Wrongly banning players

Domander · April 2014

I was one the many who were banned for no reason last Friday. I'm posting this in hopes that maybe we can get some sort of reassurance that they will take more care in how they handle things.

I was just playing as normal Friday trying to get some researching started, as I was running to the crafting station I was kicked to the character select screen. I logged back in on the same character, a few seconds later it kicked me back to the login screen saying someone else was trying to log in. I was freaking out a bit thinking someone had somehow hacked my account. (I have no idea how someone would) I tried logging into the game again and it told me my user/password was wrong. I immediately reset my password and was then told on the website that my account was suspended.

I had a few tickets going but I'll post the most relevant. I tried to reorganize it so it would read better, replies are at the top in email.

Customer By CSS Web (04/18/2014 05:03 PM)
It says that I'm suspended from the site. I did nothing wrong and I figured I had been hacked. (maybe by gold spammers) Now I'm not sure after reading the forums. I want to play! I payed for the game and have done nothing wrong, please look into this with urgency!!!!
Question Reference # 140418-063186
Date Created: 04/18/2014 05:03 PM
Date Last Updated: 04/21/2014 03:29 PM
Status: Solved

Response By Email (Michelle) (04/18/2014 05:05 PM)
Hail and well met, adventurer!

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online customer support.

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. If you feel that this action has been taken in error, you are welcome to contact us at ESO_help@elderscrollsonline.com.
Warm Regards,
Michelle
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

Are you kidding me? I did nothing wrong. I was reading the forums and a lot of posts were popping up about this, I guess people were being banned for an item dupe exploit using the guild bank. Funny, I've never touched my guild bank, could not have even accidently done this. I read about appealing the ban, so I put in a ticket for that.

Customer By CSS Email (04/18/2014 05:10 PM)
I did nothing wrong!!!!!! I was just playing as normal. I did not violate any TOS

The next day I got this reply.

Response By Email (Jason) (04/19/2014 11:14 AM)
Greeting
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.
Thanks,
Gamemaster Aahz
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

My response to this

Customer By CSS Email (04/19/2014 11:40 PM)
I'm glad I'm able to play again, but now I get to play wondering if I'll be accidentally banned again just for playing the game. I got to spend yesterday wanting to play and not being able to, wondering why my account was suspended, (permanently deactivated according to the first CSS reply!) along with jumping through hoops trying to get it appealed. I don't cheat, I don't exploit, I don't harass, I don't spam, I don't sell gold, I don't buy gold. I also do not feel reassured that this won't happen again.

What about the game time yesterday that I was denied?

I love this game, but I am not a happy customer right now.

Response By Email (Madeline) (04/21/2014 03:29 PM)
Greetings,
I am sorry to hear that you are having difficulties with your quest. With the new release there is the possibility that a couple of mudcrabs have gotten into our system. Thank you for bringing this quest to our attention.
Here are some troubleshooting tips that may help you as we work towards a more permanent solution. We recommend that you try the following:
Typing /reloadui in your chatbox, for graphics or user-interface issues
Typing /camp in your chatbox, which logs you out. Afterwards, exit out of the game and launcher, and wait 15 minutes before logging back in. You are performing a soft-reset which will clear out the cache and allow the game to load properly.
You can venture off to complete other quests, allowing time to pass and the greater possibility being able to interact with the NPC
It is also possible that you can return with a party and attempt the quest with a fresh start (after sharing the quest via group tab)
As a last resort you can try abandoning the quest and re-acquire it
Any of these tips can also apply to other quests or problems that you may have in the future, too.
Warm Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

................................How does that have ANYTHING to do with my response?

Anyway, I'm happy that they're taking care of exploiters and gold buying etc.. but more care needs to be taken. I've never had to worry about getting accidently banned before in an MMO, also a little more than a canned apology would be nice. I know there was a dev post about it, but it didn't feel like much of an apology nor was it very reassuring.

What's even worse were the people replying to posts calling people exploiters etc, that may well have been wrongly banned.

shouteha · April 2014

Lol most likely they reply to the wrong ticket with that mudcrab.

At least know that there is an appeal system in case you ever get mistaken banned like this case. I know some mmo just hand out the ban and never bother to review the case,yea... So far, I haven't seen any subscription reimbursement or extension (beside the early launch extension). Chance are unlikely you will get your 1 day back.

