Double account ban.

[Talamarr]

Why did they ban him for exploitation and not account sharing? I give my RL friend thousands of gold all the time.

My assumption is that the money transfer put up a red flag that later revealed the "account sharing violation" but they still called it economy exploitation. Is that what happened?

[gantell]

I have to add something to this.

Sorry - I just got into MBxing from a guildie in WoW.

Sometimes you simply can't create more accounts, in your name or otherwise. I started last night, used my "main" account as the referrer for four RAF invites to various email addresses, and successfully created accounts using my same real-life info as my main account. Well, all except the last one, which was denied by an error 203 on the account page. I emailed Bliz and they told me to call Billing and Support, which rang a few warning bells for some reason. It seems error 203 is when they flag your IP and details as creating too many accounts within a certain time period, so I am sat here waiting for my T7.5 Priest account and my RAF accounts to be banned, but at the same time I'm afriad to call Bliz and see what's going on so I can have a true 5-box.

No worries, just go to a different computer on a different IP address and create the last account, or you can wait about 3 days untill the timer expires. If the accounts are all in your name you have broken no rules, you can have as many accounts as you want to pay for. I ran into the same issue when I started up my 5 box team (my RAF runs out March 24). I drove to work created the last account, went back home and have been playing ever since.

You don't need to use different email address, it is the IP address that it is flagging.

Good luck.

[CommanderChaos]

I have to add something to this.

Sorry - I just got into MBxing from a guildie in WoW.

Sometimes you simply can't create more accounts, in your name or otherwise. I started last night, used my "main" account as the referrer for four RAF invites to various email addresses, and successfully created accounts using my same real-life info as my main account. Well, all except the last one, which was denied by an error 203 on the account page. I emailed Bliz and they told me to call Billing and Support, which rang a few warning bells for some reason. It seems error 203 is when they flag your IP and details as creating too many accounts within a certain time period, so I am sat here waiting for my T7.5 Priest account and my RAF accounts to be banned, but at the same time I'm afriad to call Bliz and see what's going on so I can have a true 5-box.

Don't be afraid to call them. You're doing it the right way, but Blizzard has protections in place to prevent credit card fraud. This happened to me too, trying to get 4 new accounts upgraded from trials, and then again when I tried to upgrade them to Burning Crusade. Just call them, they'll take care of you then and there.

[Nitro]

I have to add something to this.

Sorry - I just got into MBxing from a guildie in WoW.

Sometimes you simply can't create more accounts, in your name or otherwise. I started last night, used my "main" account as the referrer for four RAF invites to various email addresses, and successfully created accounts using my same real-life info as my main account. Well, all except the last one, which was denied by an error 203 on the account page. I emailed Bliz and they told me to call Billing and Support, which rang a few warning bells for some reason. It seems error 203 is when they flag your IP and details as creating too many accounts within a certain time period, so I am sat here waiting for my T7.5 Priest account and my RAF accounts to be banned, but at the same time I'm afriad to call Bliz and see what's going on so I can have a true 5-box.

How many account did you create at once? At one point I had 8 account and I made 5 more in one night bringing myself to a total of 13 accounts and I had no issues doing it.

[Reglar]

I have to add something to this.

Sorry - I just got into MBxing from a guildie in WoW.

Sometimes you simply can't create more accounts, in your name or otherwise. I started last night, used my "main" account as the referrer for four RAF invites to various email addresses, and successfully created accounts using my same real-life info as my main account. Well, all except the last one, which was denied by an error 203 on the account page. I emailed Bliz and they told me to call Billing and Support, which rang a few warning bells for some reason. It seems error 203 is when they flag your IP and details as creating too many accounts within a certain time period, so I am sat here waiting for my T7.5 Priest account and my RAF accounts to be banned, but at the same time I'm afriad to call Bliz and see what's going on so I can have a true 5-box.

This happened to me, I just called Billing, they helped me register the account that was complaining via the phone, trust me, they want your money.

[keghia]

I have to add something to this.

