Banned for talking with fleetmates about spam mail.

notoryczny · May 2013

I understand that Cryptic has to eradicate that ec-selling guys, but the means they utilize are... excessive. Few minutes ago I was talking with fleetmate who returned after long time away form game. He complained about receiving tons of spam mail. I wanted to ask him what spam was it, and typed in most popular's spam company name. About one second later I was "forcibly disconnected" and my account banned.

I mean, WHAT THE HELL?

Its ridiculous, I can't even log in to support page.

EDIT: Its 24 hours since I submitted a ticket. So far, no response of any kind. Moreover, my browser got stuck in redirect loop when trying to check my tickets, so the only way for Cryptic/PWE to contact me is to send message to the email associated with game account.

EDIT 2: 48 hours without response.

EDIT 3: 72 hours.

EDIT 4: 4 days.

EDIT 5: A bit over 96 hours, still no response of any kind, but my account has been reinstated. I'm not chat-muted too.

pwebranflakes · May 2013

notoryczny wrote: »

I understand that Cryptic has to eradicate that ec-selling guys, but the means they utilize are... excessive. Few minutes ago I was talking with fleetmate who returned after long time away form game. He complained about receiving tons of spam mail. I wanted to ask him what spam was it, and typed in most popular's spam company name. About one second later I was "forcibly disconnected" and my account banned.

I mean, WHAT THE HELL?

Its ridiculous, I can't even log in to support page.

Please email in directly for support on this: customerservice@perfectworld.com

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

mancom · May 2013

So if you don't like someone, you could just trick them into writing that web address and they get their account banned? What kind of madness is this?

And why is the answer only a "mail support and hope for the best" and not a "This is really disturbing news, our engineers are going to investigate immediately and ensure that no legitimate player loses their account."?

coryb77 · May 2013

Reasons like this are why I simply try my best to avoid ever using the draconian game chat system in cryptic games.

kordee · May 2013

its just sick.

notoryczny · May 2013

mancom wrote: »

So if you don't like someone, you could just trick them into writing that web address and they get their account banned?

Basically yes. And tricking anyone into that is not even difficult. Just ask them what flavor of spam they got recently. If they answer calling it by name, they are auto-banned.

tangolight · May 2013

I just saw a post in the forums a few days ago to from people complaining about the gold selling spam and someone was asking why Cryptic doesn't do something about it, and that the "simple" solution would just be to ban anyone who writes the address of such as site. You get what you ask for I guess?

voyagerfan9751 · May 2013

mancom wrote: »

And why is the answer only a "mail support and hope for the best" and not a "This is really disturbing news, our engineers are going to investigate immediately and ensure that no legitimate player loses their account."?

Probably because the engineers have nothing to do with it. This isn't a problem of faulty hardware, or server stability, it is enforcement of the rules.'

Whether that enforcement is warranted or not, is a good question. But it is a question for the GMs/account support, not the engineers. Which is why emailing support is the best option.

notoryczny · May 2013

tangolight wrote: »

I just saw a post in the forums a few days ago to from people complaining about the gold selling spam and someone was asking why Cryptic doesn't do something about it, and that the "simple" solution would just be to ban anyone who writes the address of such as site. You get what you ask for I guess?

Problem is, its not the site address. Its a simple five letter word, and it auto-bans anyone who typed it. It gets even more ridiculous, cause any spammer can bypass that "security measure" by writing something like "come to x.x.x.x.x, just without those dots".

toiva · May 2013

Well, I'm glad I know about this.

Better just not using chat, I guess. :rolleyes:

leviathan99 · May 2013

notoryczny wrote: »

Problem is, its not the site address. Its a simple five letter word, and it auto-bans anyone who typed it. It gets even more ridiculous, cause any spammer can bypass that "security measure" by writing something like "come to x.x.x.x.x, just without those dots".

I must not visit my e-mail spam filter enough. Are we talking the name of the company that Dan Stahl worked for almost two years ago?

notoryczny · May 2013

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

I must not visit my e-mail spam filter enough. Are we talking the name of the company that Dan Stahl worked for almost two years ago?

