A POE “Horror Story”!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After ~4 years of playing POE without incident, on the morning of 7/22, I woke up to find my account had been banned for use of “Third-Party Software.” I use Filter Blade, Wealthy Exile, Path of Building, and Awakened POE and nothing else. Everyone in my guild uses the same programs, and probably 99% of players use one or more. I was told I could appeal the ruling once, so I did, and my ban was immediately upheld – and they shut my account down for good. The only thing they will tell me is that I violated Article 7 of their Terms of Service (TOS.) Article 7 essentially states that it is illegal to ALTER a third-party software tool in order to “gain an advantage.” Well, I did not do that. In fact, I’m not even smart enough to know HOW to do that. I’m not a computer programmer/hacker, just an ordinary dude who enjoys playing the game.

I’ve pleaded my case to POE Customer Service at least a dozen times, but they only respond with a standard answer – “your ban cannot be overturned.” I believe POE Customer Service might be using AI bots, because some of the answers are identical and don’t seem like they are coming from real people. If they would just look into my case further, they would find that some kind of mistake was made, but they won’t. I can’t get through to a human being (with a brain) at GGG!!! They also keep telling me I am free to start a new account if I want to. But without knowing why I was banned the first time; won’t the same thing just happen again? Also, after investing HUNDREDS of dollars into my account, am I supposed to start over with “5 free stash tabs.”?

Anyway, I don’t know what to do, but I’m looking for people who may have a connection at GGG. If someone would just look into it, they would realize that some kind of mistake was made on their end, and then reverse the decision and re-open my account again.

If anyone is out there and can help me, I would gladly give you a nice reward for your efforts. One thing is for certain, I am not starting over. I did nothing wrong. Please put yourself in my shoes. What would you do if you did nothing wrong, got banned, and then no one at GGG would even investigate that they made a mistake.

What a Nightmare!!!!!

"Lord_Highrock"

I can confirm that this guy is one of the nicest and most honest people I've ever met in my entire life. I wholeheartedly believe he is telling the truth.

I second this, one of the most generous people I know! Also, the ban process needs some updating. I've seen some of the back and forth emails, he's offered to delete the "offending" software if they would just tell him what it is. We need a better system! How about a warning? "Hey xyz program is causing some issues, please delete it" how hard is that? Not, you did something wrong...no we won't tell you what it was, but ty for the cash feel free to start over and buy everything again.

the thing with external programs is, you really don't know what every update on them does.

if you spent enough money on poe to regret losing it or you value the shiny stuff you collected in your account you can't use external programs that interact with poe like awakened trade or similar.

of course this brings you in a disadvantaged position but you have to live with it.

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every program that helps poe players is also a worthy target for the folks that make real money with gaming and they help them specifically target poe players.

you can only use those programs if you exactly know what each version of them does. if there is an update, you have to read the sourcecode to learn the new functions and if they violate ggg's tos.

now worth it if you ask me.

,,,,

"

vio wrote:

the thing with external programs is, you really don't know what every update on them does.

if you spent enough money on poe to regret losing it or you value the shiny stuff you collected in your account you can't use external programs that interact with poe like awakened trade or similar.

of course this brings you in a disadvantaged position but you have to live with it.

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every program that helps poe players is also a worthy target for the folks that make real money with gaming and they help them specifically target poe players.

you can only use those programs if you exactly know what each version of them does. if there is an update, you have to read the sourcecode to learn the new functions and if they violate ggg's tos.

now worth it if you ask me.

Ok, fair point, so how about GGG sending a note to me saying, "Are you using Program XXX, because we believe that it has interacted with our system in a way that is unhelpful, can you please stop using it?"

if I received such an email, I would have stopped and uninstalled the program...but that never happened. instead, I was informed I was banned, there was no explanation from GGG about WHY I was banned, and then it was over.

Is that the way you treat a loyal costumer with no prior issues? No warnings, no explanation, just a lifetime ban???????

Lord_Highrock

"

Lord_Highrock_2 wrote:

Ok, fair point, so how about GGG sending a note to me saying, "Are you using Program XXX, because we believe that it has interacted with our system in a way that is unhelpful, can you please stop using it?"

if I received such an email, I would have stopped and uninstalled the program...but that never happened. instead, I was informed I was banned, there was no explanation from GGG about WHY I was banned, and then it was over.

Is that the way you treat a loyal costumer with no prior issues? No warnings, no explanation, just a lifetime ban???????

Lord_Highrock

they ever had a policy of handling things this way (just banning you), you rarely get a second chance.

and this is exactly the reason for my conclusion, that you can't use any third party stuff ever.

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if players would get away at forst offence with a warning, i wouldn't be this hard and maybe use those programs myself

Or a notice to players, because they know that most of the player base uses trade programs. We have seen that xyz program is interacting negatively with our game. If you use this program, please delete it. Anyone continuing to use this program after xx/xx/xx date, will be banned.

And I say this, because the programs themselves aren't against TOS unless as stated above an update changes the way that it interacts. The average player isn't going to know or understand that. I don't think it would be that difficult or take that much man power to show the player base that they care about the players and not just the profits. Or better yet, why doesn't GGG just create an overlay of their own? The exchange in league is a great step towards that (though we really need one and not the other because the gold cost and price differences between the two are problematic at best).

I understand the use at your own risk aspect, but there should still be some understanding on the companies side that willingness to remove the program and move forward should be sufficient to put an account on warning not give a lifetime ban.

Lifetime bans should be reserved for those that do things like in affliction league where they created programs to read the unid TWWT jewels, RMT, and things like that. Knowledge of wrong doing should play a factor.

"

lxabear wrote:

Or a notice to players, because they know that most of the player base uses trade programs. We have seen that xyz program is interacting negatively with our game. If you use this program, please delete it. Anyone continuing to use this program after xx/xx/xx date, will be banned.

narp.

one example:
the ahk script that people used to "fast disconnect" the game on keypress, loaded a external exe file from a webspace when installed. the executable was a general purpose file to inject packets into a existing connection.

in this case it injected a TCP_FIN into the connection of the client to the server and made the server close the connection, the client got a "unexpected disconnection occured"-error cause it didn't send the packet.

it would have been easy to replace the exe file with one of the same functionality and the additional code to steal your game credentials to login to the players account.

you can read what the ahk script does by editing it, you see that it maybe downloads a exe from the internet when started and a newer exe is provided and you don't use the ahk when you're unable to modify it to not download stuff from the internet.

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how do you warn users who use the script which obviously everybody uses but which was altered to download the executable from a malware location or which downloaded a executable someone temporarily switched with a malware version?

you can't

Sorry OP your situation sounds rough, and unfair.

Just to weigh in and play devil's advocate on one of your specific complaints, if I were GGG I would _not_ provide details on how they came to their conclusion - because people who do bot/hack/cheat would use whatever information they can glean from that to find new ban-proof workarounds. It's a bit of an arms race between cheaters and game developers and they need their state secrets.