Okey i just lost 20 accounts. I just watched it all happen. This is what happened. I had one account suspended/closed. Its not the regular bla bla per ban or 72 hour suspend. It was closed for investigation, around 11:00 all other accounts were doing well. I was okey i will wait to see whats is going on. 1 hour later all the accounts on that realm were banned even the ones that were not used at the moment. I lost 10 account then. My thoughts were of the sort fine i lost those on the realms(they were in same guild) so i presumed they banned the guild. I will appeal to get at least some of them back they did not had a previous warnings of any sort. But then my other accounts 10 again were hit on 2 other realms. One of which was on the US region. Sadly i just had 1-2 days left before i was about to cash out on 2 realms All i can think of is that fact that i was in a boting guild snowballed me to dead. Email that i received on the some of the accounts are Abuse of economy other have none. So they are not banned for botting but i think they know i botted them. As a rule accounts are not SOR. No other software used. No outrages time run. Around 8 hours a day. Will update if i manage to get some banns in to a suspensions.
Thats pretty sad I would say. The wait time you encounter is probably their investigative time. They might have looked at all the possibilities like your guild, all accounts running on the same IP. Account activities, like grouping, dungeoning, raiding or purely farming. Then BAM, they conclude their bans. It's sad, but I'd say there's really no easy way to go about botting for profits anymore, and I just do it for fun, routines, BG and quests. I've also been on the AH for a while now, while running PB auction bot, but no bans at all. And I'm only using it on my only account too.
I am 100% sure this happened too. I put the appeals on but i don't expect much to be honest. I will see what is the final response if i can at least 1 account unbanned on realm so i get access to the guild and fence the gold. But like i said the hopes are not very high i think they did a very through investigation. I can change my IP address at will but i guess i should clean registries and such before i try anything else.
It's a manual GM investigation, there's no overturning those. I've had two of those in my botting history and believe me no matter what you say will get you unbanned. To be honest you should have cashed out as soon as one account was flagged for investigation. They checked all accounts under your IP, payment records, and other things thay may link them together. Sucks, you know. I've watched it happen twice and it always makes me quit for like a month but then Blizzard comes up with new promos and force me to come back.
What should i do before i start i again. IP ban kind of shitty as i said i can change the IP as my ISP gives me that option + i have other methods to use other ISP. But what about the PC registry cleaning is easy, is reinstalling windows necessary? Any other things i must do to try to secure the computer if they are keeping an eye on me?
Bro nobady can't give you right information about that. Do what you think is the best for you! sorry for your lost.
Just a tip, never, ever appeal a ban. Going by what I've seen, most bans are either: - Report inflicted (other players seeing patterns or pissed off at mineral ninja'ing) - Metrics trigger (minerals gathered per hour/day) Reports would take a GM to investigate, however metrics would likely be an automated system which also issues a ban/account closure. Leaving the account holder to publish an appeal. If you appeal, a human will need to verify the statement attracting a possible further investigation. I'd highly suggest never appealing. If the metrics trigger an auto-ban, it would be best to leave it rather than put other accounts on your IP at risk. Because hey, appealing means a human needs to check your story against their reports/numbers/metrics/trends.
Its looks right decision but no! There is thousands of cases, when a serverside script or similar autoban mechanic "produce" permanent ban, say it false positive or anything, but there is huge chance when you appeal such ban to be lifted even by the junior GMs. But if you talk only for 72h suspensions, yes - its the best idea if you dont appeal them at all, and just stay low. To the OP, I can say - Abuse of Economy are the hardest bans to appeal at all! Most of them are manual investigations, and they are solid as rock, indeed! On the question - The best security actions you can take are reinstalling your botting PC, and possibly separate your bot accounts off the shuffle/AH ones with different computers/IPs, the best if the IPs are not in the same subnet, use COD for transfering mats between your farmers and shufflers, not simple guildbank deposit/withdraw, and finally take extra safety when selling the gained gold. Usually you getting manual investigation after selling gold to some blacklisted/monitored IPs, used by chinese resellers. It could be not only after huge guildbank clears, but after buying some cd-key or 2m gametime cards.
Well no luck indeed in appealing because its investigated by a GM i am still fighting for one account, but Abuse of Economy is just a fancy use of words for gold selling. They don't even give 72 suspensions for those. Still fighting for one account though Will do the additional security stuff hope it helps
This exactly same thing happened to me! 10th of january 15 accounts banned: 2 accounts with professions, no botting. banned for abuse of economy 1 auction house guy, abuse of economy. botted 1 milling/prospecting guy, abuse of economy, botted 8 farmers. 2 different servers. I did indeed have a "botting guild", lots of members but i was only one with permission to gold and inventory. Also 1 more account was banned. Had not played on it for months. I absolutely think that they banned by IP. They took 100% all my accounts. Some guild banks i have no characters left in. I had no idea my main account could get permanent ban this suddenly and I'm trying as hard as I can to get it back. Probably best to confess, say that I botted and will not to it anymore. And that wouldn't be lying ^^
I cant really give you any hope with an IP ban, because havent heard any case when the account bans reverted after, indeed. Better dont loose any time, take over it, and do the proper tasks to restart your business: Change your Mac addresses, IPs, reinstall fresh Windows and new WoW installs too (No copy of the old WoW installation), you can keep your addons, HB files etc. ofcourse. Meanwhile, you can even find a more profitable way to earn gold. Its much easier when you start on clean! Good luck!
