Square Enix wrongfully banning it's FFXI players.

[Sephiroth_Owa13]

On Square Enix's MMORPG Final Fantasy XI they have recently banned a large sum of rmt (real money traders) but also in those bans, legit players have been hit and have been slapped with a permanent ban, which means that they can not play that account or use it.

The cause of this ban? A tool called RMTPWNER ver 1337.

And I'm serious about that name, that's not a joke. It looks for activity that rmt do and flags as a ban-able offense.

And this ban-able offense is something so simple everyone can do it. It's called Gardening ( http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Gardening ) . Which has been stated by SE is in the past a legit means of making gil in XI. But now legit players both new and long time have been hit with LM-17 bans which are permanent bans. And have been banned for rmt just because the rmt picked up on a way players garden to make gil.

I myself have been hit with one of these bans. Which was just a mule account. ( mule is a character you don't level just use for storage or other things outside of leveling). And now I'm worried I'll lose my main accounts just because I garden on it as well and because the banned account was on my debit card that I also use to pay for my main. The reason why? Because they tend to ban accounts just because the same card was used to play for a banned account. Even if the other account has no flags on it.

And others have lost years of hard work and time invested on their characters for nothing. All of us that have been hit with these bans can't think of anything we did that was rmt in anyway other then the fact they garden like we do.

Here are some links for you to read up on about the bans.


Order of the Blue Gartr: http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/78095-warning-proud-beard.html , http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/77075-lm-17-wtf-10.html , http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/77895-square-enix-you-ffxiv-3.html

And

Allakhazam: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10;mid=1246903361218971631;num=195;page=1 , http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10;mid=124700418426753746;num=16;page=1

Also SE has been banning people for charge backs on debit/credit cards.

I know this site is for a lot of fans for the Final Fantasy games, but with FFXIII and FFXIV coming out just want to let the fan base know how they treat the people that pay monthly fees to play XI.

Poor customer service and Game Masters that know next to nothing about the game they're meant to protect for it's players.

With all the recent bans current XI players are canceling accounts that haven't been banned yet and leaving.

Plus keep in mind that SE wants it's current XI players to also play XIV...but the way they are treating it's loyal paying customers a lot just want nothing to do with SE any more. Both for XI, XIV and other games they put out.

So unless SE changes the criteria they flag accounts as ban-able and put humans to review said accounts before a ban hammer... a lot of current XI players are not touching XIV cause it's same people for Game Masters and for customer service...just under a different name.

So I leave this up to you if you find it news worthy.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Is there no way to contact someone over the ban and maybe get it reversed?

How can a fucking company have such piss poor customer service? I'm rather shocked.

Surely there is someone above you can talk to that has the power to evaluate the ban, and reverse it.

Holy shit...some of the things you get banned for are utterly bizzare...

 

[Tetsujin]

Yeah, hm, this makes me rather concerned about 14.

Also:

A tool called RMTPWNER ver 1337.

Wow. Just...wow. xD

 

[Makoeyes987]

What really frightens me is how they'll ban you....for doing things they want you to do in the game. That's just evil and insane.

And seriously, how can there be no recourse or whatever for a ban?

Well according to the Proud Beard link..

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/2881995-post43.html

Some of the people were able to get their accounts unbanned. So clearly they're capable of it and shit. Maybe it *was* just limited to trial accounts selling off crap and stuff.

 

[Sephiroth_Owa13]

Yea it seems some are slowly getting their accounts back. And when you call the customer service all they tell you is that the account is banned and there is nothing they can do for you other then file a ban compliant. They don't have the power to un-ban accounts or give you info on why it was banned other then stuff like rmt.

They also tell you only GMs can tell you the reason why a account was banned but what they seem to forget is that you can't call a GM from a banned account and GMs wont talk an account other then the one you're calling from.

So account B gets banned they tell you to call a GM from account B but you can't even log onto Play Online to make the call. So you try to call from account A. GM says they cannot talk about account B's ban details cause you're on account A. Even if you own both accounts.

As for talking to higher ups...they give you the same run around.

 

[Max Payne]

Cba to read all that.

Is this about that gardening shit?

