Quick question for those that have been previously banned.

I have read numerous threads from people who claim to be unreasonably banned. I always read them with suspicion thinking, "Ok what did you really do?"

But recently 2 of my guildies were banned and they have no idea why, they suspect it was due to a large gold increase in their storage due to farming Temple of Damned. Anet may have figured they bought online gold. And to vouch for their character, these are very nice, helpful, giving players who have been playing for a LONG time and really do not need to buy gold. They are the type of guys who are described in the "Nicest players" thread in Riverside Inn.

Anyways to my question. For those who were banned unreasonably, how quickly was it resolved, or was the account ever reactivated. Was there some sort of apology or do you just occasionally try relogging onto that account to see if it was reactivated? Anyways thanks for the responses, I'd hate to see these guys quit GW, they are a couple of good guys.

Farming can cause someone to be mistaken as a bot and be banned. Its a fairly common ban and usually their account is reactivated in 2-3 hours after sending in a support ticket to plaync. But that can depend on when its sent in, if its on a weekend or holiday or other hours they're not opened you might have to wait a day or 2. Include keys that you have on accounts, character names, login and password to help speed up the ticket.

Questions like this almost always result in flame replies and this thread will probably be closed before the end of the day, but here goes....

Personally, I don't believe that A-net bans folks without a reason. I don't believe that those bans are always fair, but nonetheless they did have a reason. If the ban was unfair then the account holder has the option of appealing the ban and it can be reversed if a mistake was made.

Here on guru, we only see 1 side of the story. Sometimes the banned person comes on here and writes the vilest, most childish, immature rant full of more obscenities than we thought existed and it's easy to see why they were banned. Other times, the banned writes a post something along the lines of "Wahhhh!! I did nothing wrong!!!" Well, maybe they did and maybe they didn't. Since I haven't been watching them play the game for the past month I have no idea if that's true or not and that's why those threads are always closed by a moderator with the statement, "Nothing we can do for you. Contact support".

I just finished reading the closed post by the husband who's wife has been banned most likely because of associating with a gold seller/buyer/bot master. In their initial post they stated that the shady character was a good friend and very generous, but they had no idea he was into illegal activities.

I'll assume for the sake of argument that everything he stated is true, although we have no way of knowing that for sure. If it is true, then she was probably banned for accepting gifts from "shady guy". A-net has no way to know whether she is simply a friend of "shady guy" or an account he launders his loot thru. Neither do we. However she can appeal the ban and the support team can take a closer look at the transaction logs which initiated the ban and make the appropiate call based on more info.

Ok thanks for the responses guys. Hopefully they can have their accounts reinstated in a day or 2. I nor them have ever had the experience of being banned, so we didnt know the turnaround on the appeals. And Raven, I know what you mean. Whenever Ive read the "Ive been banned, dont know why?" threads, the voice in the back of my head is saying, "Yea, ok, you did nothing wrong (sarcasm)"

But good to hear the legitimate players can get this stuff cleared pretty quickly. I never read a response to the ban complaint threads by the OP stating he has been reinstated and everything is not ok and resolved. If the 2 guys im talking about get reinstated, ill be sure to post the info on this thread.

I guess I'm just very very very skeptical of all of the "I've been banned, but I'm innocent!!!!!" posts. Here's why:

1. If you've ever visited a jail and talked to the inmates, you'll realize that nobody in jail is guilty. They are all innocent and we have a horrible justice system. /sarcasm.

2. We only hear 1 side of the story. Gaile has visited and posted before that she is privy to the data logs and she can verify that most of the complainers are not as innocent as the portray themselves on here, but due to confidentiality policy she cannot elaborate. This is fair, I'm constrained by a lot of the same privacy policies where I work as well.

3. I can recall 1 time when we actually got to hear both sides of the story. Anyone remember the epic story of Max and the monkey?

Monkey comes on here and posts the usual "Wahhh!!! I've been banned!!!! I'm innocent!!!! This is soooo unfair!! Wahh!!!!!!!" If you remember it, how did you feel when you saw the post? Did you feel sorry for monkey boy or did you think he deserved what he got? I'm sure some of you felt sorry for him and thought the big evil A-net corporation screwed him over.

