WARNING: Don't be a false victim of Error 045

NOTE: This is not a topic to flame Anet. Please delete any posts which flame anyone.

NOTE: This is not a technical support topic, don't move my post till you have read through it thoroughly.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Error

My account was found to have breached the terms and agreements. But, I had never done anything which would of deserved a permanent ban.

Apparently, Anet thinks I am a gold seller. But in reality I'm just really generous.

As an active PvPer and a less active PvEer I found myself sitting on a huge surplus of Zkeys. Seeing that I had no use for them, I gave them away to friends, guildies, or even (on rare occasions) complete strangers. An algorythim Anet programmed into GW.dat flagged me as a gold seller. A few of my friends who I gave gold to were also flagged. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we were banned. I am currently repealing my ban through their support system.

Regardless of my situation, I am still grateful for whatever Anet can do to stop cheating.

I hope what has happened to me can serve as a lesson for others. Please don't become a victim of error 045.

Anything about account issues becomes a flame-war.
I sense a thread closure in your near future

zzzzzzzzzzzz

Dang, I should stop giving away my money too now.

no offense but i dont think anet will trust u on this, you gotta have solid proof that you are not a gold seller instead of just saying you are not a gold seller. But anyways this does raise a concern for people who transfers money and items to their second accounts... :-\

It is a valid concern. I have been giving ecto and z-keys to guildies who are still trying to work on HoM. What amount or transaction is flagged? We won't find out the answer to that so I guess small increments is the key.

Maybe you can get around the algorithm by dropping stuff you want to give away in explorable areas. It's not a trade, so it might be harder to track. Just a thought. I probably shouldn't have said that because it might help gold sellers be more conspicuous.... whatever.

My 2nd account that I use to farm topk when I can't sleep (don't use it for much of anything else other than storage) got banned for botting last week. Anet's bot/goldselling detection systems are shitty at picking out regular players from bots/sellers. It's been 6 days sinc my ticket got excalated and i've still yet to hear a thing. Anet support has been okay in the past, but more often than not it's just shit xD

I've given a lot of stuff away over the years, and also received a few freebies as well. Plus I have a 2nd account used primarily for long term storage. Whenever I trade, regardless of the trade direction, I try to make sure it isn't one-sided. Whether it's a half used salvage kit, a stone summit badge, or 10 gold, I try to make sure something is on both sides of the trade window. Whether or not this pacifies the detection code I'll never know, but I figure it's cheap insurance against this kind of hassle.

moral of the story: don't give anything away

I actually don't care that much . I only PvP, I was smart enough not to link my accounts through plaync. I don't care for titles, I have friends.

No moral of the story is that if your gonna be giving large amounts of stuff away, make sure your both on the same IP. I mean if your ip trace comes back as that your in american, and the other IP comes out as China...Yeah that would throw up some red flags...

No, The moral of the story is if your giving something away, make sure it looks like a real trade.

I.E., they trade you a chaos axe (10k) for 50k

The warning is appreciated.