Random banhammers everywhere!

LukidusLukidus ✭✭
edited August 2019 in General

Okay this is serious, How the in the hell can so many banhammers suddenly happen out of nowhere. The entire area I work in got random emails, and most of us are unable to play anymore. It seems that some got it, some did not. I was literally helping someone out to create a farming portal for the guy, and 2 hours later I too got the email. This morning its started, and it still keeps raging on.

We're all wondering what's going on. Its not even faction based, everyone is affected and no one knows why. Is this one big database glitch or what's going on here!? Does this mean that all of our accounts are gone forever, and its not even our own fault?

My in game name was Lukidus. Me and the rest play in the area of Twente, that being Almelo and other towns in the Netherlands.

Tagged:
«1345

Comments

  • To be fair Luki, one of the possible reasons you could have been banned is for the amount of devices you have used in the past, but that the whole faction is banned is weird, must be a Database logging issue, OR someone in your local community is hacking and sharing their items alot.

    I am personally not banned, my region is not banned, (As far as i know, altho will still ask my local community)

    Wish ya luck with getting unbanned, since i dont know if ingress saves user items if they are banned, they must do a whole system rollback then possibly


    greets...

  • Same here. @Lukidus are you on iPhone? There’s at least three of us in my community that have iPhones and got the same ban email.

  • @TheGreenTardis Nope, using Android right now for at least a year. I do switch devices a lot because they break all the time. Can't deny that. But still, it's very odd having all this so sudden.

  • Ive checked around my comunity, and no one in my comunity is banned, seems more local?

    Can i get more detail on it LukI?

  • @TGCFabian1 Unsure, so far it really seems to be concentrated on Twente. We've had Resistance and Englightenent banned for unknown reason. Around 5 of us enlightenent. The other post here on the forums is another one from here. I'm more wondering if someone's doing this, or if its a system fault. No one really knows for sure.

  • @Lukidus hmm, if its a report that wouldnt go into a group easily, unless you are cheating as a group, i know you dont spoof, so that cant be the issue, the more likely reason i would think of is that someone has been cheating in items, spreading them, and has been reported, since items are traceable(i hope they added that atleast) it may have selected a few of your local community, there shouldnt be any reason that your user should be banned if you have NO CONNECTION to any spoof clients at all, GPS spoofing you dont do, since you love going outside, so that cant be it, it makes me think its or a Database **** up, OR a connection with a hacker in the community, can you check for me how many Twente players have been banned, per team? that way we can get stats and compare it to other places, In my city there are no people banned, ive asked my community, also asked a few other people i know, and are also not banned, so it doenst seem to be a mass ban, must be your connections possibly?

  • Ive made a comment @Lukidus, waiting for it to be approved...

  • welp, its taking a while to post, ill reformat it then

    A group report shouldnt affect users so fast, and not across the world...

    Your not doing anything illegal as far as i know/remember, since you love going outside

    only thing i can think of is a cheater in your community, but that wouldnt result in a big ban, only personal ban.

    Possibly database **** up, Local community of mine has no bans, nor people i know from other countries, seems to be local to Twente,

    Suggestion, Wait for Ingress support

  • TGCFabian1TGCFabian1 ✭✭
    edited August 2019

    Ive been trying to make messages for the past few mins, but they keep blocking them, hope they wake up and approve my stuff

    maybe the word spoofing triggers it?

    Nope, didnt trigger, they just dont like me huh, oh well time to save comment line by line xD

    It cant be a group report since it would need alot of evidence...

    Unless your whole community spoofs, then Maybe, but unlikely

    A cheater sharing items, would only be personally banned..

    You dont spoof, since you love walking, so thats not a reason

    Nor phones, they shouldnt be a reason...

    Maybe a Data Base Error, very unlikely...

    Could you give me an amount of usernames or numbers of how many people are banned from which faction, and then total amount ish around your area,

    Lets dig it out, other wise, we'll have to wait for ingress helpers,



    (This took me like 30 mins to write, because the word DATA BASE!?!?!?! is blocked,

  • There is constantly more word about it happening to all kinds of players, not just locally. I'll try to use that support chatbot, see if that helps with anything. Regardless, whatever the source is, pretty sure we all want to know for sure. :P

  • indeed

  • I was also banned.

    Never spoofed, never shared accounts, hell I was such a casual player I opened the app once a week or less. Unless someone somehow got my account info (I'd have gotten notified due to multi-factor authentication) then I'm not sure how I was flagged.

    I appealed the ban on their site and they replied within a few hours saying they decided to uphold the ban.

    Super frustrating.

