At least two legitimate agents were permanently banned in error in the last 48 hours.
NoSprings
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I personally know of 2 agents in our local area who were banned on Thursday without receiving any email or warning.
**If this happened to you or somebody in your area that you know about, please post the number of agents affected below, in the same format that I just used above.**
(Do NOT list any case numbers, and do not list any IGNs. Or Niantic will close the thread again.)
The purpose of this thread is to identify how widespread the bug (reported yesterday) is, and to try to assess the impact and severity.
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In order to make sure we follow the forum rules and maximize the chances of this thread not being closed, please:
Make a ban appeal, but do NOT post that you or someone else made a ban appeal: https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/3-ingress/faq/465-submit-a-ban-appeal/?han=1
- Do NOT post support ticket numbers in this thread
- Do NOT ask for help with your ban or someone else's ban in this thread
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Niantic: I am doing my best to stay within the bounds of the forum TOS. If I need to change anything about the post, feel free to let me know. The goal of this post is to assist you in remedying the situation as quickly as possible for the agents involved. Thanks.
(Basically trying to follow the same template that @M1chaeI is using in this thread: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/20399/at-least-2-people-probably-wrongfully-72-hour-banned-in-the-last-24-hours#latest)
Comments
We took action against accounts for violating our Niantic Terms of Service.
@NianticBrian this report is about agents who DID NOT violate the terms of service. Just to clarify.
Sorry If it was somehow unclear before.
How about explaining to those agents what they did then?
Those that have absolute no clue what they might have done.
Haven't recieved an email or anything?
Those that haven't had any reply to their appeals?
In general, communicate WITH THEM. please!!
I think there was a mistake with banning some of them. And i know it will be hard to admit.
But what do you want us to do?
Want me to vouch for the player you wrongfully banned? Where do you want me to sign?
You want more people to come and vouch for this player? Where is the form to do so?
Feel free to contact me at anytime, you know my emailadres.
Yours sincerely,
Simone
Aka: BatrachianAnura
If they violated the terms of service, then multiple accounts, even people who issue **** threats against other players should be banned. Those players are still not banned, even after multiple reports by multiple agents and even police reports.
These actions are not clear at all and seem a bit random at most, and citing the terms of service only while the agents in question haven't broken them only shows that appeals barely have any use.
I know of at least two players that were banned with no warning or email and no clue about which TOS was violated. They read over the TOS and see nothing
I also personally know of 2 agents in our local area who were banned on Thursday without violating the ToS and without receiving any email or warning.
Atleast if you are going to try out some new ban algorithm and do a "wave", have extra people on support deep diving into tickets and getting out fast responses.
Local player got no email whatsoever, and got no response whatsoever yet on his ticket.
And then you are low on resources to investigate, I would suggest giving people their account back and investigate later. And while you are at it. you might also want to have an apology letter ready to send out since atleast for our local banned player I would see absolutely no reason to suspend his account.
I know of one local agent who was permanently banned recently.
FYI: here is a link to the consumer arbitration rules linked in the TOC: https://www.adr.org/sites/default/files/Consumer_Rules_Web_2.pdf
It’s not cheap ($200 US to file as an individual) but it looks like it would force Niantic to provide documentation supporting their claims, and it would cost Niantic more (your costs are capped at $200 and you could potentially get that back if you win).
I've only scanned over the document though. It’s not simple but may be worth it if any of the agents banned are comfortable with these kinds of processes.
This is intriguing to say the least. Thanks very much for finding that.
I don't want to speak for the agents in question, but I know if I was in their place, I would have all but given up on getting any kind of fair shake at this point. And I imagine I could at least persuade them to TRY this, because even if it doesn't help them get their accounts returned, it would certainly benefit the community to know what in the WORLD is going on with this nonsense.
"Please spend 9 years playing our game. We may deny you access tomorrow for 'violating the TOS in secret ways' we can't disclose because security-through-obscurity-is-good, but by all means, continue to spend your time and money on the game until such time that we arbitrarily kick you out..."
It's killing me to watch two people who were responsible for getting me involved in the game, and have been more active than I ever was, "slowly coming to terms that nothing is going to come out of this...and maybe that's a good thing." (not my words.)
BTW: Today's big update was -- almost a week after this fiasco began -- both of our local agents received an email notifying them that their appeal "has NOW been received?"
My literal reply to them just now: "Did you guys submit your appeal via parcel post?"
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If this message appears frustrated, that's because it very much is. Anyone who looks at situations like this and thinks it's no big deal, clearly hasn't taken the time to ask themselves:
What exactly are we doing in this game, other than building an 'identity' for ourselves, a set of stats and accomplishments that clearly matter to us -- and how would it feel if the company we're paying every month just deletes all of that work and time in an instant, without even the courtesy of a heads up? How would you or I feel?
