Banned for no reason at all
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 8th 2008 at 4:30PM
GuamPDN.com ("Guam's complete source!") has an article up by Duane George, who tells his story of woe: he got banned from the game for suspected Arena win trading, and had to deal with 72 hours without the game. Blizzard, obviously, doesn't provide any information on how many players get banned from the game, and it would be even harder to determine the number of false positives out there like Duane: people who didn't do anything wrong but end up getting banned anyway. We've heard stories here of course, but this is a tough area to investigate by its very nature.For Duane's part, he does say that he plans to stay out of Arenas and stick to battlegrounds, so you'd think that if there were a ton of false positives like him who were turned off from the Arena experience because it wrongly got them in trouble, Arenas wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are. But of course we don't know -- there's no oversight on Blizzard's part (and you could argue that there shouldn't be anyway, since it's their game), not to mention that they've got the right, according to the Terms of Use, to ban anyone at any time for any reason without notice anyway. If they were really going overboard, you'd expect them to be losing customers, and that's not the case yet.
Fortunately, this wasn't a permanent ban, and while he did apparently lose some Arena rating and the gear that came with it, his character wasn't too much the worse for wear. A 72-hour ban isn't too big a deal, so Blizzard probably hands those out with much less consideration than a permanent ban anyway. But we're sure Duane isn't the only case out there -- as small as the number may be, there's almost definitely other players like him, banned for doing nothing wrong at all.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, PvP, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Osi Oct 8th 2008 4:37PM
False positives are very high when it comes to Blizzard. A 72hour ban means, the next ban is permanent. Legally (EULA paragraph on compensation is not legal), you can take them to court compensation in monies. But what's a few cents?
I have been on the receiving end of this as well. It's either a false positive, or more corruption.
Ryan Oct 8th 2008 4:39PM
"A 72-hour ban isn't too big a deal"
a 72 hour ban also comes with a Final Warning, so if some poor sack has gotten one, he's an F-Bomb in Trade Chat away from getting perma-banned. 72 Hour bans shouldn't be handed out as a first punishment, and only through diligent investigation should Blizzard be hitting people with that severe a punishment.
Also. 9/10 people who receive bans generally deserve them, and try to play "Mickey the Dunce" when they get caught.
Wade Oct 8th 2008 11:57PM
72 hour bans don't always come with a final warning
Harmun Oct 9th 2008 12:59AM
I remember the first month I played this game, I got a 72 hour ban. I was fascinated by the AH, and had amassed a small fortune buying and selling (about 3k on a level 16). I got banned for gold buying!
I tried to appeal, but by the time someone got back to me, the ban had expired and I was playing agian. No apologies, no indication that they would change the automated flagging script that assumed I must have bought this gold, and as far as I know, I'm still on a final notice!
If I had one wish, it would be that Blizzard make the process a little more transparent. Or at least translucent- maybe allow for something like an appeals process, and for people who are found to be false positives, a record cleanse so they're not on some "probably bad customers" list.
Mattimus Oct 8th 2008 4:39PM
This just sort of happens in any company. It's probably not Blizzard's policy that is at fault, but rather an overzealous admin/GM that's deep breathing.
It happens in all customer service companies; you get a few employees who dig a little deeper to see if something's really going on, and you get people that, for whatever reason (bad day, surly demeanor, spawn of the devil, etc) are just on some other page. That's probably what happened here. If this were a result of Blizzard policy, it would likely be a lot more rampant.
Blizzard still has to take responsibility for its employees, but I'd say it's just likely one or two employees not quite doing their job proper that cause mishaps like this one.
Osi Oct 8th 2008 4:47PM
The problem here is.. is another corrupt employee decides to ban for fun, this guy is screwed, because he already have a mark against him.
And to tell the truth, not everybody have this problem. Only those who do not care about customer service.
Mattimus Oct 8th 2008 5:48PM
You can always dispute it, which is admittedly a huge amount of trouble -- but I sure wouldn't let something like that go undisputed.
However, I wouldn't say this is the act of corrupt employees... probably tired ones, or ones that are having a bad day, as happens to everybody. If you're at work, tired and cranky, most people won't work quite as hard as you would if you were well-rested in and a content mood. This is just something that happens.
Astaroth Oct 9th 2008 9:27AM
It's not just tired people. I notice this at my work too. Some people just don't care and want to close the case as quick as possible, without any hassle, so they can go on with the next one. For the most part, it's just people switching off and becomes apathetic.
D.O.T. Oct 8th 2008 4:39PM
Well, without knowing the details there's no real clue if maybe he actually did do something banable and its his word against Blizzard, or maybe it was a simple mistake and they meant to ban someone else.
Too bad Blizzard cops out without having to explain themselves by doing this "to ban anyone at any time for any reason without notice anyway" because what most people need is an answer - at least something to let them know if they really are being banned for something they did or not.
It really sucks getting banned because someone mistakenly wrote the wrong Letter in a name they were trying to ban.
Shumina Oct 8th 2008 4:41PM
If they ever want Arenas to be considered a true sport, they'll need oversight whether they like it or not.
Personally, a 72-hour ban might be just the thing to get me to consider doing something else with my time...but since I'm a PvE'er anyway, I'll just keep having fun without getting destroyed by the twitch kids.
Milktub Oct 8th 2008 4:41PM
Don't complain that Blizzard isn't doing enough to enforce TOS and then turn around with a big sob story about someone who may have been wrongfully accused of something and got a temporary ban.
Trepidprism Oct 8th 2008 4:46PM
Just playing devils advocate here, but how do we know they got this one wrong?
skynes Oct 8th 2008 4:58PM
That was my first thought. The Guilty are always the loudest to cry out "I'm innocent!!"
Aaronomus Oct 8th 2008 5:42PM
The innocent cry out pretty loud too.
DrowNoble Oct 8th 2008 5:46PM
I have to agree here usually the guilty don't come complaining to a 3rd party website that they got banned.
Plus, I doubt that Blizz just banned him with no investigation. They probably were checking logs days before the friday ban came about.
On the other hand this does show how bad of an idea Arenas were in the first place.
shisho Oct 9th 2008 3:23PM
Not so much devil's advocate, but taking a claim with a grain of salt.
I thought it was suspicious that his response to it was to stay away from arenas, and just stick to BGs...?
Steve Oct 8th 2008 4:56PM
Maybe one of his arena partners was coordinating the win trading, and he was carried along for the ride?
Maybe he was tanking his rating intentionally just to power-through a few games at the lower ranks (possibly with an extra guy in tow for the personal rating jump). That looks like intentionally losing a bunch of games to a team, then beating that same team a bunch of times. Unintentional win trading.
Colfer Oct 8th 2008 4:56PM
Blizz has humans....humans make mistakes, it cant be avoided if he went out of his way to post something like this he is stupid. there is never going to be a 100% anything, and that includes the right pepole being banned. sure you have the right to complain but there is no reason of going out of your way to tell everyone else about it.
Osi Oct 8th 2008 5:12PM
The problem is 1. Blizzard refuse to admit mistakes, and 2. they refuse to remove marks added due to mistakes and/or corruption.
It is also the innocent that yells the loudest when wronged.
Rihlsul Oct 8th 2008 6:02PM
Disagreed. Allegedly, I had marks removed once. My account was warned because "The Dirty Hordes" was too 'adult' in nature. After a loooot of emails and two escalations, allegedly (I say that because who knows if it's true) the warning was removed from my account.
To be fair to the GM's, they were nice enough to force a rename AND let use pick a new name, rather than disband the guild (bank tabs cost a lot).
Pro-tip: Always be nice to customer service people.