Guild Wars 2

My husband and I have been casual players with another couple for a few months and were enjoying the game. Today it abruptly came to a halt.

Somehow my husband’s account is banned for “engaging/assisting in real life money trading” today. I am deeply disappointed in the obviously flawed algorithm that is used to flag and ban accounts. Even a most casual inspection of his account will notice that almost all gold/items transfers are between us 4 and no one else. We are in our own guild of 4. His account has not even made more than ~150G in it’s life time. In fact we can only guess that his account was banned because the 4 of us pooled all our gold together last night to make 200 and passed it around between us for the achievement. The gold was returned to original owner almost immediately. While none of the rest of us 3 are banned for the exact same thing.

While I applaud the effort to root out and remove rule breakers, I am very disappointed that clearly no minimal investigation was even done before a ban is issued. I only hope that his account will be reinstated shortly, but it really make me question what innocent actions will warrant us a ban again.

Axaren.5342:

My husband and I have been casual players with another couple for a few months and were enjoying the game. Today it abruptly came to a halt.

Somehow my husband’s account is banned for “engaging/assisting in real life money trading” today. I am deeply disappointed in the obviously flawed algorithm that is used to flag and ban accounts. Even a most casual inspection of his account will notice that almost all gold/items transfers are between us 4 and no one else. We are in our own guild of 4. His account has not even made more than ~150G in it’s life time. In fact we can only guess that his account was banned because the 4 of us pooled all our gold together last night to make 200 and passed it around between us for the achievement. The gold was returned to original owner almost immediately. While none of the rest of us 3 are banned for the exact same thing.

While I applaud the effort to root out and remove rule breakers, I am very disappointed that clearly no minimal investigation was even done before a ban is issued. I only hope that his account will be reinstated shortly, but it really make me question what innocent actions will warrant us a ban again.

Sadly, the exact same thing happened to me. ‘Permanently’ banned for gold-selling, after placing 200 gold in guild bank for a guildie to use temporarily, then removing it immediately afterward. Fortunately, after 4 appeals, and tons of evidence provided, my account was re-instated. I am sure your husband will regain control of his account through working with Customer Support. Hopefully, they have re-iterated their ticket responses, so they aren’t so discouraging. Good luck. =)

I’m sure some vigilant effort with a support ticket will get the ban reversed and I do understand your frustration for the ban itself, but this does prove to me that they are serious about stopping gold selling (however, I would have expected the other 3 of you to get banned as well….keep in mind this still may happen).

Also, I’m not apposed to the idea that a “time out” ban is possibly appropriate for all of your pooling resources to exploit an achievement….not exactly kosher.

This is pretty disappointing considering there are botters running rampant everywhere. I’ve been reporting them, but they still haven’t been banned. They aren’t serious about stopping the gold sellers before they have the gold; that’s for sure.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m sure some vigilant effort with a support ticket will get the ban reversed and I do understand your frustration for the ban itself, but this does prove to me that they are serious about stopping gold selling (however, I would have expected the other 3 of you to get banned as well….keep in mind this still may happen).

Also, I’m not apposed to the idea that a “time out” ban is possibly appropriate for all of your pooling resources to exploit an achievement….not exactly kosher.

I guess it is rather unclear how much working together is considered exploit. Is helping other getting an achievement an exploit? We work together a lot of the time, because some of us are very casual and we play not for power/eq but for the more social aspect. One of the biggest draw we have to GW2 is the social aspect and people working together. I apologize for exploiting jumping puzzle achievements with portal and crafting achievements with materials from friends.

Even if it is not kosher, isn’t it a bit excessive to ban an account for 10 (or whatever) achievement points and a title?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Axaren.5342:

My husband and I have been casual players with another couple for a few months and were enjoying the game. Today it abruptly came to a halt.

