Guild Wars 2

Okay, firstly on Saturday morning I woke up and started up Guild Wars 2. But as soon as I tried to log in, it stated that my “Account has been suspended for an account issue”.
So the next thing I did was to contact customer support asking what this issue was and how I could resolve it. I waited, and waited. Until I got a response saying that my account was PERMANENTLY BANNED for a fraudulent payment. I have no idea why I am being banned for a fraudulent payment as I have been playing GW2 for some weeks now without any problem. The email also stated that I purchased a fraudulent serial. (no idea what that means) I also wish to point out that i bought my digital copy from buy.guildwars2.com/en/.
So I got myself a hard copy version of the game and tried to enter the serial. Alas I got an error saying “Serial code Overlap”. I later found out that you can’t add another serial code if it’s not upgrading your Guild Wars 2 account. So I left it at that.

I bought my digital copy of GW2 from the official Guild Wars 2 site. Now I am being banned for a fradulent purchase of a GW2 serial?? I don’t get this.
Now, just to make sure, I bought myself a hard copy of GW2 from a recognised store (JB-HI-FI) so I know 100% that the serial code is authentic.

I’m wondering will my account still be permanently banned for no reason. Or will I be able to get it back. I have even bought a second authentic copy of the game just to make sure.

I am wishing to get back into GW2 ASAP with my original account, since i have a lot of responsibilities in-game.

account name: absolutemagnitude.6348

reference codes:

121029-000763

121026-003094

edit: even though it says when I try to log in “Account has been SUSPENDED for an account issue” the email I received from the customer support stated that my account and the serial code associated with it has been " permanently closed."

Can you please check with your bank if the payment went smoothly over to ArenaNet?

Cause if your bank confirms that ArenaNet got the money and they ban your account for a fraudulent payment then something is very fishy here. Cause i also got a strange reply from ArenaNet regarding my suspended account. Although i provided my serial key when i submitted my ticket, this time they want to locate the purchase by asking me to provide "– Your Guild Wars 2 purchase Order ID provided in the receipt of the purchase(s). ".

So i wonder, aren’t they able to check out this kind of information based on the serial code? I mean come on guys…. you just suspended my account, don’t you even know why you did so? This sounds fishy and not serious.

In any case i did provide them with the extra information, i guess now i only have to wait 7 more days for the next reply.

On a side note, it seems people get banned for a fraudulent payment even months after the game purchase itself. It is highly suspicious as to why now and not earlier? why you are not warned for a fraudulent key when you try to create a new account? Why my brother and a friend of mine that got the game exactly from the same store with me, exactly at the same time are still playing normally? They even bought gems without any issues and now are afraid to keep playing cause of the incident i got, i don’t blame them since i don’t even know officially what is wrong with my account and it has been 7 days.

Kotik.7836:

On a side note, it seems people get banned for a fraudulent payment even months after the game purchase itself. It is highly suspicious as to why now and not earlier? why you are not warned for a fraudulent key when you try to create a new account?

It probably happens something like:

Shady ebay seller gets hold of stolen cc#, buys game code.

Sells game code to victim.

Next month, owner of stolen cc sees charges on his statement, reports card stolen.

CC company processes report, eventually notifies Arenanet.

Arenanet bans account bought with stolen card.

Victim wonders why he can’t log on.

The process can take several weeks to play out.

The payment went through. also when i submitted my ticket, i included.my.order number and the receipt that got emailed to me.

Yeah I also find it quite strange that i was banned weeks after i bought the game. i dont believe that this could be an issue of stolen credit cards as I used mine to buy the Digital Copy off of buy.guildwars2.com. which to my knowledge, isnt fraudulent.

I think you just have to ask the bank to verify the payment, provide some documentation and once that is done, show Anet the proof and your account will be unbanned.

You may have to check with the owner of the credit card if they had sufficient funds to pay, or if they accidentally did a chargeback.

I have received no response from you or any other member of customer service. Although I have closed my other two tickets.

I am still wondering if I will be able to use my new serial to restore my original suspended account. The new serial code I am going to use is a hard copy which has been paid with cash and has no chance of being charged back like with what happened with the digital copy.

I will be inquiring with the bank whether they did charge my purchase back. But, to the best of my knowledge, knowing whether or not the bank has took back the purchase will not restore my account. If it turns out that one of my family members did charge back the purchase (which i think is highly unlikely) I doubt that even then my account will be un-suspended. The account will still be viewed as a ‘charged-back’ account.

edit: also if my family members decided to charge back the payment for whatever reason, it must have been a mistake as they all know I bought a game from ANet (afterall they see me play it everyday). Also, they wouldn’t charge back a payment without discussing it with me first. I don’t want to ‘suffer’ for my family member’s mistakes. I have done everything I can to get my account reinstated, now all that’s left is to see if the customer support members are understanding enough to grant me my account back.

@Murakami I still have the receipt that was sent to me when I purchased the digital copy of the game. So hopefully that alone will be able to verify the purchase and prove that I wasn’t using fraudulent means to buy the game. Or that I bought it from some third party website.

The credit card I used definately had enough funds to support the purchase of the game. As a few days later I remember going grocery shopping and the bill far exceeded the price of the game.

Overall, as i have stated in my ticket, I am offering a brand new serial code to replace my now charged back serial. This new serial is a hard copy version that was paid with cash and bought at a recognized store. In other words, it has no chance of being charged back. As stated above.

my last reference #: 121029-000763

I think you may have to check your bank account statement, which should have your transaction listed. A receipt just shows that you were charged for the game, but the statement would show funds being used (debit) or added/returned (credit).

