Uh WTF?

[Toned]

So, like all my accounts are under the same name, (me), and I get this? Anyone else get this it sounds like gold buying/selling or third party usage but WTF!@!@! The reason I say this is because it says "exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy". I received 5 of these today, about a month or 2 ago I had an issue where I used my accounts x3, g/f's and my brothers. They closed 3 of those accounts and made me prove ownership and then they turned the accounts back on. Since then I rerolled 2 more accounts using battle chests and have all contact info 100% accurate and true.


* * * NOTICE OF FINAL WARNING * * *

This is a notification regarding the World of Warcraft account [Account Name]. Access to this account has been temporarily disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation. Based on a review of the information presented, this World of Warcraft account has been given a final warning and a 72 hour account suspension, in addition to any previous warnings issued. Until the suspension has been lifted, the account will not be accessible. Please note that Blizzard Entertainment will be unable to provide further information regarding the specific time an account will become accessible again.

This action has been taken in accordance with the Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) and our game policies (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01712p). According to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use, to which all players agree when installing World of Warcraft, Section 5, Paragraph C [Rules Related to Game Play] states that you may not do anything that Blizzard Entertainment considers contrary to the "essence" of World of Warcraft. Be aware that any additional inappropriate actions may result in the permanent closure of the account.

With that being said, we have reset the password to the World of Warcraft account [Account Name]. Please use the new password that has been sent to your registered e-mail address to log into the game client first. After you have successfully logged into the World of Warcraft, you may proceed to the Account Management page to set the password as you choose.

It may take up to one day for our system to generate and send the temporary password; your patience in this matter is appreciated. If you have not received a temporary password within one day of receiving this message, please check your:

· Spam folder
· Junk Mail folder
· Suspect Mail folder

If you are still unable to locate the temporary password message, please contact us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/?id=eSupport000.

For the continued security of the account, please log in at https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account and take the following steps:

· Verify that your contact information is accurate; update it if necessary
· create a new, not-easily guessed, secure personal password; http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=asi0505p has password creation tips.

Please be sure to maintain safe Internet practices and safeguard all World of Warcraft account information for the most secure gaming experience. Feel free to contact us with any further questions or concerns you may have. For more computer/Internet safety and security tips, please visit http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=msi0504p.

Any disputes or questions concerning this account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.

We thank you in advance for respecting our position and hope that you will continue to enjoy your gaming experience in World of Warcraft.

Regards,

Hacilus
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
www.WorldOfWarcraft.com

[Reprisal]

I just received that bullshit as well when i tried logging on... I'm waiting to talk to someone about it right now... All my accounts are under the same name and i have a saved conversation with a GM that has checked up on me before with these exact same accounts...

[Toned]

Did some one on Mag like report "the zerg" as an exploitation guild of chinese farmers or something jesus.

[Vyndree]

First of all, comment out your account name. You don't want to give any nefarious acct hacker folks half of your account information.

Second, it sounds like you may have been keylogged. If you haven't participated in any nefarious activities, but SOMEONE on your account has, it's very likely that your account information might be compromised. There should be some helpful tips on securing your computer and account information in the official WoW Customer Service Forums.

[PyrostasisTDK]

can you reformat that so its more legible... scrolling is killing me.

If what I could read is accurate, at least its not a perma ban...

[PyrostasisTDK]

So we have 2 people with this?

[Reprisal]

Yes, shawk and I, same guild, we both have groups of shamans around the same level, on mag, in The Zerg

[Toned]

First of all, comment out your account name. You don't want to give any nefarious acct hacker folks half of your account information.

Second, it sounds like you may have been keylogged. If you haven't participated in any nefarious activities, but SOMEONE on your account has, it's very likely that your account information might be compromised. There should be some helpful tips on securing your computer and account information in the official WoW Customer Service Forums.
My g/f and I got keylogged a few months ago they stole all our guild bank, and deleted our toons and moved several of them to another realm.

[Toned]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5575898121&sid=1 Check this out they made a fucking thread about it on the wow forums.