 

[Sephiroth_Owa13]

lol yea the gardening shit.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Cba to read all that.

Is this about that gardening shit?

Then why are you posting here, faggot?

Read and edumacate yourself.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Yea it seems some are slowly getting their accounts back. And when you call the customer service all they tell you is that the account is banned and there is nothing they can do for you other then file a ban compliant. They don't have the power to un-ban accounts or give you info on why it was banned other then stuff like rmt.

They also tell you only GMs can tell you the reason why a account was banned but what they seem to forget is that you can't call a GM from a banned account and GMs wont talk an account other then the one you're calling from.

So account B gets banned they tell you to call a GM from account B but you can't even log onto Play Online to make the call. So you try to call from account A. GM says they cannot talk about account B's ban details cause you're on account A. Even if you own both accounts.

As for talking to higher ups...they give you the same run around.

You need to go around those customer service chat room tools.

There's a way to look up the actual phone number for Square Enix Customer Support. In fact, I'll go dig it up now. But you won't get anywhere with a chat person. Their entire job is to run you around and get you so frustrated and diffused, you'll lose interest in actually pursuing action.

858-790-7529

I'd try calling that number and bugging them repeatedly until they transfer you to someone who can help. You have to just be annoying.

 

[Sephiroth_Owa13]

Umm yea that's call center. They are no help. Well let me correct myself. On small things they can help like password changes and other small things.

But when it comes to the big problems like accounts getting hacked or the recent bans they are zero help.

It's the same for the live chat and the people on the phone. That's why a lot of people on Blue Gartr (BG) are bitching about SE poor customer service.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Wow. In my experience if you just keep asking to talk to the supervisor or whoever's higher up, you eventually reach someone with the clout necessary to do something.

How can they seriously have nobody that can *do* anything working customer service? Whats the fucking point?

 

[Tetsujin]

You have to keep bitching at them.

You see, it's an endurance test. But the person at the call center has a disadvantage. They aren't allowed to hang up on the customer. They can't be just like "lol, can't help you, kthxbai". They can only get you to hang up first.

But if you just don't do that, they might actually redirect you to someone who can do anything.

...or they'll put you in an endless waiting loop.

 

[Sephiroth_Owa13]

And you're just starting to see what XI players have had to deal with from SE. And back in January there was over 900 accounts of legit players that did a dup in game from a end game event called Salvage. That allowed people to get dups of items the bosses would drop.

A lot of people reported this glitch...cause in a MMO dup'ing is a BIG no-no and a auto ban. But GMs said... "Game is working fine nothing is wrong move along." So groups of people starting dup'ing the drops to get high end end game gear faster cause the drop rates suck.

And that was going on for over a year...and come Jan. 22 09. SE mass bans account for this saying they just found the gliche and that players were abusing it on mass...

So yea....goes to show you how SE listens to reports from players on glitches in XI...GMs say it's fine but when the devs in the Japan office see this...they mass ban accounts.

This was also happening on a monster called Sand Worm. You'd get high value gil drops from the monsters that would spawn in a area after the Sand Worm used a move called Doom Void.

In that area you could fight NMs that would drop the sell-able items that normally are ex/rare...meaning you can't sell or trade them.

But that dup'ing part is old news but shows how they don't listen to the players...

Also a quote from BG:

Regardless of the specifics of the instance Kaeko is posting about, we know that SE is banning accounts indiscriminately with some sort of automated tool, and that's still the real problem. It sounded really cool being announced from the STF at fanfest, woot gogo RMT bans, until they turned on us and started biting the hand that feeds them (even more than usual). I wish there was a way to open their eyes to what they're doing, but SE is exceptionally thickheaded when it comes to FFXI and I can't see even player letters getting through to them. Maybe if there were enough...

Regardless, that is some scary shit. When gilsellers are reported by players, the GMs do not do anything for days, sometimes weeks while they 'review' the account. However, legitimate players are now getting banned right away without question or quarter for things they didn't even do, and how does that make any sense? The employees wielding the banhammer must never have heard 'with great power comes great responsibility' >.>

 

[Arianna]

I feel you, Sephiroth_Owa13. Truly, I do.

