Guild Wars 2

Beware, this is a long and possibly less than civil post.

My partner for six years, a legitimate player who has done nothing wrong, has been permanently banned with no option to reverse it for “being associated with gold selling networks”. We went through the customer service ticket system and received a response May 4th at around 1am after putting in a ticket for being banned for we we thought was botting (since the error code is rather vague as to what actually is the offense you have been banned for).

We responded saying that we were innocent and that the only way we actually get any money in the game is by doing events, selling items on the trading post from drops, and running dungeons and fractals with our friends and guild. We didn’t receive a response until just now after updating our ticket and it said the following:

“The decision to terminate the account is final. This decision has been thouroughly reviewed by our team and we maintain absolute confidence in our conclusion. The account will remain permanently closed and will no be eligible for reactivation under any circumstances.”

As some one who knows 150% and then some that he is indeed innocent as we only play this game together and as a way to communicate and stay in touch being in a long distance relationship in different countries due to work I am essentially lost for words.

I beg for some one to please take a look at this and see what can be done about it. He has never used 3rd party sites, bought gold, sold gold, or any items for real world money. We have read the apparent violations that he has been accused with (thank you for actually showing us all of those by the way, much more information than when I was banned for botting) and we can say with absolute certainty that he has not broken any of these rules.

I have attached the conversation leading up to their response. The beginning is missing due to the fact it has all of the account information and essentially just asks the reason for the banning. I ask that this is looked at again as we feel we have been punished for no wrong doing.

Ticket number: 130503-000810

EDIT: I would like to add that the top response was posted and then immediately followed up with there is nothing we can do. We don’t know if we posted it at the same time as there is no time stamp associated with it.

EDIT 2: We are confused as to the reason for the banning. I have done some research and when attempting to log into guild wars 2 it should tell you why an account is longer usable for play. The error we are getting is dealing with botting, macros, third party progams, etc. But the CS representative is telling us it is for gold selling or being associated with gold selling networks which should provide it’s own error separately. Now we are just confused as to what the real issue is.

I will try to respond to this as nicely as I can and hope no offense is taken.

“As some one who knows 150% and then some that he is indeed innocent as we only play this game together”

" long distance relationship in different countries"

I’m not sure you can truly say you are so sure someone is not botting/using RMT when you aren’t physically with them. I’m not attacking your relationship or anything like that, but it isn’t really strict proof that you know such things being so far away. On the other side, even if you were, most people would see it as just sticking up for someone you care for. The response you see in the email means they literally have found evidence of RMT usage, and there is no actions available. they don’t send emails with that wording unless they are serious, and they do take that very seriously.

I would say the best thing to do is send an email, but.. as you have stated that has already been done. You can hope for a response from Gaile, but if its true that even she is sure, she will provide a very stern response that you may not be ready for…

Good luck either way.

Geotherma, thanks for your response! I would like to clear up a thing or two in regards to what you brought up.

At the time of the banning he was here visiting me for our anniversary (we have a week long vacation here in Japan which happens to coincide with our anniversary. I would say pretty lucky ). At the time of the ban he was sitting on my bed playing on my laptop. We were literally in the same room for about 4 days before the ban. So as I suppose I cannot be sure about other times I am assuming that they had found something he had done recently (within the last few days) to finally enact some sort of counter measure.

If Gaile does indeed respond and it is very stern, I am actually ready for it. Seeing how this is our main form of staying in touch we will just find another game to call home. I just want to make absolutely certain we have exhausted all avenues of a resolution before taking such a big step, especially since we have both come so far in finishing all of the game content, including our legendary weapons.

Thank you for the good luck and I appreciate the time taken to do such a thing.

Hezaboro.5491:

Geotherma, thanks for your response! I would like to clear up a thing or two in regards to what you brought up.

At the time of the banning he was here visiting me for our anniversary (we have a week long vacation here in Japan which happens to coincide with our anniversary. I would say pretty lucky ). At the time of the ban he was sitting on my bed playing on my laptop. We were literally in the same room for about 4 days before the ban. So as I suppose I cannot be sure about other times I am assuming that they had found something he had done recently (within the last few days) to finally enact some sort of counter measure.

If Gaile does indeed respond and it is very stern, I am actually ready for it. Seeing how this is our main form of staying in touch we will just find another game to call home. I just want to make absolutely certain we have exhausted all avenues of a resolution before taking such a big step, especially since we have both come so far in finishing all of the game content, including our legendary weapons.

Thank you for the good luck and I appreciate the time taken to do such a thing.

