Yup this is very bad for the game. I have basically given up on writing tickets now.
Before, we had great success in getting spoofers banned, now, it's a waste of time reporting. Tickets closed, spoofer not banned, (we waited in case delayed ban). Nope, no ban, it's now been months.
I would not care so much but these have been strategic, hard or expensive places to get to. (Like Antarctica for instance). We have had multiple islands spoofed. Even reporting your own factions spoofs don't result in bans.
We can not ask for portal reinstatement until the spoofer is banned.
Now nobody will travel to difficult places because why bother when someone in an armchair can **** it and not even be banned for it.
Something has changed with NIAOps. Before I could submit a ticket, good chance a ban would result. If not I could escalate it to TR. That got a ban 99% of the time.
Then, I found all my tickets were just closing, no action. I HAD to escalate to TR, (IDENTICAL information supplied) which again, was 99% ban.
Then, the TR program was closed.
Nail in the coffin, I asked regarding this in the last AMA. Question was ignored.
Just a note, the xfac reporting groups are great, but they are a bit cliquey, often with limited membership. (Which is a good thing).
I still think the best way is a working ticket system, with agents faction taken into account on the report. The xfac groups are best for respecting spoofed lines and communicating that a spoof has happened.
I +1000 the notion that if there is a problem with NIAOps reporting at the moment, TELL THE PLAYERS! If it's all been offline or something for the last couple of months and you didn't bother to let us know...
Easy solution... If you're less than Level 8, you can only deploy green mods, and your portal range will only be limited to 30km. Period. You additionally cannot attack portals with a flip card until L8, and your bursters and US will have zero effect on L8, 7, and 6 until you get to L8.
Or,
NIA can simply get rid of God-awful Remy and his gang, and put a live hunan in charge until the TR program gets activated. This interim period of no TR and an auto-close-happy bot is what's driving away players (and revenue) right now. NIA should have waited until the new TR program was unveiled to discontinue the old one, not make a bot fill in for an undefined interim.
Our cell is under constant attack from spoofers, high peak geodetic markers/firetowers of the Adirondack mountains. When you file multiple report and they close “immediately” grab the most recent case number and contact a vanguard. Their support team can review the case and reopen it, if it’s continual harassment they will get niantic to act on it. Sadly you may have to hike that mountain 2-3 times to catch it back, but once it becomes a pattern Niantic start to act quicker on the reports, and you can always ask for reinstatement too.
I think a lot of why niantic isn’t doing much is because they are building case files. Don’t just catch the little level3 account, let the evidence stack up and ban the the high level account that’s feeding/creating these spoofing accounts.
I’ve gotten 2 level 8 spoofers banned since prime, and maybe 6 below lvl 5 accounts banned using this method. And with this wave of bans, I’ve noticed some of the opposing faction have given up playing, other locals believe they purchased the spoof accounts with real money. And that loss of capital is enough to break them.
so don’t give up, keep trying trust that Niantic has their reasoning
Landlord company N offers a bunch of folk to stay at their barn for free. The barn has got a leaking roof, the door cannot be locked, the walls are unstable and the place is rat infested. But the barn is ‘home’ to a bunch of people and offers a welcome deflection from the dreary real world outside.
Now somebody decides to bring their most priced extra mature cheese or expensive parma ham into the barn and leave it on the improvised kitchen table over night. Then the rats, mice and magpies are coming out at night and take a good nibble. Can you really blame the landlord who just offered folk to stay in the barn for free? Under which obligation is the landlord to protect your priced cheese or ham?
Especially when the folk bringing in the expensive ham themselves may not be seen as the most ‘honest’ inhabitants by other folk staying in the barn .... then this all - despite being understandable - appears oddly unjustified.
Either folk should understand to only bring cheap cheese and ham to a rat infested barn at which they are staying for free.
Or maybe conversations should be held with the landlord to start paying a monthly rent to get the landlord to fix the roof, improve the walls, fit the door with a proper lock, kick out all the squatters not invited with the original crowd ... and hopefully have enough free dosh to get the proper pest control in as vermin control.
Our vanguard can help us with a difficult case. But the vanguards cannot work with every report. Now they often do the work of Nia, drawing their attention to the closed reports.
