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Account Falsely Banned (Resolved)
xgnxlentgamer02
Member Posts: 78 Arc User
My account was wrongly banned and I'm not sure why. I believe it happened some time within the last couple of weeks. I got no notice of any ban via EMail or Arc's platform. It might have something to do with getting a refund through Steam. I had purchased $50 of Zen through Steam during the Winter promotion and I never got my bonus, so I contacted both Arc and Steam. I had opened a ticket around the 22nd of December and Arc and Steam had told me that I'd get my $50 back. I got my money back, and paid the $50 that I got back through Arc so I could get my bonus. After I had refunded this purchase from Star Trek Online, I ended up having the original amount of currency from this purchase PLUS the amount I paid for to receive the promotion through their platform. I ended up having the equivalent of $113 of in game currency on STO even though I only spent $50. About a week went by and the extra currency in my account didn't get updated to reflect the amount I spent, so I started spending the currency. I assumed this was intended since the Zen wasn't taken away. I'm also fairly certain that I made sure not to go over my $50+bonus limit, so there should still be the equivalent of $50 Zen in my account. I assume it has something to do with the in game currency being detected as fraudulent. I was told by Arc Games to contact Steam about it and so I'm currently in the process of doing so. I'm really panicking about this because STO is one of my longest games played and I've had my new account since 2015. I'm a gold subscriber and I've spend hundreds of dollars on STO because I enjoy it and I feel like it's worth supporting. I'm scared that my account will be entirely deleted and I'll have to start all over again. Is my account safe and I'm just locked out or is it actually gone?
EDIT: Account is unbanned. Situation all good.
EDIT: Account is unbanned. Situation all good.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Nono I'm not gonna start over. I'm trying to avoid that. I'm asking that if I do get unbanned, will I have to restart from the very beginning and lose all of the stuff I spent hundreds of dollars on?
The bad news is, my money is on you being permanently banned and your account being gone. From what I understand, you spent $50, requested a refund, received the refund, used it to buy more zen, then refunded the $50. So you paid for no Zen, and you received $100 worth and spent $50.. is that right? Because if so, I am sorry but that is considered fraud. Now, I am not saying you are a bad person or willingly did anything bad.. I am sure that’s not the case but from Cryptic’s perspective you basically just stole zen.
It’s an issue you have to take up with support, but from what I have always understood from others through the years, refunding Zen through your bank always results in a permanent and non reversible ban of the account. I hope you have better luck, maybe I am just misunderstanding you. Either way, I am sure your intent was genuine and I hope you are able to come back but I honestly don’t like your chances.
Good luck to you.
Not the same thing, that person was refunded and then banned by support. They reversed it after a huge reddit thread and an article on Massively pointing out that the user was banned for doing nothing wrong.
This issue sounds different, the person was granted a refund, re-spent the money, then reversed the charge and used the Zen. Though again, it’s possible I am not understanding the OP correctly.
The other user was the victim of lazy and incompetent support and it as fixed after it got enough attention to make them uncomfortable. This doesn’t sound like the same thing, but hopefully it’s more similar then what I understand. The OP should post on Reddit though, it’s far more likely to get attention there. Tagging Kael rarely does anything, he very rarely replies to anything posted here.
This is not true. I didn't refund both $50 purchases. What I said, very specifically, was that I had spent $50 through Steam, didn't receive my promotional Zen, refunded it, and then paid my $50 back through Arc and didn't have a problem since. I also said in my original post that I had already contacted support and am in the process of sorting through this. In my original tickets when I had asked for a refund, I had told them to take the Zen back and just give me my $50+promotional Zen. A week went by and they didn't take it so I assumed they just let me keep it. Next thing I know I'm banned with 0 notice. How is it my fault that they didn't take the Zen out of my account?
If the end result was you spent $50 and used $50 worth of Zen then yes indeed.. I absolutely think you have a case and hope that Support will reverse your ban.
Apologies for any misunderstanding, I didn’t really understand all of your initial post. If all you did was use what you paid for, I would absolutely think your ban is a mistake.
Yeah, both Steam and Arc agreed with my refund request which is why I'm confused on why I'm banned. I paid my $50 through Arc rather than Steam after the initial refund and got my promotional bonus. I had then noticed that they didn't remove the Zen from my original $50 promotion. As I said, 1 week later and it didn't get taken away so I decided to start spending my Zen. I tried to make sure to leave $50 worth of Zen in my account if they eventually decided to take it away. Turns out I got banned instead. I'm really scared that they're going to delete my account and I'll lose my 6 years worth of progress.
My advise is to insist with STO's Support, at least to have a reason as to why you've been banned.
It can have something to do with this ZEN refund, but then again Steam doesn't really have any say in who gets banned by the game. That's all on Cryptic, as it should be.
So, again: write to STO's Support again and try to get them to say WHY the ban was applied. Without a reason for it, you're kinda blind.
Also, as @seaofsorrows said: you have a better chance if you open a thread on Reddit and tag Kael in it (remember that tagging people in the OP doesn't work, so you'd need to make a subsequent post to be able to tag him successfully).
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
As it was pointed out, another player that was recently banned - though the circumstance was quite different from yours - got his account back and nothing was amiss.
I understand your fear, believe me, but I see no reason why your account would be deleted when you are in the process of trying to get your ban revoked.
Be optimistic and patient - stale advise, I know, but there's nothing else you can really do - and keep on their tail. Do NOT let them forget about it, (that's also why I suggest keeping in contact with STO's Support).
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
Thanks for the advice. Makes me feel slightly better.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/ktjxi2/after_10_years_of_playing_sto_i_decided_to_opt/
Only way to deal with this is get some attention in the public, such as that thread did.
...what the hell? So you're saying that even if all parties agree to a chargeback, they'll just ban you anyway? How does that make any sense?
I didn't say it makes sense.. But that's usually how they operate, but try to contact @ambassadorkael#6946 and see if he can help you out, if you're not getting through with customer service.
I believe the platform he is most active on is Reddit and Twitter.
> I believe the platform he is most active on is Reddit and Twitter.
Neither of which I have. I contacted him through Arc. Looks like I’ll be making a Reddit account.
> While the people who are actually closing tickets maybe under the purview of PWE, pretty sure GM and CM are all under Cryptic with GM reporting to CM under normal game management systems. Also game bans are not handled by PWE. So while not 100% of the issue maybe with Cryptic, a rather large portion still is.
>
> Oh on another note, one of the rather large amount of flak is coming from not only the ban on the guy on reddit, but the MESSAGE that Ashen has sent with that ban which was in poor taste to say the least. I get the feeling the OP was not notified of the ban specifically because of this. So I get the feeling that instead of retraining their GM to post tactful messages...or at least completely robotic and professional ones, they just made the new policy to not let you know at all. That is rather inline with Kael's SoP in any case.
That would not be in alignment with their terms of service.
Hopefully. Ovric told me only a senior GM or lead GM can unban and take care of my issue.
I think it's just the security. I goofed more than Cryptic did. I DID pay my $50, but I requested a refund of the initial $50 so I could pay it through Arc rather than Steam. As I had stated, I'm more than willing to pay for it and I'm telling them to take the $50 of Zen away from the initial transaction.