales in addition to the gold I get from doing the writs themselves, then again I don't sell absolutely everything. Could probably get close to the 2 million mark if I bothered to do my surveys each week and sell the raw mats.

Kalik_Gold

• 18 x 4,600g x 7 = 579,600 gold per week
• Imperial race x 18 x 4,646g x 7 = 585,396 gold per week.
• Imperial race w. ESO plus x 18 x 5,111g x 7 = 643,986 gold per week.

2,000,000 - 643,986 = 1,356,014 gold from gold tempers, rosin, master writs etc???

You get that much sellable items? lucky RNG

VaranisArano

They aren't likely to explain the limits on gifting that let them flag accounts for the same reason ZOS doesn't explain their discipline policies: if you tell people exactly where the line is drawn, some people are going to skate right up to the line. Its much easier to okay a few legitimate new accounts after the fact than open up the floodgates for bots.

There are always people like that, whether its a sibling waving their hand right in front of your face going "I'm not touching you!" or a student going "Three strikes and I'm out? Well, Then I'm gonna make strikes 1 and 2 really good ones!"

TineaCruris

Stanko wrote: »

I purchased an "alt account" on Saturday, August 10, 2020 with the intention of developing a second account to do additional writs. My main account makes 2,000,000 gold per week doing writs for all 18 characters.
Utilizing gold from my main account, I paid gold and had the following gifted to me from other players within about 24 hours:
Summerset DLC: 3,500 crowns
Packrat: 1,200 crowns
War Boar: 1,200 crowns
Banker: 5,000 crowns (I noticed that this is currently discounted to 4,500 crowns)
Merchant: 5,000 crowns (I just noticed that this is currently discounted to 4,500 crowns)
10 extra character slots: 15,000 crowns

Shortly thereafter, my "alt account" was suspended. No reason was given. The "alt account" currently only has two level 3 characters that made it through the tutorial and fed their horse for the first time. I don't bot and I've never run bots. My main account (2517CP) is unaffected. My kids' accounts (400+CP) are unaffected. The other five accounts that I purchased to establish my personal guild bank are unaffected. The only possible explanation is that the "alt account" was suspended for receiving too many crown gifts.

So, what's the hidden cap on receiving crown gifts? I can assure you that it's not in the Terms of Service (which I've read in its entirety).

Support Ticket Reference #: 200810-006477 has not received an answer yet.

Be sure to follow up when you get emailed the automated resonse from filing the ticket to let them know the issue is not "automatically" resolved. They are going to have to do something to fix you up.

BenevolentBowd

Kalik_Gold wrote: »

• 18 x 4,600g x 7 = 579,600 gold per week
• Imperial race x 18 x 4,646g x 7 = 585,396 gold per week.
• Imperial race w. ESO plus x 18 x 5,111g x 7 = 643,986 gold per week.

2,000,000 - 643,986 = 1,356,014 gold from gold tempers, rosin, master writs etc???

You get that much sellable items? lucky RNG

If you include selling all the intricate and ornate items, you usually earn over 5k per CP character. If you obtain various crafting achievements and complete motif chapters, you can increase your drop rate for sealed writs. You can sell the intricates for much more on the traders if you have the slots available.

Also, jewelry crafting writ rewards have a scaling upgrade mat drop rate so higher tiers provide higher quantities of gold and purple upgrade mats.

If you collect your surveys, you can refine for lots of improvement items. You can then sell the refine mats or use them to do sealed writs and use the vouchers to sell items like attunable crafting stations for lots of gold.

If you use lazywritcrafter, you can use the /outputwritstats command to see what your drop rates are based on the writs you have done. Unless, you do so many writs like me that you break the report.

volkeswagon

Bans without an explanation is just plain wrong. As I mentioned before if they can't send you an explanation for any kind of ban then they shouldn't ban in the first place unless you're a bot. It's like being arrest without informing you of the charge.

volkeswagon

wow. Gonna start doing writs again

Dusk_Coven

Have you checked your Junk mail folder for an email from ZOS? Everyone who complains about a ban actually had or eventually found an email with at least a vague explanation.

volkeswagon

i think transfering that much gold between accounts can flag it as a possible gold buying situation which is a bannable offence. Where you pay real money to have someone mail you gold.

newtinmpls

VaranisArano wrote: »

There are always people like that, whether its a sibling waving their hand right in front of your face going "I'm not touching you!" or a student going "Three strikes and I'm out? Well, Then I'm gonna make strikes 1 and 2 really good ones!"

Well written... and all the more so since most of the above will pretend astonishment when they are called on it.

Salvas_Aren

VaranisArano wrote: »

They aren't likely to explain the limits on gifting that let them flag accounts for the same reason ZOS doesn't explain their discipline policies: if you tell people exactly where the line is drawn, some people are going to skate right up to the line. Its much easier to okay a few legitimate new accounts after the fact than open up the floodgates for bots.

There are always people like that, whether its a sibling waving their hand right in front of your face going "I'm not touching you!" or a student going "Three strikes and I'm out? Well, Then I'm gonna make strikes 1 and 2 really good ones!"

Well, that there is even such a thing as crown gift limits is disturbing, no?

I mean, getting gifts by themselves is not a bad or forbidden thing, imagine, you have an old account full of ESO+ crowns and gift to your own alt account and get banned, even that seems possible now.

Elsonso

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

Well, that there is even such a thing as crown gift limits is disturbing, no?

I mean, getting gifts by themselves is not a bad or forbidden thing, imagine, you have an old account full of ESO+ crowns and gift to your own alt account and get banned, even that seems possible now.

I don't think it is the gifting. I think it is the gold moving around that attracted attention.