We write a report with photos, logs, proofs. Nia closes it without looking. How can they close a ticket where a spoofer flies 150 km in half an hour?
they introduced a 3 strike system now, so i guess they would let their system to detect insteand of having a person to follow up the suspected person for days for decide if its a spoofer or not, i supose they consider that a huge waste of time i guess because the person could be doing something more important insteand
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We’ve escalated these accounts to our review team for further investigation. Please keep in mind that we’re not able to comment on the outcome of this type of investigation.
Meanwhile, we’d like to provide some clarification on our review process:
Let us assure you that all cheat reports in Ingress are reviewed by our human team and appropriate action is taken after a thorough investigation into the report and prior activity of the reported player.
Based on the outcome of these investigations, we may decide to warn, temporarily suspend or permanently terminate these accounts.
Please note that with Ingress Prime, in some cases, the profile might still be accessible when you try to view it. However, that’s not an indication that no punishments have been applied.
We also monitor reported accounts to evaluate the impact of the punishments and may take future action if necessary. We also use this information to improve our anti-cheat systems.
Finally, we’d like to assure you that we are working on reinstating the Trusted Reporters program and more information on this will be shared soon in the Ingress Community’s News Section.
Hi @NianticCasey , regarding the following: Please note that with Ingress Prime, in some cases, the profile might still be accessible when you try to view it. However, that’s not an indication that no punishments have been applied.
For portal resets, one of the requirements is that the account must be banned. If the profile is still visible, however, we have no way of knowing if the account has been banned and thus if the portals it affected now qualify for reset. Portal resets are also time-sensitive. Is there any way for us to query these?
The perception this creates is also not great. If the profile is still visible, we all assume that Ops found nothing untoward on it and deems it legit, ie, free to continue playing. Specifically for accounts that spoof location, this is a huge issue, and degrades the player confidence in the Niantic support system. It also results in continued reports on the same account, which I would assume increases the workload on Ops as well to re-investigate these.
In addition to everything that @Azhreia said, I would add that the perception that you will escalate accounts if the players make some noise in the forum is also not great. Reporting suspicious activity becomes a meta-game of who you know, who can make the most noise, and so on.
Admittedly, you’re damned if you respond to posts in this way (cf. this comment), and you’re damned if you don’t (continued perception that Niantic does not care). The only real solution is to adjudicate the original reports in a transparently sensible manner.
For example, your assurances aside, no one demonstrated sufficient care concerning “conversation” #4713716: an account that leveled up in one corner of the world, traveled literally halfway across the world in under three hours, started to damage the game board, and then was allowed to continue damaging the game board even after being reported and the “conversation” closed [1].
This isn’t a case of, “I didn’t see anyone at the portal.” This isn’t a case of, “they beat Google Maps times by two minutes.” This isn’t a case of, “I suppose they could have walked/kayaked on water for a few minutes.” This is, “they traveled faster than the fastest (air breathing) aircraft ever flown [2].” Any faster, and they would have had to have been strapped to a rocket or be on the Space Shuttle during re-entry into the atmosphere. Are we seriously entertaining the possibility that real agents are traveling and playing Ingress like this?
[1] Why does the system call the reports “conversations,” anyway? There’s never any requests for clarification or feedback on whether a report provided useful information.
I still have my doubts. I've provided a fair amount of proof (and video proof!) about a spoofer and his multiple accounts in my area, but this human **** is still around (he powerleveled himself high enough so he could submit portals and do OPR). It's incredibly frustrating.
I still have my doubts. I've provided a fair amount of proof (and video proof!) about a spoofer and his multiple accounts in my area, but this chud is still around (he powerleveled himself high enough to submit portals and do OPR.)
Comments
Ksleon also spoofed very remote parts of Australia on October 9th. I really can't fathom why these accounts aren't being banned straight away.
Yup this is very bad for the game. I have basically given up on writing tickets now.
Before, we had great success in getting spoofers banned, now, it's a waste of time reporting. Tickets closed, spoofer not banned, (we waited in case delayed ban). Nope, no ban, it's now been months.
I would not care so much but these have been strategic, hard or expensive places to get to. (Like Antarctica for instance). We have had multiple islands spoofed. Even reporting your own factions spoofs don't result in bans.
