Falsely banned?

[mirthen]

Wondering if anyone has ever encountered this before. Minding your own and all of a sudden you have a ban on your WoW account. If so, what are the odds/time frames people have encountered getting their account restored.

backstory to question... if you care to read it. Last night around 3:30am EST i log out after playing a low level paladin on a server i decided to reroll on(switching from PVP to PVE realms). I never chatted with anyone, guild, group, trade, anything. I might have messaged my friend over realid, dont recall when i did that last. I go to log in after a few hours sleep and getting my kids off to school, and it tells me the account is locked out... see this url... so on. So i check out my account, and come to find its permanently banned. i log on to the dedicated email used only for WoW/Battle.net, and never once entered on other sites, or given to anyone or anything other then a legit blizzard owned site/game. I see the email there recieved perhaps an hour earlier saying the account is closed due to identified activity involving items/gold for real world currency. Of course my imediate reaction is ...what the hell... since i started playing back in BC, never once have i done such a thing, never bought gold, or items, game time... nothing. Only time ive used cash for in game items was off the blizzard store for things like pets/mounts on occasion.

Popped a ticket off to blizzard(likely be over 24 hours before i get a reply, been like 17 so far), asking what exacly i did, and if i was hacked. Gave my last logged in time and everything else i could think of to see if they could ID that i was hacked or not. I then looked at my armory pages for some of my level 90 characters, none of which were missing any gear, or had anything that looked odd or similar to when one gets hacked(like how gear usually gets vendored to max gold profits off it). The last activity was consistant with when i was on last for each character, some were listed as 'yesterday' for the most part, since most i had not played after midnight PDT, just a single level 90 i moved to a new realm a few days ago, and the paladin i was leveling on that same realm.

My email shows no activity other then my own(gmail, shows recent activity/ips). Of course have the auth key for my battle.net account, that sits on my desk as it has for a few years now. No one else uses this computer in the house. Unless my 6 year old daughter suddenly learned my wow password, and how to type out and conduct a transaction online... but yeah, no one uses my computer. Of course changed all my passwords just in case. Nothing anywhere, other then suddenly being banned, showed signs of a hack. Oh and i doubt there are any virus at play unless they have them now for linux looking for your wow login info, and auth key info.

So kinda has me a little confused as to how i would get banned if i was not in fact hacked. I dont talk to much of anyone in game lately. Become somewhat of a recluse. I log in, level something for a while, maybe toss some low level items on the AH, and thats about it. I dont do any trades of any kind out side of the AH. I dont use trade chat to buy or sell goods/services, and generally dont even look at trade chat having it filtered to another chat window. Only time i ever do talk is with one of my friends on RealID, and generally it doesnt even have much to do about WoW, and more to do about other stuff going on in life.

Only things i could think of that could have caused this...
- Blizzard just pulled the trigger for no good reason, or in mistake on my account
- The fact i use a paid VPN service connecting to the internet(privateinternetaccess), so perhaps guilt by association using the same IP as some baddie.
- account was in fact hacked, and perhaps banned before the hacker had a chance to liquidate my items, or the armory just has not shown the changes yet.

TLDR, has anyone been banned after just minding their own and playing the game the way its meant and allowed to? if so... what was the eventual outcome, and how long did it take to get there. perhaps reasons for a false positive on the ban as well. (really wish they said more in the email, like you sold this thing or stuff for X dollars on monday and here is the line of text from trade/msg proving it...something other then just a ...you are banned, so long)

[Deleted]

Judging from what you're telling us here, it's a perfectly legit ban. For shame.

[mirthen]

Judging from what you're telling us here, it's a perfectly legit ban. For shame.

yeah, my thought was along the lines of guess they are banning people for 'not' socializing with others in game now... like 'play with others or go away!'

[Deleted]

- The fact i use a paid VPN service connecting to the internet(privateinternetaccess), so perhaps guilt by association using the same IP as some baddie.

This will be the problem.

Contact Blizzrad By phone, (its a Freephone number, or you can skype them) Explaining you have been banned, and you believe it is the VPN which has caused the problem. You may need to explain why you use a VPN, so if its a legitimate reason you should be fine and get your account back.