And how would we further feel when the error is reported (by multiple concerned members of the community) and the guy literally in charge of the game takes time out of his Saturday to log in and copy/paste the same generic 'Everyone violated TOS, you're all bad, kthx.' reply to everyone affected?
Is this a healthy relationship to be in? Where the company values the 9 years you've invested from your life (which is 4 more than I've been playing) so little that you don't even get an acknowledgement of your appeal for a week -- and certainly nobody thinks to go back and say "hey sorry about that rude reply Saturday, I was out of line."
Of course it isn't healthy. It might be flat out nuts, the more I think about it.
If that's how veteran agents (with an entire community working in good faith, assuming it was an error and trying to work towards getting the error corrected) are treated, then what kind of chance does anyone slightly less well-known have? Realistically speaking?
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I should be very explicit here and state that the views above are my own. These are MY concerns, when I look at whether or not I should continue to spend time playing (and paying for) this game. If anyone has a problem with anything I've said above, please do not take that out against the agents who were banned. They've certainly been victimized enough by this charade without taking the blame for comments someone else makes, after watching in horror how disrespectfully they've been treated by the company they've routinely cut a check to every. single. month.
@NianticBrian This issue is not resolved.
Hiding behind ambiguous terms of services may be a thing to do, but would it be blunt to be honest about why you ban a legitimate non-cheating player without ANY information or warning?! No emails were sent, the appeal was butchered with only ToS comments
Also, all the comments about upholding the TOS, please also ban ALL the accounts whom have had police reports by multiple people sent to the support but still play.
If you stand with your TOS, uphold them, not randomly use them!
When you say the appeal was "butchered," do you mean it was basically empty (with no human text inside)?
Shortly after posting the message above, I heard back from both of our agents, and they (seemingly magically) both received a reply to their appeal -- whether it's an "update" or a "final review" is completely impossible to know.
It literally just says:
##############Niantic SupportAnd that's it.
Can anyone please advise what's going on?
@NianticBrian
I listened to the Japanese agents around me and saw them. I felt that many people use ad blocking apps that use VPNs. How are you all doing?
Same here. People get exactly the same mails with couple of hashes and nothing else. Looks like something went really wrong at Niantic. @NianticBrian you definitely banned some people wrongly. And apart of that, if you after an in-depth investigation still think that the ban was correct, it is your obligation to provide them with a clear explanation of the reason for your decision because these people invest their real money in Niantic paying for the ingame items.
I can understand that they are reluctant to provide information about why someone is banned because that may allow bad intentioned agents to reverse engineer their detection processes.
However, not providing concrete reasons for permanent bans on players with no history of previous violations is against the principles of natural justice (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_justice) and continued use of such practices will, in the long run, undermine Niantic’s relationship with their consumer community.
I know some players hit by the recent ban wave, no email, support response like above, and there is not a bone inside my body that would even think that my local player that got hit by this wave has broken the TOS in any way, shape or form.
We are talking about taking away years of play, including anomalies, loads of uniques, missions etc. Gone, just banned. No reason, no nothing. Not even the 3 step warning process.
This needs fixing @NianticBrian @NianticThia, this is hitting hard for agents that some random act can just instant remove you from the game without any fair look, that it takes several days to get a response from a support ticket with. A response which provides not even a remote clue on why a ban was triggered. I understand those mails do not take a deep dive into ban reasons, but atleast provide some sort of info.
@NoSprings @C0MM0D0R3 As someone who's worked a lot of player support: those empty hash messages are likely an artifact of someone placing an internal note on the ticket. My guess would be @NianticBrian or someone else, linking this post in reference to the ticket(s).
This is by no means a good way to reward loyal players @NianticBrian.
It's the fastest way to **** a game.
Who would want to spend money in a store that could leave you emptyhanded after paying the bill?
Who would want to invest time in a game that can simply shut you out because... reasons.
WHAT REASONS?
PLS fix this.
Fast.
I was hit by the ban-wave too in the night to October 21st. Played ingress since year one. I'm as sure as one can be not to have violated against TOS of this game. Or did it got mandatory to pay a few bucks every month and I did not noticed?
And I just received an answer from NIA to my appeal: The ban is final. Well, so long, and thanks for all the fish!
Oh. That's interesting. I have a couch-portal. Therefore played a lot in my WiFi. No adblock installed on the phone - but my router filters ads. Have no VPN in use.
I have to been hit with an instant ban after playing for years and years. I am absolutely devastated. I have spent real money and Invested hundreds of hours and I really love playing. Niantic support have simply banned me, won't engage with me at all over email. Desision is final, no warnings, no strikes.
It's absolutely awful, I am so gutted. 😪😪😪😪😪😪