No. Unless there is yet another insta-ban thingy hovering out there.

heero139 · May 2013

Lesson learned by gold spammers: rename their company "hello".

Yeah, I know that wouldn't really help them, but it'd be funny XD

notoryczny · May 2013

heero139 wrote: »

Lesson learned by gold spammers: rename their company "hello".

Yeah, I know that wouldn't really help them, but it'd be funny XD

Its not even remotely funny in it's current state. I wonder how many people got insta-banned because they mentioned that scam in chat.

camaroguy819 · May 2013

they got me too I was referred here from my post.

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=699281

ive submitted tickets, emailed and even called the non-advertised phone number u find in google. but going on 30 hours no response. I just made it to level 9 on my romulan too! please guys do something!

imadoctornota · May 2013

notoryczny wrote: »

Basically yes. And tricking anyone into that is not even difficult. Just ask them what flavor of spam they got recently. If they answer calling it by name, they are auto-banned.

If that's the case, I'm assuming I don't even need to report those messages as spam since they're apparently getting banned as soon as they send me the message?

drasketo · May 2013

They automatically ban people for saying a word? They dont even "flag for review by an actual human before literally destroying someones account for what in all probability was completely harmless" ? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

threat21 · May 2013

drasketo wrote: »

They automatically ban people for saying a word? They dont even "flag for review by an actual human before literally destroying someones account for what in all probability was completely harmless" ? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

well ya know why not? cryptic lets the players police ingame chat so you can just make a macro file that goes /ignore_spam <@name> /unignore <@atname> on enough alt accounts and keep someone perma muted 24/7... so why not make a computer insta ban you for using 1 word?

notoryczny · May 2013

drasketo wrote: »

They automatically ban people for saying a word? They dont even "flag for review by an actual human before literally destroying someones account for what in all probability was completely harmless" ? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

But this is how it works. I typed the keyword once, asking my fleetmate if that was the flavor of spam his mailbox was clogged with. My question did not show up in chat box, but given how the chat system hiccups sometimes, it was nothing unusual. No warning of any kind popped up. I used up-arrow to repeat the message, it didn't show up in chat box either, and one second later I was banned. At its current state its like a bomb killing off random people, it does nothing to stop spammers since they will create yet another sock puppet account a couple minutes later and just re-word their "advertisements". Its even worse, since its childlishly easy to trick someone into triggering it.

Cryptic, consider that: fleet members get spammed, so they ask officer/leader about it. Officer gets banned trying to explain the whole thing is a scam. Or gets banned trying to send fleet mail warning about the scam. Is this a viable security measure?

d1dooley1 · May 2013

same thing happened to me - banned for mentioning the spam mail. Opened a ticket about it. 48 hours plus now and ticket is still open

bevrast · May 2013

I have not gotten spam mails for about a year now. So I don't know which 5 letter word this is. A google search showes at least 3 sites on the first result page with five letters as the name... I must admit, I wouldn't write them by mistake...

irwin109 · May 2013

This just happened to me, was trying to explain to someone why I think they're banned, using a certain 'sites name, got banned. I've put a ticket in about it, but should I e-mail directly too?

EDIT: I have also put an e-mail in, quoting the ticket reference, it's pretty annoying considering I have no interest in using these types of 'sites despite their generous offers and constant mail bombardment, if I'd have known they were now like Voldermort and shall not be named I wouldn't have mentioned it.

EDIT #2: Has anyone actually been un-banned yet? I'm not really happy reading that some people have gone 2 days without response from Cryptic about it, I never saw any warning that this would happen and again I wouldn't use these 'sites, even to the point where I've reported them as spam and submitted tickets about them, trying to explain to someone who may have been stupid enough to use them gets me banned?! Bit annoying really.

