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Banned for "Potential" Account Problem
Ionselon
Member Posts: 248
I received an email from Turbine this evening saying that my account has been banned for "potentially being accessed by a third-party". They aren't even sure if my account has been hacked, but that didn't prevent them from lowering the Ban Hammer.
I did everything that was in the email that they required to get my account unbanned, submitted the support ticket as required, and then was told that they would get back to me in 3 - 5 days. I've done nothing wrong and now I can't play on my account because they THINK my account was hacked. If I had a new account or there had been problems with my account in the past, I might could understand this knee-jerk reaction on their part. Might be able to. But, I was in the real beta, have been a paying subscriber since launch day, so to me this treatment is over the top on their part. Someone at Turnbine needs a remedial course in customer relations.
I'm going to sleep on this, but I'm pretty sure I'll cancel my account in the morning. When a company punishes honest, paying customers, they don't deerve to keep them as customers. In today's world, it's all about customer service, or the lack of it.
Ion
Comments
Could it have been someone trying to steal your account?
IE did you email this person your log in info and such?
No one has my login info but me. I have never shared it with anyone. And, Turbine says there is a "potential" problem, but rather than contact me and find out, they just ban my account. Then they want me to go through all the hassle to get my account reinstated. I guess with LotRO going f2p soon, they don't care about paying customers anymore.
Welcome to the world of Turbine customer service. You think its bad now? Wait till F2P hits. Things like this are just gonna explode.
They suspend (not ban, stop being a diva) accounts in this case to PROTECT your account. If it indeed has been compromised there will be a hacker in there cleaning out everything you own.
Spend less time whinging about it on random forums and more time getting in touch with them and you'll be back playing the game in no time.
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I definitely appreciate your frustration. However, just because they say "potentially", or refuse to provide details on what triggered the action, doesn't mean that they didn't actually have some pretty strong indications that someone had hacked, or was trying to hack, your account.
A few days of non-access is better than logging in and finding your characters stripped bare and/or deleted.
I'd (politely) keep a fire lit under their customer service team to try to expidite resolution, but if you enjoy the game, try not to let action taken to try to protect your account turn you off to the game. A few days will pass quickly enough.
Good luck!
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Yup, you were hacked, kick back and let them restore your account the way it was before it happend. In the meantime go check out the other games on here and leave some comments.
Thanks to those who provided their pious advice. As someone who's livlihood has depended on providing good customer service for the bulk of his 62 years here on this earth, I refuse to accept the poor customer service provided by Turbine. Their heavy-handed treatment of their customers is completely unacceptable. They have completely forgotten who pays their salaries and keeps the servers running.
As for those who said my account was temporarily suspended, why does it say when I log into the game that my account is "Banned' and when I log into my account my account status is "Banned"? You need to know what you're talking about before you embaress yourself publicly.
To those who accused me of whing, I'm 62 years old and don't have time to whine. What I was doing was venting my frustration at being treated in such a high-handed fashion by Turbine. I have much better things to do with my time than whine.
So, as quick as Turbine was to wield the Ban Hammer, I was as quick to wield the Cancel Subscription button. Turbine just lost a subscriber who has been with them since launch. And it was because of the way they choose to treat their customers.
It's been standard policy to handle things this way since AC was their only game, it's truly the only way to go but it does cause some people to overreact and act like Turbine is out to get them.
Basically they get info that your account may be compromised, so they instantly ban it. That stops anyone from doing anything to your account, to protect your account. Then the original owner has to go through the process of proving they are the person that should have access, this again is to protect the account from having other people pretend to be you and then ruin your characters etc. Once you've properly proved it is your account, they lift the ban and you go on your happy way.
Truth is you ARE whining. You want to feel like a victim when they are protecting YOUR account. So act your age, work with them to protect your account, or don't and also don't bother posting about how you are a giant victim. It's ridiculous.
Hmmm... they normally just suspend the account to keep it from being maliciously accessed for a time. It's normally opened back up within hours of being contacted by the actual account owner.
Hackers don't necessarily have to get your LotRO password to hack your account, and it doesn't necessarily mean Turbine got hacked, either. Gold sellers often buy hacked accounts U/P's from websites and F2P games with poor security. They then try the same username/password on AAA MMO's to attempt to hack an account and sell off all its stuff.
For all you gold buyers out there, in case you think buying gold is a victimless crime, you should be made aware of this. They don't just send folks out to the fields to grind for gold; they raid people's accounts and steal their stuff. No, OP, I'm not accusing you of buying gold, at all. Just an FYI for all.