    Ryvenkael

  • LukidusLukidus ✭✭
    edited August 2019

    The comment from the other banning post by @sonicrx also made me realise something. Niantic said they would move to the new warning based system. But its seems all affected players have gotten the other warning. One mail, and you're out. Then, how would the systems at Ingress ban agents with the old system, rather the new one? It just raises more questions as to why, how in the world it would 'override' to do such a thing?!

    I mean, @RyvenKael, @MadHatterSmurf, @danothemanho, @PapaCruzer and @janmhl1962. Excuse me for mentioning all of you, but did you guys/gals also just get the straight up ban-in-your-face mail, not a warning? Because this is not how it's supposed to go, yet it did.

  • I just got a email saying i was ban no warning what so ever there was another local frog ban but he appeal it and is playing again i just put in a second appeal

  • StranditStrandit ✭✭✭

    I gotta guess that the new system hasn't gone live yet. On July 22nd they said "To that end, we would like to inform you about an upcoming policy change that will be going live in the coming weeks." Coming weeks is a broad term; we're around two weeks after that post so OK, it's not on yet.

    I would have thought it might have been smart to turn it on before introducing a new banning system or making whatever change we're seeing today, but who knows?

  • XK150XK150 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Instant bans don't prove Niantic is using "the old system." They reserved the right to go straight to bans for egregious cases.

  • sonicrxsonicrx ✭✭
    edited August 2019

    I had two friends banned today that were not legit bans. One hasn't played in a couple months and was a rather casual player. I watched her level up her account years ago with the same iPhone she still has today (not jailbroken).

    The other played in the Helsinki anomaly with me, so maybe the travel did it? But I was there too and very happy to not be banned today thank goodness. I'm wondering if there wasn't a mass banhammer that was a little too broad...maybe new indicator rules or something. Both appealed with no response. I hope it gets fixed, or I don't know that I'll have confidence to keep devoting time when I could get banned for no reason out of the blue. I've seen it happen here and there over the years, but never to the extent of yesterday.

  • A local user in the SF Bay Area was banned for no discernible reason: @masterturts - she is not tech savvy so she couldn’t cheat if she wanted to. Its possible she uses an iPad as well as her iPhone, but not likely. She is fairly casual but well connected with the ENRes community moderators as well as myself, an SFR moderator. Understandably she is confused and livid.

    Niantic would do well to fix this, an issue a genuine mea culpa. This is almost certainly their fault.

  • EBRes sorry.

  • I was banned last night as well as a few others in my area. I appealed, they judged I didn't warrant a deletion a day later, and yet I still can't log on🤷 I'm about to say f### it.

  • Hi

    An agent take ticket and nia respond:

    "Agent, After a thorough review, we have concluded that your account has violated the Ingress Terms of Service"

    Sojourner was down .

  • LukidusLukidus ✭✭
    edited August 2019

    Well, NIA support simply stated that the bans are final and permanent. If Niantic doesnt do anything about this, that's seriously messed up. Sorry everyone, I dont think there is much hope left. :(

  • Think they are killing the game on purpose? So they can get people to invest in PoGo and Wizards? I'm worried, because some real nice guys were banned. This could damage several local community's and both factions are involved.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    something is not right.. so many bans right now and many didnt do anything to deserve it ? i dont get it

  • @kenbeimer Who knows. If it's a track to get Redacted agrents to Prime that would make sense, in a way. But Prime players are affected too so then what? This cant possibly just be all set up for some kind of reason by Niantic themselves. Right?

    And @mortuus, no one does. Yet. We're all curious why no one is getting at least some kind of message as to WHY the ban happened to whoever. That's why its so confusing, there is no real concrete reason or solution as to why this happened, and still is happening.

  • Niantic - you need to fix this, and soon.

  • If they are doing this on purpose. they are better off just pulling all the servers down, instead of banning the users, they are ruining their freaking fanbase, yes i never really played anymore, but still, i was a fan of it, with all this, i may quit completely...

  • KatthKatth ✭✭✭
  • 2 casual agents here were banned yesterday; one enl, one res (totally separate individuals!!). We're in Alberta, Canada and wondering about a rumoured "aggressive algorithm" that targets low active accounts, suspecting they're backback accounts??

    I guess the sad thing is that there has been a lot of distrust inherent in this game... people might not trust me when I say the people who were banned were legit... so we leave it up to Niantic to sort it out, but we all know Niantic can make mistakes. Feeling kinda helpless here!

  • How many people here who got banned, have used their account on another Ingress player's phone? Or used multiple Ingress accounts on their phone? (other legitimate players borrowing etc)

Sign In or Register to comment.