What to do with multiaccounters and Niantic's inoperancy about it?
Last night when the portals synced a new couch portal showed up in Santiago, Chile. in less than 4 hours that portal was level 8 and 40 minutes passed from when it was captured to when it got JARVISed and became a fully farmable level 8 portal. We saw it happening in real time cause we've been seeing them doing it frequently. We also got screenshots of every account that got in that portal to upgrade it, the abuser used 8 accounts, they were secondary accounts and also borrowed ones 7 RES (K, P, S, M, b, J, D, their initials) and 1 ENL (L). We made lost of reports, for each one of the accounts. Today those reports closed all at the same time and NO ACTION WAS TAKEN.
All of those accounts being there at 22:30 in the night, with all of them having 0 activity in other portals around it make it very suspicious, they used accounts that haven't played in a long time. I mean, in the rare case that all 8 agents showed up there at that time, wouldn't at least ONE of them have activity around since they are actually playing in the area? They are clearly borrowing accounts to do this.
They can do this silently without punishment because there is no register of resonators upgrade at all.
Why isn't Niantic doing anything about this? Why is this abuse ignored and reports closed so fast without any action taken? These situations reassure the think that Lambert, Sofonisba, Louise, Tura and the others are simply bots that don't know how to recognize these abuses.
Here are some screenshots of their activity, note the hour on every screenshot and the initial letter of every agent in it, I tried to censor them but left the first letter to differentiate.
I've got many report numbers from all of us that reported if they are needed, although I doubt it since this forum is never taken seriously, yet here I am complaining.
What's your opinion about this?
@NianticVK would you please take a look at this?





Comments
At this point, you either tolerate it or you don't. I've become less tolerant of it and thus, have cancelled my CORE subscription and gone from playing an hour or two daily to maybe 30 minutes a week. It's clear that Niantic can't or won't do anything unless it's overt/blatant abuse. And even then, abuse continues in some cases. Hurts to "let them win" and see your normal area taken over, but with how expensive fuel is and frankly how valuable my time is, I'm done giving it to Niantic and blatant cheating.
Tbh I stopped playing regularly like 2 months ago, I barely open the game now but I'm still in the group chat from my area and yesterday I saw this and had to do something to help cause this is just too much, they are doing this with no shame at all and that really bothers me. There's 2 of those agents that have been banned in the past for spoofing and it's their 2nd or 3rd account. I canceled my CORE long ago because of these situations and the abandonment from Niantic, this is bullpoop.
There's a RES in Calgary that does this as well using 7-8 ENL accounts on his home couch
Only thing support bans for is COMMs, they don't really handling the spoofing bans thats all a separate team
Multi accounting is a thing and you can't stop it. I've seen it in person many times and nothing ever gets done. To this day it still happens in my area. Most people have given up on the game because of it. It's allowed and even encouraged in some areas. You either accept it or walk away from the game. With the price of gas and all the multi accounting it's become too much for most players. No point in wasting time and money to play against all of them. They will never be banned for it.
I just want to comment and say kudos for using "inoperancy" which is surely a five dollar word.
Also, multis have been around since day one and even device bans mean absolutely nothing. They cannot be stopped. Deal with it.
I've seen bans for multiaccounting in the past, twice. I guess I got lucky that time
It's harder to tolerate when the multi-accounting is cross-faction because one agent wants to build a field and doesn't like that his fellow agents would also like to play Ingress, so he trots out his opposite faction account and removes their stuff so he can get his field through.
Listen, Niantic doesn't care about cheating, the fact that android users can lock their location using stock options (GPS lock) and play the game whilst moving - says enough. Reports about the same are also just closed without further action.
I've considered getting a cheap android device so I could do the same, capture and link from a portal that is near a highway like others do, because the advantage is significant. If they don't just make the GPS lock impossible like it's on iPhone, what are they doing really?
They are just ignoring that fact and it's been brought op plenty of times without - as usual - even a reply. It's sad.
multiacc is just very hard to prove vs a couple with one phone each or one player 2 or 3 accounts.
Just as a point of note, "GPS lock" and "locking your location" are actually different terms. GPS lock refers to how many satellites you're locked onto with your phone. Your phone should always be GPS locked when playing, if you want an accurate location.
