* 0. Exploitation of Economy 09/18/2009 07:48:33 PM PDT

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I would just like to take the time to vent a few of my thoughts on Account Closure.

Yesterday at around 8:33 AM PST my wifes account was closed for "Exploitation of the Economy"

First I'll explain the events leading up this.

Q u o t e:

Me and my wife were both playing WoW straight threw the night, she spent her time farming herbs and minerals in Sholazar for somewhere between 6-9 hours, taking dvantage of the fact that nobody else was online and for once there didn't seem to be any underground-farmers taking all the nodes.

After this extensive farming stint she sent the mats to her bank alt and posted a portion of what she acquired on the AH for sale. She then took a shower and then came back and browsed the forums for a while. (At no point did she log off or become disconnected for being afk.)

She realized she had been banned when she went to make a post on the forums and was unable to. Checking her account status she finds out her account was closed. She alt-tabs back to WoW to find herself still in Dalaran and still online. She then logs out to try and log back in and see if shes really been banned or if there was a mistake on the website. Sure enough her account has been closed. She checks her email and finds the "Exploitation of Economy" from blizz.



That would be fair enough if she had actually done anything. She has already sent the email to AA asking it to be reviewed but I still have a few issues.

Most people I've asked about this say she may have been hacked and then the perpetrator committed the acts that got her the ban. I don't see this as possible since she had control of her account the entire time.

Also, I thought when you got banned a GM would whisper you in game and tell you your being banned and why, the disconnect you as the ban became effective. Even if she was afk and missed the whisper from a GM wouldn't she still have been disconnected by him?

Also have problems with the email that was sent explaining the closure. The first line reads:

Q u o t e:
After a thorough investigation, we have found that a player of the account listed above participated in activities designed to gain an unfair advantage in the World of Warcraft economy.



First - if there was a "thorough" investigation I am beyond 100% sure that this would never have happened. Also, if an individual somewhere took the time to actually investigate her account, you think they could have taken the time to write short personalized email that actually explains something.

That brings me to my next problem with the email. It doesn't explain anything. In a nutshell all it says is, "You're account is being closed because you broke the rules." We both would like some clarification as to what exactly she is being accused of! Are they saying she bought / sold gold, used a 3rd party program to bot, what? To use a bad analogy this is akin to being arrested with the only reason given to you being "You broke the law."

Also bothering me is the extent of the punishment. I have a friend IRL who had the bright idea to hire a leveling service. Long story short he got caught and got a 72 hour suspension!

The only thing that I could see happening here is that she was mistaken for a bot because she was farming for so long at such off hours of the night. As I understand it, Blizzard get rid of the farmers in one fell swoop, which would explain why there was o farmers out. Still if there was an actual "thorough" investigation done that theory should have been debunked quickly.

I'm confident that this will be reversed, it just seems to me to be terrible customer service. We have both had accounts with Blizzard that have never been out of good standing for over three years now. What do we get? She gets perma-banned with practically no explanation. Then, to make the customer service seem even worse, there is no number to call about this. Just an email address to write to, which you'll then wait days to even get a response from, much less to actually get the problem taken care off.

To make matters worse my wife is an achievement junkie. She will now miss pirates day and most likely all of brewfest, which she'll have to wait a year to get another shot at.

I'm also concerned about the game card that we added the night before she was banned. The email states that all recurring charges from debit / credit cards would be canceled, but what about a game cards time? Once this is resolved those days (or weeks for all we know at the this time) better be restored.

In addition to that I feel she should have extra game time credited to her account for the incredible inconvenience and stress placed upon both of us completely by Blizzards own fault. Any self respecting business that causes their customers undo grief make an attempt to make amends with the customer. That's just good business.

I hate to be one "those" people, but if my wife somehow ends up not getting her account restored there is just no way I'm going to continue to play this game. Not only is playing WoW with my wife a huge part of my interest in this game, the sheer injustice of that would prevent me from ever wanting to log back on or continue giving Blizzard my money.

Now that I'm done venting I am going to wait patiently to see how this all plays out. I know beyond 100% that my wife did nothing to violate the Terms of Use, and fully expect this to be fixed in good time.

While we're waiting, I would like to ask a question if a GM would take the time to answer.

How, if my wife is not guilty of violating any rules, and was not hacked, could a mistake have been made causing a permanent account closure for exploitation of economy? Could it be human error, was she reported by a player as a bot and no one actually took the time to investigate? Needless to say neither of us are very happy, but every little bit of feedback I actually get helps when we feel that we are dealing with a very cold and intransparent system.