We can not ask for portal reinstatement until the spoofer is banned.
Now nobody will travel to difficult places because why bother when someone in an armchair can **** it and not even be banned for it.
Something has changed with NIAOps. Before I could submit a ticket, good chance a ban would result. If not I could escalate it to TR. That got a ban 99% of the time.
Then, I found all my tickets were just closing, no action. I HAD to escalate to TR, (IDENTICAL information supplied) which again, was 99% ban.
Then, the TR program was closed.
Nail in the coffin, I asked regarding this in the last AMA. Question was ignored.
Just a note, the xfac reporting groups are great, but they are a bit cliquey, often with limited membership. (Which is a good thing).
I still think the best way is a working ticket system, with agents faction taken into account on the report. The xfac groups are best for respecting spoofed lines and communicating that a spoof has happened.
I +1000 the notion that if there is a problem with NIAOps reporting at the moment, TELL THE PLAYERS! If it's all been offline or something for the last couple of months and you didn't bother to let us know...
Thanks for this information, after prime only had one clear spoofer banned which was still an open case since redacted
Unfortunate no effect yet of Nia after spoofs in prime.
Easy solution... If you're less than Level 8, you can only deploy green mods, and your portal range will only be limited to 30km. Period. You additionally cannot attack portals with a flip card until L8, and your bursters and US will have zero effect on L8, 7, and 6 until you get to L8.
Or,
NIA can simply get rid of God-awful Remy and his gang, and put a live hunan in charge until the TR program gets activated. This interim period of no TR and an auto-close-happy bot is what's driving away players (and revenue) right now. NIA should have waited until the new TR program was unveiled to discontinue the old one, not make a bot fill in for an undefined interim.
To assist with the spoofing issue;
Our cell is under constant attack from spoofers, high peak geodetic markers/firetowers of the Adirondack mountains. When you file multiple report and they close “immediately” grab the most recent case number and contact a vanguard. Their support team can review the case and reopen it, if it’s continual harassment they will get niantic to act on it. Sadly you may have to hike that mountain 2-3 times to catch it back, but once it becomes a pattern Niantic start to act quicker on the reports, and you can always ask for reinstatement too.
I think a lot of why niantic isn’t doing much is because they are building case files. Don’t just catch the little level3 account, let the evidence stack up and ban the the high level account that’s feeding/creating these spoofing accounts.
I’ve gotten 2 level 8 spoofers banned since prime, and maybe 6 below lvl 5 accounts banned using this method. And with this wave of bans, I’ve noticed some of the opposing faction have given up playing, other locals believe they purchased the spoof accounts with real money. And that loss of capital is enough to break them.
so don’t give up, keep trying trust that Niantic has their reasoning
There are Niantic employees that spoof, you really think they give a **** about making the game fair for legitimate players? 🤣
Landlord company N offers a bunch of folk to stay at their barn for free. The barn has got a leaking roof, the door cannot be locked, the walls are unstable and the place is rat infested. But the barn is ‘home’ to a bunch of people and offers a welcome deflection from the dreary real world outside.
Now somebody decides to bring their most priced extra mature cheese or expensive parma ham into the barn and leave it on the improvised kitchen table over night. Then the rats, mice and magpies are coming out at night and take a good nibble. Can you really blame the landlord who just offered folk to stay in the barn for free? Under which obligation is the landlord to protect your priced cheese or ham?
Especially when the folk bringing in the expensive ham themselves may not be seen as the most ‘honest’ inhabitants by other folk staying in the barn .... then this all - despite being understandable - appears oddly unjustified.
Either folk should understand to only bring cheap cheese and ham to a rat infested barn at which they are staying for free.
Or maybe conversations should be held with the landlord to start paying a monthly rent to get the landlord to fix the roof, improve the walls, fit the door with a proper lock, kick out all the squatters not invited with the original crowd ... and hopefully have enough free dosh to get the proper pest control in as vermin control.
Our vanguard can help us with a difficult case. But the vanguards cannot work with every report. Now they often do the work of Nia, drawing their attention to the closed reports.
We write a report with photos, logs, proofs. Nia closes it without looking. How can they close a ticket where a spoofer flies 150 km in half an hour?
