Permanent Ban?

Post by Bellandra

I was in.. somewhere.. Ungoro Crater, I think.. doing some archaeology when I got disconnected. I attempted to log back in and found out that my account has been permanently banned. According to the email I received -
This account was closed because one or more characters were identified exchanging, or contributing to the exchange of, in-game property (items or gold) for "real-world" currency.

I'm not even really sure what they are accusing me of.. selling gold, I guess? I have never bought or sold gold or anything else ever. For the life of me, I can't figure out what I've done to even make them think I have. I haven't given or received anything significant in-game from anyone except my real life boyfriend.

I just paid a lot of money for the CE Cataclysm. Plus I have many pets bought from the Blizzard store. Just how permanent is a "permanent ban"? Do they ever reverse them? I honestly have no idea what to do.. I've been hacked before but I was given clear instructions on how to recover my account. Other than that, I've never even had a temporary suspension. What should I say to them in email?

I'm kinda freaking out a bit.. as I said, I just spent a lot of money on this game and got to play Cata for all of a few hours. If anyone has any experience with this, I would appreciate any advice.

Post by 691268

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by DarkOpeth

If you've been permanently banned, and you know you didn't do anything you are being accused of, its highly likely that in the past week or so, your account was compromised (someone found or got your login info and used it) and your account was used to move, deliver or store gold/items for some period of time, at least once.

What you do: since your account is unavailable, you cannot open a ticket of course. Don't use your friend's/another account to do that either. Call them and email them. The response is slow sometimes, but I promise you that if you can prove the account is yours, and tell them you didn't do anything, you will pretty much get your account back.

Post by Bellandra

Thanks all.. I will send an email first, call as last resort as I'm in USA but playing on EU servers. You both made me feel a lot better!

Post by 620131

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by TheReal

You should probably investigate the email a bit further. It could be that your account has been compromised and this is the thief's way of buying time to use it to spam gold advertisements and run mining bots. Did the email address you by name, or with something generic like "Greetings!"?

Post by Bellandra

Post by DarkOpeth

It's legit that my account is banned. It says so in eu.battle.net.

No responses to the webform.. can't get anyone on the phone.. my boyfriend posted on the customer support forums (even though he knows they won't answer anything there) and it quickly got buried by the billion other threads with problems. It's so frustrating to not be able to communicate with anyone about this issue.

I feel like someone stole a lot of money from me.. considering that I had *just* added the Cata CE to my account.. and all the other money I've spent on it (the store pets, etc.). I guess if nothing else, I learned a lesson.. stop spending money on stuff like that.

Many of us know just how incredibly frustrating this is, but believe us, this WILL get resolved, and you will get your account back. I know it sucks for this to happen in the first place, but right after the most well designed content yet made drops? Unspeakable.

If it makes you feel any better, I won't be able to get my hands on the xpac until at least mid January. :(

Post by DraconisAerius

If it makes you feel any better, I won't be able to get my hands on the xpac until at least mid January. :(

The sad thing about that is, you might end up getting it before I do. /cry

Post by 691268

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by devious74

if you get your account back i'd order a authenticator right now small price to pay for security or if you have a mobile phone you can add a authenticator that way for free it's on the battle.net page.

i know how it feels i got hacked before too back when level cap was 60 my very first toon my rogue day after i hit 60 i lost everything they gave me my stuff back but wasn't even stuff for a rogue lol had green cloth with caster stats then they gave me 2 daggers that were terrible but the stories i read nowdays people get back everything they had.

i'id just call them or you'll be waiting awhile for a email response

Post by Bellandra

Yea, my partner has already told me that he's buying me an authenticator the second I get my account back (if I do) because this isn't the first time I've been hacked (if that's what it is). I was hacked once before.. I took a 6 month break from WoW and when I came back, found my account had been compromised at some point during that time. However, it was super easy to get back that time and only took a few hours.

Maybe my account was compromised.. but it's weird, because I was on my character when I got the ban. And I've been at home for a week with a serious illness and had nothing to do but play WoW.. so I was online a lot.. it just doesn't seem like there was any time for it to happen. And my account never seemed messed with or anything and nothing was ever taken out of our guild bank. Maybe I'm being naive?.. But I really don't think my account was hacked this time.

What I think is that I did something that made Blizzard think I was doing something illegal.. but I just can't figure out what. (And it for sure wasn't intentional.. I didn't buy or sell anything for real world currency!)

Well, anyway.. I appreciate all the replies to this thread. I am planning to call as soon as their offices open in the morning, hopefully try to get in before everyone else does.. am staying up very late to do so (9:30 am in Paris is 3:30 am for me).. I hope it works and I can have my planned weekend of long Cata sessions, what little I did get to play of it was so much fun.

Post by Bellandra

Ok.. to anyone who cares about it.. my account is unbanned. Waiting up for their opening hours was a good idea, although I still had a long hold time (my phone bill is going to suck).

When I finally got through to a human, the guy first asked where I was accessing the game from (USA) and then after a pretty long pause, asked if I've made a lot of auctions recently (yes, I sell glyphs). Then he said he thought it was a mistake by the system and to please hold while he tried to find out more details.. and so then I got put on hold on again for another 5 or so minutes. He came back and said that he had unbanned my account and escalated it to the gms so I should be able to be back in almost immediately. He said that I basically confused the system with my uncommon ip and my large number of auctions. It didn't really make a lot of sense to me but it's 4 am here, I am half asleep so I didn't really ask questions about it. He said he white listed my account so that it will basically ignore my ip now except for things like being accessed in China and the obvious things.

So.. I wasn't hacked and I didn't do anything wrong either.

I'm very happy now. :D

Post by TheReal

Grats! I'm glad it didn't take you forever to get to play. I haven't even touched my 80s yet because leveling my goblin hunter is too much fun (only level 19 so far). Kinda waiting for the 80-85 zones to clear out a bit.

Post by DarkOpeth

Nice. Have fun! toldyouitwouldhappen.

For reference, read Arkayn's guide on security, use an authenticator, and always make sure any emails related to the game are from blizzard, and address you by your first name.

Post by Cambo

I also suggest an authenticator.

Sometime last year I logged onto an alt, and he had mail from another of my alts which contained some random peice of green gear (wasn't even itemised for that class). My bank alt was also mailing my other alts (and probably other players) gold selling adverts via game mail.
I immediately got a guildie to remove my GB access, changed my WoW password and got an authenticator.

With the amount of time you put into the game, you really need to make your account secure.

Post by DraconisAerius

Just checked out the price of an authenticator, even for me in NZ it's still less that $10 (NZD) including shipping. A damn good price to help keep your account from being hacked.

Post by Bellandra

My account just got banned again. Same exact email, same reason.

So much for whitelisting my account like the guy said.

Now my account has been banned twice in less than two weeks. I'm sure that looks great on my account records.

Post by TheReal

Actually it looks worse on Blizzard's behalf when the truth is known. Just go back through the same process as before but be a lot more pissed off this time. ; )

Post by Bellandra

My boyfriend posted again on my old thread and surprisingly, got a very quick blue response. I was pretty impressed with that. Though I'd be more impressed if my account stopped getting banned. :D Well, the blue said they would take care of it first thing in the morning.. and hopefully they do.

I think this is all pay back, really.. whenever someone would say "I got banned for NO reason!".. I would think to myself, "yea right". Now I know better.. haha.

Permanent Ban?

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