Sometimes they take time to find RMT’s and then process all the people they interacted with. So if someone say bought something or sold several months ago and they just found out X account was an RMT, they could have just finished the tracking recently-did a thorough check, and banned people involved. They usually do it in large groups, sort of like a police raid. But there is nothing wrong with trying, luckily in this game you can appeal things usually-at least once. Most games you end up gone, and don’t even get a response. But everyone makes mistakes so you never know. On the plus side, it takes very little time to level in GW2 and make money if they had to start again. But of course that won’t replace the time they put in or legendarys etc.

Yea, if it came to that we would definitely be gone. We have been slowly grinding out our legendary items as that is essentially the last thing we need to achieve completeness. I also appreciate your reasoning and logic in terms of how they probably go about banning RMT and gold sellers but we have a very strict moral code and principles when it comes to following the rules. We even go as far as to leave dungeon groups that exploit bugs or try to do things against the design.

At this point I just hope it is one large misunderstanding.

I hope it turns out to be a mistake an ANet’s part, but anyone can get tempted by the money the gold sellers offer and have a lapse in judgement. Especially if he is grinding out what is needed for something like a Legendary which requires so much. The gold sellers send out those ingame emails with such a nice money for gold rate. :-/ A friend of mine, who is normally very moral, got banned from another game by getting caught up in an exploit. She knew at the time it was wrong but it was just too tempting. Even moral people can make foolish decisions. Good luck and if it doesn’t work out I hope y’all find a game you both like.

Thank you for your reply but I don’t appreciate it that people are just assuming we are in the wrong. ArenaNet has stated before that sometimes there are false positives and I am certain this is one of those times.

He won’t even buy the materials off the trading post because, and I qoute, he “wants the satisfaction of making the entire thing himself.” so the temptation to buy gold is ludicrous. He also was really lucky during the super adventure box and has some skins he has been saving to sell when the price went back up. So gold isn’t the problem. Besides he wouldn’t even think about jeopardizing his account for essentially a very expensive weapon skin. It’s not worth it. However, we will soon hit the three day mark so I can post on the ticketed thread.

I do believe this is indeed a mistake and am starting to seriously question this “guilty until proven innocent” approach.

Well, if its a mistake they should be able to track it down or explain it. Good luck.

Thanks a lot Astral. I really do appreciate it. You are always there helping people and it’s really great. I need to edit the first post again as we are now really confused. The error he is getting when trying to log in is for botting or using macros but the CS representative is saying its for being associated with gold selling networks or selling in-game items for real world money. So now we don’t even know why he was really banned o.O

Just an update. Now they are asking us a bunch of information and are telling us this issue is “complex” and that it may take a long time to fix the issue. Seeing how we are on day three it looks like that they indeed did make a mistake; however, I would like to take this time to give my thoughts on a thing or two.

I am curious as to why customer support is so vague on all fronts. Be it for banning, suspensions, or explaining situations it seems we don’t actually get a real response unless we specifically ask for it in the ticket and at that point it is at best one or two sentences. Most of the time we don’t even get a legitimate response at all. As some one who has worked in the CS department of a large company I find this really appalling.

I am also curious as to why there is no direct way besides e-mail to contact support. I notice there is a live chat for gemstore transactions but for nothing else. I find this to be odd the most in regards to trying to determine account ownership. I feel that calling in person to vouch for your ownership of an account is by far a more legitimate way to ascertain who is the valid owner than doing through e-mail.

I am also curious as to why every time an issue is responded to it is done by a different person. Each time we have gotten a response, it has been by some one else and with different information that the previous GM. Sometimes the information is even conflicting or has nothing to do with the actual problem at hand.

Seeing how this has happened to us two weeks in a row I am also wondering what the deal is. I am actually telling people to NOT help me with my legendary, run dungeons with me, etc because I am afraid they will be banned. I was banned twice last week for two completely unrelated issues (one of which turned out to be a false positive) and now my partner who has had no issue with his account since launch comes to my apartment and is banned within 4 days of arrival. I feel that there is an underlying issue that is not being addressed and I find the communication from CS a bit lacking to put it politely.

I understand completely that everyone in the CS department works a thankless job, believe me I do. But a little communication goes a long way especially when it is innocent players who are being targeted by these anti-cheating measures. Just my two cents, also still waiting.

Just a crazy thought – have you mentioned to Support that he was visiting you for a week and logging into his account from a different country? That very well have raised some flags on the account, leading to the termination. If he normally logs in from Country A, but all of a sudden is logging in from Country B, and then back to Country A, it may have looked suspicious to the team members reviewing the account. Give them full information about where he lives, what ISP he connects to, where you live and your ISP, as well as the dates that he was visiting. You never know, it may help.

