So much for recruiting new players

I've been playing for a long long time (got my invite in Jan 2013).

I'm what I'd classify as a casual player. I play when I have nothing else to do.

I recruited a friend of mine recently, he was looking for an excuse to get some walking exercise.

Turns out, he got a bit obsessed and managed to fly through the first 7 levels in a matter of days.

Then he got banned for no apparent reason, and since he can't post an appeal here, he asked me to do it on his behalf.


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So my account got terminated the other day.

All I ever did was play the game on my phone didn’t cheat or use multiple accounts or any hacks.

Ban appeal was upheld.

In the interest of improving the anti cheat detection and start playing again ASAP I am more than happy to work with Niantic Support to close the loop on this false positive detection.

Is there anyway I can get a human to look at this. Happy to assist however required.

thanks in advance 1Weeksy1

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He did appeal the ban using all the "correct" channels, but the response was very quick and looked to be some sort of automated system.

Is there a way to get a human to look into this?

Comments

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    To me, red flags… New agent getting through those levels that quick, with no knowledge is a little suspect. Also mentioning no multiple accounts. I was still learning to play this game for the first year I played, let alone knowing anything about multiple accounts and being banned for them. Not that it seems to be a banable offense these days anyways.

    I hope it was a false positive, but throwing my caution to the wind anyways. If we had a new account pop up in our area and hit 7/8 in a week or two, we’d wonder if something was up…

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well it depends where OP friend lives, if its in a very dense city then even a new player playing for hours couple of days shouldnt have any issues hit lvl 7 atleast, nothing strange about that really. Not sure what happend here for the ban if it was all legit play.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Getting to 1.2M experience these days is nothing. Note that half of that gets you to level 7.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    Absolutely possible. I just said it was suspect, especially for a new player. We've had a ton of issues with multi-accounting and often times, we find out later it's an OG player.

    I'd be curious to hear more about this. Y'all can disagree with my suspicions (not accusations), but if there is more to this story, I wouldn't be surprised at all....

  • I helped him through the "tutorial" (which is terrible now btw...) Gave him a few suggestions on the quickest way to gain AP (deploy, field, don't bother trying to destroy anything) and pointed him to a few high-density areas with unclaimed portals.

    He went on holiday a few hours away, and when he got back he tried to play again and received the ban message

    The ban message, which I've seen, mentions some potential reasons, so thats why he pointed out all the things he didn't do.


    It's a bit sad how far this has gone. Niantic used to be super involved with the players.

  • NysyrNysyr ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    New account levelled up fast at dense portals then showing up hours away is generally associated with spoofing accounts.


    Did he go to a hiking portal on his vacation?


    I've seen the reddit post but you've said things not said there. Also he stated he was level 6 while you states he was level 7. He also stated 2 weeks while you're saying a few days.

  • Obviously he'd know the timelines better than I would.

    I'm just here as a proxy for him since he can't even login to comment with a suspended account. By all means, continue chatting directly with him on the reddit thread.

  • Semi-unrelated, but what specifically did you find terrible about it? I'm interested in what feedback players have on completing the tutorial, getting started, etc.

  • GorillaSapiensGorillaSapiens ✭✭✭✭✭

    It is trivial to get to L8 in a day of solid play. Getting to L7 "in a matter of days" is NOT evidence of cheating.

  • GorillaSapiensGorillaSapiens ✭✭✭✭✭

    Reset the tutorial and go through it again yourself. On a real phone, in the field. The deficiencies are glaring.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    Getting to level 8 in a single day for an agent who knows what they’re doing, yes. Someone who isn’t familiar, I would question. Again, I’m not accusing the banned agent of anything, but there are actions that raise flags here and we’ve seen these stories before, only to find out later there was actually more to the story than just, omg, I’m banned but I’m innocent…

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