Officially Banned From WoW
Color me confused, but after a fresh reformat today, was hanging out in Nagrand on top of one of the little floaty platforms while working on reconfiguring my addons for raiding and such, when I got disconnected. As this had already happened twice that night, I didn't consider it anything particularly annoying.
Up until I tried to log back in, where I was told my account had been locked and was forwarded to an ominous page on the WoW site ending with banned.html.
To say I was a little confused is to be putting it lightly. About 30 minutes later, I got the official email suggesting that my account had been compromised in some way (Blizzard said they had strong evidence of this, but no suggestions as to what that evidence was), and that I'd have to fill out a form and fax it in to regain my account.
Out of curiosity, anyone know how exactly they go about figuring out this sort of stuff? My virus scan provided no results, my Spybot said nothing was out of the ordinary, etc... In fact, the only thing that led to me reformatting was a general drop in system performance, but my harddrive was so full of crap and I'd be installing and uninstalling stuff for so long that I figured a full reformat would fix those issues, which it did, was nice to have 30 FPS walking around Shattrath for the first time since like... the beginning of the expansion when I raced over there immediately.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand that Blizzard, in this day and age, has to be proactive to a degree to avoid having to deal with all the hacked accounts and item restoration, etc... but, this is bizarre. Somehow, according to their "punishment volcano", I skipped every single level right up to account locking. This, really, is the only thing that annoys me. No attempt to tell me that they had concerns was made. No request to verify my ownership of the account until today.
Man, and I was so very much looking forward to learning M'uru this week. Being down a resto shaman is not good for a raiding guild working on progression. 
"Just remember that sometimes you need to allow problems to just roll like water off of a duckilama's back." ~Reaper
Have you ever bought or sold gold?
Has your credit card been compromised? I've heard of someone having their CC# stolen and used to buy gold and ended up with their account banned, so that would be something to check into.
Fletcher wrote:
Well, I have seen this happen to my sons account and also to my best friend. The 2 situations brought about 2 different endings, my sons account was hacked and whomever did so put on add ons that were not allowed by Blizz and the account was permanently banned...however my friend had almost the same identical thing happen and in about 3-4 days he had his account returned to him though some of his items and gold were gone. For right now just apply to them and hope for the best as the appeal process is a joke and whatever their decision is will be final. Should you get your account back, be very careful with your password and such and always try to change it monthly. I wish you the best of luck and do hope the resolution of this comes swiftly so you can continue playing the game.
I use to say "Die young and leave a good looking corpse" too late for that now!
Never done anything against the Terms of Service except giving the guild bank manager my password (she's a real life friend of mine, and I changed it about a week afterwards) to make a few Golden Spellthreads during my vacation in Chicago.
That's about it. *shrugs*
Oh well, sending in the form tomorrow, just hope I don't lose everything, that would officially blow... that and I don't have the cash to buy a second copy.
"Just remember that sometimes you need to allow problems to just roll like water off of a duckilama's back." ~Reaper
My guess would be that possibly you have had a keylogger get your password and that they
may have attempted to log onto your account while you were in Nagrand.That would automatically get your account flagged for account suspension.Just surprised it would occur so quickly. Blizzard does this to prevent your account from being compromised any further
so in a way it's a good thing.
Your disconnects earlier in the night was some one with your password logging in. I am almost sure of it.
If some one from another IP boots you off of your session etc that flags it.
The Exact same thing happened to me. I thought it was random disconnects and gave up for the night. The next night I was banned and when i got my account back all my characters where deleted etc.
Fill out the form it will take 24-36 hours and you will be fne.
lancejt wrote:
So now the question is - when your account comes back, would you be willing to shell out the $6.50 for one of the authenticator devices?
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/39822
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
Sounds like your account has been hacked. Contact Blizz. Unfortunately, you might be down for 2 weeks, and there is no guarantee that you'll have much left on the character. Good luck.
I didn't even fight the law.
Definitely Yoyo, I was planning on buying it before this anyway, but my finances have been a little strained as of late. Still, worth it now, but I have to wait till my account is unflagged to purchase it because it can't be bought for a banned account.
"Just remember that sometimes you need to allow problems to just roll like water off of a duckilama's back." ~Reaper
I just checked and they are sold out.
I'm not lost. I'm locationally challenged.
Spore Profile
I ordered one the instant they were available, but it doesn't appear to have shipped yet. I'm wondering if maybe they'll ship to me last, because I just ordered the authenticator and nothing else.
Maybe the most remarkable part of this story is that Blizzard is still using fax machines.
"All that time you waste dating and having sex could be better spent scouring the web for new game developer press releases." - Quintin_Stone
I work at a company that sells software to large companies like GM , Nasa, etc. Most of them use fax machines. It's incredibly silly.
-Bad Mojo
And man that dog looks like he's having a good time, but that monkey is f*cking into it. This isn't his recreation; this is his life and he knows it in a way I will never know anything. --Danjo Olivaw
Not really. Faxes are considered paper trail... Email is not. Sure you could mail it in... but do you really want to wait that long? The only other option is fax.
WOW: Bounce
It's also private. Meaning it can't be read or logged by whoever administers your email.
This is still common in HR for example.
An ounce of prevention creates a single point of failure -- IT Security Proverb
Giannino - 70 Fury Warrior
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
We have a fax number, but in reality, as soon as something faxed to our office it is transmitted into an email and attachment and goes to the appropriate dept depending on which fax number it was sent to.
I don't think I've ever said this sentence before, but man would I love to hump that butterfly.-- KrazyTaco
One phone call and you're melting like butter over my kettle pop. -- Edwin to Mex
2005 GWJFFL2 Champion
I can only imagine how frustrating this must be given the investment of time involved in an MMO character. I would be seriously peeved if they permanently banned your account. Have you been able to establish contact with them over this? Any reports upon what occurred? In instances like this, I've noticed that MMO developers are particularly tight-lipped. And it just generates ill will because they're harming legitimate customers
Well, if my account was indeed compromised, then I have no ill will, because they saved me the trouble of logging in to find Sunwell gear gone. At the time I was "banned", I was actually online and still had all my stuff. Now if I restore my account and find it gone, then we got a different story.
That said, seeing as how I don't live in the 80s, I had to mail my stuff in. But, them trying to stay secure an not accepting attachments from emails doesn't really surprise me either.
"Just remember that sometimes you need to allow problems to just roll like water off of a duckilama's back." ~Reaper
hehe.. Well part of my job is to help my customers keep their secrets, so the avatar choice isn't an accident.
Fax machines in a private office are a low rent way of ensuring that only the people who are meant to see documents actually see them. It's not just a privacy issue but sometimes a government compliance issue.
As far as email attachments go, that's one of the top attack vectors for people who try to spread malware. I can understand any company having a blanket policy against allowing them in from non-trusted sources, even their customers. This goes double for anything that uses Adobe Acrobat Reader, especially now that the latest version incorporates Flash functionality.
An ounce of prevention creates a single point of failure -- IT Security Proverb
Giannino - 70 Fury Warrior