A Series of Unfortunate Events

BlaumutBlaumut ✭✭✭✭

Greetings, Ingress community,

I mean you to explain a delicate and worrying case and look for different solutions, share opinions and experiences, if unfortunately you have had similar situations.

I will not provide agents names or places to keep this situation anonymous, just relate you the facts as happened.

During an OP an agent (agent X) was travelling by car and stopped in a small village to take down some portals. By chance, another agent (agent Y) from the rival team was there and approached to the car. When the window was lowered and the agent X greeted, the agent Y attacked physically, saying that he has a personal problem with him.

The attacked agent X didn´t understand what was going on. He get out the car and he tried to solve the situation and figure out what was happening, but the aggressor continued with the attack. The fight finished when a passerby separated the agents. This is when the agent X called the police in order to explain the situation and, after that, went to the hospital to be treated for his injuries.

On the other hand, the aggressor realized that these actions could have legal consequences, so he decided to make a counterclaim saying that he had been attacked. With the counterclaim, the aggressor report the agent X and this was banned from the system due to a violation of the ToS, without the possibility of an appeal.

Several appeals to explain the facts have been done to Niantic from the banned agent and friends, also attaching evidences that excuse the agent, including official documents, that exempts the guilty of the agent, being summoned only as harmed person and never as aggressor. Niantic never responded and closed the tickets without any reply.

6 months have passed since that, and we haven´t received any reply, and we do not have any other source to appeal and help the banned agent. Law is slow in Spain and the trial can be delayed for years.

I want you to share your experiences on similar situations, if unfortunately you know, and help us with your comments. I would request you to don’t reveal the factions or the agents names in case you know the facts, in order to keep the privacy of the agents. Only your opinion and help can guide us and make our best to fix the situation for this agent and others agents that are threatened unfairly and come back to the ingress community to enjoy the game.

Greetings and we are waiting for your experiences and opinions that will help.

Regards

Comments

  • edited January 2020
    1. Was there a police report filed?
    2. Was the report provided to Niantic?

    While this behavior is reprehensible, it is not the role of Niantic to serve as judge and jury. They will respond and react when shown that the claims had merit as investigated by an official legal judiciary. They were not there, they aren't taking witness statements, and it is not their responsibility to maintain the peace.

    If you are physically attacked by another Agent, report it to the police, and then send the signed police report onto Niantic. They may require the police to actually rule in the matter first, but if the police do, Niantic will respond accordingly.

    In Vegas we had an agent physically **** another Agent's car. After the police were involved, and the report passed onto Niantic, the Agent's account was banned.

    This is how it should be. Niantic is not a judicial entity in any respect.

    They will protect their game against spoofers, but when it comes to legal matters, they will follow the rulings of the local legal body. If Niantic only received the 'counter claim', then it's understandable that they acted in the way they did.

  • katracho37katracho37 ✭✭
    edited January 2020

    niantic sent me a Strike a while ago for violence and my question was always where he obtained evidence to give a Strike, for this type of accusations should have evidence, if not any agent can report being false is a NIA error in accusing without evidence

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    What criteria they use to ban this? Who report first is right?

  • What did the ban email say? It could be other reasons a ban happened and not as a result of this incident. I have seen many cases like that. So while this is a horrible oocurance, I do doubt that Niantic banned for the reasons suspected. I do hope things were further dealt to through proper local police and legal channels as violence is never the answer and should not be tolerated.

  • BlaumutBlaumut ✭✭✭✭

    It seems that Niantic admits any report attaching an official complaint and bans without any right of reply from the accused


    Niantic also doesn't check whether the complaint is legitimate or not.

  • BlaumutBlaumut ✭✭✭✭

    AFAIK, the agent has had no other major incidents that could be the cause of the ban. Only an email from Niantic after sending a message in the all chat that was considered offensive.

  • IknitionIknition ✭✭
    edited January 2020

    When you start playing and meet the community and its players, they explain who you need to avoid because of their anti-factional extremism, and examples of violent actions that they have had with other players. I've been in similar cases myself, but not to the point of physical aggression.

    Where I live, there are areas or portals that you can't use to play because it's property of a determinate agent and if you want to use that portal for example for an OP, this person comes out to look for you and chase you… and if he finds you, he yells at you in a bad way with some insults…

    Moreover, it has happened to us in some OP, that even warning that person (obviously from the same faction) and having the OK to use the portal/s or zone, has caused to us more work and generated problems with this agent too... Regarding this case, I find very worrying the obsession that some players have with this game, that precisely what it seeks is to socialize with the rest of the players and help them if necessary, regardless of the faction.

    The solution or rather management of these cases is that automatic treatment should be avoided and the option of not being able to appeal should be eliminated, since in this case, both parties have a complaint and in both cases it is certain that the aggressor and the injured party appear.

    The solution, easier for this player, would have been to create another account with a different name but it's not the recovery or not of the account but the whole life associated with it as for example: trips, banners, event medals, etc... And all the community knows you with this name (player name).

    Good luck to this player, as justice is unfortunately very very slow and I hope they give him a different solution than creating another account, because the account has been terminated without the option of appeal. And the account of the offending player has been ban because those attitudes aren’t welcome in any of the factions.

    Post edited by Iknition on
  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2020

    If no one supported this kind of behavior, situations like this would not get to happen.

    There are some signs prior to this kind of events that help preventing them.

    Also, I will never understand how Niantic can accept this kind of stuff as reason of ban. What do they know? What real evidences do they hold?

    All this mess is just wrong.

  • Un caso que conocí por otros en su momento y voy a exponer. Jugador x muy activo con otro jugador de la facción contraria en su mismo barrio. Ambos jugando cada uno por su lado con algún encuentro y cada vez más piqué entre ellos. Un día el asunto se caldeo tanto que jugador z al ver jugador x le estaba tirando portales decidió tomárselo como algo más personal que un juego y apareció detrás de jugador x empujandole al suelo dándole patadas a las piernas sabiendo que x había tenido una lesión reciente. Después de la agresión x tuvo que ser atendido por lesiones muy graves en las piernas y se puso una denuncia por el asunto. Actualmente ambos fueron baneados por niantic hasta que salga sentencia y jugador x tuvo que pasar por quirofano además de una rehabilitación.

  • The truth is that I'm surprised that Nia really did something. In my locality we have reported to a similar agent dozens of times. He has insulted, spit, physically assaulted other players .... some he has recognized driving on the highway outside the game at 120km / h and has performed dangerous maneuvers asking to cause a traffic accident and the last thing has been to physically destroy a portal with a saw ... and NIa only tells us to go to the police if we feel in danger, something we have already done.

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