Hezaboro.5491:

I am also curious as to why there is no direct way besides e-mail to contact support. I notice there is a live chat for gemstore transactions but for nothing else. I find this to be odd the most in regards to trying to determine account ownership. I feel that calling in person to vouch for your ownership of an account is by far a more legitimate way to ascertain who is the valid owner than doing through e-mail.

Giving your verification information over the phone doesn’t make it anymore legitimate than to e-mail it in. If a hacker got into your e-mail, and took personal information needed to verify account ownership, a phone call doesn’t prevent theft or validate ownership. So I don’t understand what you mean when you bring up the phone call argument.

Remember, when Customer Support is communicating with someone about a compromised account, they never know for sure if the person is the actual account owner or someone trying to steal the account (until resolution). They will never give out details of how or why they suspect the account was compromised, because that would just give the hacker information on how to avoid detection.

As to the issue of different Support representatives, maybe Support answers your queries as soon as they come up in the queue, rather than making you wait until a certain representative is on-shift. I really don’t know, but that is what came to mind for me.

With your friend being banned, once he visited you, maybe it is your network that is suspicious, and RMT sellers happen to use the same one. So, that when your friend used your network, he was flagged. I really don’t know, it’s just a guess.

I wish you much luck with your Account issues, and hope for a speedy resolution. =)

Just an update to those of you who have taken the time and energy to deal with me on the forums.

Our issue has been successfully resolved. After about 4 days they finally reinstated his account. They even said to us “His account did NOT qualify for the criteria for the ban.” In other words, it was indeed a ban that was a mistake. Thank you Arena Net CS team for admitting it was in error and quickly restoring access once this was discovered.

Also thanks to everyone who offered their time and support in giving their opinions on the issue.

Inculpatus Cedo: I too have wondered if the network (other people in our building, etc) might be the culprit but CS didn’t respond on that possibility.

Smooth Penguin: Your argument also doesn’t work for the same reason. Most of the information would be readily available in the e-mail as well, especially since we have to use those things to log into our account, the forums, etc. If they took the account they could also access all the in-game information and write it down. In general, I don’t like e-mail support systems as it just makes impatient people more impatient and can make some issues that shouldn’t take a long time take even longer. Also, Anet is not a bank, I shouldn’t have to call them to tell them I am on vacation He was logging in everyday from the same location for almost a week and had added it to his remembered networks. But I do see your point if he was hopping around.

Again thank you all and I am glad it was finally resolved!

Great to see everything be resolved.
Welcome back to the game!

Heya, this is Hezaboro’s boyfriend. Just thought I’d drop in and report that while I can play the game Hezaboro just got banned, again. Arena net will you please get your act together HIs ticket number is #130507-000953

Well I am a friend of Hezaboro and Seregon. As of 5 minutes ago… Hezaboro got rebanned for qoute “Your Guild Wars 2 account has been terminated due to botting, extended unattended play, using macros, or similar behavior. Attempting to automate gameplay through any means or attempting to circumvent idle-time restrictions in any way is in violation of the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct. The account closure is permanent.” This was about 1hour after which we farmed Armored Scales in Southsun Shore.

Frankly this is bullkitten. The fact that this happens to be the 3rd ban in as many weeks with both being revoked with them admitting being mistaken. Then also banning his partner. Tell me this is fair?

Ok, First of all I’m very sorry for your situation and (assuming that you are innocent indeed) I understand you feel very upset.

Let me state first that this is Arenanet showing themselfes not in the best way. Keep in mind you are customers of this company and you can always turn your back on them. In the end it is them who loose cause of the mistakes they made.

That put aside and assuming you want to give Anet another change to solve this in a good way, AND considering the earlier ticket, I would suggest to follow the system but be impatient.

Step 1: file a support ticket and wait for a response. It is no problem to link to this thread. If the outcome is positive then its ok. If not go to step 2.

Step 2: Normally I’m very possitive bout advising people to keep trying to talk to support. In this case I think you shouldn’t. If they don’t respond at ones in a positive way, specially after the wrongfull way they treated you before, there is no excuse and you should step higher directly.

Do so by making a separate thread, linking to this, asking an Arenanet official to hear your appeal to the decission. Make sure you make it a short thread. Link to here and explain that you have not been engaged in goldselling . Ask them to reinstate the account asap and to ensure the proces in viewing/banning/reviewing is optimised so the innocent don’t suffer over the guilty.

To the Arenanet official reading this I say that, even though I’m very much against RMT’s and bots, this is wrong.

