Mistake about a ban

[Darth Panoptès [AG_FR]]

Hello,


I had the misfortune to have been punished in the place of a cheater of the guild of which I was the GM 5 years ago already and I cannot communicate with an employee of EA or Bioware.


All their services are managed by call centers which cannot do anything by telephone, refer me from service to service and only send me standard emails in copy and paste.





The last email I sent them is this:



Greetings,

I am contacting you again under the advice of @EAhelp on Twitter after explaining my problem to a human.

The community doesn't understand what happened, and neither do I.

The most likely being that the cheater, by putting the money in the guild bank has tricked your software which has mistaken the guild owner for the culprit.

It seems like this is a bug that you have had on a recurring basis.

I repeat what happened:

One of my guild members used a bug exploit to buy a chair and sell it for a higher price many times to earn IG credit.
This one put this money in the guild bank of which I was the GM.

After several other members told me to beware, and after seeing the official post on the swtor site, I blocked this money and items bought with it in the guild bank pending the bioware investigation.

Against all odds, I got banned for exploit bug.

I pre-ordered the collector's box in 2010, never got any warnings related to cheating, exploit bug or anything like that. No worries for almost 5 years.
I do not understand this decision which can only be a mistake.
I do not understand why I am not provided with the evidence that would accuse me as I am entitled to.

By refusing a real investigation, by refusing to provide me with proof of what is held against me, swtor, bioware and others are violating their own regulations and US law.


I ask you once again, to correct this error or to refund the sum that bioware / ea made me lose by this error:
- 120euros (collector's box)
- + 720euros (5 years subscription at 12th / month
- + 100euros of cartel crates
+ 40 euros (extension of the advent of the cartel of huts)

This gives us 980 euros confiscated by mistake, not to mention the moral prejudice of being wrongly accused of cheating, and hundreds of hours of game lost.

I am the object of incomprehensible discrimination which prevents me from accessing a free access game.
My account is completely blocked and the swtor site is preventing me from creating a new account.

I never would have believed that companies like Bioware or EA would be able to treat people like that; to ban or delete accounts by mistake, without proof, without investigation and without possibility of appeal ...

For an appeal to be possible there would have to be a human being doing a real, evidence-based investigation and not an employee responsible for copying and pasting standard end-of-inadmissibility emails.

If you wish I can provide you with witnesses present at this time who will assure you that I am telling the truth and all this is a huge mistake.

All I ask, once again, is a real investigation, the debarment of my account or, failing that, the evidence against me as is my right under the rules of swtor, bioware, ea and the law American.


Thank you for your attention,

May the force be with you,

swtor ID: helleyes



Do either of you have a solution for me, does anyone know of a way to speak with a real support member?

You can find and support me on Twitter and YouTube with Darth_panoptes name or on Ea Forum at this adress :

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/mistake-about-a-ban/m-p/10849038/highlight/false#M80790

[darth_melek]

4 years ago there were many cases where people got automatically banned by a flawed system that failed to detect the actual reason for the error or the true exploiter. Many lost their accounts to this and this needs to be remedied.

[phazonfreak]

The only other option I see would be to contact JackieKo who is the current community manager on the official forum and to write her a private message. The community manager can help to get attention in certain cases. Since you will not be able to do that, because you need to be a sub to do so, you could ask one of your friends to do it.

Unfortunately for you, when you created the account on their website and started the game for the first time, you have accepted their EULA both times giving them every right to ban or delete your account without providing you with any reason for it and without compensating you for the amount of money that you have spent on it over the years.

I am not talking about your specific case, which really sucks as you describe it here, but all software companies with user accounts have the same stipulations in their EULAs stating that they remain the rightful owner of the account. They do that specifically because they want to prevent users to demand monetary compensation when their account is gone and it is protected by civil law in pretty much all the countries where this game is being sold.

[darth_melek]

Origineel geplaatst door phazonfreak:

The only other option I see would be to contact JackieKo who is the current community manager on the official forum and to write her a private message. The community manager can help to get attention in certain cases. Since you will not be able to do that, because you need to be a sub to do so, you could ask one of your friends to do it.

