Veteran Ingress Agent banned for no reason
Dear Niantic
How many times have I read the stories of desperate agents who have been banned for no reason. Now it hit me on June 12, 2019.
After reading your e-mail, that my account was terminated, I was shocked because I always played fair and did not violate the TOS.
Why don't you call the reason that led to the ban?
After the chat with the support bot, I received the following response on June 13, 2019:
"Hello Agent,
We have escalated your profile for a thorough review again. We want to get back to you with a decision in due time.
Thanks for your patience.
Regards, "
That's two weeks ago and since then I have not heard from you.
You can't do that! Lock a longtime player without stating reasons!
My husband is also playing Ingress and is stunned as you treat me.
I really do not understand your decision. The ban must be a big mistake.
We have organized our entire summer vacation to Ingress: 3000 km by motorhome across Europe to various NL-1331 locations and the Anomaly to Kauna, Lithuania.
I'm sad, angry and disappointed with how you deal with longtime, decent players! You just threw me out of the game and I do not even know why!
I played Ingress for more than five years.
I recursed in November 2018 and wanted to reach Level 15 last weekend.
Me and my family spent thousands of Euro for traveling to 14 Anomalies (buying swag and very rare packs) and several Mission Days, NL- or FS-Events in Europe.
Over the years I have earned about 120 millions of AP, collected about 73 badges, including 14 Anomaly badges and Kaltenberg Castle.
I could not even take a screenshot. ;(
PLEASE UNBAN ME!
If you do not unlock me, I will not start over!
But I would like to get my money back, put into unused CMU.
Regards,
Agent Blyde (Dübendorf, Switzerland)
Comments
Even without knowledge about truth or untruth of this agents story, wouldn't it be fair to
A) answer the agents support tickets
B) give a (general) reason that justifies the ban without revealing technical details how it was determined?
+1
+1
I think you fully deserve answer from NIA, players like you are fuel for entire communities, lots of stories, help to newbies, heart of the game. I hope NIA will see your post and good luck!
I wonder how Niantic comes to the decision to ban accounts. For what it's worth, I'm sorry this happened to you.
Good luck getting any information from Niantic. They're terrified of giving people a bit of data on these things.
+1 come on @nia give this agent a answer
stories like this make me worry. some people have too much invested personally to risk cheating. Could it be the phone? item sharing? tethering?
It makes me question wanting to spend any time playing the game at all. Niantic's system thinks you did something? Bam, you're done, and good luck getting anything from them about what you might have done. It's an immediate black hole.
Hey NIA,
Does that 'due time' really mean 14days and counting, or is this merely a way to say 'stop asking'? Please be true to your word, as I am sure that this throughout check will show that this ban is wrong.
@Blyde You have my support. For whatever reasons, NIA should not ignore the accumulated APs and the Anomaly badges. They represent the time, effort, and money invested into this game. Especially the Anomaly badges, as they cannot be spoofed. One needs to travel across cities and continents to achieve it. Good luck.
Weird... something in the anti-cheat system must have triggered something and flagged the account.. The phone u play is not rooted or anything? if suspicious play between agents maybe something detected and flagged as cheat or illegal play i dont know?
This indeed worrying. While I don't want to see Ingress become elitist, where it's one set of rules for casual/lower level players and different rules for the old school, I do think that a player of such long standing is entitled to an explanation and a chance to defend themselves against the accusations. Instantly banning spoofer burner accounts is one thing but no warning bans of committed, long term players is another.
Niantic need to weigh in on this, even if it's just to say that the ban has been reviewed by an actual human and the are completely satisfied that the right decision has been made.
This definitely worries everyone. Like how safe is all your investments? Time and money...
This really sucks. I hope he gets unbanned!
It feels like adding a few extra support services employees would be a massive improvement to the game (and company image.)
Im so sorry this happened to you, My friends account has been banned as well on June 18/2019, he used to Play in the states and was visiting AU for a while and few days in sydney when he tried to log in to prime he had the "Access Denied" popping up on his account. We raised a support request and at least you got a response. He is still waiting for his reply, He's only on level 10 (relatively new player ) but it sucks, the plans we had to ingress around Sydney and Melbourne went to waste.
The support team need to be clear on their emails and response as well, The last support request i sent clearly outlined the problem and said that i followed all the faq and self help on the support page, but they kept on referring me to the support article.
I hope you get your account back, and enjoy your trip.
Just got my account banned too, 6/28/19. I power leveled to 10 back in March and I’ve literally only used it to submit portals. I did play overseas when I first started playing and moved to the US soon after but that was 3+ months ago. The only thing I’ve done lately is change cell providers but that shouldn’t affect anything. I leveled up mainly by glyph hacking, hardly even touched other portals and now I’m banned. I played legitimately, didn’t spoof or use 3rd party tools. I spent hundreds of dollars in gas to get to level 10 and all I’ve done in the past 3 months is submit portals.
There does seem to be a lot of banning/terminations going on. I was just terminated yesterday and am appealing it now. Good luck
I wonder if it has anything to do with the new 25 km range on portal submissions. Is the cheating algorithm picking up on this as GPS spoofing? That’s the only thing I’ve done lately that could trigger my account termination.
My account was terminated because trade (or sell, or somthing like that). I get this information from someone. But i dont sell, or trade nothing from my account. I was just walk around the country and create portals. Looks like mass-report => ban. No need a reasson.
Politics of hidden investigation without following presumption of innocence rule - that is NIA unfortunately...
Unfortunately, I'm afraid of investing time and money and having the account closed due to some error of detection of the game, this is frustrating, I think of even giving up playing so as not to get frustrated anymore. I hope the NIA looks at this topic and check for some bug in cheating tool, so as not to affect legitimate players. Everything indicates by the reports of some conflict. Ps: google translate
Lamentável esses relatos, estou com medo de investir tempo e dinherio e ter a conta encerrada por algum erro de deteccao do jogo, isso é frustante, penso em ate desistir de jogar para não se frustar mais.
Espero que a NIA veja esse topico e verifique se a algum bug na ferramenta de trapaça, para não afetar os jogadores legitimos.
Tudo indica pelos relatos de algum conflito.
Ps: google tradutor
The review staff needs to chill out a bit. People invest a lot of time and money into this game. No matter what, everyone deserves at least one chance.
NIA has to react immediately. The current support situation is not acceptable. Having to wait weeks/month for a feedback (if any) on an issue is not worth to be called Support.
To treat legit players having spend a lot of money like this is not fair.
It would be good if someone from NIA could comment on this terrible situation.
Regards haenz
Hi folks,
Please keep in mind that we're not able to accept ban appeals or discuss anything related to bans on this channel. @Blyde, please make sure that you've submitted a ticket to Niantic Support through the Help Center and someone from my team will evaluate. Thanks!
Hello @NianticCasey
Thanks a lot for your reply.
I've submitted a ticket to Niantic Support throught the Help Center on 13th of June 2019 (Conversation-ID #2517473) and I would be glad if one of your team could evaluate it.
The next events are coming up and I would like to participate with my family.
Regards,
Agent Blyde
I'm surprised someone who was banned can still write in the community forum
My ticket still hasn’t been answered, and now my best friend that plays with me just got banned as well. What in the world is going on here? We have never cheated or done anything to trigger this.
Agent Hujijolp