Extensive Ban Report - 4 Banned 22/08/13 US

[zonpan2lol]

Hello forums, today I received 4 unpleasant ban emails during the same period of time (6:00 - 7:00 AM, my time). I was just passing by to report what happened. Though this time I won't be using the default ban template since I've made my own.

A) Set-Up

1) How many Accounts have been Banned?
4 US Accounts were permanently banned in Total:

- ACC 1: MoP Gathering LvL 90 Druid - Realm 1 (B.NET ACC 1) - PAID

- ACC 2: MoP Gathering LvL 90 Druid - Realm 2 (B.NET ACC 1) - PAID

- ACC 3: MoP Gathering LvL 90 Warrior + JC/Insc LvL 85 DK - Realm 2 (B.NET ACC 2) - PAID

- ACC 4: Cataclysm Gathering LvL 85 Mage - Realm 3 (B.NET ACC 1) - PAID


2) What Botbases / Profiles were they using?

-Druid 1 was using GatherBuddy2 with my own Private and Randomized profiles. In addition, I was also using this Druid to Beta test Farmer Joe.

-Druid 2 was using GatherBuddy2 with my own Private and Randomized profiles, different from D. In addition, I was also using this Druid to Beta test Farmer Joe.
---Druid 2 had also been grinding skyshards with a private profile a week ago.

-Warrior (ACC 3) was using GatherBuddy 2 with a similar setup to the previous, different profiles. Only gathered Ore. Also used it to Beta test Farmer Joe.

---DK (ACC 3) was using ProfessionBuddy with a modified version of Bengan's Shuffle.

-Mage (ACC 4) was using ProfessionBuddy with Ultimate Mining Farmer in Northrend


3) What was their daily Runtime and Monitoring?

-Druid 1 and 2 were running for about 6-8 hours a day. Taking 40min-70min breaks every hour or so.

-Warrior was set to farm for 80 minutes then log on DK to prospect/mill for 30 minutes. After that, break for 1 hour.

-Mage didn't have a set runtime, it did when I decided it was a good idea to put him farming. The sessions were long and no breaks inbetween. About 6 hours non-stop. Sometimes more.

I would like to point out in this section that I had a tight schedule for them and NEVER let them run overnight. However, for some reason (greed) I allowed them to run overnight TWICE in one week.

Also, I monitored them 90% of the time while they were running in the day. Those 2 nights of course I didn't watch them.

If they ever got stuck, I got them out of there within 30 seconds and I was pretty aware of what they were doing. If they ever engaged in PvP combat I would manually play the character. All whispers responded.


4) How did they dump Ores/Herbs?

-Druid 1 sent gathered Ore and Herbs to another account (which isn't banned) via mail. This other account then shuffles everything and deposits to GBank. 3rd Account withdraws and posts to AH.

-Druid 2 sent gathered Ore and Herbs to ACC 3 (Warrior/DK account, which is banned) via mail. ACC 3 then shuffles everything and deposits to GBank. 3rd Account withdraws and posts to AH.

-Warrior sent Ore and Herbs to DK on the same account via Mail. DK shuffles everything including what's gathered from Druid 2 and deposits to GBank. 3rd Account withdraws and posts to AH.

-Mage smelted gathered ore and deposited to GBank on Realm 3. Another account withdraws bars/gems and posts to AH.


5) What plugins were they using?

-GatherBuddy Helper (Blacklister)

-AvoidPlayers

-AutoEquip

-Private Profile swapper


6) Reloggers, Hacks, Class Routines, Character Gear?

- HBRelog as my relogger.

- No Hacks

- Druids (Feral) were using Superbad. Warrior (Protection) was using Singular. Mage (Frost) was using Singular.

- All the MoP accounts were geared with full 476 Honor gear + 1 Tyrannical Piece. Some gems and some enchants, though not many.


7) IP, Computer, V P N, MAC Address, Hardware?

-All of these accounts were running concurrently or not with the others.

-All of them were using the same IP.

-All of them were using the same Computer, MAC Address and Hardware.

-FPS was set to 20fps Maximum. Each bot (WoW + HB) consumed about 6-10% of my CPU.


B) Economics

1) Selling Gold?

- I did recently sell gold, though NONE of these accounts were used for such purpose. I had separate Battle Chest Accounts to sell the gold on.


2) Profit?

- I was going through my guild banks checking for profit and whatnot. On average, each of these accounts made 60-100k gold. The Cataclysm didn't reach that treshold, but was somewhere between 30k and 40k.


3) How many auctions did they have?

- None of these accounts were used to post auctions within the last month. Let alone posting any herb or ore in the auction house.


4) How did I get the Game-time?

- ACC 1, 2 and 4 were RAFed together. I paid each of them through B.NET Subscription (Paypal) which gave me free months on 3 accounts.

- ACC 3 had game-time from a 60-Day Time Card purchased at a third-party store.


5) How were they paid?

-ACC 1, 2 and 4 were paid with the same Paypal when they were on sale ($35 for MoP accounts and $15 for Cataclysm).

-ACC 3 was paid with another Paypal long ago.


C) History & Appeals

1) Were these accounts banned/suspended before?