I really believe in automatic ticket processing.
@RedSoloCup @NianticBrian where are you?
Whut? We have a support team that can reopen tickets? Did I miss a memo somewhere?
new tickets are usual the way to go unfortunate.
Spoofing is the new ingress, as they can't properly secure the api for spoof injection...
Just sit back, adapt, or enjoy the spoofer salad... nobody at niantic gives a ****
they introduced a 3 strike system now, so i guess they would let their system to detect insteand of having a person to follow up the suspected person for days for decide if its a spoofer or not, i supose they consider that a huge waste of time i guess because the person could be doing something more important insteand
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We’ve escalated these accounts to our review team for further investigation. Please keep in mind that we’re not able to comment on the outcome of this type of investigation.
Meanwhile, we’d like to provide some clarification on our review process:
Finally, we’d like to assure you that we are working on reinstating the Trusted Reporters program and more information on this will be shared soon in the Ingress Community’s News Section.
Thank you for reacting, would love to see these last two spoofers of these four finally banned.
Do you have any suggestion for new cases? for sure they will come!
Hi @NianticCasey , regarding the following:
Please note that with Ingress Prime, in some cases, the profile might still be accessible when you try to view it. However, that’s not an indication that no punishments have been applied.
For portal resets, one of the requirements is that the account must be banned. If the profile is still visible, however, we have no way of knowing if the account has been banned and thus if the portals it affected now qualify for reset. Portal resets are also time-sensitive. Is there any way for us to query these?
The perception this creates is also not great. If the profile is still visible, we all assume that Ops found nothing untoward on it and deems it legit, ie, free to continue playing. Specifically for accounts that spoof location, this is a huge issue, and degrades the player confidence in the Niantic support system. It also results in continued reports on the same account, which I would assume increases the workload on Ops as well to re-investigate these.
@NianticCasey
With multiple agents all over the world reporting same spoof accounts should be enough proof to act on.
For both account which are still visible we have had.
UK, Brasil, Norway, Sweden etc
And UK, australia, asia reports in forum comments already.
These will not show all the other spoof activities we didnt notice or where agents gave up reporting (because of spoofs).
At least one of the spoofaction need serious restores and other spoof we restore ourselfs with a trip towards a hard to reach place.
Hi.
You might want to take the time to also investigate how blatant cases like these managed to end up like this.
In addition to everything that @Azhreia said, I would add that the perception that you will escalate accounts if the players make some noise in the forum is also not great. Reporting suspicious activity becomes a meta-game of who you know, who can make the most noise, and so on.
Admittedly, you’re damned if you respond to posts in this way (cf. this comment), and you’re damned if you don’t (continued perception that Niantic does not care). The only real solution is to adjudicate the original reports in a transparently sensible manner.
For example, your assurances aside, no one demonstrated sufficient care concerning “conversation” #4713716: an account that leveled up in one corner of the world, traveled literally halfway across the world in under three hours, started to damage the game board, and then was allowed to continue damaging the game board even after being reported and the “conversation” closed [1].
This isn’t a case of, “I didn’t see anyone at the portal.” This isn’t a case of, “they beat Google Maps times by two minutes.” This isn’t a case of, “I suppose they could have walked/kayaked on water for a few minutes.” This is, “they traveled faster than the fastest (air breathing) aircraft ever flown [2].” Any faster, and they would have had to have been strapped to a rocket or be on the Space Shuttle during re-entry into the atmosphere. Are we seriously entertaining the possibility that real agents are traveling and playing Ingress like this?
[1] Why does the system call the reports “conversations,” anyway? There’s never any requests for clarification or feedback on whether a report provided useful information.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_airspeed_record
Isn’t this basically how a closed ticket reads?
So let me conclude a conclusion: don’t waste your time on helpless helpshift support bot, write to forum directly 😑
I still have my doubts. I've provided a fair amount of proof (and video proof!) about a spoofer and his multiple accounts in my area, but this human **** is still around (he powerleveled himself high enough so he could submit portals and do OPR). It's incredibly frustrating.
I still have my doubts. I've provided a fair amount of proof (and video proof!) about a spoofer and his multiple accounts in my area, but this chud is still around (he powerleveled himself high enough to submit portals and do OPR.)