Unfortunately for you, when you created the account on their website and started the game for the first time, you have accepted their EULA both times giving them every right to ban or delete your account without providing you with any reason for it and without compensating you for the amount of money that you have spent on it over the years.

I am not talking about your specific case, which really sucks as you describe it here, but all software companies with user accounts have the same stipulations in their EULAs stating that they remain the rightful owner of the account. They do that specifically because they want to prevent users to demand monetary compensation when their account is gone and it is protected by civil law in pretty much all the countries where this game is being sold.

While they don't have to provide a reason in some cases, they did provide one to him which he proved many times to be false so they are obligated in this case to properly investigate it after being faced with proper evidence. They are obligated to remedy the mistake if they are proven wrong which they had. As you said he's protected by civil laws and once the product which he bought was taken away under illegitamate accusations they are to give him the product back and even compensate him by law.

[phazonfreak]

Origineel geplaatst door DFS darth_melek:

While they don't have to provide a reason in some cases, they did provide one to him which he proved many times to be false so they are obligated in this case to properly investigate it after being faced with proper evidence. They are obligated to remedy the mistake if they are proven wrong which they had. As you said he's protected by civil laws and once the product which he bought was taken away under illegitamate accusations they are to give him the product back and even compensate him by law.

Then good luck trying to find a lawyer who would be willing to argue that case in court for you. Just to give you a small hint about what some lawyers might think about it:

https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-a-lawyer-help-someone-get-unbanned-from-a-onli-1600725.html

Can a lawyer help someone get unbanned from a online game?

Lets say someone spends hundreds of dollars on a game they like to play, and they get permanent banned. They ask for the ban reason, and the reason is 'hacking/cheating' but they can not provide any technical evidence that they've done that before but still would not unban them. Without them providing 100% evidence that they've broke those rules, a lawyer can get their game account unbanned - correct, or at-least a refund of all the money they've spent?

Probably not. The terms of service of the site probably gives it quite a lot of freedom. As far as all of the money the person has spent, the person would have had the benefit of the account for however long he was allowed to use it prior to being banned. So there would be no basis for a refund for that time period. If there was a time the person paid and was not allowed to use the account, that may or may not be refundable. It would depend on the terms of service. It would cost a lot for a lawyer to get involved in this kind of a fight, even if one was willing to do so and thought you had a chance at winning.

[darth_melek]

That is true but if he gathers sufficient evidence, proof that they replaced the automated system ir fixed it because of many familiar cases and also that people were unbanned in similar scenarios of more recent then yes he should contact a lawyer with his findings and maybe one will agree.

But first let’s see if he gets help or not from the staff for once.

[Dr. Atrocious]

Their support can't even solve simple matters like purchased subscriptions from Steam not activating in-game.

Wish you the best of luck.

[Xautos]

Origineel geplaatst door phazonfreak:

Origineel geplaatst door DFS darth_melek:

While they don't have to provide a reason in some cases, they did provide one to him which he proved many times to be false so they are obligated in this case to properly investigate it after being faced with proper evidence. They are obligated to remedy the mistake if they are proven wrong which they had. As you said he's protected by civil laws and once the product which he bought was taken away under illegitamate accusations they are to give him the product back and even compensate him by law.

Then good luck trying to find a lawyer who would be willing to argue that case in court for you. Just to give you a small hint about what some lawyers might think about it:

https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-a-lawyer-help-someone-get-unbanned-from-a-onli-1600725.html

Can a lawyer help someone get unbanned from a online game?

Lets say someone spends hundreds of dollars on a game they like to play, and they get permanent banned. They ask for the ban reason, and the reason is 'hacking/cheating' but they can not provide any technical evidence that they've done that before but still would not unban them. Without them providing 100% evidence that they've broke those rules, a lawyer can get their game account unbanned - correct, or at-least a refund of all the money they've spent?

