Erroneous automatic ban of players

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  • One of our local known multi accounts disappeared, which is good. A new one has already shown up in its place, though. Several spoofer accounts in the area are still active. Repeated reports have done nothing for those yet. If I can only pick one, I'd rather have the spoofers get banned than our opponents' backpack accounts.

    Unfortunately, two of our local players who are pretty much retired got caught up in this wave, too. One of them probably hasn't signed in since a 2018 anomaly.

    I hope Niantic is killing off a ton of actual backpacks with these ban waves. If their algorithm thinks that anybody who doesn't play but has items in their inventory is a backpack, there's going to be a lot of false positives. Most of the ones I've heard about were almost certainly holding some gear they got from other people, but as far as I can tell, it's not against ToS for people who don't play much to hold onto gear from people who do. (If it is, put it in the damn ToS!) I know I certainly wouldn't bother to clean out my inventory if I stopped playing. Every once in a while, people will pop up and ask if anybody wants some gear that they put in quantums when they stopped playing a year ago. I think the reason there aren't more complaints from those people is that since they don't really play anymore, they don't care that much. I imagine that Niantic feels it's a worthwhile tradeoff. What I'm not sure about is whether they know how much banning legit accounts that don't really play anymore still irritates those of us who do play. It's doubly obnoxious when Niantic continues to insist that they're infallible, and their ban appeal "reviews" appear to be *check ban wave list* "Yep, they're on it. Denied."

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    Holding gear shouldnt get u banned if u got it legit from hacks, since niantic can track every item u have every capsule have unique serial numbers they can see if they switch accs etc....

  • ArtilectZedArtilectZed ✭✭✭✭✭

    Because it's likely a form letter they copy and paste in, and they haven't taken the time to make one that's lighter in tone. Don't take it personally.

  • grendelwulfgrendelwulf ✭✭✭✭✭

    My gut feeling is that is has to do with backpacks and mules. Maybe if a certain large percentage of items you use were hacked or held by a different account that has no other activity it trips that account as being a mule.

  • jsylvisjsylvis ✭✭✭✭

    I have the same gut feeling (inactivity being a common trend, after all). I'm not as convinced about specifics regarding items - given the players and my own relative activity, that would mean myself and a few other Des Moines agents should have expected bans, as we've all swapped and held onto varying levels of VR gear in prep for anomalies.

  • Interestingly enough, mine was not unbanned thus far, just the copy-pasta response on the appeal I shared earlier a couple days ago. Or at least I never got an email about it. Don't care enough to load it onto my phone again to check, it's not been on my phone for well over a year anyway.

  • jsylvisjsylvis ✭✭✭✭

    One of ours is unbanned; still waiting on the other.

    Sorry to hear you've left Ingress, but honestly... given all this, I get it.

  • Honestly, this had absolutely zero to do with it, I've been out for about a year and a half. Our local group kind of got bored, there wasn't much going on (small town) and it was just down to the exact same green guys and exact same blue guys holding the exact same portals, and any change was restored to status quo within about twelve hours. When our local group kinda drifted off, the wife and I did too. That's why I was so surprised when I got the ban email, I hadn't even had it on my device or logged in for pretty near two years as I looked at it. Sans local players I'm not going to be playing again anyway, it was fun while it lasted, but I'm mostly just curious now. Probably never actually get an answer, but curiosity is still there.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    We’ve recently taken action on accounts that have violated our TOS based on ongoing internal investigations aimed at promoting fair gameplay. An update will be shared in the next few days on the impact of the actions. In the meantime, if you believe your account has been terminated in error, you can submit an appeal via the Ingress Help Center:  https://niantic.helpshift.com/a/ingress/?s=your-ingress-account&f=submit-a-ban-appeal

  • DSktrDSktr ✭✭✭✭

    In any case try to appeal a ban,for me i was blocked i dont remember approximately year ago and sent two appeals,first gives automated answer second can wait even half of year. NB i was blocked without email notifications and "account terminated" screen,and my account was visible and pingable. And i regained access without email too.

    So,try to appeal,false positives and tech problems are very rare but they can be fixed. Good luck,Agents!

  • The game log runs for two and a half years, so that's their limit on behavior. If it was related to gear you hold though, you're still holding the gear, and presumably the two and a half year limit still applies to whoever hacked the gear originally.

  • That could very well be possible, our group shared a lot of gear, and they brought us a lot back from events over in the Seattle area, since with as few of us as we have in town, it's basically impossible to build a level-8 portal to hack up good gear from. Could be that some of that gear was tainted somehow? Not sure. That could explain why an account as long-inactive as mine got banned out of the blue. Odd that I never got a warning, a "hey, this gear is hacked, we're taking it away" or something like that.

  • Well, they've repeated that they'll say something... So we'll have to wait and see if they do.

  • Thanks for going above and beyond to help your fellow agents. Were their Sojourner streaks preserved?

  • jsylvisjsylvis ✭✭✭✭

    On that one, I have no idea, but I doubt it. I will ask.

  • jsylvisjsylvis ✭✭✭✭

    2BDCy4D: I stopped at 1000 and never paid attention again.

    alarsisu: Not sure where I stopped but was definitely done with that

  • I appreciate your asking 2BDCy4D and alarsisu on my behalf.

    From what I've read Niantic never bothers to notify players when a ban is lifted nor offer compensation in lieu of an apology. Losing a streak upwards of 1,000 because of an erroneous ban would be infuriating.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    I will always wonder what was the target of this ban wave: I've been asking around and spoofer activity is pretty much unnafected.

    What are we suposed to learn from this??

  • lol. friend of mine got banned. submitted appeal and got response that his account was not found :)

  • Neku69Neku69 ✭✭✭✭

    Would you mind to elaborate a bit more? Because the person I'm helping has the same issue.

  • what is that to elaborate. he filled his game name to field for in game name, email to 2nd field. both were matching name andemail from termination mail. well, he might made typo in IGN, so I watched for submitted 2nd time, and will wait for response on 2nd appeal.

  • Neku69Neku69 ✭✭✭✭


    I thought it was a typo at first, but then she told me that she wrote everything correct. I don't know what's the treatment with putative banned accounts.

  • so my friend told me that his ticket was closed again. @NianticBrian can you help him ? I have no idea how you cannot find information about his account if he enters information from ban notification email.

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