The proces you have is a good one (automatic flag > manual review by GM > if guilty ban > Supportticket with another manual review > appeal)
However if both the GM and the person handling the supporticket are making such mistakes twice in the same situation there is something structurally wrong and this can’t be an incident. Either make sure your system doesn’t give false flags or give the GM’s and support agents better training to recognise false flags.

Well that’s a slap to the face. I know it’s probably ban in error, but getting banned several times in error can look bad, and people talk. Even with that said, a few people banned in error is a lot better than a ton of bots running all over the place.

I don’t even know what to say. There is something very strange/wrong going on here. Support needs to tell y’all what EXACTLY is getting y’all banned and fix it. Mutiple bannings and unbannings? Something is haywire here.

It happaned to me as well the ban “Your Guild Wars 2 account has been terminated due to botting, extended unattended play, using macros, or similar behavior. Attempting to automate gameplay through any means or attempting to circumvent idle-time restrictions in any way is in violation of the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct. The account closure is permanent.” last 4hours also.I already sent the ticket to support n hope they might make some mistake as i did never use of that kind of cheating things.

BaLLiE.6870:

It happaned to me as well the ban “Your Guild Wars 2 account has been terminated due to botting, extended unattended play, using macros, or similar behavior. Attempting to automate gameplay through any means or attempting to circumvent idle-time restrictions in any way is in violation of the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct. The account closure is permanent.” last 4hours also.I already sent the ticket to support n hope they might make some mistake as i did never use of that kind of cheating things.

“extended unattended play” “attempting to circumvent idle-time restrictions in any way is in violation…”
Sooo does that mean if you idle in some area, putting your heal on autocast to keep from being kicked out of game, you could get your account terminated? In Guild Wars 1 on special occasions such as Halloween while waiting for the Mad King’s appearance, I would let the computer run for hours while afk.

Could this conceivably be the cause of some mystery bannings? A lot of people do idle in LA, chatting or just letting their computer run while they are afk.

Well, I must say I think something strange is happening but it seems a very well worded, concise ticket sets it right. I was given access back to the game VERY quickly (probably in less than seven hours) however I was asleep at the time. It was indeed, again for the 3rd time, an error: “After completing my review of this incident, I have concluded that your account does not fit all of the criteria for the violation that led to the block. I have reversed the action taken against this account and have noted the account accordingly.”

I have still not received an actual response as to if my network might be the culprit or if something fishy is going on. I am curious however if I don’t fit “all of the criteria” for a ban and every ban is reviewed by a person before it occurs, why has this happened, twice, in a 5 day span? I would really like an answer from some one. I am seriously freaking out – is it my internet? Is it where I am playing? Are they new trainees getting their feet wet? Put my mind at ease ArenaNet.

But all in all impeccably fast service, this time

Happy to have you back, and I am sorry you have had such tribulations. Best of luck in the future! =)

Hezaboro.5491:

Well, I must say I think something strange is happening but it seems a very well worded, concise ticket sets it right. I was given access back to the game VERY quickly (probably in less than seven hours) however I was asleep at the time. It was indeed, again for the 3rd time, an error: “After completing my review of this incident, I have concluded that your account does not fit all of the criteria for the violation that led to the block. I have reversed the action taken against this account and have noted the account accordingly.”

I have still not received an actual response as to if my network might be the culprit or if something fishy is going on. I am curious however if I don’t fit “all of the criteria” for a ban and every ban is reviewed by a person before it occurs, why has this happened, twice, in a 5 day span? I would really like an answer from some one. I am seriously freaking out – is it my internet? Is it where I am playing? Are they new trainees getting their feet wet? Put my mind at ease ArenaNet.

But all in all impeccably fast service, this time

Very strange, but glad you both are back in the game. I gather that Gaile Gray, who normally handles this forum, is on vacation. You might consider when she comes back, making a thread laying out what happened on what days. What was the reason for your bans and the reasons for unbanning. This sounds like something they need to look into, for training purposes or to fix a bug.

Yaaay! Glad it worked out for you and hope you don’t have to keep dealing with this stuff.

Astral – I agree. I don’t think that the system itself is flawed but that something is happening either internally with the system or with the human factor. If Gaile Gray is indeed on vacation when she comes back I would love to have that dialogue with her. As I said I don’t mind that they are doing their jobs, I am just concerned that there is something specific dealing with me and my partner that might be setting something off and I would like to get to the bottom of it for everyone involved.

If you haven’t done so already, I would recommend changing both your account’s password and the email’s password it is associated with. Actually, both of you should do so, just in case someone else has access to your account.

