Re: Wrongful Ban / EA Accountability
Lol, wonderful. My very long, well thought out post was just marked as spam and deleted. Really gives me faith in EA here. Jesus Christ. Reposting here for visibility:
Hey
I appreciate this message to the community. However, I think the lack of timely action on EA's part is pretty disheartening to many. There has been a surprising number of people on here, Reddit and Twitter expressing their concern regarding their bans. Plus what I would think is a very sizable number of people that haven't gone on social media to talk about it. You have better access to the numbers than I do, but this wave of bans seems to be significant.
Earlier in the year there was a large ban wave, and EA realized that some (most?) were unjustified and reversed them. When I first got the message on Saturday, I immediately thought "oh, this just must be another one of those mistakes, I'm sure it'll be taken care of soon". However, there's been nothing. I received a ban message for "cheating" when I've played maybe 3 online games since early November. I feel extremely confident that I have done nothing to cheat in any game. Following along this thread and seeing the number of people having their bans stand, is pretty scary for me. Not only do I potentially lose access to MUT for the rest of the year, but I also can't play ANY online mode in Madden. There are a number of potential issues going forward in regards to this:
- Lose trust of your customers. Like you said - you understand the frustration of people that spent a significant amount of money on building their Ultimate Team. I love Madden, I've bought it every year for 20 years!! But put yourself in my shoes. After what just happened - would you not be very nervous to buy/spend money on Madden next year? What measures are being implemented to make sure this doesn't happen again?
- Lack of transparency. I don't know if the infrastructure isn't there or what - but we need exact reasons why we were banned. It said I was banned for cheating, all I can really say is "I didn't cheat" - but I don't even really know what I'm defending myself against. Going through the TOS process is a one-sided fight. It's like putting a defendant on trial but he's not sure what crime he's committed. I would assume EA has pretty good anti-cheat measures, but as we've seen earlier this year - they are not fool proof. If I got sent an e-mail saying "On November 1st 2020, we received a report saying you used a known game exploit, or IP booted, or whatever the case may be - that would be different. In that scenario, at least I can arm myself with an argument of why that's inaccurate - or for the real cheaters - they would realize they are fighting a case that they won't be able to win.
- The timing of this ban wave. Again, I don't have the numbers, but I would assume that Zero Chill/Ultimate Freeze is one of - if not the most profitable/popular time of the year for MUT. Losing access to it not only prevents me with engaging of any of the content, which is very disappointing, but EA is also missing out on money that I (and many of the other banned users) would be spending. This is only amplified by the lack of timeliness of the EA ToS team. If we are waiting 2-3 weeks for a decision, favorable or not, it's probably too late.
- The overall ToS review process is very flawed. Look, I get it, EA puts their faith in the ToS review process and entrusts it's employees to analyze the information and make an informed decision on whether or not the user violated the rules. Again, there are many problems with this. I already mentioned how the users aren't given an opportunity to defend themselves against what they are being accused for - because there may be a legitimate explanation for what happened. It also punishes those who receive the message and don't submit a ToS claim. Maybe they don't have the time, they aren't sure where to find it, forgot their EA account e-mail/password combo (I've seen a ton of people that made their EA account 10+ years ago with an e-mail they no longer have access to). Those that don't submit a claim never have a chance to state their claim. When a ToS decision is rendered, it also leaves the customer with a bad taste in their mouth. There's nothing more other than "we determined that the action was warranted" and somewhat condescendingly at the end says "any other questions?" - a specific would be very nice in this scenario.
So, what is my solution? There 100% needs to be a better warning process for those that have violated the rules. If a person cheated, give them a warning. If they don't think it's accurate, at least they are still able to play the game while their case is reviewed. If a person bought coins, they'll know that they will get caught and they aren't allowed to do it. There's a lot of younger kids that play this game that truly have no idea that buying coins is a bannable offense. If you're a 15-year-old kid who spends his paper route money on some coins off of a website that MMG promoted, only to get banned shortly after and permanently lose access to the game seems bad. A warning message afterwards lets them know that it's not okay and don't do it again. This zero-tolerance approach seems unfair to many of the users. Make it a 2-3 strike process. First offense - warning. Second offense - one-week ban? lose access to AH if buying/selling coins? Third offense - permanent ban. This makes sense from a monetary perspective, a customer service perspective, and would drastically reduce the ToS review requests from these ban waves.
I know your job is community manager. I don't expect you to go and overturn all these bans and be the hero of the day. All I'm saying, similar to what KRAELO has said he does before - is advocate for us. Go to whoever you can go to and bring up these points. It seems like a more than fair option to reverse these bans, albeit with a stern warning to all of those affected that a second offense will result in a serious account punishment - or if they don't believe they've committed the offense in the first place, they can request a review to remove the warning. If nothing happens to the majority of users banned and they stay banned, I truly believe that it will have damaging long-term effects. Sure, it probably won't impact the bottom line much, if at all in the near future, but repeats of these types of actions can have very damaging long-term effects. I own a business myself and it's always my motto to "have the longest view in the room" e.x - make every decision in the best interests of your company's long-term future. The more and more users that are banned then don't become repeat customers can have a snowballing effect that could be destructive going forward. Madden is the only horse in the race right now, but there's no telling what the future holds. If you give enough people a reason to switch over to a future alternative football game - they will.
I sincerely hope you can raise these points to a higher-up who does make these decisions. Maybe you already have. But there's just no way the current process is best for business or the customers.