[Toned]

False alarm?

Greetings,

Recently your World of Warcraft account received a notice for economy exploitation. Upon further review, however, it appears that this specific action was taken in error. As such, the account action and any access restrictions have been removed.

Any further questions concerning this account action can be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.

We thank you in advance for your understanding and hope that you will continue to enjoy your gaming experience in World of Warcraft.

Regards,

Hacilus
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
www.WorldofWarcraft.com

[Reprisal]

Weird, they reset my passwords, i just got the e-mail telling me my new password and have logged in... I just want to figure out wtf is going on so it doesn't happen again.

[The IT Monkey]

Holy Crap... sounds like a ban hammer coming.

Edit: Holy HOLY Crap... sounds like they are having some issues with an automated ban hammer.

[PyrostasisTDK]

the automated banhammer lol.

For when there is just to much work for the normal mallet, we went and upgraded.

[Toned]

Sounds like gold sellers are taking a huge hit via "the warden"! Yet the warden sniffed out the wrong bitches.

[Crucial]

Blizzard seriously dropped the ball on this one. I just had all four of my accounts get a 72 hr ban with the exact same email after quickly being disconnected from the server shortly after exiting the arena with guild mate around 7:30pm est. I can absolutely 110% guarantee that I have done nothing wrong with my accounts, all information is in my name across all accounts, nobody else uses them, etc etc. The customer support forum is filled with similiar posts, and I called twice on the phone to Blizzard support and they can't do anything for me, except direct me to the email address for wowaccountadmin. Unbelievable...


EDIT***

just got this email:



Greetings,
Recently your World of Warcraft account received a notice for economy exploitation. Upon further review, however, it appears that this specific action was taken in error. As such, the account action and any access restrictions have been removed.
Any further questions concerning this account action can be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.
We thank you in advance for your understanding and hope that you will continue to enjoy your gaming experience in World of Warcraft.
Regards,
Hacilus
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
www.WorldofWarcraft.com

[PyrostasisTDK]

Find it funny the CSR in this thread ('http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5575898179&sid=1') was so rude to a customer that blizzard just screwed over...

[thinus]

Find it funny the CSR in this thread ('http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5575898179&sid=1') was so rude to a customer that blizzard just screwed over...

I don't think it is rude...?

[yarr]

it seems that a lot of families with one account per person get this, no idea what it means. Possibly large sums of money being mailed between characters trigger it. Maybe not.

They all say "economy exploitation" so i figure it has something to do with the movement of gold or goods between characters on different accounts.

BUt yeah, what ppl above said, looks like a huge ammount of bogus suspensions. Some intern @ blizzard (son of an executive perhaps) had a great idea for a script to catch gold farmers in the act?

[Vyndree]

I find it very amusing that you can so easily get to the top of the "penalty volcano" (i.e. final warning) thanks to an entirely automated (and not exactly error-proof) process.

I'm glad they reversed their mistake. Hopefully it won't happen again. Somehow I feel that automated processes that ban players' accounts are never a good idea. Manual (human) verification is always necessary when dealing with sensitive decisions like bans.

[Grelius]

I just got the email/suspensions as well.. then a while later the oops we made a boo-boo emails.

Annoying, but at least my characters were all still there once I managed to get logged back in.

[Zuxto]

Sounds to me like Blizzard's anti-cheat program "Warden" strewed up and started auto banning/reporting people. This happened to me a few months ago on my main account right after the 2.2 patch. I hadn't installed any programs, mods or otherwise and got a ban the day after 2.2 came out. Luckily after a week of emails to Blizzard someone decided to investigate.

[Evol]

Uh, hello, first time poster, long time lurker... I got this on all 4 of my accounts as well. You don't think this has anything to do with multi-boxers do you?

[Maxion]

Two people in my guild (they don't multibox, though the brother of at least one of them has his own account) got the same thing today.

[thinus]

Uh, hello, first time poster, long time lurker... I got this on all 4 of my accounts as well. You don't think this has anything to do with multi-boxers do you?

