AGS Lost Ark giving out permanent bans for Commerce Lock to innocent accounts!

Asm0deus

Seer the thread here: https://forums.playlostark.com/t/commerce-lock-ban-permanent/229396

The gist of it is that lots of people are getting perma banned for commerce lock which seems to be refunds of founder pack or packs available now after launch on accounts, some that are 10+ years with no prior bans at all,  even on accounts with ZERO refunds issued.

Some had refunds but BEFORE the game was even out who then decided to repurchase multiple packs a couple months later or so.   Some think it's possibly because they bought skins off the in game AH that were possibly from packs that were then later refunded or were possibly duped.

Another theory is some are being flagged due to having received another copy of a founder packs given out by AGS due to the server queue shenanigans.

What ever the case is there's some major and I mean major gross incompetence going on at AGS right now that is giving red flags to previously clean steam accounts that are 10+ years old.

Asm0deus

Remember some account never refunded anything and some refunded founder BEFORE the game came out. One guy refunded a founder pack before alpha test and just got banned.

AGS give this as a reason for commerce lock bans.

How can you be banned in a f2p game for a refund that was allowed by steam?

I mean if steam allowed the refund then by all rights it was an allowable refund that you shouldn’t be able to be punished for?

BLNX

The message sent sounds rational, steam offered a refund, Amazon can't do anything but ban the account so you can't keep the items. Normally not an issue as most other currency/dlc buy has the add-on stipulation that as soon as you redeem the products, no refunds.

I'm happy to believe in malice or I competence on their part, but is there any proof? And definitely anything beyond anecdotal proof?

Asm0deus

BLNX said:

The message sent sounds rational, steam offered a refund, Amazon can't do anything but ban the account so you can't keep the items. Normally not an issue as most other currency/dlc buy has the add-on stipulation that as soon as you redeem the products, no refunds.

I'm happy to believe in malice or I competence on their part, but is there any proof? And definitely anything beyond anecdotal proof?

Look at the thread in my OP  there's over 500 post with people offering proof their steam account NEVER refunded anything in LA and other showing they refunded founder packs BEFORE the game went live like in oct 2021 and the like even some as far back as they refunded BEFORE alpha test.

I think perhaps you don't know what anecdotal means or just typed before looking at anything.

This is not some few whinging cause they caught doing shenanigans, its boat loads of people being banned when they have proof sent in from bank records/to their steam purchase history proving they never refunded anything.

Furthermore if steam authorizes a refund that should be that and you should not be punished for it. 

Steam shouldn't be issuing refunds if they are not allowed or warranted. 

AGS is basically overturning steam saying, yes a refund is allowed in this case.

Asm0deus

Here on guy  from that thread who posted his purchase history from april 26, 2021 til march 2, 2022.  Note he has zero refunds in it.

BLNX

So anecdotal means:
Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis.

This means forum posts by people and one person not showing a refund is not a rigorous process.

To parody your example:

Guess what, I just found a forum thread where 1,500 people just said VAC cheated them out of time and money using a faulty system that bans incorrectly!




That must mean it's true because so many people are saying it. Plus one person who may have gotten actually wrongfully banned because I'm not going through that whole history to argue a silly point.

Give.me some evidence, some internals. I even said I wanted to be in your side for this, but without proof you think Amazon is going to care? They can't even fix a fucking dupe after 3 times.

Listen I don't want to be too antagonistic, I'm just saying the message they sent out made sense for a situations THEY are claiming. What you are claiming is different, and the words of pissed off people will only lead to results if Amazon lets it and there is incompetence or malice there.

Once again, I'm sorry if you felt I was targeting you or that I was trying to be a dick. I just want to see something more than another forum to be sure it's actually happening.

Asm0deus

BLNX said:

So anecdotal means:
Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis.

This means forum posts by people and one person not showing a refund is not a rigorous process.

To parody your example:

Guess what, I just found a forum thread where 1,500 people just said VAC cheated them out of time and money using a faulty system that bans incorrectly!




That must mean it's true because so many people are saying it. Plus one person who may have gotten actually wrongfully banned because I'm not going through that whole history to argue a silly point.

Give.me some evidence, some internals. I even said I wanted to be in your side for this, but without proof you think Amazon is going to care? They can't even fix a fucking dupe after 3 times.

Listen I don't want to be too antagonistic, I'm just saying the message they sent out made sense for a situations THEY are claiming. What you are claiming is different, and the words of pissed off people will only lead to results if Amazon lets it and there is incompetence or malice there.

Once again, I'm sorry if you felt I was targeting you or that I was trying to be a dick. I just want to see something more than another forum to be sure it's actually happening.

Your example/parody is anecdotal cause it is just peeps whinging without proof given.  The thread I linked to has many people showing screenshots of their purchase history and providing the proof you are saying is "anecdotal". Your comparison is total BS bud.

The proof I provided was an example of one person in that thread, it is not one person only providing proof.  It's loads of people that have done the same or do you expect me to post all their history here?

It's pretty simple AGS has an automated process which is flawed an has fked major bad and people are getting canned responses even with proof being sent in that they never ever refunded anything.