- No, none of these accounts have ever been suspended, banned or warned before. I do, however, have a long record in WoW botting.


2) Have I opened an appeal?

- Yes, there's an appeal in progress for ACC 1. The others are on hold until I have a response for ACC 1.

- I will try to save with my best effort though judging by my luck with previous bans I probably won't be getting much out of it.


3) Remaining Accounts

- My Main account which is also a crafter and GuildMaster of all my guilds remains untouched.

- Bankers, Auctioneers and Mules are not banned.

- 2 Cataclysm accounts which haven't been gathering are still alive.


4) Will I ever bot in the future?

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to conquer."

Until the last wall has fallen I will never surrender.

FOR THE BOTHORDE! Lok'tar Ogar!


The End.


I'll let you know later about what happens

 

[Paranoid]

Interesting reading even though I?m sorry that you have lost all those accounts but as you stated you were selling gold which gives you money. I actually believe blizzard mainly aims for those who use Honorbuddy and gain money through it but you never know I can be flagged while just posting this haha. But please keep us noted, its fun to always read a really well described report even though it might not have gone on the positive way.
I?m holding my thumbs for your Appeals.

 

[Tentomas]

One more question please. Did you have same IP all the time or it changes when ever you reset your router like static IP?

 

[zonpan2lol]

One more question please. Did you have same IP all the time or it changes when ever you reset your router like static IP?

It changes, but during the last month I've turned it off twice at most.

 

[Aion]

One question still applies. You havent shared the ban emails. Abuse of Economy or 3rd party?

 

[roboto]

one of the most useful ban reports i've read in ages
it prooves some of my theorys to me

 

[zonpan2lol]

One question still applies. You havent shared the ban emails. Abuse of Economy or 3rd party?

All of them were 3rd party software.

 

[zonpan2lol]

one of the most useful ban reports i've read in ages
it prooves some of my theorys to me

Haha, thanks. I tried to make it as helpful and informative as possible.

ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) But at what cost?

3 Accounts got ban reduced to 72 hours.

I have yet to appeal the other one.

 

[Macatho]

Could you copy paste the ban message? I would be interested to see if it was the random generated one or if a GM was involved. This lets us differentiate between player report or you got stuck in a filter (LCP/Kills.p.hour/onlinetime...)

 

[Giwin]

LCP doesn't exist, blizzard can't even afford to run non-cross realms.

 

[zonpan2lol]

Could you copy paste the ban message? I would be interested to see if it was the random generated one or if a GM was involved. This lets us differentiate between player report or you got stuck in a filter (LCP/Kills.p.hour/onlinetime...)

Here

***NOTICE OF LICENSE TERMINATION***

Account: WOW2
Offense: Use of Bots or Third-Party Automation Software

Blizzard has terminated this World of Warcraft license after identifying the usage of bots or other cheat software.

These programs (commonly called cheats, bots, and hacks) automate certain aspects of gameplay, or provide unintended advantages and abilities to the player. This type of cheating undermines other players' experience and severely upsets the balance of the game environment.

LCP doesn't exist, blizzard can't even afford to run non-cross realms.

I agree with LCP being non-existent. I believe blizzard has a team dedicated to find and ban botters and they get extra money when they catch a large network.

 

[zonpan2lol]

Uhmm... on a related subject, I just received 4 emails stating that my 4 AH bot accounts have also been closed. Those emails look like manual investigation though.

 

[oresal]

Uhmm... on a related subject, I just received 4 emails stating that my 4 AH bot accounts have also been closed. Those emails look like manual investigation though.

would you mind posting the e-mails? or could you at least post what you found to suggest it's been manually investigated?

 

[zonpan2lol]

would you mind posting the e-mails? or could you at least post what you found to suggest it's been manually investigated?

Greetings,

Account Name: WoW666


A user of the above account has recently been involved in actions deemed inappropriate for the World of Warcraft by the In-Game Support staff of Blizzard Entertainment. This decision was made after a thorough investigation of the situation as a whole.

When a harassment report is made, all players involved in the incident are subject to review, which may result in account penalties. Though we are unable to discuss the outcomes of our investigations due to privacy concerns, rest assured that this incident has been looked into very thoroughly, and the appropriate actions have been taken on all involved accounts.

Any disputes or questions concerning the following account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/cs .

Account Action: Account Closed

Offense: Unapproved Third Party Software

A third party program is any file or program that is not a part of the World of Warcraft software, but is used to gain an advantage in the game, such as increasing your movement speed or teleporting from one place to another beyond what is allowed by game design. It also includes any programs that obtain information from the game that is not normally available to the regular player or that transmit or modify any of the game files. Normally, this classification does not include UI modifications, except those UIs that require an external application to function. Any external applications that are used in conjunction with World of Warcraft can cause quite a few unwanted side effects. Some of the major possible results of the use of third party programs can be instability of the game to the point that a player "crashes" from the game quite often. External programs can also be used to transmit viruses, spyware, and other unwanted programs into a player's computer. Third party programs can also be used to obtain information from the player's computer, such as account, password, and personal information.

The top lines are pretty much self explanatory.

 

[oresal]

When a harassment report is made...