EDIT #3: Also I didn't recieve a ban reason/length e-mail but I did recieve one to acknowledge my ticket submission.

mikiiy · May 2013

Automatic chat censoring like that has no place in a game, just a matter of time until some creative trolls figure out how make use of that.. i predict this feature to be tweaked in notime.. as soon as hundrets of such support tickets hit them, they will realize how much full of fail that idea was.

irwin109 · May 2013

mikiiy wrote: »

Automatic chat censoring like that has no place in a game, just a matter of time until some creative trolls figure out how make use of that.. i predict this feature to be tweaked in notime.. as soon as hundrets of such support tickets hit them, they will realize how much full of fail that idea was.

Well after looking through the forums a bit it turns out the person I'm on about had some prior knowledge about this, guess who's getting an ignore when/if I get back in game.

notoryczny · May 2013

mikiiy wrote: »

just a matter of time until some creative trolls figure out how make use of that..

You mean, like, guy running around on ESD and asking in zone chat "whats that ec-selling company name is?"

irwin109 · May 2013

notoryczny wrote: »

You mean, like, guy running around on ESD and asking in zone chat "whats that ec-selling company name is?"

Or the guy that fooled me into typing it in the second time "still banned and got no response yet" "it's probably because of that website you used" "what website I used?" [Typed 'site name and nothing showed in chat] "I tried typing it but it didn't show up in chat" "maybe it's a bug, try typing it again", yeah should've seen it coming, and I just found out that he had posted in another post of the same nature yesterday noting that he got banned after using the word... Uncool, very uncool.

EDIT: Still wondering if anyone has actually received a response or reactivation yet.

irwin109 · May 2013

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

This is the most ridiculous and outragous type of censorship I've ever heard of in a game. People pay good money to play this game and then get banned with no warnings, no reviews, nothing, simply for trying to advise newcomers to STO that these companies should be avoided.

I run SRS and I now have my XO banned with no sign of being reinstated anytime soon.

Branflakes, please get back to us with an update to this as soon as possible, this is getting serious, and as the knowledge of this spreads it's only a matter of time before the trolls go into zone chat and trick hundreds into typing the name twice. That's hundreds, potentially thousands of players unable to play the game and therefore spend money because of this massive and astonishing fail.

Please respond urgently and let us all know what is happening.

Thanks

Matt Johnson
SRS Fleets
FLTCDR

Thanks for the support Matt, I'm hoping this gets resolved soon, as I've said I have no interest in using these cash to EC 'sites, it's detrimental to the survival of such a wonderful game, one that I support as much as I can, I'd just like even a 'we're looking into it' update on my support tickets, it says there's meant to be an email sent that tells you the reason and length of ban unless it is 'unique', I'm guessing this is classed as the latter as I've had no such email but even a length of ban while I argue my case would be preferred, at least then I could let the fleet mates know that unless my appeal passes I'll be back on such and such a date... Or even let them know that it's being investigated... At the moment I feel like I'm in a black hole, not knowing if I'll ever get out, or if anyone even knows I'm in here!

mrspam404 · May 2013

Blaaa nevermind.

pwebranflakes · May 2013

Hi Captains,

I will pass along your feedback, but this system is currently in place and working the way it should. If you see anyone trying to trick others, please report them to a GM immediately so an investigation take place and appropriate action taken.

To note: Players are given a detailed warning stating what they did wrong, and to not do it again, before being banned -- continuing to do it past the warning will cause the ban. The warning is there for a reason

If you have a friend of fleet-mate that would like to appeal the ban, please have them reach out to our GM team via the methods listed here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=267893

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

irwin109 · May 2013

pwebranflakes wrote: »

Hi Captains,

I will pass along your feedback, but this system is currently in place and working the way it should. If you see anyone trying to trick others, please report them to a GM immediately so an investigation take place and appropriate action taken.

To note: Players are given a detailed warning stating what they did wrong, and to not do it again, before being banned -- continuing to do it past the warning will cause the ban. The warning is there for a reason

If you have a friend of fleet-mate that would like to appeal the ban, please have them reach out to our GM team via the methods listed here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=267893

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

Where is this detailed warning meant to show up as I saw nothing.

smokeybacon90 · May 2013

How to destroy an MMO's playerbase, part 1.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen... people WILL take advantage of this to the point where single tickets or GM reports wont help.

Banned for talking with fleetmates about spam mail.

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