Semantics, in the community it’s referred to as GPS lock, and it’s actual cheating (falsifying your location) which is possible on stock phones. It’s ridiculous.
Look, I know it's frustrating, but the issue is, you need to prove it. All Niantic see is some accounts do some actions. Are any of the actions illegal? Was the timing between locations, beyond reasonable, doubt impossible? Is an account only ever deploying on 1 portal not allowed? Multiple accounts on a single device is legal, not every family can afford more than 1 phone.
This "lock gps" cheating tech has been mentioned in https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/15010/hk-you-may-be-kidding-allowing-many-times-jogging-two-points-in-1-2-mins-and-100kmh-speed#latest
Those spoofers even blatantly admit it in public COMM.
Yeah, ah well. (I even know of players that used it to gps lock so they could walk where there are no portals and scan during the event, that should be obvious that gps lock is used, and easy to detect…)
"Semantics" however have cause many people using GPS Lock apps to get accused of spoofing within the Ingress community. It might be standard in your community, but across the general use of Android phones, it's the opposite. GPS Lock is a good thing.
Locking your location is 100% cheating, I agree, but yelling at someone for having a GPS Toolbox app that locks them onto more satellites than the standard, or using the built in GPS lock settings, is not cheating.
Not sure what point you are trying to make in repeated comments discussing satellites. Nowadays "GPS Lock" in Ingress community 100% means the cheating mechanism of using two or multiple phones to quickly jump between different places of fixed location. This term is NOT ambiguous or "Good" and irrelevant to satellites.
Maybe for you but for those of us who have other uses for GPS signals besides Ingress, and for many of the Ingress communities you are not in, a GPS Lock is a good thing meaning you have an accurate location. Maybe you should join the rest of the world instead of demanding that everyone outside Ingress change to what one small segment of Ingress players thinks.
As you obviously did not review that article, here I put the link I mentioned previously involving "GPS Lock" cheating again for you. https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/15010/hk-you-may-be-kidding-allowing-many-times-jogging-two-points-in-1-2-mins-and-100kmh-speed#latest
Maybe you should do some reading that is really relevant to that reply, rather than vaguely doing Google or Quora or Reddit on "what is GPS Lock" to find some support. The term"GPS Lock" referred to by him is not "better way receiving signals" or "solving the location not accurate problem" as you see from google results. It's a way of cheating and discussed secretly but widely on a global scale. Period.
Yeah, spoofers and anti-spoofing reporters all know what "GPS lock" you mentioned here is. I suppose only those who have no latest experience of ongoing cheating or anti-cheating status would care about whether the term is accurate or not, more than its actual, underlying and unambiguous meaning.
I know what the difference is, but it's the ingress community in the netherlands that keeps calling it GPS lock (heck I didn't even know that was possible at first, because I don't use android...), and it's referred to as such here on the forums many times as well.
I guess it's a good thing to describe the difference, but on this forum, with the mention of cheating, everyone knows exactly what we mean.
"I called it this therefore it's what it's called" is not exactly 'evidence'. Regardless, we all agree that locking your location is cheating. Just don't accuse people using a GPS Lock app of cheating because you chose that naming.
which option you choose? multi accounts or spoofing?
I just ignore bad form from other players ... I got not enough time to play ingress to waste it on worrying about others multiaccounting.
I'm not a very good player. I just muck around and have my own fun.
Have seen one player seven accounts in my box.
Yes ive heard of this too, even if u see someone with multiple phones, how do u even prove that to niantic ? its very hard just by words.... thats the problem getting them banned even for niantic.
thanks ! it's fabulous ! i play on iphone and i'm currently 30 days ban for "i don't understand why" and you tell me a local spoofer with multi account can continue to cheat easily with android... Fabulous ingress. No regret to delete my account as soon as possible (because you can't delete when you're ban)
Exactly. It's called physical v. Logical (system) inventory. Every time a resonator, key etc. is played is a transaction.
There is a hole in the system that is a big problem. Bumping doesn't trigger a system transaction. If it did you'd force multis to vary when they play at a minimum.