Probably not. The terms of service of the site probably gives it quite a lot of freedom. As far as all of the money the person has spent, the person would have had the benefit of the account for however long he was allowed to use it prior to being banned. So there would be no basis for a refund for that time period. If there was a time the person paid and was not allowed to use the account, that may or may not be refundable. It would depend on the terms of service. It would cost a lot for a lawyer to get involved in this kind of a fight, even if one was willing to do so and thought you had a chance at winning.

Far too many conditional words underlined to the point that whoever wrote it clearly doesn't know what they are writing about.

[MANSATANIC]

you have any proof that this said guild member was the culprit?

[Creature Feature]

Assuming that your recounting of the ordeal is 100% accurate, you have my sympathies. If you have the patience, and the drive, and the stamina, willpower and endurance, and most of all - the money - to fight, then fight. If ya fail, you'll know you did everything you could. Good luck, and may the Force be at your disposal!

[phazonfreak]

Origineel geplaatst door Xautos:

Origineel geplaatst door phazonfreak:

Then good luck trying to find a lawyer who would be willing to argue that case in court for you. Just to give you a small hint about what some lawyers might think about it:

https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-a-lawyer-help-someone-get-unbanned-from-a-onli-1600725.html

Can a lawyer help someone get unbanned from a online game?

Lets say someone spends hundreds of dollars on a game they like to play, and they get permanent banned. They ask for the ban reason, and the reason is 'hacking/cheating' but they can not provide any technical evidence that they've done that before but still would not unban them. Without them providing 100% evidence that they've broke those rules, a lawyer can get their game account unbanned - correct, or at-least a refund of all the money they've spent?

Probably not. The terms of service of the site probably gives it quite a lot of freedom. As far as all of the money the person has spent, the person would have had the benefit of the account for however long he was allowed to use it prior to being banned. So there would be no basis for a refund for that time period. If there was a time the person paid and was not allowed to use the account, that may or may not be refundable. It would depend on the terms of service. It would cost a lot for a lawyer to get involved in this kind of a fight, even if one was willing to do so and thought you had a chance at winning.

Far too many conditional words underlined to the point that whoever wrote it clearly doesn't know what they are writing about.

Well, if you clicked that link you would have seen that a lawyer wrote it. And I can totally understand that she cannot and will not give concrete legal advice for free and without reading up on the terms of service first and not knowing every detail of the case.

I would still trust a certified lawyer trying to inform people in her spare time rather than any random forum user without a law degree who thinks that he knows exactly what his rights are.

[Your Mom's Favorite]

In the US, the BAR will not permit lawyers to officially guarantee results. Seeing as the legal process has humans involved and decision making from those humans that isn't always cut and dry, Lawyers will use conditional terms.

IE "They can probably plead down your speeding ticket with the prosecutor. etcetera."

Avvo has real lawyers replying to forum posts with general answers and is another means to contact a lawyer to retain....

Either way, I wish you luck with the process.

[Darth Panoptès [AG_FR]]

Origineel geplaatst door phazonfreak:

The only other option I see would be to contact JackieKo who is the current community manager on the official forum and to write her a private message. The community manager can help to get attention in certain cases. Since you will not be able to do that, because you need to be a sub to do so, you could ask one of your friends to do it.

[...]

I am not talking about your specific case, which really sucks as you describe it here, but all software companies with user accounts have the same stipulations in their EULAs stating that they remain the rightful owner of the account. They do that specifically because they want to prevent users to demand monetary compensation when their account is gone and it is protected by civil law in pretty much all the countries where this game is being sold.

Thanks for the advice about JackieKo, yes indeed I would have to get his attention but I no longer have access to the forum by being banned.
Is it possible for one of you to make a topic on the forum by putting a link to this discussion or to my topic on the official EA website?


Regarding the settlement, they were very specific accusing me:

Thank you for contacting us regarding the Sanction that has been applied to your account. The sanction on your account pertains to the following violation:

This account participated in excessive purchasing and selling of various stackable items. By doing so, this account was able to acquire credits, commendations, and other various items in a manner violating our Terms of Service and the related Rules of Conduct, specifically:

you may not engage in any of the following behaviour:

Exploit any bug in the Service to gain unfair advantage in the game and/or communicate the existence of any such bug (either directly or through the public posting) to any other user of the Service.”