Any external applications that are used in conjunction with World of Warcraft can cause quite a few unwanted side effects.Some of the major possible results of the use of third party programs can be instability of the game to the point that a player "crashes" from the game quite often.

so it seems that someone or multiple people reported you and, interestingly, they've suggested that your game client was crashing. is that true?

 

[shlord]

you play on high population server? how populate were the zones where you were farming?

sad to heard it.. nice report btw..

 

[tifreak]

Thats what i thought since few months, if a toon get a report, a manual investigation will startet and an employee of Blizzard will check all accounts on the machine. The result is, that all farmers will be banned on that system / IP ; its extreme hard and it will show us that we must find new ways. I am sure, that blizz can only check their WOW Install ID from the registry but i dont have any solution to block this ID for Blizzard. Another thing is, that Blizz can check the Windows Installation ID ; but we can avoid that with VM?s ; another thing is, that blizz can check by IP. So the solution is, that for 100% security is, that every installation of WOW needs an own VMWare and own IP. But what we know is, that Blizz check *** because of the chinese botters / farmers.

So none has any idea... if anyone have good ideas PN me to find new ways.

 

[zonpan2lol]

so it seems that someone or multiple people reported you and, interestingly, they've suggested that your game client was crashing. is that true?

Yeah well pretty sure someone must have reported me. As I said, these were all AH toons so someone probably got pissed off at me. And yes, games were crashing left and right for whatever reason. Not too often but not too rarely.

you play on high population server? how populate were the zones where you were farming?

sad to heard it.. nice report btw..

Yes I was playing on mainly High pop servers. I used all the protection plugins to avoid players and such. I didn't find much players, ganked here and there sometimes. Though these bans look completely different. My bankers/AH got banned through manual investigation, while the farmers were banned by the server. I believe it was just coincidence that they happened back to back. I'm almost possitive someone reported my auction characters since they were online at least 16 hours a day with next to no monitoring.

Thats what i thought since few months, if a toon get a report, a manual investigation will startet and an employee of Blizzard will check all accounts on the machine. The result is, that all farmers will be banned on that system / IP ; its extreme hard and it will show us that we must find new ways. I am sure, that blizz can only check their WOW Install ID from the registry but i dont have any solution to block this ID for Blizzard. Another thing is, that Blizz can check the Windows Installation ID ; but we can avoid that with VM?s ; another thing is, that blizz can check by IP. So the solution is, that for 100% security is, that every installation of WOW needs an own VMWare and own IP. But what we know is, that Blizz check *** because of the chinese botters / farmers.

So none has any idea... if anyone have good ideas PN me to find new ways.

You can still bot normally, just avoid high pop realms in my opinion. They're crowded with trolls, assholes and whiny bitches. Of course it's their right to report me, but I will hate them for it. Mid tier realms have pretty cool people in them for the most part with the eventual troll. Still safer than high pop.

Something I've learned is that you have to balance out your characters. Top 2 or 3 accounts per realm will net you the best performance-cost rate.

 

[2legit2quit]

Coincidentally I also received the ban hammer on my bot account on the same day, same time, as well as same message. I've had an account here for a while but decided it wasn't wise to use it considering my wow name was the same (derp).

Here's what I just received:

Thank you for your follow-up contact regarding the account WoW1. This account was issued a 72-hour suspension after evidence was produced indicating one or more characters on the account were found to be using an unauthorized cheat program. These programs provide character benefits that are not achievable in the World of Warcraft through normal means. Such benefits include, but are not limited to, character automation (also known as "botting"), increased speed, teleportation, or running through walls/boundaries. These types of programs offer an unfair advantage over other players and supersede the intended limits of the game.

As a result of this determination and the harmful nature of unauthorized programs on the game environment, the action taken against this account will not be reversed. Please understand that we do not reach this decision lightly. This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use.

In addition, you are responsible for any unauthorized cheat software found to be running in conjunction with World of Warcraft, regardless of the location and ownership of the computer used to log into the service. Please remember to keep your login information confidential. Any account that is registered to your name may not be shared with anyone except for one minor of whom you are a parent or guardian. The security of your account rests with you.

As a reminder, only the Account Administration department can address disputes or questions about this account action. To learn more about how we are able to assist you, please visit us at .

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and hope we have addressed any concerns you may have had. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance to you.




This was my first time being caught but I do everything on that account, pvp, level for granting my main account levels and gathering. An online rep asked if I used a farming bot but I also received an email at first about connection patterns.:

Greetings,

Blizzard has locked the Battlenet account ****due to an unusual change in its access pattern.

If you recently changed your connection pattern, you can unlock your account with a simple password reset. Visit the Password Reset page to begin the process. The form can also be reached by clicking ?Can?t log in? on any Battlenet login page.

If you did not recently change your connection pattern, someone else may have attempted to access your account using your password. We encourage you to follow our security checklist to secure your computer, and then performing a Password Reset to unlock access.


I was using BGbuddy at the time and looked at my screen to see relog was trying to log into my account continuously and being error ed. .. and it's done that in the past.. so maybe that triggered it and then they investigated my account? either way. thought I'd share since my account just got locked too and mirrored your experience.