Thus I gotta say anecdotal my arse.  You want proof then get off your arse and go read the thread over there.

If that is not enough to convince you then no amount of proof will.

I am not new here and I have seen just like you loads of crying from supposedly innocent people about false bans and like most of the posters here have enough that I am a tad cynical and laugh those off with a yeah sure bud......

 HOWEVER like many of the other intelligent people in these forums I can spot when the BS is on the other end and this is pretty much a clear case of that.

If you need more proof than that thread to believe it gross incompetence on AGS is part you are either trolling, being a dick, being purposely obtuse and ignorant or fangirling for amazon.

Take your pick.

Asm0deus

Oh look more BS from amazon/ags.

Banned for being a gold seller.

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/unwarranted-bans-while-ignoring-real-gold-sellers/193916

Appeal denied as it was "investigated and found to be merrited" canned response.

However in edit 2 of the OP in the link:

unbanned because she placed a ticket for account restoration, and the account restoration person put in an internal ticket to investigate the ban. Only this internal ticket was actually acted on.

Next one:

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/perma-banned/221526?=true

My account was unbanned, I also sent you a DM of my whole bank statement just to prove to you that not a single bit of my money was spent on RMT… GLHF in the game. I hope no one else gets an unjustified ban.

AGS is looking into it:

They keep changing tunes though and wont admit their system fked up atleast no yet.

Now they are saying the commerce locked account are due to RMT when clearly some peeps are being banned for RMT that never happened as in the two recent cases that have been unbanned.

It's looking to me that if someone bought gold or RMT but then sold stuff in the AH the people that bought those items off the AH are getting hit with a ban maybe as if they were part of the RMT.  Even though they were not.

I am sure it is more amazon shite coding. 

I am also sure there is no way amazon/ags is looking and hand replying to all the ban appeals or giving out bans all manually.....that a load of horse shit if I ever heard any and anyone that plays or played NW should know this too.

Asm0deus

AGS has locked the thread in the OP so it will be difficult to get updates and see if any of those guy get unbanned.

That said  this thread here shows how purchasing skins of the in game AH may be the reason some people are getting unfairly banned.

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/unpurchased-dlcs-possibly-causing-permanent-bans/234700

It's only him so far but remains to be seen if others have the same oddity occuring on their steam accounts.

Like I said this seems to be some shitty coding/algorithm at fault.

OP from the link, man has screenshot of his history etc too see the link above:

I think that buying an Alar skin set off of the in game Market may be related to why I was ban. Here’s my reasoning.

According to my steam history, I have only purchased the “Lost Ark Platinum Founder’s Pack” for myself.

However, after purchasing an Alar’s skin set off of the in game Market, I noticed that there’s a DLC registered under my account in which I did not purchase called the “Lost Ark Vanquisher Starter Pack” which includes the Alar skin set.

kitarad

Honestly thought as they were just running the game and not actually responsible for its creation they won't screw it up. Hot damn I was wrong.

Kyleran

kitarad said:

Honestly thought as they were just running the game and not actually responsible for its creation they won't screw it up. Hot damn I was wrong.

Right along with the expectation they shouldn't struggle with providing enough server capacity to mitigate queues.

Oops ..

Dattelis

Some people might be impacted based on the compensation given after the EU server mess as well? I'm kind of leaning on AGS here instead of Smilegate since NW did something similar by over compensating people then trying to walk it back. And also banning people too by mistake now that I think about it since there was a way to get NW for 'free' if you had it on one account and logged in on another or something. I dont think they could tell the difference for a bit and ended up blanket banning people.

Asm0deus

kitarad said:

Honestly thought as they were just running the game and not actually responsible for its creation they won't screw it up. Hot damn I was wrong.

As the publisher they don't code in game stuff HOWEVER they host servers and are responsible for server stuff, they are responsible for the store as in they can ask stuff in there to be changed/censored and I do believe they are also responsible for bans and dealing with steam.

I am fairly certain they are the ones that implement how bans work if they are automated or not etc etc. 

In KR this is less an issue since people in KR have to link their real life info (SSN) to their game accounts.

Btw they didn't just lock that new thread I linked it seems to be completely gone!  

Really smells of AGS trying to sweep their mistakes under the rug considering their dismal treatment of NW I would guess they are trying to not lose the trust of the LA players.

I am curious to see how this all plays out.

achesoma

The toughest raid boss of all, The Amazon AI Ban Bot.

Asm0deus

worldsbestdad said:

Asm0deus said:

I am curious to see how this all plays out.

Sounds like a lot of innocent people just got perma-banned to me, there is a 99.99% chance that this is considered solved for them. Another ezpz success from my favorite studio AGS!!!!!! The kings and queens of true quality.

There's a new twist more people thsi morn went to play LA were banned and received notification they were banned for breaking the code of conduct in NW....the things is some of these people never played NW and never had NW in ther steam account...LOL

Guy with 18 year old steam account no previous bans now has a nice red mark on his account for a NW offense.... a game he never even played.