Rytfield · April 2014

I lol'd at that last response. But good to hear you can play again, was probably a false-positive.

BenjaminKacher_ESO · April 2014

I too was falsely banned (without notification) on Friday but never received an e-mail until Sat. morning aprox 12 hours after I got unbanned without notice. I requested 1 day game time be added to my account along with some other things... They ignored the other things but I did get 1 day added to my account. I would recommend replying to that e-mail again asking for something more specific

.

Domander · April 2014

It's just so messed up that they can ban you without verifying that you did anything.

Avidus · April 2014

Not really, they have every right to ban you if they feel like it because its a rainy day. Read the terms of service.
What happened is that they made and error, they using feedback from you and many others located why this fault occurred then immediately fixed it, and as I have read here granted extra game time to make up for their fault.

So what would you have them do? They can either try their hardest to weed out the botters and cheaters, which will without a doubt occasionally result in an innocent being banned, which can easily be reversed.
Or they can tread so carefully to not step on your toes that the cheaters stay one step ahead, which results in no benefit for the game at all.

Nooblet · April 2014

The whole situation was unfortunate but...

They already discussed this, and apologized about the error. It was not possible to simply ban 1 by 1 in an time efficient way. So they wrote a script to do it. There was a flaw with the script and it got some false positives. They addressed it, responded pretty quickly, and apologized and reassured everyone they will be extra careful nothing like that happens again... What more do you want?

JudgeDredd · April 2014

This is starting to happen to me, I haven't gotten banned but I'm getting disconnected every 1-5 minutes..WTF??

Jonnymorrow · April 2014

Haha great reply ZoS the only mud crabs that need sorting are the ones you have as customer service.

GreasedLizard · April 2014

Nice that they admitted a flaw in their auditing script. Obviously they had a million accounts to go through and had to multi filter the heck out of the data to come up with a hard list

SShyte happens

Hakuichi · April 2014

Domander wrote: »

It's just so messed up that they can ban you without verifying that you did anything.

Welcome to the internet. You should read the terms of service. Its been like this since the beginning of inter web time, and its the right way to do it.

wrlifeboil · April 2014

Did you buy or sell anything from a guild store? If you bought duped items or sold legitimate items to someone who got gold from duped items, ZOS was in its rights to ban you.

But it looks like you won at the CS rep lottery and got unbanned so looks like you are now in the clear.

Hakuichi · April 2014

wrlifeboil wrote: »

Did you buy or sell anything from a guild store? If you bought duped items or sold legitimate items to someone who got gold from duped items, ZOS was in its rights to ban you.

But it looks like you won at the CS rep lottery and got unbanned so looks like you are now in the clear.

If ZOS does not like that you just stepped on that road tile they are in their rights to ban you. Or if you log in at a time they do not like? Yup still within their rights. ZOS is the rights.

Domander · April 2014

Hakuichi wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

It's just so messed up that they can ban you without verifying that you did anything.

Welcome to the internet. You should read the terms of service. Its been like this since the beginning of inter web time, and its the right way to do it.

Go back under your bridge, we'll see how you feel about that when they ban you without notifying you, and without even knowing why.

Domander · April 2014

wrlifeboil wrote: »

Did you buy or sell anything from a guild store? If you bought duped items or sold legitimate items to someone who got gold from duped items, ZOS was in its rights to ban you.

But it looks like you won at the CS rep lottery and got unbanned so looks like you are now in the clear.

That's the really weird thing, I never traded with or bought anything from any players. I've pretty much just been leveling characters to 10 or so trying to figure out which one I want to take off with to 50.

Hakuichi · April 2014

Domander wrote: »

Hakuichi wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

It's just so messed up that they can ban you without verifying that you did anything.

Welcome to the internet. You should read the terms of service. Its been like this since the beginning of inter web time, and its the right way to do it.

Go back under your bridge, we'll see how you feel about that when they ban you without notifying you, and without even knowing why.

You think i am trolling? How cute, are you new to the internet or MMOs? Oh i have been banned in the past and had to use appeal system. Thing is, if ESO has to verify your ban, then every whiny kid whining about bots needs to shut up, cause there is no valid way they can fully verify they are botting. I can tell you they are most likely setting up an algorithm to attempt to best guess what bots do, however to verify it, no impossible, guy might just be playing for 72 hours straight and likes killing that one mob over and over again. And maybe he hates using standard names so he picked asdhaliyhs as a name.