In my opinion, if Anet ‘understands the customer’, I don’t see why a new key shouldn’t be allowed to be added to your account. You are willing to spend another $60-80 to make up for any errors that have happened with the first key, which shows that the time and energy spent investing in the account is worth more than that money spent on a new key.

I have same problem. I just dont know why the heck i cant use another code from authorised reseller. I bought a new one directly here with my credit card: https://www.gametap-shop.com and i can give you any information you need to confirm it.

121029-001232

@CutePicsHunter I don’t think that online retailer is “authorized re-seller”. At least it is not on the official site. https://buy.guildwars2.com/en/retailers

I have the same problem here of course.

First it took me a week to figure out what the problem was (Because the error codes aren’t helpful at all and ticket response is VERY slow). Now I’m guessing it will take me another week to get an official answer saying you aren’t able to reactivate your account. I mean, come on… It must be a lot harder to answer all the freaking tickets than post a simple statement on the forums saying why you can or can’t reactivate your account. Right now people are just waiting for a response on their ticket. And then asking the same questions over and over because they’re not getting a response at all. I mean, you would hope our official ArenaNet Support Liaison would know the answer to it.

I do want to play your game ANet and I don’t mind paying for it, however only if I can get my old account back and I know plenty of people feel the same way about this. I do have to say that I’m already extremely demotivated to buy the game again, because of this ‘support’.

All in all I very much doubt that they will be helping us any further. Whether it is suppliers that give their customers fraudulent keys or family members charging back payments because they don’t know what it was for…. I very much doubt that this is a proper way to treat people who are so willing to buy the game again.

I think they are slow in respond because they have to do it case by case. They can’t just restore every account if its actually farmer account and not players. With all the fraudulent CC floating and used by shady online seller and gold farmers, they would probably benefit more from investigate the account more instead of just allow people to apply a new key back into account.

For example, if an account is bought and used by farmer and reached level 80 then banned, the gold seller could easily get another code by the stolen CC and apply the key back to the account and start farming again in no time. For them, it is simply steal another CC and do it again. On the other hand, it creates more issues for ANet. If would make more sense to fully investigate the account before allowing a new key being applied and account restored.

Exactly… they can’t “rubber stamp” account restorations just because you cross your heart and promise that this new code is legit and won’t be charged back. Someone who is dishonest to begin with (gold selling scammer) will say anything he has to no matter how far from the truth. So if they don’t fully investigate the matter they end up losing money because people will continue buying codes with stolen cards and reopening the account if it’s easier than buying a new account… and when the account is restored they also get back toons that are ready to go botting and whatever gold they had in that account when it was banned.

Mistakes happen, I’ve had checks bounce because I forgot how much was in the account and spent $1 more than I should have. If more than one person has access to the account, someone else could have made a purchase and forgot to say, “oh, the account is almost empty so don’t buy anything until payday.” Any number of things could cause a problem, but they are not Arenanet’s problem to fix, the mistake was on your side and so they are under no obligation to take a risk that it will happen again.

Im also waiting for support answer to my question: If I will be able to use new fully-working CD-Key( From original box game) on my old Account, that got closed( fraudulent purchase of cd-key, account is permanently closed).
If I wont be able to get old account working simply I doubt Ill buy that Box version.

Ticket Reference – 121027-001600

@Zaken,
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/retailers#UnitedStates-digital
but yes, retailer, not reseller.

121029-001232

CutePicsHunter.7431:

@Zaken,
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/retailers#UnitedStates-digital
but yes, retailer, not reseller.

121029-001232

Oops sorry. In that case, I would just wait till support to get back to you. I think with the amount of stolen CC being used, ANet will have to take extra care to restore accounts and lift the ban. I am sure they can easily allow player to add a new code back to a banned account. However, it is not in their favor to simply allow that because some of the gold farmers can simply use another stolen CC to get a new code and get the account ban lifted. That would only increase problems they are having right now.

Thanks a lot for the response Gaile. One last question then. In the ticket follow-up question you used several different ways to discuss the Fraudulent key problem.

I myself got the following response: Fraudulent code. Please contact your seller to get a refund so you can purchase a legitimate copy. *
however the following is also used: *Account closed for payment fraud; awaiting review
and then this one also: Account closed for payment fraud; will not be reinstated.

To me it seems like the last response means you won’t be able to reactivate your account at all with a new serial, so there is no need to follow up on the ticket (I’m guessing it might be responded with a final answer and closed then). When you have the other two messages should we follow up on our old ticket or make a new one to ask if we can reactivate the account with a new serial.

Can we also have a direction on what will be used in the review of the agent? I really don’t feel like waiting another 4 days for a copy pasted answer, only to reply to one question he asked and then waiting 4 days again.

I would just like to know which info I give them so they can help me right away, instead of waiting for this slow-motion questionnaire by the support people. Not only results in in lower work for you guys (Because you don’t have to reply to a million basic questions before the actual help starts), but I would hope it mostly results in a faster resolving time for the customers. Right now it seems like no one has a single idea about when it will be reinstated or not.

Also why do the people that get one of the last two messages you post still get a default response saying it’s permanently blocked when apparently it isn’t yet.

Agree with adanteh.

About goldsellers/hackers/etc.

I guess its not so hard to mark their accounts so they wont be able to unban them.

About “fraudsters” and their victims – i think at least one “last chance” to use correct code should be given.