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/i-got-banned-without-any-reason/229479

i got an e mail from amazon and it says im banned because harrass others in new world but i dont even have new world in my steam acc i never played that game LOL whats going on

EDIT: had to to finish reading that thread and the zzyzz fellow has been unbanned!

Wordsworth

So, has there been any update on this?  For those who didn't refund a pack, would buying RMT gold or whatever constitute a 'commerce ban' as well?

Asm0deus

Wordsworth said:

So, has there been any update on this?  For those who didn't refund a pack, would buying RMT gold or whatever constitute a 'commerce ban' as well?

Yeah the thoery is if you buy anything from the LA in game AH and or possibly those crystals and the seller afterwards refunds the packs the skins or crystal they came from you are likely to be banned as part of the RMT scheme cause you know its up to you to buy from a reputable source...LOL

Also if you refunded anything BEFORE the game came out or went live you likely to be banned  cause their automated systems is too stupid to check dates.

Now there this new twist of peeps being banned from LA for things they may have done in NW whether they even played that game or not......

It's the weekend so not expecting any updates just lots of peeps coming to the LA forums to ask wtf is going on and why are they being banned.

Asm0deus

There's been quite a few why am I banned threads however they seem to get locked/deleted pretty quick. 

Guy got a ban in Lost Ark, something to do with Chardis in New World!

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/banned-reason-unkown/240667

So i got banned a few days ago, and the response i got from the ban appeal was this message, After sending another message asking for clearification they have not responded so i thought i would ask the forum.

Anyone know the cause of ban? what is chardis? the boss in new world??? and what the hell is karma ban testing???

Asm0deus

I know lots of peeps don't like asmongold but his video here is pretty spot on.  AGS so far has shown really, really crappy support  compared to other games on such issues.

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/any-update-on-erroneous-commerce-lock-bans/263471

Asm0deus

More terribad amazon/ags support  for peeps unfairly banned in this new wave from last nights 4hr hotfix.

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/roxx-please-save-us-from-this-unfair-auto-suspension/267050/413

Thread got more than 400 posts already and while sure they maybe be some guilty parties trying to weasel out of their justified bans I am sure lots of these bans were not merited.

It's looking like they using a amount of time played and  amount of time afk in their ban algorithm and it seems to be hitting legit players especially those addicted that play huge amounts of time per day.

The main problem would be fixed if they actually had the tool to look into this when people made an appeal and actually had real humans look into it as it very clear by now they do not and peeps just get automated responses and CS from amazon have their hand and mouth preprogrammed to all spew the same shite.

Asm0deus

Previous thread I link has now over 500 posts.  

Quizzical

For the most part, if you demand a refund for a game, you should expect to be banned for it.  You get your money back and lose what you paid for.

If you got the refund before the game launched, so that you never got what you paid for, then banning people for that seems egregiously dumb, however.

SKurj

meanwhile lots of us haven't been banned, haven't experienced a queue or server issues and enjoy the game...

ymmv

Asm0deus

Quizzical said:

For the most part, if you demand a refund for a game, you should expect to be banned for it.  You get your money back and lose what you paid for.

If you got the refund before the game launched, so that you never got what you paid for, then banning people for that seems egregiously dumb, however.

That the crux of the problem and support totally sucks and peeps are just getting automated canned responses or amazon cs that are toeing the line and have no clue what they are saying and that's when they don't accidentally give you a new world canned responses.

What is happening just some peeps got refunds before the game went live and get banned, peeps are getting banned for buying package stuff from the in game auction house if the person that sold the items in game then get a steam refund.

The amazon logic is peeps are allowed according to steam to get a refund and amazon can't do anything about that so if they sold stuff in game they ban the people that bought these items too...even though they have no control what so ever over this.

What amazon should do is make those items unsellable in the auction house if this is a problem.

The new issues is amazon's new autoban algorithm is messed up, this is new from last nights hot fix and is banning peeps for playing too long, of being too long in dungeon queues afk and the like.

One of the official forums mods has mentioned they are looking into it however...ags has a really poor track record.

Amazon needs a proper AGS support with real people just for their games instead of shunting them over to amazon...the website for buy and selling stuff.......right now the cs at amazon game even get confused about which game you are playing LS or NW......

SKurj said:

meanwhile lots of us haven't been banned, haven't experienced a queue or server issues and enjoy the game...

ymmv

This new issues seems to kick in when you have like 500hrs playtime so far, something in the autoban algorithm is messed up.

If you got less than 500hrs total play time as of now you're likely not going to be affected.

Asm0deus

I really like this game so I hope amazon doesn't drive it into the ground sadly this is where it is headed if AGS can't get some decent customer service going on.

Mendel

Asm0deus said:

I really like this game so I hope amazon doesn't drive it into the ground sadly this is where it is headed if AGS can't get some decent customer service going on.

Wow, that LA total is really headed into sad places.  That looks as if LA has already lost (or banned) a half of the people playing -- a massive decline in just one month.

Some of the basics of customer service are simply missing from the game.  No way to report issues in-game is significant.  I'll send feedback almost everyday, if I could.