Stanko

tmbrinks estimated the following in July 2019 (467k per month per character). It's about 5% more than the 2,000,000 per week per account that I quoted. Note that I have 18 toons with full research, all provisioning recipes except for a couple that cost more than 20k, and membership in two trading guilds located in Mournhold. So, I understated the amount of gold that I make.

tmbrinks wrote: »

AONomad wrote: »

Oh btw, you should update the main post with the new 570k per month figure, it still says 400k from your earlier spreadsheet.

It's not quite that high.. there was a math error, as I was "double counting" Jewelry, since when I initially set it up, half of my characters were not doing jewelry writs since my alt account didn't have access to it.

It's at 467k per month per character now

But yeah, the lucrative nature of writs is not the purpose of this post. I'd like to get back to the topic at hand, instead of quibbling.

Any guesses on what ZoS' limits to gifting crowns may be?

UrQuan

Elsonso wrote: »

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

Well, that there is even such a thing as crown gift limits is disturbing, no?

I mean, getting gifts by themselves is not a bad or forbidden thing, imagine, you have an old account full of ESO+ crowns and gift to your own alt account and get banned, even that seems possible now.

I don't think it is the gifting. I think it is the gold moving around that attracted attention.

It'll be the combination.

Think about what this looks like:
Person A pays persons B, C, D, E, F, and G to give things to person H.
I can tell you that IRL in the banking world when you see things like that you suspect money laundering or something else shady is going on, and you file a suspicious transaction report with the relevant authorities. In MMOs that's going to look equally suspicious and make them think that something like gold selling is going on.

redspecter23

Stanko wrote: »

tmbrinks estimated the following in July 2019 (467k per month per character). It's about 5% more than the 2,000,000 per week per account that I quoted. Note that I have 18 toons with full research, all provisioning recipes except for a couple that cost more than 20k, and membership in two trading guilds located in Mournhold. So, I understated the amount of gold that I make.

tmbrinks wrote: »

AONomad wrote: »

Oh btw, you should update the main post with the new 570k per month figure, it still says 400k from your earlier spreadsheet.

It's not quite that high.. there was a math error, as I was "double counting" Jewelry, since when I initially set it up, half of my characters were not doing jewelry writs since my alt account didn't have access to it.

It's at 467k per month per character now

But yeah, the lucrative nature of writs is not the purpose of this post. I'd like to get back to the topic at hand, instead of quibbling.

Any guesses on what ZoS limits to gifting crowns may be?

I think that it's just an assumption that there is a limit to crown gifts. Since you received no information on why that account was banned, that might be where you'd need to start. It was mentioned earlier, but it might be far more likely that a large transfer of gold caused a ban.

Did you transfer gold from one account to the other to purchase the gifts? Or was the gold sent to the seller from the main account?

Did you have both accounts logged in simultaneously at any point? I've had guildmates receive temporary or social bans for this in the past.

Even if there is a limit on gifts, it likely has more to do with the low level/play time on the alt account as numerous players receive multiple millions in gifts every day without issue. If the gifting triggered a ban, the newness of the account would be what I would focus on.

Stanko

Elsonso wrote: »

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

Well, that there is even such a thing as crown gift limits is disturbing, no?

I mean, getting gifts by themselves is not a bad or forbidden thing, imagine, you have an old account full of ESO+ crowns and gift to your own alt account and get banned, even that seems possible now.

I don't think it is the gifting. I think it is the gold moving around that attracted attention.

I paid 8,000,000 gold to get in vBRP for my first run and earn a perfected BRP lightning staff (wild impulse). I then used the staff (in conjunction with Malacath's Band, Valkyn's monster set, and Vicious Death) to earn "The Merciless" achievement. The spontaneous combustion was a sight to behold.

So, I don't think that it's the gold. I've tossed around millions at a time. I've never heard of that many crowns gifted in a 24 hour period though. Maybe I stumbled upon a way to break the game.

Any guesses on what the crown limit is before you get banned?

Sylvermynx

I hope you get it sorted out with CS. Just keep replying to any response to the original ticket. Copy/pasta is your friend.

Pevey

It is expected that an established account can toss around millions and be legit. If a new account does this, it is highly suspicious. But just like with the algorithms that look for bank fraud in the real world, the people looking for that stuff are never going to tell you exactly what patterns they’re looking for. Once ZOS knows it is your alt account, they will likely see all the transactions a little differently.

I do think it kind of sucks that they suspended the account first, before investigating. In the real world, they investigate first. And people at banks are trained to never reveal to a customer if they have concerns, exactly what tipped off those concerns, or whether the bank and/or authorities are investigating.

UrQuan

Pevey wrote: »

I do think it kind of sucks that they suspended the account first, before investigating. In the real world, they investigate first. And people at banks are trained to never reveal to a customer if they have concerns, exactly what tipped off those concerns, or whether the bank and/or authorities are investigating.

Not only that, but (in Canada, at least) it's actually a crime for people who work in a bank to let someone know that you're filing a suspicious transaction report on them.

Ratzkifal

Another possible explanation would be if you bought the game through a 3rd party keystore like G2A. While many codes from those sites are legit there are some illegal codes among them too - meaning codes obtained by the seller using stolen credit cards. Those codes get invalidated if the original owner of the credit card manages to get a refund.

So if you bought the game through a keystore, that might explain it too and would explain why no other accounts are affected.

Pevey

Another possibility is that one of the people your main account bought crowns from to have them sent to your alt is under investigation as a gold seller. I know something similar happened to several players in a guild I was in a while back. They had to just wait until zos sorted it all out. In that case, eventually zos did come out and make some sort of vague statement about investigating “black market activity” and that the investigation was complete and some accounts had been returned to good standing.