Another botter feeling bad about a ban

[frosticus]

first on an side issue, i can bot for awhile if im only running two accounts, however, when i add a third, i get stomped. seems like an odd thing, but it happened again this morning. lost all my accounts, then bought 3 more yesterday, a druid and two pallies. this morning the druid gets stomped. the two pally accounts are still running. dummo blizz.

main issue. anyone feel short changed on the ban appeal process? i remember back when you appealed, there was a good chance to get a human response. sometimes you had to respond the the computer once and the second time would be a human. now i feel like i get a computer every time. i get the same cookie cutter ban appeal response.

An additional review of the action has been completed. We have confirmed our initial findings, and the action will not be reversed or changed.

We understand that you may still have concerns regarding the action, but we must reiterate that it was taken to address a violation of the Terms of Use and End User License Agreement (Blizzard Entertainment:Blizzard Legal Documentation), which all players accept before logging into the game.

We understand that these policies may seem harsh, but they are in place to ensure that every player is able to enjoy their time in our games. Thank you for respecting our position.

this is the response to the first appeal. they are accusing me of selling gold for irl currency. which i havent. at all. the account was the recipient of botted gold, but from one of my accounts through the ah to my main. yeah, i see its similar, but im trying to get blizz to admit thats what it was. they even marked it resolved with no way to respond to blizzards response. i remember a time, you could keep conversing with an actual employee. now its just a computer.

so i appealed again:

It would be different if you had used the Terms to catch me doing something I was guilty of. It would be different if you had invoked the 'I do what i want' clause of the Terms. I realized this is your game, and you own everything, including characters and ingame items. But your ban process is kinda borked. You use the blanket clause of 'had something to do with gold so we will use the selling gold for irl currency'. There was no trading gold for irl currency and you know it. You are just too damn lazy to actually investigate. I have a conversation ingame about selling gold on a different account in MoP and three hours later im banned with the accusation of selling gold for irl currency. Then to add insult to injury, you reply to my appeal with a copy paste response i've seen many many times. Yes, you've banned me in the past for a myriad of reasons. Your GameMaster even informed me i wouldnt be scrutinized if i opened a new account and lived a good life.

This is wrong on so many levels. The incompetence is rampant. I've given this company thousands of dollars in the past 6 years and will continue to do so in the future. I just wish there was some integrity left with your ban process. I did not break that clause of the Terms and you know it. Or at least you would if a human actually investigated this action.
#1
3 hours ago
Jaelyxa
Customer Service Representative
Greetings.

Thank you for your continued correspondence. After a thorough final review of the action taken against this license, we have arrived at the same conclusion. The action will not be reversed or changed under any circumstances.

We understand that you may still have concerns regarding the action, but we must reiterate that it was taken to address a violation of our policies (Blizzard Entertainment:Blizzard Legal Documentation), which all players accept before logging into the game.

As this issue has been reviewed by multiple representatives, it is now considered closed. If you have questions regarding a different license or issue, please feel free to contact us again. However, further inquiries regarding this issue will no longer receive a reply.
#2

again, a human response would have satisfied me and id go on botting on my new accounts. but ffs, a computer again. not even addressing any issue in the appeal.

i guess im just a whiner today. ill get over it. if i could get a few 'Hells Yeah, fuk blizz!!' itd make me feel a bit better. how about it peeps, can i get a Hell Yeah?

 

[frosticus]

***Notice of Account Closure***

Account Name: WOW1

Reason for Closure: Terms of Use Violation -- Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy

This account was closed because one or more characters were identified exchanging, or contributing to the exchange of, in-game property (items or gold) for "real-world" currency. This exchange process negatively impacts the World of Warcraft game environment by detracting from the value of the in-game economy.

this is what bothers me so much. there was no selling activity, or evidence on that account, or any account running on my comp, or in my control.

 

[shakran]

i have the same feelings some time not an human a fu**ing bot ! they can't know but they still do it

 

[trix4rix]

Just for my own protection, how exactly did you transfer gold to your main account? I've been doing it through a guild bank that both accounts have a toon in, and I've been doing it for about 3 weeks with no ban. about 10 hours per day on botted account, my main is mostly clean (just enyo for raiding)

 

[Aion]

@Frosticus:

Sorry for your loss.

But rethink again, what should clearly and confirmed identify your actions regarding all these accounts - the all botting ones, and your main too, since, as you know, this is the only reason for Bliz to shorten the ban time-window on yourself.