Then Max appears. He knew monkey. He had proof that monkey boy wasn't as innocent as he claimed and Max posted the proof for all to see.

bye bye monkey boy.

who knows how this might ensue

99% of the time these threads are closed before we ever find out what happened, I am totally amazed that there are 2 still open.
Mods usually just put up the 'we cant do nothin for ya---closed' and we never find out. (seems the word 'banned' is a no no word on guru, so we'll see how long this thread lasts as well).

and yeah it would be nice to find out from some of the innocent ones how long it took for it to finally get resolved and I am sure the compensation was 'oh we are sorry' if even that from anet.

Maybe this thread hasnt been closed because it wasnt a crying "Ive been banned, get guru to unban me!!" post. It was just background information into why the question is being asked, then an honest question:

What has been everyone's experiences when they have been "wrongly" banned? Does it resolve quickly? Do you need to buy another account? How do you find out?

They are honest questions asking for others experiences not begging for favors or pleading a case to the readers.

You would assume a system whereby a warning is sent out via email before a ban takes place, would be better.
Or a link on a mail saying you have been banned for xyz click on the link to connect to anet customer services etc etc.

I am sure many are banned for abuses of the system and good riddance to them but there is also a principal of innocent till proven guilty isnt there.
Its not the inconvenience of a ban thats the problem its the stigma people might feel at being banned.

A simple message laying out the reason they have a problem with your behaviour and inviting a response before action is taken.

I assume this doesnt happen because the whole thing is automated and a person doesnt see anything about the incident untill the player sends in a report ticket.
Which is sad but probably more economical for them to operate.

I got caught up in a sweeping ban well over a year ago - took over a week to get reinstated.
They check your logs - then send you a 'you were banned in error' email. Is a pain.

I did repeated try to find out exactly why they banned me - they just quoted the regs - still none the wiser really - which i think is counter productive.
If i knew exactly why i had been banned (trading with a dodgy char/ mixed up in a bot ban / whatever) passing that info to guildies and friends can only be helpfull.

Once they check your freinds logs they will either reinstate or confirm the ban.

For those of you who say 'they MUST' have done something to warrant a ban' then try taking your heads out and putting them back on your shoulders.
I think investigate player logs first (which they obviously dont do) - advise player he is under investigation giving the exact cause - if found 'guilty' then ban.
Painfully obvious anet 'group ban' then sort through the complaints afterwards.

Thanks for the last couple responses, that was what the original question was looking for.

Anyways one of the guys that had been banned, has been unbanned. He didnt state he received any message, he just attempted to occasionally log onto his account, and viola. The other guy is still banned as far as I know, and we are still waiting for him to return. BTW these were permanent bans.

So for those who get bans for the first time, send in the support ticket and be patient. If it is in error, it seems as if Anet tries to undo the error.

In asking them why they thought they were banned. They thought it was due to a large increase in gold in their account after clearing ToD and charging. Anet might just have a program which says "If player X gains over Y amount of gold in Z amount of time, then ban" (assuming the gold was purchased). Then sort it out after the fact. But im glad it seems to be clearing up.

P.S. Neo Nugget, thanks for your time and understanding my convoluted original post. I tend to type the way I speak, haha.

Good to hear that one of them is unbanned, hopefully the other will as well. Also thanks for this informative thread which has given me clues as to prevent undeserved bans.

They have said they do not use automated ban tools - that a person does every single one of them.

Just as we only see one side of the story so do they - only their logs. While it isn't something that is going to happen very often one *can* do something that looks like something nefarious is done and get a ban. For the vast majority of things that result in a perma-ban the person needs removed from the game immediately, not to go through a week long process where they send e-mails back and forth (and if the person being bad is a "shady" character they aren't going to try and rush through the process and be prompt with the e-mails).

Personally, I'm not so sure the unbanning is a vote of "not guilty" as much as a "do over" on your part. Chances are if it was truly just a mistaken identity it will only happen once, if not then most will really know what they are banned for even if they do not tell you (and make no mistake - someone being a friend is no "proof" that they aren't telling something). It seems that most people get their account back once, even the ones that later admit that they did something wrong (usually in the form if "Why was it so bad I did <something that everyone else thinks deserves a perma-ban>?").

However, in this case I believe Gaile had a post yesterday saying someone got ban happy over gold sellers and it has been "fixed" and they are going back and restoring accounts (I can now move on to that second hand counting unfair bans).

Yes Strcpy, I just read Gaile's post in the Riverside Inn Forum stating exactly what you just said. So I stand corrected on my ban theory.

And you are right, these kind of pleading ban posts always beg the question, "What did you really do?" And that question nobody can ever answer without context, chat log and time log.

