Completely given up on Support
Hi, I just want to share my experience.
When I started playing ingress back in 2018 I came to the game from Pokémon go, I liked the idea of creating new stops, so my initial approach was to lvl up as soon as possible. As I started to understand the gameplay I started to lean more to Ingress than Pokémon, I loved the idea of exploring, in Pokémon all you needed was a gym, a stop and some peeps without having to move much except for and ocasional nest farming; but ingress forced you to move. I came to meet some great agents, learned from them, and eventually integrated a great group of friends. I hiked mountain tops, went to national parks, drove miles to reach portals, all to create fields or light up portals. It’s truly an engaging experience. I even bought plane tickets, went to anomaly’s , had a chance to see the NL1331 van in person,etc.
But there’s an issue, when I came to ingress veteran players told me spoofers where a big no no to Niantic unlike Pokémon go where they seem to be assimilated. To me this was great, because it really affects gameplay. But as time went by I started to se spoofers in ingress, taking down fields of portals with difficult access, lvling in the general cementery at 4 am, etc. Also the dark side of the community where if you do go legally to a portal the opposing faction asks for pictures of you in said place through local XF groups, at one point I understand mistrust if spoofers go around so freely, other times players do it just to annoy said agent with a picture even though they are known in the community.
But going back to spoofers, not once have my reports been successful, it’s like niantic doesn’t care. When a spoofer takes down a portal in a mountain top it took weeks, from multiple reports of agents, contacting vanguards and using the trusted reporter program, to get that spoofer banned. In that mean time the spoofer just goes around creating havoc until it’s banned. It’s been 2 years of this so just like Pokémon you start to see spoofers as part of the game without much to do. I still submit reports, with portal name, location, local time, gmt time, comm screenshots, google maps, etc. Still with the hope I can do something.
As I mentioned, I just had to face the fact spoofers are part of the game, though mainly to take down OPs and large fields, but something shifted during these last months. A group of known spoofers from Pokémon go started to play ingress again, but had a fixture with me. I have to say that in one point of my life I met them (in the Pokémon community) when they claimed to be legit players and even raided together; but they were caught red handed and kicked out of the local community groups. The problem with these people is they are very territorial and vengeful. So you may ask how do I know it’s them playing ingress? I saw them in person once a long time ago and took SS of their agents profile. The accounts attacking me have different names, but the same order of missions and badges, so you don’t have to be Sherlock to deduce it’s them, and as I mentioned they have a fixture with me. Every time I marked activity they would take down my portals on the other side, they always always have the key to the furthest online portal to field/block, and at one point they even attacked a portal I just captured with nobody being there (in another city) I have a fellow agent as witness, he was with me.
Now let’s talk a little tabu here, there are números 3rd party apps that literally **** player activity’s, they do exist, and these people are not stupid they don’t jump 10km in 1 min, they take time, do routes, etc. All they need to know is where I’m at to do there bidding. And also since it’s inside the city niantic seems to care less.
Now this is where it gets ugly, these people are so sick and spiteful, they created an account with my wife’s and my real name combined, attacked my home portal and fielded over me with multi layers between 2-3am. I‘d like to mention that with COVID-19, the country established curfew from 10pm to 5 am nation wide, second what kind of sick people **** and investigate my personal info to get my wife’s name?? She doesn’t even play the game. I obviously contacted support but all they did was erase the agents name, but the account still exists. I simply have given up on support. They have player guidelines, TOS, praise for fair gameplay and respecting others privacy; yet with all the reports, tickets, evidence, screenshots, they simply prefer to leave spoofers, and in this case harassing spoofers of the leash. I can’t believe they don’t have the technology to IP ban these people who don’t contribute to the community and gameplay, and just let this toxic waste spread.
Im sorry if this was to long, but I wanted to express how frustrated and disappointed one can get, especially after investing soooo much time and money in a game, and how everything can go south when it gets personal and no one can do anything about it. Hope no one else gets harassed by toxic players. At this point it might be better to just step aside from the game.
Comments
I 100% agree with bad actors ruining this game. We have been dealing with one in our areas for months. So far, the shenanigans continue. The crappy part, Niantic has created this help system that is akin to talking to a brick wall. Support is anything but. There is this weird cloak for secrecy regarding everything, so nothing is learned or gained and if anything, you just give up.
Just another thing pushing people away from the game. When pretty blatant evidence is handed over and you just get silence in return, it’s hard not to throw your hands up.
Niantic is smurf!!! 🙄
Hi!!
First of all, I know how hard is to struggle with support. Let me ask you something: did you use trusted reporter bots? If the portals are hard to reach sites, you may send a ticket with all the details and they will escalate it to Niantic. Reports shouldn't be older than 7 days, otherwise they won't take any action.
If they **** you or your wife in real life, you should file a report to the police and then send it to Niantic. They will handle this issue. I hope they may help you with something, If not, try to contact with a Vanguard, they will listen to you (but don't forget they have a life besides this game).
And that's it, I doubt there is something more besides isolating them from their local community and make them feel they are doing it in a wrong way.
It's funny that this exactly same pattern of behavior happen in my area too. There is always a suspicious account throwing links in sync with the destroy of blocks, and is always just coincidence...
Hi Neku,
regarding your questions I have used the bot on multiple occasions, but to no avail. There was this one time when a spoofer captured a portal inside a cement facility which has a church at 4am, that is only accessible to the public on august 8 for a religious ceremony. Sending all the info the spoofer was never banned.
regarding the use of my name and my wife’s, in my country this type of actions are not considered felony as it is in a game. I can’t file a report to the police. Hence the only one who can take action here is Niantic themselves regarding their guidelines. These spoofers aren’t playing to lvl up, or to gain MU, they aren't even the local community’s. They just play by themselves and like to bother other players and simply got personal with me. Hence again the only ones who can take action is niantic. If they can’t ban them for spoofing then what’s left for the players. That’s why as I mentioned your only left to play low profile or stop playing entirely.
Been through this sort of stuff and the best bet is to stay silent. Play the game, and don't let it be shown they are getting to you. Behind the scenes quietly, report, report, and keep reporting till you are well sick of reporting, then report some more.
They eventually stick. Use the TR bot only for difficult to access portals, general spoofing of urban portals won't help. I'm talking mountain tops, islands etc.
If you can strike up a decent rapport with a Vanguard, that can assist but is not a cure all, they are limited in many ways.
Always keep tickets to the bare minimum facts. IGN, suspected action, Time/Date in UTC format and a portal link. A single screenshot of the users profile WITHOUT pinging them on COMM.
The worst thing to do is to react on COMM, chats or even this forum. These people take delight in the reaction.
The other thing you can try is ignore portals taken by them. If they capture your fave portal, ignore it, let it decay, if they charge it, continue to ignore it. If they hitting your whole area, ignore that area. They eventually get bored.
On Niantic ticket system, yes there is a lot of room for improvement. Especially in the way tickets are handled.
I understand the issues Niantic have with multi accounting but there are a number of ways to address this to a limited degree.
"But going back to spoofers, not once have my reports been successful, it’s like niantic doesn’t care. "
Because someone (Niantic worker?) make thousands of dollar/month when they sell portal destroying services on ebay 🙄