Somehow my husband’s account is banned for “engaging/assisting in real life money trading” today. I am deeply disappointed in the obviously flawed algorithm that is used to flag and ban accounts. Even a most casual inspection of his account will notice that almost all gold/items transfers are between us 4 and no one else. We are in our own guild of 4. His account has not even made more than ~150G in it’s life time. In fact we can only guess that his account was banned because the 4 of us pooled all our gold together last night to make 200 and passed it around between us for the achievement. The gold was returned to original owner almost immediately. While none of the rest of us 3 are banned for the exact same thing.

While I applaud the effort to root out and remove rule breakers, I am very disappointed that clearly no minimal investigation was even done before a ban is issued. I only hope that his account will be reinstated shortly, but it really make me question what innocent actions will warrant us a ban again.

Sadly, the exact same thing happened to me. ‘Permanently’ banned for gold-selling, after placing 200 gold in guild bank for a guildie to use temporarily, then removing it immediately afterward. Fortunately, after 4 appeals, and tons of evidence provided, my account was re-instated. I am sure your husband will regain control of his account through working with Customer Support. Hopefully, they have re-iterated their ticket responses, so they aren’t so discouraging. Good luck. =)

May I ask what tons of evidence you had to provide? It’d think AreaNet hold all the evidence they needed: complete account activities history.

Lol, everything but the kitchen sink. It’s difficult to prove you are, indeed, the correct account-holder, and they often ask for the information multiple times. Also, ISPs and where the gold was obtained in the first place. But, yes, they have such information, if they know where and when to look for it, which is what the account-holder must provide. I am pretty sure they don’t want, nor have the time, to look through a year’s worth of account activity.

It just reaffirm my aversion to any online game. We only play GW2 because of the lack of monthly fee and because we liked GW1 a lot. I find it troublesome that I can lose access to something that I pay for on the whim of someone. The more I googled the more horror stories I found, like people banned because of a jumping puzzle bug, or the losing items in mail because of wallet messages. I don’t like the idea of that I had to rely on the mercy of someone to get something back (in a timely manner) that was wrongly taken away.

Does a support worker review the account in question to identify fraudulent activity before the ban takes place?

Or is it just an algorithm that identifies possible negative activity and bans?

If it is not the latter, shouldn’t the staff be trained a bit more to look at logs before banning if innocent people are caught in this net prompting a review anyway?

Thanks for your respond. I definitely appreciate the effort to curb cheaters and understand the difficulty in it. I am just surprised and disappointed that seemingly no investigation was even done prior to a ban. A quick inspection of history would reveal that my husband sent 80G, received 200G, sent 200G and received 80G within 10 minutes of time last night.

I have to admit this experience have a negative impact on my faith in ArenaNet’s ability to identify cheaters correctly. It makes me wonder how many other “cheater” were also falsely penalized. I realize there are tons of cheaters out there (a main reason I almost never play game online), but just the fact that it misidentify something so seemingly easy to discern makes me question things. That couples with the hammer first question later approach makes it even more frustrating.

Can’t shake the irony that us with a combined age of 80, professionals, cheapskates that never spend money on game items, who play at night after kids are in bed, admittedly being crappy players with no fancy eq nor much aspiration besides having a bit of fun getting caught up in the whole thing.

Axaren.5342:

Thanks for your respond. I definitely appreciate the effort to curb cheaters and understand the difficulty in it. I am just surprised and disappointed that seemingly no investigation was even done prior to a ban. A quick inspect of history would reveal that my husband sent 80G, received 200G, sent 200G and received 80G within 10 minutes of time last night.

I have to admit this experience have a negative impact on my faith in ArenaNet’s ability to identify cheaters correctly. It makes me wonder how many other “cheater” were also falsely penalized. I realize there are tons of cheaters out there (a main reason I almost never play game online), but just the fact that it misidentify something so seemingly easy to discern makes me question things. That couples with the hammer first question later approach makes it even more frustrating.

Very few large MMOs do Manuel reviews before bans are handed out during their first few years of service. This is largely due to them having to review almost every case after the fact in depth anyways due to support tickets. And most companies in the early going don’t have enough people to both do reviews after the bans AND before the bans. The reasons are usually a lack of efficient dev tools and personnel.