Which is perfectly impossible, given that I did not buy a single chair. This is what shows me that their cheat detection software made a mistake by tagging me as cheater instead of the real one.

Moreover, given the specificity of the accusation and, thank God, given that we all live in a democracy, it is the accuser who bears the burden of proof.

I can provide several testimonials from guild members present at the time of the incident (they have already started sending me emails).

I really hope I can get my account back and put an end to this injustice; being able to come back into play and bring together a new community, that's really all I'm asking for.

[phazonfreak]

Origineel geplaatst door Darth Panoptès Inquisitor:

Regarding the settlement, they were very specific accusing me

[...]

Which is perfectly impossible, given that I did not buy a single chair. This is what shows me that their cheat detection software made a mistake by tagging me as cheater instead of the real one.

Moreover, given the specificity of the accusation and, thank God, given that we all live in a democracy, it is the accuser who bears the burden of proof.

I can provide several testimonials from guild members present at the time of the incident (they have already started sending me emails).

I really hope I can get my account back and put an end to this injustice; being able to come back into play and bring together a new community, that's really all I'm asking for.

First of all, I strongly advice you to delete the direct quote from BioWare to you that you posted in a public forum. You are already acting in a gray area by posting about any actions taken against your account in the first place, which is against the Terms of Service on the official forum, and you will only escalate the situation in an unfavourable direction by doing it here on Steam.

Apart from that, I actually read through the Terms of Service out of personal interest, which has been posted here[www.swtor.com]. In my layman non-lawyer view there is nothing you can do except to appeal the ban through official support channels, which you already did and which has been denied. There is no stipulation written in that article that they have to provide any proof for the reason behind the ban. They also exclude any monetary compensation and refunds in the case of account termination.

Article 16 in the ToS states:

BioWare may terminate any TOR Service at any time by giving you notice of such termination within the time period specified when you joined the particular TOR Service, or if no time period for notice of termination was specified, then within thirty (30) days of the date such notice is posted on the applicable TOR Service.

BioWare may also terminate your Account(s) (and access to all related entitlements) for violation of this Terms of Service, breaking the Rules of Conduct, illegal or improper use of your Account, or illegal or improper use of TOR Services, products, BioWare's or LucasArts Intellectual Property. BioWare may issue you a warning, or BioWare may immediately terminate any and all Accounts that you have established. You acknowledge that BioWare is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Account(s), but it may choose to do so. If BioWare terminates your Account, you may not participate in a TOR Service again without BioWare's express permission. If you wish to participate in a TOR Service, please contact http://www.swtor.com/support. BioWare reserves the right to refuse to keep Accounts for, and provide TOR Services to, any individual.

If your Account, or a particular subscription for an TOR Service associated with your Account, is terminated, no refund will be granted; no online time or other credits (e.g., points in an online game) will be credited to you or converted to cash or other form of reimbursement, and you will have no further access to your Account or entitlements associated with your Account or the particular TOR Service (such as points, tokens or other digital items).


They really dotted their i's and crossed their t's here.

[darth_melek]

I would get that if someone does an act that harms the monitary gain of the developer they wouldn't deserve access or their money back. If you were caught stealing in a store after buying there then yes you wouldn't get a refund and you would also be banned from said store.

But in this case someone else stole from the store and the security cams caught the real purpetrator while the security guard made the mistake of blaming someone who just happened to be there so to speak.

All of this in my opinion is kind of a grey area, and while the tos states some things very clearly, it also a bit questionable in here because this guy got banned for something he didn't and they directly accussed him of it.

And while they can ban you whenever they want and for whatever reason it also doesn't actually mean that they can actually ban you for whatever reason they want like a personal employee agenda, political reasons and if so for employee mistakes as well.

I work in a company at the customer support section. Many cases like these happen from time to time but when we're proven wrong and we cause monitary damage to a customer we have to reprimend them for our mistake because they're our customer and the paid for our service.

So imagine if you paid for the subscription service, suddenly got accused of something you didn't and it was the employee's mistake not yours and your financies got hurt then yes they should fix their mistake after realizing it. They have the records and they can look into those records. Every company keeps said records.