So, if you have accounts at websites with same user/passwords as other more sensitive websites, like banking, personal info, MMO's, etc, you'll probably want to change them. This is fast becoming an epidemic.
I hope that some Warner Bro's exec isn't implementing this as a "brilliant idea" to close down some lifetime subscriptions and weed down VIP status/free monthly turbine points.
It says banned because it's the quickest and easiest way for them to lock down your account completely while they investigate. Also if said hackers try and log into your account and see it's banned they will be more likely to cross it off their list and move on whereas is it instead said suspended they may not move on so quickly. Also you should know that this practice is fairly commonplace for MMO's in the case of compromised accounts. All you need is a little patience and they will get your account back to you in time.
My experience with Turbine was ok until this last month. Some Stup... (dont know who but is close to me) was using my email account to sell my stuff and others.
I was able to recover some of my accounts (guild wars and world of warcraft). I been doing a lot of work to solve this problem. I even bought a wow authenticator (blizzard is one of the only companies that give u that kind of security).
Now Turbine is going after all lifetimers I think because F2P is better for them with less lifetimers. I dont know..
Im sending turbine emails with evidence . Evidence that my other games accounts were hacked, evidence that ncsoft and blizzard solved my problems, evidence that Ive opened a ticket before with turbine, evidence of everything.
But they have like a recorde machine "the account was posted for sale"
There is one thing ive learnt: They dont care about your account security. I told them it wasnt me , i told them to reaf my ingame chat to know that I love the game, and I told them to show me any evidence.
Another thing that ive learnt is that every account can be banned by turbine just because they want to. The only thing they have to do is post in a forum "Im wantint to sell ... and something that can make it look like its your account and . buala Turbine can ban your account and start saying "the account was posted for sale"
Im very mad about Turbine. The account im trying to recover is the effort of hard work. I was going back and forward between GW, WOW and Lotro and the last month I was doing everything in Lotro until this happened.
ill keep trying to recover the account because I didnt do anything wrong.
If its necesary Ill find legal advice.
But Turbine must treat customers as partners not thieves.
Bingo. Its obvious they are treating lifetimers like crap (and don't start with those wonderful 500 points you get every month --- pahleeze), and exchanging them with more credit-card happy F2P players.
Redly
I Think their approach shloud be different. They should encourage u to keep playing. no matter if u are a lifetimer or a F2P users u will end up spending some money sooner or later. For example u can make lifetimers expansion more expensive (or make it cheaper if u a monthly subscriber).
My biggest complain is that they are not trying to find me a solution. They are not trying to give the users more security.
Ddo you know what I think is the best way to do bans??
1. detect something is wrong
2. send u an email or phone call about the problem asking you to "stop doing or find a solution"
3. if the problem still exist then ban the account
That is way better, you are treating the customer as a partner not as a thief and you are winning a happy user.
The user has then the option to fix the problem.
I hope Turbine changes and allows me to continue playing . I sent them every kind of evidence.
Wait a minute...you're trying to blame THEM because YOU got your account info stolen. Their account security is fine, it's your security that is obviously lacking. Seriously you got accounts for multiple games stolen at the same time. Ever heard of anti-virus or a firewall.
You obviously have a keylogger on your system.
Nooooo, Im not blaming because my accounts were stole. My lotro account was in my control all the time now. Ive recovered every one of my others accounts,
my problem is that I´ve not sold or tried to sell my account and they banned me.
That is the problem. Ive sent them about my others accounts problems, and lot of emails with more evidence about what was going on and they banned me with no evidence. NC soft helped me, Blizzard help me. Turbine is not listening.
And Im sorry but they dont have security. If u change the email address of your account an email is sent to the new address and no mail is sent to the old one so if u manage to change someone elses email the owner will never know until tries to use that information for a password reset for example. Blizzard has the authenticator, a good way to have security.
My problem is that I dont know why they dont help me instead of treating me like a thief.
im doing everything in my hands to fix my issues: creating new email addresses for each game or game company, change all accounts, antivirus software, Ive reinstalled the PC, bought the authenticator for Wow, etc.
They have the best MMO from tis time (I love it) but they should improve some things.
but in order to change someone elses email that person has to have access to the account in the first place so if someone gets your username and password then the account is already compromized. Again that is on you not them. It is YOUR responsibility to protect your username and password. The only thing Turbine is responsible for is making sure that someone can't hack into their websites and databases to get the info, that's it.
I don't know what kind of proof you're providing to them but it's obviously not convincing them whatever it is.
All Im saying is that there must be more controls. Security is up to you but if they can help u then its better.