Still, it seems odd that your accounts keep getting flagged for illegal use of bots and the like. While I am not saying you are doing such things, are you leaving your characters idle in areas which might not be such a good idea to do so, and stuff such as stripping their gear so in the event you get attacked, you don’t need to repair armor? I’m not sure if it’s only related to this game, but one of the first things any player will think of on seeing a naked character who is not at a diving location or in a city is a bot who’s been attacked one too many times.

IceBlink.4317:

If you haven’t done so already, I would recommend changing both your account’s password and the email’s password it is associated with. Actually, both of you should do so, just in case someone else has access to your account.

Still, it seems odd that your accounts keep getting flagged for illegal use of bots and the like. While I am not saying you are doing such things, are you leaving your characters idle in areas which might not be such a good idea to do so, and stuff such as stripping their gear so in the event you get attacked, you don’t need to repair armor? I’m not sure if it’s only related to this game, but one of the first things any player will think of on seeing a naked character who is not at a diving location or in a city is a bot who’s been attacked one too many times.

However, even if a someone or many people report a character that doesn’t mean it will be banned. They say they look at each character reported individually and look at its behavior. They can tell if it’s running the same path for days, teleporting or gold trading. The puzzling thing is, if they can see what they are doing and they are not botting/gold trading/etc.. then why the multiple bans? One ban, a mistake, I can see. Lets say one of them gave a large amount of gold to the other. That could trigger a mistaken ban. But multiple bans? This could really use an investigation by staff. Either to fix a bug or to tell them what they are doing that’s triggering these bans.

And I agree on the password/email changes. However I would only do it one person at a time. If it messes up and both of you are locked out….

Thanks for the suggestions, but when I was banned the first two times I changed my password to something very long, unique, and comprising of 4 unrelated words as I figured maybe my account was compromised. In terms of taking off my equipment and AFKing somewhere I never do that. I have on occasion alt tabbed to talk to a friend on Skype while standing in LA and forgotten so I was kicked due to inactivity, but I never stand idle while in the middle of doing something like events or farming.

At this point I’m not angry, more just concerned about playing the game. I know it is hard to believe but I am an honest to God legitimate player who has never cheated, ever. Lets see if I can go an entire week without a ban

Welcome back to the game, again. XD

Good luck in game. And I hope you find out why the two of you are having multiple bannings then unbannings. :-)

Still no response from ANET – but on the bright side its been two weeks since we have been banned.

Gaile Gray.6028:

I am starting an internal discussion about our several review processes, to make sure we’re doing our utmost to reduce false positives to a close to 0% as humanly possible. I can’t promise — no one can promise — that we’ll never make an error. But we take this concern seriously and will address it as well and in as many ways as we can!

I’m happy to hear this, because it’s indeed a serious problem. I have been playing a lot less recently because I’m just totally confused on what is and what isn’t going to get me banned in this game. I have been banned twice for doing nothing more then just playing the game. I want you to know though that it is some consolation to know that the issue is being discussed and perhaps a change can be implemented in the future. I understand that your comment is in no way a promise, but I am happy the issue is being reviewed.

While I have had my problems with the ‘botting’ issue, I do want to commend the Customer Support team which has in both instances acted swiftly and professionally to get me back into the game. Thanks to them, and thank you for bringing this serious issue up for review. Your efforts are appreciated.

Gaile Gray.6028:

I wanted to post to say that I am aware that yours is not the only post expressing concerns about false positives (generally for botting or for RMT activity). Some of the account terminations that people complain about here are 100% accurate. They may have a friend post, or use an alternative account to protest, but they truly are guilty of the actions for which their account was terminated. (Just as you’ve seen the “I didn’t do it” claims from people with the nastiest of names, or the rudest and most aggressive of behaviors!)

In the end, though, some suspensions and account terminations are indeed the result of a false positive. We regret each and every one of those.

I am starting an internal discussion about our several review processes, to make sure we’re doing our utmost to reduce false positives to a close to 0% as humanly possible. I can’t promise — no one can promise — that we’ll never make an error. But we take this concern seriously and will address it as well and in as many ways as we can!

Thank you Gaile. I know some people just try everything to get out of their deserved suspension. Some people just dont play it fair and go through any lenght.

I’m also glad you use our input to start an internal discussion. Indeed the goal should be zero false positives slipping through even though the goal shall always be unachievable. I was afraid that that you where content with 99%, but I’m glad your picking up our signals. It truly proofs once more your representing one of the better sites of Arenanet (in an allready almost perfect company that shines in perfection).