So to continiously ignore him after hurting his financies and after he paid for the service is something that they shouldn't do and in this case I see their TOS statement as something that might not be valid.

[Darth Panoptès [AG_FR]]

Origineel geplaatst door phazonfreak:

First of all, I strongly advice you to delete the direct quote from BioWare to you that you posted in a public forum. You are already acting in a gray area by posting about any actions taken against your account in the first place, which is against the Terms of Service on the official forum, and you will only escalate the situation in an unfavourable direction by doing it here on Steam.

Thank you for worrying about me but given that I have been unfairly banned from a game that I have paid dearly for 5 years, I am not sure what would scare me.
It's good that as many people as possible know how Bioware and EA treat their customers, how their mistakes don't make them sad for a poor stranger like you and me.

I do not see why I should delete the standard responses that these gentlemen have been sending me for 5 years without doing their job, I have not signed any confidentiality contract that would prevent me from making public an illegal and unfair action on their part against me.
In addition, the emails do not contain any personal information (address, name etc etc) and only serve me to prove the inism of this firm and the total lack of concideration towards its customers, which does not violate the Steam rules,

Likewise, I don't come here to say that I find it hard to have been life banned for cheating;
I come here to try to explain that there was a mistake and that I did not cheat.

Like u said, you can find in their Terms of Service :

Origineel geplaatst door phazonfreak:

Article 16 in the ToS states:

BioWare may also terminate your Account(s) (and access to all related entitlements) for violation of this Terms of Service, breaking the Rules of Conduct, illegal or improper use of your Account, or illegal or improper use of TOR Services, products, BioWare's or LucasArts Intellectual Property. BioWare may issue you a warning, or BioWare may immediately terminate any and all Accounts that you have established. You acknowledge that BioWare is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Account(s), but it may choose to do so. If BioWare terminates your Account, you may not participate in a TOR Service again without BioWare's express permission. If you wish to participate in a TOR Service, please contact http://www.swtor.com/support. BioWare reserves the right to refuse to keep Accounts for, and provide TOR Services to, any individual.

As anyone can see in the mail, they do specify that I was banned for bug exploit.
But the problem is, I didn't have bug exploit!

So the cause of my ban is well and truly unjustified.

I had the chance to study law and I would add that from a legal point of view, a contract signed between an individual and an individual or between a legal company and an individual must comply with the law or else it is considered null.
Therefore, given that a person who purchases a service has the right to enjoy it as long as his behavior does not cause damage to the company which provides it, the said company cannot, without being liable to prosecution, restrict access to services without a legitimate reason. Any contract stipulating the contrary is void.
What seems logical, it is not because a company makes you sign a clause saying that henceforth you are their slave for life that you must obey.

This is what we call in law the hierarchy of norms:

The hierarchy of norms is a hierarchical classification of all the norms that make up the legal system of a State governed by the rule of law in order to guarantee their consistency and rigor. It is based on the principle that a norm must respect that of the higher level and implement it by detailing it.

If you an example, we have the Constitution,
-> all laws must conform to the constitution
-> any contract must comply with the law
etc., etc


The French Civil Code, on which bioward depends for its customers residing in France, defines property in article 544 as:

The right to enjoy and dispose of
things in the most absolute manner, provided that no use is made of them prohibited by the
law or regulations

So if I buy a service from a company, that company legally cannot kick me out for no reason or without refund !
it would be like going to the barber shop, buying him a service.
He is not allowed to shave half of your face and then tell you to go away.
You haven't done anything that forces him to make you leave his establishment.
So, either he finished shaving you, or you can assert your rights, not only to be reimbursed but to seek compensation for the damage.



But anyway, I didn't want to go into these details here because what matters to me is that the error is recognized and that my account is returned to me.

I think I have proven my good faith while for 5 years I have been trying to contact Bioware and EA by explaining to them again and again that there was an error in their software in private.

I now appeal for your support in the hope that exposing their contempt in public to their isolated customers will cause someone to ask their tech department to do a real check.