I’d like them to implement a “We’re sorry we made a mistake and limited your playing time” feature – like a random minipet at the very least…

When I got banned it was during our guild events – costing me all my commendations, gold and chest items…. will they be replaced? Nope…. sorry is just a word.

Kraggy.4169:

Gaile Gray.6028:

One more thought, if I may:

If the appeal process seems overly detailed, or if you feel a bit resentful of the amount of info that we require before restoring an account or reviewing a case of alleged botting or RMT activity, know this: We must and will take extreme care with each player’s account. We will ask questions, and ask more questions, if need be, to ensure that you are the account holder, or that you’re the victim of an account compromise and we safely can turn the account over to you. You. Not the person who gained your credentials through a third party and is pretending to own your account. You, the person who bought the account, who played it, and who cares about it as something more than a bunch of stuff to steal.

If the alternative to answering questions, up to and including the brand of your kitchen sink is that the bad guys gain access to your account, you would not want it any other way!

Your system is prepared to sacrifice legitimate players in its war against RMT .. like most MMOs legit players are simply viewed as ‘collateral damage’ in this war.

In this cases it’s a measly 200 gold .. that is pocket change to many in this game. All this over a measley 200 gold. W-T-F?

This is disgusting action against a patently obvious legit player (assuming the OP’s explanation of the actions their guild took that lead to this) and no amount of arguing and self-justification will alters that.

I think you are a bit over sensitive on this topic… If the owner of the account would never get his account back, then yes, you are right.

But if you can just talk to customer support and verify you are the account holder and that your ban was unfair, and in turn get your account back. I don’t see the problem as long as this doesn’t happen on a regular basis to the same person…

It’s either that or end up playing a game with bots running rampant and destroying the market. Not the end of the world if you can’t play a game for a few days!

Axaren.5342:

I guess it is rather unclear how much working together is considered exploit. Is helping other getting an achievement an exploit? We work together a lot of the time, because some of us are very casual and we play not for power/eq but for the more social aspect. One of the biggest draw we have to GW2 is the social aspect and people working together. I apologize for exploiting jumping puzzle achievements with portal and crafting achievements with materials from friends.

Even if it is not kosher, isn’t it a bit excessive to ban an account for 10 (or whatever) achievement points and a title?

Seriously, you consider passing around money to get an achievement “helping” each other in the normal course of the game? It’s outright fraud to exploit the achievement system in the game. Granted, it’s nothing that adversely effects other players and may not even be against the ToC in the game (it could be considered to be gaining an advantage).

BTW, I was not implying what you were doing was a bannable offense or that the ban was due to the act of gaining the achievement outside normal means, just that it would never have happened if your Guild wasn’t trying to “work the system” to gain an advantage that was not earned (however small it is), so it was kind of ironic and possibly poetic (yet over the top) justice.

ANet intentionally does not publish the policy on this kind of thing and bans first because if they did not do it that way, stopping actual gold purchases would be nearly impossible (as gold sellers would be able to perform their transactions to get around the “known” policies).

I’m sorry for those that get banned accidentally, but in this case it was NOT without some reason (be it right or wrong). If the account does not get re-instated, your outrage is more than justified, otherwise you seem to be overreacting due to your frustration.

The devs have specifically stated the transfer of gold for the Golden Achievement is not disallowed.

Here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Banning-questions/first#post2530816

And here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Mailing-Gold-To-Partner/first#post1440893
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Mailing-Gold-To-Partner/first#post1463993

Sadly, some people are flagged, banned, and then re-instated.

Well, ok then. Still seems a bit shady to me but what do I know.

KRaggy – having been a reader of this forum since GW2 launched, I can tell you that most of the people that have had false positives (and banning/suspensions are done by humans, and humans can make mistakes) 90+% seem to get their case resolved fairly quickly (day or two).

Brother Grimm.5176:

Well, ok then. Still seems a bit shady to me but what do I know.

