Falsely accused of botting & banned! Read on!

Hi there Chelley!

I'm gratified to see that everything seems to have turned out alright. It seems that there were some arguments and misconceptions in this thread and I'd like to provide some clarifications where I can. Just as a note, I removed references to your blog, to avoid any possibility of a forum code of conduct violation for advertising - it's nothing personal.

Q u o t e:

So to those hellbent on the fact he did indeed do some illegal stuff and there was no way Blizzard could have messed up because they fully investigate everything .. sadly, you were wrong :) It seems Blizzard stepped up to the plate and admitted that the GM made a mistake .. it's a shame some of the user base here in this thread found that to be an impossible odd, but thankfully those at Blizzard aren't as ignorant or small minded.

I'm glad his follow up investigation turned out favorably. We never take action against an account without reason. We have a variety of sophisticated processes in place (incorporating both automated and human elements) which are designed to help limit and eliminate undesirable influences from World of Warcraft for our players. While we trust the overall efficacy of these processes, we also understand that the rare error can occur and that's part of the reason why we've provided a means to contest an account suspension by emailing [email protected].

Also, for the sake of fairness, the players who frequent this forum have seen a wide variety of issues pass through. All too often, those vocally protesting innocence aren't innocent at all =/. They've seen the rare cases where an account action was applied incorrectly too.

On all sides of this particular discussion I would like to add the reminder that, generally speaking, returning hostility with hostility isn't particularly helpful. After all, being "right" is of limited value if your audience is seeing too much red to read what you've written.

Q u o t e:
Now, not only does he have to pay for his game time during the ban, but his account is also now “marked” and he will never be able to participate in any betas or special offers. The whole situation is complete crap. Not only do you have to wait for hours on end to talk to them about something, but when you do there is no guarantee you will get a straight answer or even be helped at all. Currently, he is still banned, and still waiting on a reply from a GM. I will be discussing the issue a bit more on next week’s podcast, and share the conclusion of the story then.

Marked and unable to participate in betas or special events? I'm not sure where you got the idea that such a thing occurrs, but I'd like to reassure you that there are no such 'marks'. Perhaps you were thinking of the gradual penalties that stack on an account until it is finally permanently suspended? Also, after your boyfriend's case is reviewed, and if the suspension is reversed, then he can discuss any lost play time then.

I noticed that you had some concerns regarding the long wait times for service. We are indeed receiving a large number of incoming requests, so wait times can be a bit high. We're taking steps to address that, and in fact, we've posted a sticky on the subject here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748999538&sid=1

While there's no guarantee that we will be in a position to lend a hand with a given request, we take the service we provide quite seriously and we always do our utmost to help whenever one of our players contacts us.

Q u o t e:
I know most GM's won't put their job on the line for a grudge, however, if your boyfriend knew someone, ticked them off, and they became a GM on that realm, and found out your BF played there... well, that is a mighty big IF (possible, but not probable.)

Actually, the integrity of our staff is of extreme importance to us, and there are safeguards in place to prevent any possible abuse. Thus, not only is such a scenario vanishingly unlikely, it is virtually impossible due to the systems which restrict the opportunity for such a thing to occur.