Blizzard is cracking down hard on multi-boxing. They will soon come around to your house and confiscate all your PCs, media, girlfriend and dog. Your identity will be hacked and you will be placed in a deportation holding cell where you will be forced to be the anal sex slave of a russian midget named Bruce. If any proof of multi-boxing is discovered they will go back in time and sterilize your great great great parents and all traces of you will forever vanish.

You have been warned.

[Pararanger]

I got a friend that works for the Account Administration of Blizzard and he told me that the trigger was from a new security system that they just installed, it is suppose to scan for multiple accounts coming from the same IP and flag those accounts for investigation but it some how auto banned the accounts on accident, oh and get this the new security system came from Activision lol.

[Maxion]

I guess the only reason I didn't get banned today then was that I hadn't multiboxed yet until later in the evening when this was fixed.

[Evol]

I got a friend that works for the Account Administration of Blizzard and he told me that the trigger was from a new security system that they just installed, it is suppose to scan for multiple accounts coming from the same IP and flag those accounts for investigation but it some how auto banned the accounts on accident, oh and get this the new security system came from Activision lol.

I guess that sounds plausible. Someone had said that they attended a LAN party, and everyone there received the same suspension e-mails. It did catch me off guard though, since--to my knowledge--Account Administration doesn't usually reset your password when they give you a suspension. Perhaps it has something to do with quickly isolating compromised accounts. Nothing quite freaks me out more than trying to log into the game and getting the password incorrect message. I thought I'd been hacked for a minute, until I checked my e-mail and saw the 4x suspensions/password resets/apology e-mails. I guess the whole thing lasted 2 hours? I was watching TV the whole time...

[KSboxers]

If the multi accounts from one IP was the trigger it's odd that i didn't get shut down. I've got my 5 accounts, an old account, and my wifes account all from one router. Woulda figured i would have flagged for sure. Wonder what excluded me? maybe they started rolling it out on select servers first.

[Wilbur]

Fuck ups happen, everyone should email the account administration team and request they look into your suspensions/etc.

Blizz are normally pretty good about stuff like this.

[tigger2577]

What happened to me is this, I have 5 accounts and only 4 of them got the ban notice. it was all my clones my main account with my rading lvl 70 priest on it did not get the ban and I did not notice this until I wanted to move some stuff to one of my alt accounts after the raid, and by that time they sent out he e-mail that it was a mess up. the only fun part was trying to figure out what new password went to what account since they just said in the e-mail here is you new password. but once I figured that out I am back and running.

and yes Shit happens everybody makes mistakes they fixed it and it is all good

[Anozireth]

I would think that multiple accounts connecting from the same IP would be so common that it wouldn't even register. Maybe more than 5 from the same IP would be a little weird, but even then probably legit.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Blizzard is cracking down hard on multi-boxing. They will soon come around to your house and confiscate all your PCs, media, girlfriend and dog. NOO! NOT MY DOG!

/rofl

P.S. No ban type issues here.

[Gallo]

I didnt have a problem last night *knock on wood*... Hopefully I'll be all good. I'm glad that it sounds like Blizz is working to correct this fast for legit users.

[Tehtsuo]

If it was many accounts on the same IP, wouldn't that affect people living in student dorms/apartments with a common WAN address? I wonder how many single-box users got hit.

[Xzin]

I didn't get any emails.

[Eteocles]

I logged on my Boomkins briefly before Hyjal last night but never got kicked and as near as I can tell from here no "Banned!" "WHOOPS LOL NEVERMIND" emails for me lol

[marvein]

Sounds like gold sellers are taking a huge hit via "the warden"! Yet the warden sniffed out the wrong bitches.

The warden looks for runnig programs and other software exploits, it doesnt look at what a player is physically doing. This just seems like someone had a serious stupid moment.

*edit* I was in 2 of my accounts last night, checking the others today, no problems at all and no emails.