More than you did before, and knowing is half the battle!

(The other half is equally split between red and blue lasers)

Vampirial.9056:

Very few large MMOs do Manuel reviews before bans are handed out during their first few years of service. This is largely due to them having to review almost every case after the fact in depth anyways due to support tickets. And most companies in the early going don’t have enough people to both do reviews after the bans AND before the bans. The reasons are usually a lack of efficient dev tools and personnel.

But I am not sure you are saving resource by ban first question later. Either way you eventually need to investigate the issue. In fact it takes longer as a ticket because of the additional steps needed to establish account ownership. Again I am not expecting full investigation, but I can’t imagine it would take more than a few minutes of time to see an account gain and lose the same amount of gold within a short period of time. So do a quick prelim, issue a ban if you can’t easily discern the validity.

It might seems like “extra” work, but it goes a long away in terms of maintaining a good image among legitimate players. As we all know a good image and good will and trust go a long way for any company. It’s can’t be good to infuriate legitimate supporters.

Gaile, I sent you a PM. I don’t think I am supposed to post other people’s display name in forum.

Axaren.5342:

Vampirial.9056:

Very few large MMOs do Manuel reviews before bans are handed out during their first few years of service. This is largely due to them having to review almost every case after the fact in depth anyways due to support tickets. And most companies in the early going don’t have enough people to both do reviews after the bans AND before the bans. The reasons are usually a lack of efficient dev tools and personnel.

But I am not sure you are saving resource by ban first question later. Either way you eventually need to investigate the issue. In fact it takes longer as a ticket because of the additional steps needed to establish account ownership. Again I am not expecting full investigation, but I can’t imagine it would take more than a few minutes of time to see an account gain and lose the same amount of gold within a short period of time. So do a quick prelim, issue a ban if you can’t easily discern the validity.

It might seems like “extra” work, but it goes a long away in terms of maintaining a good image among legitimate players. As we all know a good image and good will and trust go a long way for any company. It’s can’t be good to infuriate legitimate supporters.

Yeah, the same thing happened to me. I traded gold with 2 other guildies, using the guild bank to transfer between us. One guildie loaned 175 gold, I loaned 25 gold and the 3rd loaned nothing, only borrowed the 200 from us. I got a ban and they didn’t. It took 27 hours to get unbanned, most of which was waitng for them to contact me. Once they contacted me, they resolved it in minutes. I guess once they actually looked they could see the gold entering and leaving the account within a few minutes span. It did make me wonder why they couldn’t see this before they banned me.

Gaile Gray.6028:

Axaren.5342:

Gaile, I sent you a PM. I don’t think I am supposed to post other people’s display name in forum.

I have looked up the account in question, and the ticket. Apparently, this post was made immediately upon submission of the ticket. I certainly can understand that you’d want a very prompt response, but to submit a ticket and post on the forums immediately afterwards is just not appropriate. Our means of follow up is here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Tickets-for-Review-3-days-and-older-merged/first#post48339

It has been 24 hours now, and I wish that you had received a response more quickly than this. The team is backed up (we had some issues with the ticketing system, darn it!) but I think your husband will hear soon.

Thank you for understanding the process that we request, and thank you, also, for patience as the team reviews the ticket.

It seems pretty obvious that her reason for posting was to complain that the circumstances presented led to a ban, not that she wanted an extra-normal support review. Thus, no ticket was provided.

What would really seem appropriate for a support liaison to address is how people can continue to claim they were banned for nothing more than transferring gold between themselves and other players. Either call them out for lying if they were doing something else or explain why this apparently happens followed by bans lifted because they were done in error.

Transferring gold between players is supposed to be an allowed activity and would seem like something that should not raise any flags that even require any review before a ban. However, if you wish to review all transfers over a certain size, then one should be able to assume the review would be thorough and the ban done only upon certainty of misdeed.

Assuming guilt and asking your customer to prove their innocence or at least beg for a timely review seems to be a bad practice.