RL Friend account ban

[Olympas]

A friend of mine had his computer crash on Wednesday this week. After exhausting all option he reloaded windows 7 on Thursday. First thing he did was load and update WoW, tried to login, and it shows account is banned. He checked his email and he found a note from Blizz stating he had exploited the economy. He said on Tues/Wed he spent around 3 hours farming ore because he was down to 500g and needed to make some cash. He was hoping to log in to lots of money and found he was banned. He can't buy gold, he's as broke in RL as on wow (side note... why would someone pay real money for virtual money?). He said he yelled at a shaman while mining because the shaman followed him to a couple ore and while he killed the mob next to it the shaman got the vein. But how does one get classified as exploiting the economy without having gold anyway?

All that to say... is blizz decent at giving accounts back for something like this?

And, is it just coincidental that his comp crashed at the same time his account got banned? - Possible hack that destroyed windows long enough for someone to use his account?

He has emailed blizz since their phone line basically says we're too busy and hangs up. I wouldn't mind easing his concerns though.

[Maèl]

Blizz is currently in a bit of trouble about a brouhaha the caused a couple of days ago. Their service lines will be busy until monday. Try again. It's not that they aren't listening, they are simply too busy and you will get monster queues. Tell him that.
They actually can be pretty decent about something like that.

[Errvalunia]

They may have thought he was botting or something; the shaman he had a conflict may have reported that he was to be an ahole

[Chakka]

There was a thread on here a few months ago about someone having a very similar thing happen to him/her. IRC they were told that their bank mule was involved in a suspiciously high number of high value auctions or something. I dont remember how it turned out tho.

[Olympas]

They may have thought he was botting or something; the shaman he had a conflict may have reported that he was to be an ahole

The thing is, this guy doesn't even curse. That's why I couldn't imagine the shaman even cared enough to do anything.

[ygar]

Just keep trying. May take 10 attempts to get through but you will. I had it before and just kept trying. As soon as I heard the 'we can't take your call right now' I hung up and tried again.

As for getting the account back they can look into ip addresses and gold traffic to determine this. If your friend is clean he will get the account back.

Was it a permanent ban or just a temp? Usually they only temp ban on the suspicion of gold farming/RL purchases. Had it before cos I made around 4k in one day. They gave me back my account as soon as I called. They only really full ban if they have solid evidence.

[Berzerker]

I have heard of a few other instances in the past (only one that I knew/talked to the guy actually involved though) where they have banned an account for "suspicious" behavior. Basically, spending a long time farming (mining, herbing, etc) is considered suspicious as doing it for such an extended period is not a normal practice. If he will contact them (I suspect email would be better than phone, but as Mael points out, both will likely be slow currently), they will review their information, and unless he actually did anything inappropriate, will likely reverse the decision. It may take several days for this to occur though.

[Maèl]

You are not being watched by a GM. They monitor your activity and once you trip a wire BLAM goes the trap.
That's why talking to them works.

Just...not this week.

[Olympas]

JWas it a permanent ban or just a temp? Usually they only temp ban on the suspicion of gold farming/RL purchases. Had it before cos I made around 4k in one day. They gave me back my account as soon as I called. They only really full ban if they have solid evidence.

He said ban. No hour restriction on it. That's the weird part. He has never been suspended before or warned.

[Olympas]

I have heard of a few other instances in the past (only one that I knew/talked to the guy actually involved though) where they have banned an account for "suspicious" behavior. Basically, spending a long time farming (mining, herbing, etc) is considered suspicious as doing it for such an extended period is not a normal practice. If he will contact them (I suspect email would be better than phone, but as Mael points out, both will likely be slow currently), they will review their information, and unless he actually did anything inappropriate, will likely reverse the decision. It may take several days for this to occur though.

That would be good news. His history is basically ride as far as you can off instance gold until you have to farm some. Then he farms for a day or so. I think he just likes seeing all the gold come in at once.

[Theotherone]

One of my accounts received a 3 hour ban for spamming. When I inquired it was someone spamming one of those middle fingers in trade, on a toon that was not mine and on a server that I had never been to. They make mistakes and will respond.

[lubz]

This thread worries me. I had no idea blizzard would ban (even temporarily) based on suspicious activity alone. In every other online game i've played the mantra has been "we never ban without solid hard evidence". Does world of warcraft have enough costumers that blizzard can throw away some on incorrect bans?

[BruisedOoze]

This thread worries me. I had no idea blizzard would ban (even temporarily) based on suspicious activity alone. In every other online game i've played the mantra has been "we never ban without solid hard evidence". Does world of warcraft have enough costumers that blizzard can throw away some on incorrect bans?