Domander · April 2014

Hakuichi wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

Hakuichi wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

It's just so messed up that they can ban you without verifying that you did anything.

Welcome to the internet. You should read the terms of service. Its been like this since the beginning of inter web time, and its the right way to do it.

Go back under your bridge, we'll see how you feel about that when they ban you without notifying you, and without even knowing why.

You think i am trolling? How cute, are you new to the internet or MMOs? Oh i have been banned in the past and had to use appeal system. Thing is, if ESO has to verify your ban, then every whiny kid like you whining about bots needs to shut up, cause there is no valid way they can fully verify they are botting. I can tell you they are most likely setting up an algorith to attempt to best guess what bots do, however to verify it, no impossible, guy might just be playing for 72 hours straight and likes killing that one mob over and over again. And maybe he hates using standard names so he picked asdhaliyhs as a name.

Ok, just to clarify this really isn't a discussion about auto ban scripts. This is a dev post about the bans on that day.

Hey folks, just wanted to add a bit of clarification for the ban we issued today. The ban today was not automated. We do sometimes use automated bans for more black-and-white violations such as gold sellers. That said, we're not immune to mistakes, and will always do what we can to make right on our mistakes. If you feel you were erroneously banned or suspended, we hope you'll contact us so we can review it. We will do reverse bans and suspensions if we find we issued them in error.
ZOS_JessicaFolsomZOS_JessicaFolsom

Hakuichi · April 2014

Domander wrote: »

Hakuichi wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

Hakuichi wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

It's just so messed up that they can ban you without verifying that you did anything.

Welcome to the internet. You should read the terms of service. Its been like this since the beginning of inter web time, and its the right way to do it.

Go back under your bridge, we'll see how you feel about that when they ban you without notifying you, and without even knowing why.

You think i am trolling? How cute, are you new to the internet or MMOs? Oh i have been banned in the past and had to use appeal system. Thing is, if ESO has to verify your ban, then every whiny kid like you whining about bots needs to shut up, cause there is no valid way they can fully verify they are botting. I can tell you they are most likely setting up an algorith to attempt to best guess what bots do, however to verify it, no impossible, guy might just be playing for 72 hours straight and likes killing that one mob over and over again. And maybe he hates using standard names so he picked asdhaliyhs as a name.

Ok, just to clarify this really isn't a discussion about auto ban scripts. This is a dev post about the bans on that day.

Hey folks, just wanted to add a bit of clarification for the ban we issued today. The ban today was not automated. We do sometimes use automated bans for more black-and-white violations such as gold sellers. That said, we're not immune to mistakes, and will always do what we can to make right on our mistakes. If you feel you were erroneously banned or suspended, we hope you'll contact us so we can review it. We will do reverse bans and suspensions if we find we issued them in error.
ZOS_JessicaFolsomZOS_JessicaFolsom

And i did not talk about an automated ban on you. I told you what they would have to do, in order to ban bots if they have to verify. It is impossible to verify 100% that any ban is solid. I used bots as an example.... re-read it.

Domander · April 2014

double post

gladen5rwb17_ESO · April 2014

The response to your last petition pertaining to a quest and mud crab is appalling. When my bank space was gone, gold and items the reply I received was "We are sorry you are having problems with your mail" ... and instructions on how to either fix it and they would escalate the mailing problem. It took another three petitions to get them back on track.

Domander · April 2014

gladen5rwb17_ESO wrote: »

The response to your last petition pertaining to a quest and mud crab is appalling. When my bank space was gone, gold and items the reply I received was "We are sorry you are having problems with your mail" ... and instructions on how to either fix it and they would escalate the mailing problem. It took another three petitions to get them back on track.

Yeah it's like they don't always read them or something, which is kind of ironic since there's a message telling you that they do on the web css.

ZOS_TristanK · April 2014

Hello, all. This thread has been closed as discussing disciplinary action on the forums is against our Code of Conduct.

Our Game Director, Matt Firor, made a post tonight about the state of the game, in which he addresses players who were wrongfully banned, as well as other topics. We encourage you to head over to that post to check it out. Thank you.