Account Banned Theory...

Ok my opinion as to why people get banned,

1 they break rules to see what they can get away with
2 they are complete prats who go around making other peoples game experience worthless.
3 they don't just get on with playing the game.

Its kind of like Joining the Golf Club and after a few months your found playing football on the green.
Then you set up a BBQ the next week, followed by driving your SUV through all the Sand Traps

What a surprise your membership is revoked and your banned.

Amazing, must be a conspiracy

Actually I have done exactly this without being banned and numerous members of my guild (all good friends outside of the game as well as guild members in game) have done the same without being banned. I am not saying that it doesnt happen but it is certainly not a blanket ban anytime anyone gives gold to a guildie or ally.

looks like someone's account was banned

I have C1 (two for that matter - pre-char slots), Factions CE, C3 CE, GWEN and I had bought additional char slots.
If I were banned - I sure as hell wouldn't buy everything again.
I'd just thank them for a lovely time and never do business with them again.

So I certainly hope that their masterplan doesn't involve banning people just so that we would buy the same game over again ...

First: Anet does exactly what the OP claims to want. They don't ban people randomly on first sight using some sort of algorythm. They have a process to investigate a problem account.

Second: they are very rarely wrong. We do see what we feel are many threads about it, creating the feeling that there are many wrongfully banned people, but in truth, look at the numbers. Banned accounts in the thousands, complains not even in tens. What does this tell you?

Third: whether or not RMT is prosecuted by a developer is a decision. It's a decision about who do you want to play your game? The OP's views fail to recognize that if RMT is permitted, it affects the whole game's community. It attracts a few, but it also alienates many more, who appreciate the game as a way to escape the real world limitations of money available. I for one would likely leave (with a "Thank you, Anet. It was a wonderful year."

I have to disagree. With all the banning going on, with all the crusades from Anet, Blizzard and whatnot against RMT and Ebaying stuff, you just can't claim innocence,

There's a warning at the log-in, to not get involved in RMT. If you decide to buy gold, the ban in justified, and rightly so.

It is getting sticky though when you are falsely accused/banned of buying ingame-gold.

Same here. If I ever get banned, I'd kindly pressure support to lift it. I would never go and buy all those chapters again

I hurd double and triple posting in the same thread is baed, lrn2edit.

As I said earlier, if you get banned you can contact ANet support and plead your case. They often give back your account if they made a mistake or as someone stated earlier it was your first offense. It happens.

I can count the hours I spent playing. /age. 900 in 27 months.

If I get banned I'll go play something else while I wait for Mass Effect to come out for PC in a few weeks. Because, you know, I got 900 hours of entertainment for $150. Pretty good deal. Not gonna waste my time arguing with ANET about it, that's for sure.

There are only two kinds of people in this boat:

1. People who didn't read the terms they said they read when they accepted the EULA (or any of the, what, dozen or so front-page messages that have been put up about it since Guild Wars launched?).

2. Liars.

Neither gets any sympathy.

Finally some logical thinking in these foruns.

Anet got your money.. there's no monthly fee's.. hrm... *analyzes situation*..

Yep! Anet's not moved by the facts.. not even in the slightest. ^_^

Anet's inevitable... ADAPT, beach!

If you did nothing wrong and e-mail them sincerely about it, you will get your account back. Believe me. I've been there four times so don't worry about it. I'm not directing this towards the OP, just posting for future reference.

Regarding their "mistakes" they usually have good reason for doing so. Most of the times I've been banned have been forgivable, and I didn't freak out because I knew I was legit.

I think they should have that be a notice somewhere: "If you become banned and did nothing wrong, please contact ANet support." Or something around those lines.

That said, I do think they'd like to be a bit careful about it. Perma-banning an innocent person turns off a few customers since a customer is likely to tell four times as many people about a bad situation rather than a good one (and that's bad business...if you're, well, bad).

Okay this is something brought up but not really addressed and it has me curious. Someone mentioned bans happening for buying real life gold. How exactly would Anet determine if a trade of 100k, or even 200k, from person A to person B was a case of RMT vs, say, moving money between accounts, sharing money or loaning money (or something else similar to it). You're not going to see any in-game evidence of RMT aside from funds of that size going from A to B. Would it be proper of Anet to ban them first and then investigate later?

Personally, while I am in favor of banning for RMT, at the same time surely there's got to be some established method (whatever it may be) for determining whether a large sum of gold was being transferred for RMT purposes or something else.

Thanks for that post Bryant.

Seriously. If you handle false bans properly, its at the most ANNOYING.

I've been banned for something stupid as well (misquoted out of context and i got banned for it)...and it was annoying.

With that said...the automated message you get is VERY HARSH. Its like "You did something wrong, you are banned. This is not reversable."

But you email them, talk it out, and voila they change it.

I try to do my best, Lyra.

I'd also like to note that it helps to send tickets very, very frequently. Sending them a good and honest e-mail does help them a lot, but it should also be taken into consideration that ANet probably get a LOT of e-mails. So make yourself heard.