Regarding the appeals, I am afraid, you have slim chances to anything, but still you could give it a try with two remaining methods - phone call support - which could sometimes be very nice, and could give you tons of verbal answers for yourself, which will never be received by their formal letters.
Even after these phone-support staff members have no rights to lift the common Abuse of Economy bans, they can give you vital information, after some social engineering off yourself.

The other method is using their formal channels, which are read by Senior Game Masters, the email address for complaints against Game masters, and the email address for contacting senior game masters. But I am not sure for these on US region, since I am on EU.

Good luck!

 

[starlite68]

don't get hung up on the wording. it's a form email. not that long ago 100% of the bans had the words "Reason for Closure: Terms of Use Violation -- Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy". lately they added the "hacks" and "3rd party software" etc.

you botted and got banned for botting. abuse of economy covers that in their minds.

 

[gathertime]

Chin up mate, bans happen. We get them and we move on!

 

[dellza]

Hells Yeah, fuk blizz!!

i really dont get how they can ban ppl in this expack anyway its trash, both pvp and pve wise, i bet most ppl playing now are botters anyway i mean look at how much of the game is just a grind/time sink, pvp has 0 balance and 0 content its a joke, pve well they got a few raids but how long did they w8 for it, what about the ppl that dont raid or pvp what do they got nothing yet again and i say it once more

Hells Yeah, fuk blizz!!

they dropped the ball on this expack that could of been so good bring so many ppl back to wow just to leave, i cant w8 to see the number of ppl playing on next season

anyway if your getting banned with 3 just try doing 2 for now then a 3rd or even 4th l8er on or try something different with the 3

 

[SirSpankenSauce]

You have to find humor in the fact they used a bot to reply to your defense of botting....

 

[dragonbuddy]

exact same letters and ro bot response to my appeals happened last week frosticus, its such shitty service.

 

[ryftobuddy]

Just remember that blizz doesn't have to give you a reason for closing your account, they can do it at any time they want, for any reason they want, without notifying you of the action taken.

You just happen to got blizzard's catch-all system.

 

[Gameforreal]

Fuck BLiz =)

 

[Giwin]

don't bot on accounts you care about, i remember getting to the point where i didnt even bother reading the email. (also forgot the names of the characters i botted)

 

[realzz]

I've been banned for 3rd party software even when I didnt bot( townlong steppes potion of luck farm) and they just copy/pasted same response. Its quite hopeless to try to appeal these days.

 

[Aion]

I've been banned for 3rd party software even when I didnt bot( townlong steppes potion of luck farm) and they just copy/pasted same response. Its quite hopeless to try to appeal these days.

You can be banned hours or days after the actual botting, this is known as "delayed" ban, and its very popular among Blizz, to blur the community what could had triggered the actual ban.

 

[frosticus]

crap, i should have checked this thread sooner. thanks to everyone who responded. its nice to have a place to just complain once in a while. i understand keeping it out of the main forums, its nice to just be sad once in a while.


so in response to a couple of you. yeh, getting a response from a bot is a bit ironic, lol. and i agree on the botting on accounts i dont want to lose. it just hurts when i slacked botting on that account, cepting enyo ofc, to have the account banned because of association. and i totally believe it was association. out of three accounts, one gets the bot software ban, and my others get abuse of economy, so there is some sort of separation there.

and to the guild transfer question. ive been banned using guild banks. i think the best defense on that front is to make sure you have a larger guild pop. use superguildinvite to fill your guild and get lost in the numbers. i used to run a guild with a daily draw from the gbank. each rank could draw 25,50,100,200g per day. i was making tons of gold and the price was in the toilet, so i just gave it away. it allowed me to fill the money log up every day with draws. a hardcore investigation would eventually catch it, but i never got caught with that method.

if its just you and your farmers in the guild, yeh, count on losing it all.

i got caught this time transferring gold via auction house. so yeah, they can figure that one out too. this time around ill try a variation using new level 1's deleting them every day, creating a new toon when i need to swap gold and deleting immediately after.

good luck to me

 

[Aion]

crap, i should have checked this thread sooner. thanks to everyone who responded. its nice to have a place to just complain once in a while. i understand keeping it out of the main forums, its nice to just be sad once in a while.