This is so true. When I was in jail I met a guy who said how he did nothing wrong, he was walking minding his own buisness when all of a sudden behold! theres a diamond wedding ring in the floor in front of him!, and not only that , but thee just happens to be a pawn shop 100 feet from him too!. He tried to sell the ring and ended in jail with because the ring was stolen.

That would make a great read, any links to this tread?

I believe he is refering to thechunkymonkey from the duping hack a while back. There wasn't a single thread where you can get all of it, here is a link to his posts.

Effectively no one believed in the dupe to begin with, he was one of the first to post a screen of a large number of armbraces in the trade window. After a few people asking who he was trading with someone noticed that the screen was *his* trade window, not viewing what someone else had put in there. While he initially claimed the screen as his own he eventually said he got it from someone else.

Then, of course the duping was confirmed and the Bans started and he was one of them. There were quite a few "I didn't do it" posts, his amongst them (in fact, Anet sent him a fairly nasty e-mail telling him to leave them alone, the ban stays). In the end there was enough evidence in his forum posts that it turned out he was one of the main two dupers that were flooding the market and trying to make crazy trades (I don't recall if he finally admitted it or not, I seem to recall him doing so - at the least one of his cohorts did so). He was trying to gain sympathy and get his ban removed through the forums.

That episode was also one of those times where many "innocent" people were banned. The two main dupers gave away stacks and stacks and stacks of armbraces to their fellow guild mates - those people got a ban and no lifting of it. They also purchased items for crazy amounts - a Kuunavang for 5 stacks of armbraces. In some sense they were right - they didn't dupe, however if someone offers to give you ten stacks of ecto and 10 stacks of armbraces you should know something is wrong. This is like your next door neighbor offering everyone in the subdivision twice the Gross National Product of the US - the feds are still going to arrest you for counterfeiting. Not only that, but if you are taking trades in those items and in those quantities you *know* what you are getting - they didn't ban people who did "fair" trades (I'm fairly certain I purchased a duped Ranger Elite Tome, though I can't know for sure) for the duped items (or if they did they later over turned them - they were pretty heavy handed, for a good reason, at the start).

I find most bans that people are "innocent" take one of the above two forms - outright lieing or they convinced themselves that while they have a large stack of ill gotten gains that since they didn't actually do it (they probably blinked while it was going on and didn't know) it will not count. Doesn't work in real life and doesn't work here either. But then, it doesn't take watching much of even people who are willing to on TV (and how angry they are after the judge chews them out and they loose) to realize that they probably also think that works in real life.

People should look at Anet admitting someone got ban happy as a good thing - not that someone did that but that they are willing to be honest when they had no requirement to do so (and given how embarrassing it had to be to admit it).

I actually think the "ban first, explore later" approach is better. If a gold seller with 3-4 accounts gets an email saying "Hello, we have reason to think you're a gold seller. Provide proof that you're not or we will ban you" they'll just go power trade or some other legit way of moving large amounts of cash. Voila. He keeps his accounts, and has items/cash.

Or he can just spread all the cash he had all over the place, giving 100k to random people, and when Anet looks at the logs, they ban those as well, since from what they can see, a known gold seller had transactions with several people. A "If I'm going down, I'll just make as much chaos as possible" attitude.

I'm glad to see a ban thread where the poster isn't whining ^_^ Also, good to have word on Anet support response times. I often wondered

Well here's a link to the thread that started the whole thing. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10186091 (Sorry, Strcpy, I couldn't get yours to work). However, I'll warn ya, it has over 50 pages of replies in it, most of which were posted all in 1 day. I think monkey boy started whining around page 44 and Max exposed him a few pages later. It explains the "Monkey pwner" title that Max proudly wears today.

There are more threads on the subject, but that was the main one.

Posting another update.

The second guy that I was talking about got his ban lifted last night and was playing freely again. He received a message stating he was banned in error and an apology was given.

So overall the turnover time on these 2 cases was about 1-2 days, as stated in a previous post. Im not sure if this time is faster than a "usual" ban due to the apparent large number of recent bans, or if it is typical of a ban in error. But it is good to see that Anet is responsive in a reasonable amount of time, and will correct errors before players get soured to the game.

But I guess for playing a good game, we have to take the possibility of human errors happening, as in all of life.

It worked when I tested the post last night and now doesn't for me either - must not be able to link to searches I guess.

You can go to the advanced search page and type in "thechunkymonkey" (minus the quotes) and it will list the relevant threads. If you also click on his/her user name you can go to "find more posts by thechunkymonkey" and get direct links to all his posts.