It usually takes them quite awhile to react to cases with the likes of farming bots, and I'm highly skeptical it had to do with his farming that evening. The turn around on that is unusually quick, and I usually don't receive a reply form my reporting tickets until at lesat a day later stating they will investigate the problem.. Unless he was reported for an earlier activity, I doubt it was that one instance. Either way, once he gets in contact with a rep he can figure out more details.

[Hammerfists]

This thread worries me. I had no idea blizzard would ban (even temporarily) based on suspicious activity alone. In every other online game i've played the mantra has been "we never ban without solid hard evidence". Does world of warcraft have enough costumers that blizzard can throw away some on incorrect bans?

Not to offend the OP but before you make your decision on how Blizzard operates in these cases you should probably hear Blizzards side. If he was ban for said offense it is temporary to my knowledge. Either way Blizzard is a fair enough company that if you communicate to them that "hey i was poop-socking for ore" they will reverse their decision. 3 hours of straight ore farming is suspicious. That is a lot of hours of mindless behavior that would have broken a lesser man.

[Errvalunia]

Not to offend the OP but before you make your decision on how Blizzard operates in these cases you should probably hear Blizzards side. If he was ban for said offense it is temporary to my knowledge. Either way Blizzard is a fair enough company that if you communicate to them that "hey i was poop-socking for ore" they will reverse their decision. 3 hours of straight ore farming is suspicious. That is a lot of hours of mindless behavior that would have broken a lesser man.

some of us find it mindlessly entertaining/relaxing to level herbing while watching tv.

[lubz]

Not to offend the OP but before you make your decision on how Blizzard operates in these cases you should probably hear Blizzards side. If he was ban for said offense it is temporary to my knowledge. Either way Blizzard is a fair enough company that if you communicate to them that "hey i was poop-socking for ore" they will reverse their decision. 3 hours of straight ore farming is suspicious. That is a lot of hours of mindless behavior that would have broken a lesser man.

To throw out a reallife comparison, what you're saying is that it's okey to be sentenced to jail for something you didnt do, when all you have to do to is to appeal. It just doesn't seem right to me. At any rate, i'm venturing offtopic and will leave this thread now

[Fetzie]

So long as you have not actually done anything wrong they will reinstate your friend's account. As for the speed at which GMs work, I reported a friend's account as hacked (he had stopped playing, his character had unlearned juwelcrafting for mining, the character was spending a huge amount of time in sholazar and storm peaks and the guy in question hated farming). 6 hours after reporting it to a GM the account was closed for investigation. He now has the account back (although they removed the hacker's month or so of game time)

[Hammerfists]

To throw out a reallife comparison, what you're saying is that it's okey to be sentenced to jail for something you didnt do, when all you have to do to is to appeal. It just doesn't seem right to me. At any rate, i'm venturing offtopic and will leave this thread now

1) Op's post is not the official reason of why his friend got banned just his idea
2) To assume at this point that the ban is permanent or that the banned person is innocent is foolish
3) The analogy in itself is weak, Blizzard doesn't hold a trial for each account it bans nor does having a slight doubt make you innocent. Fact is Blizzard is more like a benevolent dictatorship than a democracy
4) If you get banned you aren't living in a small cell with limited access to the outside world much less just being outside, all it takes is a harmless phone call which i will admit is irritating but pales to filing a motion which can take years

some of us find it mindlessly entertaining/relaxing to level herbing while watching tv.

Thing is one is leveling a profossion and the other is farming for three straight hours to putting it up on the AH. From what i gather from some posts in this thread flooding the market with this many items is a no no.

[Terae]

I'm in the same boat. I got kicked yesterday afternoon and when I tried to log back in, it said my account was closed.

Check my email and it says I have been exploiting the economy by buying gold :\ problem is I have never done anything like that.

I sent them an email but I expect it'll be at least a couple of days before I get a response. What sort of evidence do I have that I wasn't though?

Also, it's a permanent ban, not a temporary.

[Rennadrel]

Seems like their whole service department is flooded right now. They are inundated with reports from players globally about a vast number of problems. I have had a ticket sitting in waiting for almost 4 days now, I would assume the GM's and the service lines are going to be incredibly strained for the next couple of weeks. As to how someone could get banned for exploiting the economy, if people are farming for the sake of trying to make gold because they don't have a lot on them, is not what I would consider against game rules. I used to farm Saronite Ore by the stack for hours on end back when I used to make 30-50 gold per stack, and I would literally flood the auction house with about 20 stacks every few days, never got banned for it either. I see people who flood the AH with individual and horribly overpriced sales of enchanting mats and just about every other profession material that is useful, wonder why they don't get banned for flooding the market. I have noticed that the number of ore auctions though has decreased a lot on my server.

Oh and I am surprised they didn't tag me because I got 4400 gold from a GDKP ICC 25 man raid the other night, and will probably get more if I don't win auctions next week.