[mirthen]

Other thing i thought of, was perhaps one of the 'random' guild invites i accepted while leveling something recently had some odd goings on in the guild with something like this. Been in 2 or 3 guilds of late while leveling, just accepting the first level 25 guild invite i got that didnt have a really odd/creepy name(yeah takes a few invites... i know). maybe something went on with people in one of those guilds and i just got caught in the crossfire.

dunno, this is driving me up a wall all day now. Not knowing why exactly i was banned. If i did something i should not have, fine i will take the punishment. But being i have not done a single thing other then level some still low level toons that none of which have even hit 40 yet, i cant think of what i could have possibly have done. Only other activity ive had in the last few weeks was either idle, a few lines in a guild ive been with since wotlk, and i moved a toon from one realm to another(yeah i paid for it, on my credit card same name on the card/account that is on my battle.net account and always has been)

[jbombard]

If you got hacked, the first think they would do is change your password.
If that didn't happen I doubt you were hacked.

Somebody could have reported you for something, perhaps falsely but Blizzard checks into those supposedly.
It could have something to do with your VPN, but I don't think you would have the same IP as I believe they try and keep them somewhat stable, and even if somebody got the IP you had shortly before/after you used it, the chances that they would be a wow player and hacker are prettty damn slim.

Best thing to do is ask them, as it could have been a mistake on their side.

[mirthen]

This will be the problem.

Contact Blizzrad By phone, (its a Freephone number, or you can skype them) Explaining you have been banned, and you believe it is the VPN which has caused the problem. You may need to explain why you use a VPN, so if its a legitimate reason you should be fine and get your account back.

Yeah, i mentioned this thought in the support ticket thread i shot off to them. If its a problem i have no issues going off the VPN when i play. Just one of those things i paid $30 some for a year, and then set it up on my computer and just let it go, set and forget.

Everything ive read mentions you cant call for an issue like this, and only way to resolve it is via support ticket to the account administrators or something to that effect. guess i can try a call if i dont get a response on the ticket when i wake up tomorrow.

- - - Updated - - -

If you got hacked, the first think they would do is change your password.
If that didn't happen I doubt you were hacked.

Somebody could have reported you for something, perhaps falsely but Blizzard checks into those supposedly.
It could have something to do with your VPN, but I don't think you would have the same IP as I believe they try and keep them somewhat stable, and even if somebody got the IP you had shortly before/after you used it, the chances that they would be a wow player and hacker are prettty damn slim.

Best thing to do is ask them, as it could have been a mistake on their side.

reason i thought about the VPN, took me a bit to consider it, is there have a been a few occasions where ive gone to some small website and had a 'IP blocked' message come up, sometimes saying its banned for abuse or similar type things. Likely due to someone using the VPN in the past to do not so good things to some of these sites.

[Deleted]

Oh and i doubt there are any virus at play unless they have them now for linux looking for your wow login info, and auth key info.

After re-reading, also spotted that your using Linux, this could also be a problem, as at one point Warden (Blizzards Security systems) was detecting WINE as a cheat program. Be sure that you mention it to them that your using linux as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, i mentioned this thought in the support ticket thread i shot off to them. If its a problem i have no issues going off the VPN when i play. Just one of those things i paid $30 some for a year, and then set it up on my computer and just let it go, set and forget.
Everything ive read mentions you cant call for an issue like this,

it is best to call them regarding this. Sure they might refer you back to the ticketing system, but its a free phone call and you have nothing to loose, and everything to regain.

[mirthen]

After re-reading, also spotted that your using Linux, this could also be a problem, as at one point Warden (Blizzards Security systems) was detecting WINE as a cheat program. Be sure that you mention it to them that your using linux as well.

Yeah, did that of course. Played with quite a few people in the past who used linux to play on, never heard of issues other then perhaps game not loading after a major patch or something like that. Would think if that were the case the email would not have said the reason was item/gold for cash swapping, and would say cheating/hacking or something to that effect. Dunno, never been banned before so not sure what their emails look like till now

[Itakas]

I had a similar problem with a ban, but it got resolved quite quick. Also got the ban message saying i was involved in RL money/gold trading, was early in the morning. Made a ticket to blizz asking wth is going on and went to college class. When i came back, maybe 5h later i tried to log into wow and all was ok, ban removed and ingame mail saying that they are replacing items that i lost due to hacking, but the ingame mail was empty, since i rly didnt notice i lost any items. Also i never got a mail explaining the ban is removed or any explenation beside the original mail saying my acc is perma banned. Ofc i did contact a GM after i logged in and he said that their software detected suspicious behavior on my acc and banned it as a measure of preventing any harm from hacking. He said that is to prevent as much dmg as possible when an acc get hacked and when i explained to him that my acc was not hacked since i lost no items and also had an auth active, he said that sometimes ip proxie can trigger it and some other suff. Then i realised i was also playing Vindictus with proxy since it was the US client only time so that probably triggered the hacked acc alarm, if i forgot to turn off proxy when i logged into wow.