Sorry - I just got into MBxing from a guildie in WoW.

Sometimes you simply can't create more accounts, in your name or otherwise. I started last night, used my "main" account as the referrer for four RAF invites to various email addresses, and successfully created accounts using my same real-life info as my main account. Well, all except the last one, which was denied by an error 203 on the account page. I emailed Bliz and they told me to call Billing and Support, which rang a few warning bells for some reason. It seems error 203 is when they flag your IP and details as creating too many accounts within a certain time period, so I am sat here waiting for my T7.5 Priest account and my RAF accounts to be banned, but at the same time I'm afriad to call Bliz and see what's going on so I can have a true 5-box.

Just ring them. I dont understand why you wouldn't? Error 203 is a simply error that shows up when you try to create more than three accounts in a given time period (I thought it was 24 hours but it might be longer).

Happened to me, I rang Blizz, customer service representative was more than helpful and happy (and was actually an american *shock*) and it was a quick simple process.

[Spatulor]

I have to add something to this.

Sorry - I just got into MBxing from a guildie in WoW.

Sometimes you simply can't create more accounts, in your name or otherwise. I started last night, used my "main" account as the referrer for four RAF invites to various email addresses, and successfully created accounts using my same real-life info as my main account. Well, all except the last one, which was denied by an error 203 on the account page. I emailed Bliz and they told me to call Billing and Support, which rang a few warning bells for some reason. It seems error 203 is when they flag your IP and details as creating too many accounts within a certain time period, so I am sat here waiting for my T7.5 Priest account and my RAF accounts to be banned, but at the same time I'm afriad to call Bliz and see what's going on so I can have a true 5-box.

This happened to me as well, when I set up. I tried to get through to Customer Service, but got a busy signal over and over for half an hour before getting fed up. The IP block went away after a while, but in the meantime, I went to an internet cafe for 5 minutes to set up my last account. I seriously doubt you'll be banned for this. They'll take a look at your accounts, go "Oh, he's a budding multiboxer" and leave it alone.

[Gadzooks]

Why did they ban him for exploitation and not account sharing? I give my RL friend thousands of gold all the time.

My assumption is that the money transfer put up a red flag that later revealed the "account sharing violation" but they still called it economy exploitation. Is that what happened?

This is an assumption on my part, but I'm assuming that they looked at both accounts, saw different names, but being played from the same IP, and saw gold transfer, and that triggered the ban.

I'm thinking that the initial suspicion - transferring illegal gold, or that you were part of a farming operation, or one of the accounts was stolen and being stripped - is what locked the accounts down, and then if they're wrong, the review of the logs by Account Admin would show it being legit or not.

If you had the same info on all accounts, then you'd just contest the ban, and get the accounts back.

Since the accounts don't match up, you won't be able to contest, because they now have account sharing to nail you, not being a farmer or account thief.

I'm wondering if they have something set up to look for this exact situation, to lock down stolen accounts asap. We MBers don't get hit because all of our accounts are legit, and have passed "review" by having been reported in game, so gold transfers don't trigger anything.

If they have, that is a VERY good thing, they'll be able to nail stolen accounts as soon as gold is transferred. Bad for those who's accounts don't match, and yet another solid, solid reason to make sure you set up your accounts very, very carefully!

Again, all my assumption, but I'm wondering if they have something new working on the server, and led in part to the recent ban wave, and all the people in the customer service forum who had accounts banned, were also dual boxing them and transferred large amounts of gold - and were using old accounts a friend gave them, or they bought, or whatever.

The GMs have said it's laughably easy to spot us, I wonder if they've automated the process...

[Sajuuk]

The GMs have said it's laughably easy to spot us, I wonder if they've automated the process...

Several, if not many things are automated (In relation to account action, that is why it is a good idea to always contest something if you didn't do it instead of shrugging and moving on)

[Souca]

Funny, they told me to go to a Starbucks or something and that they couldn't create the accounts over the phone. This was the infamous error 203.

- Souca -