Suspended for spamming while logged in?

#0 - April 29, 2010, 7:24 p.m.

Early in the evening last night I logged into WoW and scanned the auction house with auctioneer. After the scan completed I logged out. I never said a word to anybody on any channel. I came back to the computer a bit later and I had an e-mail that I was suspended for 3 hours for spamming and my password was reset. The probability that my account was compromised through a keylogger is damn close to zero because I run WoW in Linux, I compiled the entire system from source myself from the kernel up, I am aware of all the processes running on the system, and WoW basically runs in a prison. I have not updated my addons for a few weeks at least and they are all well-known addons obtained from well-known addon sites. I am pretty sure I was logged in when the suspension occurred.

So, I waited for the suspension to run out. In the meantime I went ahead and added a mobile authenticator to the account and changed the password. When I got back in nothing was changed. Everything was exactly as I left it. There was no sign that the account was disturbed in any way and I am pretty sure it wasn't. So I went ahead and filed a ticket and started waiting in the queue. After about an hour in the queue I got a new e-mail stating I was suspended for another 3 hours for spamming and my password was reset again. I checked my battle.net account and sure enough it showed I had a suspended account. I did not use a public chat channel one single time while logged in. I just waited around in the queue and chatted a bit on the guild channel. There is no way I did anything that could be interpreted as spam. Anyway, what is interesting about getting suspended is that they apparently don't kick you when they suspend you. You could ride out the entire suspension by not logging out. So I waited in the queue for another hour but I was certain it wasn't going to get answered because "there is a high volume of petitions blah blah blah...". I had to get to bed.

I woke up this morning and got back in the queue. This time I was hopeful because instead of the message from last night it said "your petition will be serviced soon..." Of course I should have known better. I waited in the queue for 3 hours and nothing. I can't wait around all day so I logged off and called accounts and billing. I got the message telling me they can't take my call. So at this point I have no patience for this.

Basically the point of this is 2 things.

1) How does my account get suspended for spamming when I am standing around without ever using a public channel? How does Blizzard determine someone is spamming and how could that process be so error prone as to suspend me twice in one night when I never used a public channel the entire evening? I assume that multiple suspensions can lead to a ban. I would be pretty pissed to get banned for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

2) How can Blizzard support be so utterly pathetic? Increase your call queue. Get an appropriate number of customer service representatives. With millions and millions of subscribers paying $15 a month for this game you would think they could provide some service. The amount of time I waited in the in-game queue without service is terrible. Calling the support line and being hung up on is even worse. I used to run a support center for a technology company and I would be absolutely ashamed if a customer had this kind of experience. It is reflective of a company that has no concern for individual customers. I have been a paying customer since 2005. I have purchased all 3 expansions and my account has been active every month since subscribing. Do I need to add up how much money that is? Millions of customers have payed a similar amount to play this game. Provide them the kind of support services they deserve. This entire experience has left me with in a terribly negative view of Blizzard and it is enough to make me want to go ahead and let my account expire. I don't even pay a monthly fee for Guild Wars and their support is better than this. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

Malkorix

#4 - April 29, 2010, 7:57 p.m.

Q u o t e:
1) How does my account get suspended for spamming when I am standing around without ever using a public channel? How does Blizzard determine someone is spamming and how could that process be so error prone as to suspend me twice in one night when I never used a public channel the entire evening? I assume that multiple suspensions can lead to a ban. I would be pretty pissed to get banned for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

The system isn't error prone, and was actually functioning quite well. I'm afraid that I was able to confirm that your account has almost certainly been compromised, Hypereye. Good system security is certainly a good first step, and it sounds like you've taken those steps. There is more than one way for an account compromise to occur though, and you may have unwittingly provided a compromising party all the information that they needed to access your account. Unfortunately, you appear to have been a bit late applying your Authenticator, and the activities which lead to your second suspension had already occurred.

I know that this has likely been a frustrating situation, but at this point, your best bet would be to contact wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com via the email address registered to your account to explain the situation and request a review of your suspension.

Malkorix

#11 - April 29, 2010, 8:45 p.m.

Q u o t e:
In their own words. One of the reasons for the necessity of paid subscriptions is the internal support staff and the levels of support. It is part of what you pay for. They also imply that customers should have a reasonable expectation of access when they advertise nearly 24 hour a day availability of the game. Should that access be interrupted outside of normal maintenance where would one turn to have the issue resolved? I imagine it would be the support services.

It's quibbling, but I'd prefer to head off this particular argument before it starts.

The subscription fee certainly helps to cover the costs of in-game support, as well as all the more technical infrastructure costs of World of Warcraft. That is part of what the subscription fee is used for, but not what our customers pay for.

What the subscription fee entitles an account user to, in and of itself, is strictly access to the World of Warcraft realms. Everything else is effectively an 'extra' provided by Blizzard Entertainment to provide a better experience for our customers. Naturally, I feel that support is an essential part of the equation, but there is a distinction.