I know that you maybe dont have similar problem, could be something totaly different, but just sharing my xp with a perm ban. Only thing i can suggest is to make a ticket on blizz site or call them, if you can do it, and try to log into your acc every hour or so. Since you might not get the mail the ban was removed and even if you do get it, there will be a huge gap between when you acc was rly unbanned to when you recieve mail about it,

[Mosotti]

Most likely a mistake, if nothing was omitted from the story. I don't think VPN is a problem, why should it be? Please let us know about the outcome

[Deleted]

If you got hacked, the first think they would do is change your password.
If that didn't happen I doubt you were hacked.

That's what I'd always thought, but I had an authenticator attached to my account a while back and they didn't change the password. ('Hack' was my own fault for using the same password in several places, I had messages from gmail at the same time saying they'd blocked someone trying to access my email from a different continent). They did absolutely nothing to my account apart from putting the authenticator on it yet they'd definitely had access to it for several days, it was weird frankly, why draw attention to themselves when they could have just sat on it until they needed it? :/

OP, hope you get it sorted okay.

[Airwaves]

I have had my IP blocked for no reason what so ever a few months ago. Even blizzard couldn't work out what happened. I logged back in with a free 15 buck helm afterwards when it was all fixed but.

[mirthen]

I had a similar problem with a ban, but it got resolved quite quick. Also got the ban message saying i was involved in RL money/gold trading, was early in the morning. Made a ticket to blizz asking wth is going on and went to college class. When i came back, maybe 5h later i tried to log into wow and all was ok, ban removed and ingame mail saying that they are replacing items that i lost due to hacking, but the ingame mail was empty, since i rly didnt notice i lost any items. Also i never got a mail explaining the ban is removed or any explenation beside the original mail saying my acc is perma banned. Ofc i did contact a GM after i logged in and he said that their software detected suspicious behavior on my acc and banned it as a measure of preventing any harm from hacking. He said that is to prevent as much dmg as possible when an acc get hacked and when i explained to him that my acc was not hacked since i lost no items and also had an auth active, he said that sometimes ip proxie can trigger it and some other suff. Then i realised i was also playing Vindictus with proxy since it was the US client only time so that probably triggered the hacked acc alarm, if i forgot to turn off proxy when i logged into wow.

I know that you maybe dont have similar problem, could be something totaly different, but just sharing my xp with a perm ban. Only thing i can suggest is to make a ticket on blizz site or call them, if you can do it, and try to log into your acc every hour or so. Since you might not get the mail the ban was removed and even if you do get it, there will be a huge gap between when you acc was rly unbanned to when you recieve mail about it,

yeah this pretty much sums up what ive had so far. using a VPN and not a proxy, quite similar in some aspects. guess if they are using auto detect things for stuff like that, then most likely what tripped my account up as well. still waiting on a response or action of any kind. been about 24 hours and account still locked, and ticket still 'open'. guess i just wait some more. thanks

[Deleted]

I'm sorry to hear this happen to you buddy.

To me, it happen twice - once, I got banned for 30 minutes - officially by insulting somebody, or cheating anyhow - I am not sure. But It was during one AB fight, I got banned because of that AB fight and I really did nothing. Im not that type which is rude because hes loosing and I have never used any exploit nor hack or bot.... That was back in WOTLK.

Second time - few months ago. I was with wife on vacation, I've not been playing any much during whole July. I logged maybe after a week of being off and I saw that my acc has an authentificator attached. I am really not sure how that could happen to me - I am not sharing acc with anybody, I am not clicking on any links, visiting any risky webs... I never bought gold or anything.. But anyway I got hacked to bone, hacker got access to my mail and attached an authentificator. Than he used my acc to abuse economy (thats what GM told me) For this he got banned but as he had access to my mail he reported that he got hacked and he received unban (!!) and again, he abused economy. After this my acc was suspended.

Luckily GM was helpful, I had to create a new email, my acc was transferred under it - so good end after all, I just had to re-create my real ID list as it was obviously tied to my previous email ID.