Let it begin.

[DeebsTundra]

At the risk of massive amounts of flaming and name calling, here goes. I got randomly suspended last night without justification.

Soloing blm last night... minding my own business...

All of a sudden ffxi shuts down, with a little blue box "Disconnected from Playonline."
Me: o.O
FF finishes crashing, and playonline comes back. Error: "Unknown Error."
Boots me all the way back out to the beginning log-in. So I go to log in again. "Your playonline service is stopped. Please contact the Information Center."
*go to bed* *wake up, finally end up getting into a live chat via POL's website*
Me: LM-17, Why has my service stopped?
Square: You have been investigated for RMT and been found in violation of the term's of service and incurred a 72 hour suspension.
Me: Uh... ok. Considering I have no ties or use services of RMT, how did you determine I'm suddenly guilty of it?
Square: We cannot provide you any more information. You will need to speak to a GM once suspension ends. Suspension ends 10/9 @ 00:00.
Me: Why was I suspended for something I haven't done?
Square: (no response)
Me: So the gap between 10/5 @ 04:30 and 10/9 @ 00:00 = 72 hours?
Square: The suspension starts at midnight the day it was issued.
Me: So the suspension ends 10/8 @ 00:00?
Square: 10/9.
(At this point I was now irritated that suddenly I'm RMT and get suspended and got a little snippy. That would be my mistake)
Me: So basically, you say 72 hours, but just remove access for whatever time you deem fit?
Square: Please contact a GM once suspension ends on 10/9 @ 00:00.

And he immediately cut me off. So from the other threads I've read on people who have been suspended, in their "72 hour" window, they can randomly decided to permanently-ban you and then never tell you? Great customer service.

...please... for the sake of keeping this thread civil... if you are just going to get on here and accuse me of using RMT service, just don't post. ...I'd like real thoughts and opinions as to what people think may have caused this?

[WovenDarkness]

Re: Let it begin.

I hate to say it, but anything that you are probably going to hear will be conjecture. Unfortunately, your going to end up waiting to speak w/ a GM.

Even if you aren't guilty of RMT, your going to end up soaking this one up. You've already got a temp-ban...and it seems that SE is playing hardball.... Fair? Probably not. Guilty? I have no clue and won't say you are or aren't.

Be polite when your temp-ban lifts, and post back. If you aren't guilty, you might politely find out which actions caused this, say thank you, and not do those again. I doubt they will care why you were doing what ever it was that caused you to draw attention to yourself..... Good Luck, and hey, keep me posted. I'd love to know so that I don't do something that would get me banned.

[eticket109]

Re: Let it begin.

so what did you do then?

[Taermus]

Re: Let it begin.

I'm guessing it may have something to do with AH activity. I can see a way of abusing it, sometimes, and I've been tempted to grab one portion of the market in a stranglehold. But, that would be naughty. I'm personally surprised that my mining mule has never been contacted by a GM. I don't use a bot, but I have a predictable route that allows me to do as little thinking as possible while listening to a game or chatting (damn Angels lost again grrr).

GMs are looking for a pattern in your behaviour that resembles that of an RMT. Since they use a large variety of methods in gaining Gil, it could be almost anything.

In the crusade against RMT, we have screamed at SE for not doing enough. It was only a matter of time before some of us got more than we bargained for.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Let it begin.

Unfortunately, its stated in the EULA they can terminate your account whenever they want, for any reason. This means they can do it whether they were right or wrong to do so. Its cold, but I understand the reasoning behind it.

There are all kinds of possibilities for why you could have been tagged as suspicious. If you do things like camp one particular NM or try to price-fix things at the AH, its something I'd stop, especially the latter since GMs aren't that blind and stupid. Separate characters and separate accounts don't mean they can't be linked by an IP address, servers pick up on that stuff and log it with your files on the servers for administrators to review later.

[DeebsTundra]

Re: Let it begin.

The only thing I could think of as what the GM's could consider as "suspicious" activity is the fact that if you look at my history I don't sell a whole lot. But seeing how most of my money is made from playing bazaars, there's not much I can go to change my auction house history.

I suppose it's no secret playing bazaars, but I'd rather not give up too many of my gil-making methods. ...but one of the simplest ways to make gil is ancient currency and ancient coins. ...I see the average price for a single currency unit is usually 8k. Though the range is anywhere from 5-10k. I'll typically purchase the lowest priced ones I can find and rebazaar them for 7-8k. While it's not a drastic profit, typically being 500-1000 per transaction, it adds up. As far as buying an entire stock of something and reselling it at whatever I want, due to basic concepts of risk in investing... not only does it cheat other people out of something, but the chance of them doing the same thing I do is pretty high.

Good example of that: Trying to pick up Freeze a week or two ago. I don't remember the exact numbers so I'll pull some out of nowhere. Price history was solid 40k. *bids 40k* Nope. *bids 41k* No luck *bids 42k* no luck. ...this goes on, until I reach 55k. Option A) Keep bidding, no idea how high it's been placed. B) t(^.^t) style to the auction house and wait for later.

So I suppose I have the turtle's point of view when it comes to making money. Slow and steady, guaranteed profit of 10-15k a night playing bazaars, or maybe make 100k a day screwing other people.

In the crusade against RMT, we have screamed at SE for not doing enough. It was only a matter of time before some of us got more than we bargained for.

I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't considered buying gil at one time or another. It lasts about 10 minutes, then I realize the truck payment needs to get paid too, lol. But Taer is right. Sadly, short of spending more real money to fail in a lawsuit against a game (no thanks) I guess I'll just have to take it on the chin, and hope I get more of an explanation than some pre-built GM response.

Well, it is a shame it happened, and I'll be interested to hear why exactly they accused me of it. I was almost hoping somebody on here had something very similiar happen, and could give some insight. C'est la Vive. I'll post again after my "72" (86) hour ban.

[Nuriko]

Re: Let it begin.

I guess they're saying you can't argue the case at all, and you get an explanation later if at all. Chances are, the RMTs are doing what you're doing (though I have no idea if they were before or shifted to it) and SE has equated resellers with RMTs.

You have to admit, it doesn't take much work to start doing this sort of thing, just a bit of gil and the trip to Jeuno ... easy enough to focus on for them.

[Feba]

Re: Let it begin.

Well, hopefully for you it's only a suspension and not a ban. But really, you shouldn't have violated the TOS in the first place.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Let it begin.

Do you have siblings or friends who share your PoL account?

[Malacite]

Re: Let it begin.

Generally speaking, SE never makes a move on a player unless they have hard evidence after conducting at least a few investigations. We're not talking about Blizzard here, who bans people all willy-nilly.

Say what you want, but it sure seems like you're lying to me.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Let it begin.

Playing the market for tiny incremental gains on things like Dyna/Lim currency is actually the kind of thing the RMTs would do. Seems SE may think you fit that profile.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Let it begin.

I highly doubt that SE would ban for "playing" the ah or bazaars. I've been doing it since NA release.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Let it begin.

I highly doubt that SE would ban for "playing" the ah or bazaars. I've been doing it since NA release.

Off topic, but you know you've made it in Wishmaster's new sig, right? Nice to meet you: I'm Yellow Mage, as you may or may not see.

Also, Yoshi~!

(Super Mario Kart also !)

[neighbortaru]

Re: Let it begin.

have you MPK'd anyone lately?

[Murphie]

Re: Let it begin.

If playing the AH is a banable offense, then I should have been banned years ago.

Something else is going on here.