so in response to a couple of you. yeh, getting a response from a bot is a bit ironic, lol. and i agree on the botting on accounts i dont want to lose. it just hurts when i slacked botting on that account, cepting enyo ofc, to have the account banned because of association. and i totally believe it was association. out of three accounts, one gets the bot software ban, and my others get abuse of economy, so there is some sort of separation there.

and to the guild transfer question. ive been banned using guild banks. i think the best defense on that front is to make sure you have a larger guild pop. use superguildinvite to fill your guild and get lost in the numbers. i used to run a guild with a daily draw from the gbank. each rank could draw 25,50,100,200g per day. i was making tons of gold and the price was in the toilet, so i just gave it away. it allowed me to fill the money log up every day with draws. a hardcore investigation would eventually catch it, but i never got caught with that method.

if its just you and your farmers in the guild, yeh, count on losing it all.

i got caught this time transferring gold via auction house. so yeah, they can figure that one out too. this time around ill try a variation using new level 1's deleting them every day, creating a new toon when i need to swap gold and deleting immediately after.

good luck to me

Yea, good luck!

Still, farming the gold is much easier nowadays than selling it, so focus on this better! The AH transfer is very popular for the chinese resellers, so it is common sense for Blizzard to monitor it.

But using some obscured methods, even more expensive ones, always deliver!

 

[Ilja Rogoff]

Well, Blizz fights botters with their answering bot machines thats how they kick our ass.
I'm suiciding my remaining accounts until they are banned. After that I quit WoW and quit pushing my money into Blizz' fat ass.

 

[Aion]

I think multi account botters get themselves in trouble..

People say no way they are humans taking a human approach to their security measures..

Me I say.. if you're botting via multiple accounts & you get enough reports someone comes to investigate.. & sees more than 1 account running..

You could be multiboxing sure.. they'd be doing the same things though.. the idea that you're running 3 copies of the game & doing 3 different sets of things yourself is ridiculous..

You could be account sharing.. even within your own "known play location" or not.. sharing with various people..

Or the most likely outcome.. I get enough player reports & you land in my queue to be investigated.. so I watch what all 3 accounts are doing..

Account 1 is in a BG.. lets watch it for awhile.. nav issues.. spinning in circles while spamming clear target.. staying on the boat the entire match in Sota.. okay let's take a look at Account 2..

Account 2 is out in the world.. seems to be trapping beasts.. excellent let's watch that for awhile.. everything seems alright here.. getting stuck on some trees occasionally but.. maybe not a bot.. strange Account 1 is in a BG though.. since no 1 player can do those 2 things at once.. let's move on to Account 3..

Account 3 is doing dungeons & LFR.. alright.. hmm.. looks like he's locked out of an encounter because he didn't move into the room before the gate / invisible wall / whatever came up.. could be a coincidence so I'm going to watch a little more.. huh.. well look at that.. he keeps dying to a commonly skipped pack in the instance a player would avoid.. buuut this guy keeps trying to run right through it like it's not there..

I think it's a big problem people think such approaches aren't possible.. viable.. cost effective.. what have you.. it's exactly the approach I'd take..

Indeed, the GMs have no time to monitor so much anyone, instead if they perform manual investigation, as plenty of people have pointed, they had a set of tricky teleports around the maps, usually mini-teleports several yards around, watching for the bot's reaction, and they can recognize the bot movement fast enough.

Regarding multiple accounts - the above scenario is very unlikely, simply because they are targeting multi-account gold farmers, which do usually run any kind of farming routines for profit on dozens of accounts - like 5man dungeons, low lvl dungeon spam, pickpockets etc.
I have been hit several times in the past, and they was shutting down only the accounts, involved in farming and/or goldselling, but left intact these, which were not part of these schemes!

 

[frosticus]

its tough for me to encounter a situation where one account was botting and the other was not botting. if ive got an active account, im botting in some form. either farming or raiding, or bging. i dont bg more than one or two bgs at a time, and hardly ever unsupervised but still it happens sometimes.

but id go as far as saying i was banned auto, and i got an auto response to my appeal. i dont think for a second any human looks at an appeal anymore. not when caught doing what we do. newer account, farms a lot, auctions, dungeons, low number of chars, higher than average gold income. it fits a profile of a temporary account and i believe thats what the auto-ban process sees.

but seriously folks. why bother worrying about it. no one here knows, and we might never know. we just juke and weave hoping our accounts live longer than the last set.

bot long and prosper!!