[ Post edited by Haydan ]

I got a notice about the 72 hour suspension on my account for Economic Exploitation. I would like to appeal to have this suspension removed and a clean slate on my account based on the following reasons below.

*Details of my characters and which one I was actively playing*

Recent trading activities on the Auction House
For the past couple of months or so, I have been actively trading in the Auction House, especially in the Gem and Enchanting Mats market. *More details of what I have been doing exactly on the AH, what materials I bought*

In the past 2 weeks, I have been online in WoW more often as I am on given medical leave/sick leave due to a herniated disc (slipped disc). So I was mostly online every day, lyinng propped on up the bed with my laptop. I would spend something like 10-12 hours daily online, either chit chatting with friends or selling stuff at the Auction House or processing the mats (which was 80% of the time).

I am not sure about the actual profit earnings and can only recall what I see using an addon that tracked my expenses. The last time I check (a few days ago), my profit earnings were only *blah-blah* per week but the money movement was in the range of *blah-blah* per week of buying and selling. I did not feel it was a lot compared to some friends who play in the Gem and Enchanting market more than I do and probably earning more since they play the Epic gem market more than me (depending on transmute, I don't purchase titanium ore regularly). I also compare to the quantities that are being sold by competitors on the AH and they seem to be selling more than I do, as well as logging more often as well.

I started going back to work today so you would see that my trading activities would be a lot less compared to Sunday 14 Sep 09. Note that I'm also in Malaysia (GMT+8 timezone) so it may be 12-16 hours ahead of PST time.

Usage of a tunneling service to access the time
I have been using a tunnelling service for the past 2 years in order to play WoW else the latency would have been unbearable (in the range of 800 ms versus the current 300-600 ms that I am getting with the service). The service I'm using is Gamepath which I'm sure you have heard off. There are times when it was possible to obtain 200 ms latency with the tunneling service but during offpeak hours. During the weekend, I have been trying out a different tunnelling service which may result in a different IP being seen when I was switching between the different tunnel service providers. Within the Gamepath servers alone, I remembered connecting to their servers in Malaysia, Singapore and LA just to see which server gave me the optimal connection.

During the last week, I have been switching gates (located in different location) frequently to see which connection gave me the fastest speed. Would the usage of this tunneling system cause the suspension?

I'd like to also point out that I have played WoW without a tunneling service during my business trips over the past 3 years, starting 2007, 2008 and 2009. This included logging in from Texas, Michigan, Germany, Holland and England. In all of those periods, I was never given a warning such as the one that I'm receiving now.

Stability of my internet connection to play WoW
Since Aug 19, 2009, my internet connection has been choppy with a lot of lag spikes due to cable faults along one of the international undersea cable (http://www.streamyx.com.my/whats_new/whats...rticle_20090819). It was not possible to do 5man, 10man or 25man dungeons without spikiness and frequent disconnection. Therefore, I decided to take it easy and just try to make money in order to purchase craftable upgrades for my main toon as well as obtain a bike and getting some of the epic flying skills for my alts. I decided to collect a bigger portion of money before actually purchasing those items.

Today, my ISP had announced that the repair works have been completed (http://www.streamyx.com.my/whats_new/whats...rticle_20090914) but the connection speed didn't feel that it was any different and I still had to use a tunneling service to connect to WoW.

Also note that because of my herniated disc, I cannot sit up long enough to do even a 5man dungeon run. Lying down in bed, I can only move my fingers so much and doing a raid or dungeon is too tiring for me in this position. And the frequent disconnections and lag spikes that were present before

A break from raiding
I think it's probably 1-1.5 month back that I decided to take it easier on raiding and just focus on making money to purchase craftables (as mentioned earlier). Therefore, I log onto my main character less and less. I started playing on my other toons for money making more, to the point where I also didn't bother to do much leveling.

In short, based on the reasons above, I would like to appeal for the removal of the 72 hour suspension based on the above reasons. If there is further information or verification that is required from me, please do let me know. I have been trying to call into the contact number on the Blizzard side but there seems to be an engaged tone all the time.

I would also like to know if the account has been compromised. I hang out in a local Malaysian WoW Community forum (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1087514) and there have been recent complaints that their accounts have been given such warnings and that it's due to a keylogger. If such is the case, please do let me know the reason behind this suspension.

I await your response soon and hopefully favourable answers.