Sadly, 'customer service' is not as all powerful as it's title suggests.

I worked for Aetna. The most I could do for a complaint was detail the complaint to the 'proper people' and look information up.

If I was lucky, I could do the bugging and have claims review and reverse or retry the issue right there and then - or at least that day.

And, by 'proper people', I mean one category that handled special needs (for me, it was a dental/maxofacial issue) was one young woman who held odd hours and days - as far as I can remember.

It's frustrating, I agree; and, sadly, for both sides. I've been on both sides, so I can speak with confidence in I know this topic!

My suggestion: call them, as well as write them. Write a letter to the president of Square Enix (at least the president of the area you are in). Don't just settle for email, I mean actually type up and hand sign a letter and get it out to the president.

Perhaps that may seem like overkill to some, to go straight to the top. You don't have to settle for poor customer service such as attitudes and manners, but at the same time, you could help customer service help you (and others) much more by inciting change in policies.

Anyhow - oh, and Tet - yeah, customer service can hang up on people - if the other side of the phone conversation is being rude and/or hostile. I mean, you're advised to tell the person why before doing so, but... it's a 'last resort' action that is not advised against. But again, last resort.

Reading about this whole thing makes me question my willingness to try the online games, I will tell you that.

EDIT PS: I don't really know how, but I think to cover your butts, you're going to have to keep a printed copy (if possible) of the details of conversations (phone or computer) with these GMs. It sounds like they need to be reminded of their own words; if SE has a problem, well then, it's on them.

Plus, why in the world would they even have an issue with such a thing on a game? I'm lost on those details. If it's in the game, it's not the users' fault! It's on SE.

Heck, I saw on YouTube how some person got a rare creature in Final Fantasy XII to drop four high level weapons of one type. What's SE going to do - ban the person from playing the game they legally bought from SE?

EDIT PS # 2: Ah, yeah - these robots. It sounds like that's what's banning people. Perhaps that's why many bans need to be quality controlled by humans.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I think one thing FFXI fans should do if this is really such a problem, is letter bomb their offices. Just keep sending letters en mass.

Also get this out in the news, like report this shit to Kotaku or something. Keep stirring the shit storm and make this become a bad PR thing for them, like that Pandemonium Watchbearer debacle.

 

[Arianna]

...like that Pandemonium Watchbearer debacle.

What happened?

 

[Tetsujin]

The what?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Oops, Pandemonium Warden. My bad

Holy fucking shit, I can't believe you've never heard of that retardation.
This is the experience of a gamer who devoted over 18 hours trying to kill this one boss. This is some truly fucked up game design here.

Here's an article on it here.

And another.

This fucking retardation forced them to reconsider whether the monsters they were designing were fair to the player base.

 

[Tetsujin]

Well, they couldn't figure out how to beat it.

Tbh, sitting in front of their pcs for 18 hours nonstop is incredibly stupid. I think those players were more fucked than the game design in this case.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Dude. Read the fucking thing. It's not about trying to figure it out. The fight was so ridiculously convoluted with the enemy so over powered that the fight was no longer about strategy and was just a war of attrition against a computer.

Read that shit. It was so bad SE publicly apologized and re-tweaked the monster so that it'd be actually BEATABLE and not just a war against a fucking terminator.

It shouldn't take over 2 weeks to just get a SHOT at fighting something that'll not only fucking kill you but also RUN AWAY and leave with absolutely fucking nothing for devoting hours upon hours on just making it spawn and kick you in the face.

 

[Tetsujin]

Tl;dr imo.

 

[Arianna]

Thanks, Mako. I will read it.

Geez, makes me wonder about the original Yiazmat...

Now that, last time through, cost me about 15 (not straight) hours of my life.

EDIT: Ah! Final Fantasy XI... Okay.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Tl;dr imo.

Then don't post about it, fgt

 

[Tetsujin]

Then don't post about it, fgt

No u.

 

[CK]

This isn't new on mmo's. It happens in dofus as well but all you need to do is send them a ticket if you were banned for 'gardening' and they'll overturn it. Doesn't FF11 have a tech support lol?