[Vyndree]

I've logged in twice since the 2.4 patch -- Tuesday for about a half hour and yesterday for maybe an hour or two. Suvega has only logged in on his main PC (his new beefy one) on one character to go try out Magister's Terrace. No bansticks in our direction.

Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, it surprised me that they were allowing an automated system make the judgement call automatically which placed players on the top of the "penalty volcano". It makes sense from someone's explanation from their inside source ;) that the automated system was supposed to flag for human followup and somewhere the code was fubar'ed.

Pretty big slip, if you ask me. There's an apology on the CS forums but I'd like to see them give out something to those affected by the ban, particularly since it hit right when 2.4 came out and everyone's itching to see the new content. It's not like a free week of gametime would be out of line. But it's their decision -- and their screw-up.

And for clarification -- it's hitting everyone -- particularly families, lan-party goers, and multiboxers since it's entirely based on how many accounts are logged in per household (IP). This is not a multiboxing specific ban -- and if I see some turd post about multiboxers getting the banstick on the general forums thanks to this thread I am literally going to chew their head off.

[Gallo]

and if I see some turd post about multiboxers getting the banstick on the general forums thanks to this thread I am literally going to chew their head off.

Ohhh, can't wait :)

[Basilikos]

... and if I see some turd post about multiboxers getting the banstick on the general forums thanks to this thread I am literally going to chew their head off.

That's almost tempting enough to have a low level alt troll the forums just so Vyn gets the word out some more!

But I wouldn't do that... :(

[The IT Monkey]

My brother and I were discussing this last night...

WARNING PURE SPECULATION AHEAD

We are thinking that since it says "Economic Exploitation" in the emails it has to do with large transfers of Gold between accounts on the same IP address. This probably flags your account. Now it's a new system, just implemented obviously, and the CSR's or Account Specialists or what have you are absolutely bombarded with flags. They are not taking an indepth look at the accounts they are just trusting the flag and hit the "temp ban" button... after all, it's not like it's a perma-ban, just a slap on the wrists, so how careful do they have to be?

Now, I imagine that a gold seller does have multiple accounts coming from the same IP address and by the nature of their "business" they transfer large sums of gold between said accounts.

But so do we as multiboxers. As do families who play together. Even before I multiboxed I would loan large amounts of gold to my brother (who is also my roommate) and vice-versa.

So what we concluded, and again this is just pure speculation, is this:
A) The settings on the new system were a bit off. I really don't think that the amount of gold we transfer back and forth between toons is anywhere NEAR what is transfered between gold sellers.
B) The people who were reviewing the flagged accounts were not really doing much of a review due to the HUGE influx of flags as soon as this thing went live.


In other news... I have begun getting spam emails and whispers again for PL services and Gold Selling. I think the spammers have found a way around or through the measures Blizz implemented to protect us.

[Eteocles]

With dailies ingame(And the daily quest-per-day limit raised to 25 with the last patch), removing the cost of epic flying would be pointless; it's a nice goal to have for awhile, and achievable even by casuals(God knows there's always a couple hundred in shatt at any given minute on mag and that's a generous estimate)

And yeah you're right...I WAS getting gold-whisper ads recently...had 2, first one I replied "Oh dear god not you assfuckers again" and report-spam'd him, 2nd "ENJOY UR BAN LOLZ" and report-spam lol

[Eteocles]

Well that's the thing, if they did remove it for said casuals then the non-casuals wouldn't have anything to do. 42 days for something as good as an epic flyer sounds about right, and you're not factoring in the drops being sold, cloth, grays, and blues/purples that can fetch 200+g each(The Apexis items, one of which ALWAYS drops if you do Shartuul and now shartuul's darkrunes are easily obtained within 5 daily runs so that's at least once a week if one doesn't outright drop); 2 dailies in skettis, at least 4 in ogrila(Demons, bombs, rays, simon) more if you count shartuul depending on darkrune luck

The Sunwell Island dailies are jokingly easy, the only real trouble there is ganking lol and there's at least 3-4 dailies there to boot and all just as quickly completed + the flight there is near-instant from silvermoon/IF.