And some things are really easy to do. For example send the email to the old and new address.
Simple things that makes life better to everyone.
i too had something similar but different.
I loved this game. still was a noob as far as content completed and only had a few toons to lvl 20 or so and got banned...without an explanation.
i usually soloed in most of my time spent and got the 'old hammer dropped on me. went into my account and noticed i was banned until 2036. after many failed attempts to contact anybody with any knowledge, i simply cancelled my account.
good game...horrible support.
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Electric football is 'old school' gaming.
Im sorry hearing that. I will not cancel my account and Ill try to recover it . I havent done anything wrong.
The OP has the full right to vent about stuff like this. If Turbine wanted to be correct by their customers, they could very easily do the same thing, differently. Instead of using the word Ban, use the word Suspended (but act as a ban) AND they could provide at logon screen a message for the owner saying something along the lines of
"It seems your account has been hacked and we have therefore locked it until we investigate, please contact us via... so and so method"
Easy, and effective. The OP would of read that, realized that his account is being hacked and Turbine is protecting his interests, and he would of peacefully and amicably co-operated with them and patiently waited. Instead of feeling like a scrub thinking Turbine doesnt care about him.
The OP is a paying customer.... he did nothing wrong. Its Turbine fault for not being more "transparent" about stuff like this.
IMO
Sorry Minsc but i cant really agree with you. You say this is our responsibility to protect our user an pass but since the clearly say in the EULA that the account dosnt belong to the customer but to them and they have the right to ban or whatever do anything with it, i think that this is their responsibility to protect the user and pass too and most important, give the customer good services.
I have to add something more important. With the current way of doing things Turbine can ban every account they want. Actually they can ban every lifetimer account if they want to.The only thing they need to do is post in a forum "account for sale" and some "acccount info" and then 1.... 2... 3... they can ban your account
no warning ... nothing...
You know, it's funny to see people posting 'you obviously have a keylogger' and 'it's all your fault for not having antivirus'...let me explain something to you...turbine is expecting the end user to keep up with (psychically no less) every virus or keylogger that comes out every other minute of every day, so many in fact that not even the expensive antivirus companies can keep up with them.
How about we also say 'maybe turbine should provide a secret word so that if an account gets hacked or stolen, the original owner can call in and say 'here's my secret word'..I mean come on, it's not like someone CAN'T change your credit card info or email preferences or even your name, turbine has absolutely no account security whatsoever. Every other game on the face of the planet has backups installed for just this problem, so that the original owners, despite whether it's their fault or not, can get back what they paid good money for.
My account information is not stored on MY computer, it's stored on THEIR database..so how is it completely OUR responsibility when it comes to the account? Will they give me full access to what ip's were using the account? NO. Do they even give me an option to download account access logs? NO.
The most control we have over a turbine account is changing basic information. No offense I should NOT have to run a 3 hr antivirus scan and then change my password every time I want to log into my accounts website, to make sure no new keyloggers have found a way in, and even a virus scan will not gaurantee that you'll find one if there's even one there.
So instead of blaming the user, and then banning or suspending their account...do something simple...require a farking secret word for crying out loud...hell, even etch the basic account info and email in stone and unchangeable unless done over the phone with the secret word...after all we aren't supposed to share an account, we aren't supposed to sell one, and your average joe doesn't get his name changed...they are refusing to take simple steps to make accounts more secure like every other mmo on the market today...I mean, hell, even perfect world has a secondary password after logging into the game.
Not everything that happens to everyone is their fault, I'm sorry, but stating 'oh well it must be your fault' is completely moronic, and I bet that most of the people who get hacked DO IN FACT HAVE ANTIVIRUS..it's a total necessity and has been since the dawn of the internet.
I agree with you. Turbine is the only online company that is not doing anything to prevent accounts hacked and bans.
When someone changed my credit card I asked Turbine support and they told me that the credit card I was telling them. Their answer was "
We have reviewed this account in detail and do not see your name as a credit card holder or on the account at all. Unfortunately, we are unable to help you with this account. If there is any other account that we can assist you with, please respond to this email and we will be happy to assist you."
Now they are saying that I was trying to sell my account, they dont have real evidence but I´ve learnt something. I can make any lotro account be banned or "unable to be banned" LOL You just have to post PUBLIC info into the forums saying that you want to sell the account and then buala... that account will be banned by turbine or thay are going to be unable to ban it for life (because they will not know if it is someone trying to ban lotro accounts LOL)
The worst part is that it is really easy to prevent these things. You dont know how frustrated I am about my account being stolen by Turbine