Plus it's not just those casuals who buy...I've seen instances where people who play plenty buy just out of laziness, and everything in wow is sickeningly easy/fast to do; no amount of changes will EVER fix that. You could just TALK to the npc for the 12g/day and have 20 of them stacked in shattrath and people would STILL buy.

I'll repeat myself from other threads/irc:
The bottom line is that people are stupid. Very stupid.

[marvein]

With dailies ingame(And the daily quest-per-day limit raised to 25 with the last patch), removing the cost of epic flying would be pointless; it's a nice goal to have for awhile, and achievable even by casuals(God knows there's always a couple hundred in shatt at any given minute on mag and that's a generous estimate)

And yeah you're right...I WAS getting gold-whisper ads recently...had 2, first one I replied "Oh dear god not you assfuckers again" and report-spam'd him, 2nd "ENJOY UR BAN LOLZ" and report-spam lol

Casual player, say 2 - 5 dallies a day. (I don't care that you CAN do 25 now, most peeps dont' have time for that, period) = ~120g
5000g / 120g a day = approx 42 days. Thats if you play every.single.day for the dailies, and don't spend a dime on _anything_, including possible repair bills.

Dooable? Heck ya. Peace of cake. Reasonable to the casual player that plays probably just once or twice a week and wants instant gratification? HELL NO. "right click, buy gold"

Blizzard has done an excellent job flooding the market with gold to help eliminate gold buying / selling ---- only to piss all over themselves by increasing the demand for buying gold by making a highly desierable item insanely expensive.

and if they removed the cost of those high demand gold sinks then what would we all do with our gold? I really cant think of any to spend my 7k gold on other than an epic mount.. Sure you could do a couple hundred here and there on some patterns or a random item, or level a twink but what else? Now i would certainly enjoy it if blizzard lowerred it csome (like to 3k instead of 5k) but its fine.

My only peeve right now is the amount of gold seller spam ive been getting recently and they send it to my alts 2-3 at a time. It is fun being able to respond with 'die in a fire' 5 times at once though, lol. just gives me some satisfaction even tho it does noting to them.

*reedit* best option to avoid those tells is get one of the spamblock addon that ignores tells from characters below the threshold you set (ie lvl 1) Or you can go crazy and get one of the blacklist/whitelist things where you create a safelist for tells and all the rest are ignored.

[thinus]

Casual player, say 2 - 5 dallies a day. (I don't care that you CAN do 25 now, most peeps dont' have time for that, period) = ~120g
5000g / 120g a day = approx 42 days. Thats if you play every.single.day for the dailies, and don't spend a dime on _anything_, including possible repair bills.

Its 11g for a daily, how do you get to 120g from 5 daily quests?


Dooable? Heck ya. Peace of cake. Reasonable to the casual player that plays probably just once or twice a week and wants instant gratification? HELL NO. "right click, buy gold"

Be really careful how you phrase this. It is almost like you label all casuals as gold buyers while the officers of some raiding guilds have been banned because of gold buying so they can afford consumables, repairs, etc.

Buying gold has nothing to do with whether you are casual or not.

And I quit WoW before after grinding dailies day after day after day after day after day.

[Dorffo]

Just to add a random anecdote to the "not all gold buyers are casuals" train of thought...

Prior to TBC release, my guild leader and 5 officers lost their account(s) for buying gold to help fund Naxx attempts. They cried about it a little bit, then just re-rolled on another server.

[thinus]

And most hardcore raiders have a few alts and paying for enchants for your gear (500g for mongoose everytime you get a new weapon as a rogue), paying repair bills, paying for consumables, etc all adds up. Now imagine having to go farm daily quests once more to get your alts epic flying mounts...

I don't think you can make a case for hardcore or casual being more likely to buy gold. I think it is different from person to person, some people will buy gold, some won't.

Your point stands about the 5000g cost of epic flyers being the main source for gold buying.