Permanent Ban for Steam Username
This is not me asking for an appeal of the ban; I know it cannot be done here.
- Received a permanent account ban for my Steam username containing an inappropriate phrase (I won't say it here, but a very mild lewd reference). A warning was issued by email, but it was filtered into spam.
- Beyond this, two small suspensions were issued that I wasn't online frequently enough to notice at the time (3-day suspension, but work was busy and I was on once every week or two). The accompanying emails also got filtered to spam, same as the warning, along with EA's marketing emails.
- I was unaware of the username being an issue until trying to launch an EA game and seeing that the account was permanently banned. The account is nearly 20 years old with thousands of online hours on EA products on various platforms, with no prior ToS violations ever before this. (I am trying to get at the fact I'm not a problematic individual with my online communication, just wasn't thinking about the cross-platform username compliance, Sorry!)
- When I appealed it, I got an autoreply to the effect that "all investigations have been made and EA will not review it". I understand the need to change the username, but I was not given a constructive opportunity to do so, such as a 1-3month account ban. I have thousands of hours on EA products on the Steam and Xbox accounts linked to the EA account.
I understand the reason for the ban and would like to take corrective action to ensure a compliant username going forward for cross-platform games. I'm not posting this to appeal this decision (as nice as it would be to have hundreds of dollars of games work again). I just want to give feedback on the current process surrounding the ToS team's handling of cross-platform username compliance. I doubt I'm alone in missing the 2 suspension emails, and the short suspension was easy to miss. I would strongly recommend a longer suspension (1+ month) to ensure visibility to the user. Otherwise, users like me will not realize there is an issue until it is too late.
Unfortunately, EA's handling of the matter has made me feel fairly defeated. Hundreds of dollars of games are rendered unplayable for me, and the appeal process for an "honest mistake" that did not have malicious intention behind it was a brick wall. I will not be making a new account to continue to purchase EA products or play subscriptions. This is the rather sad end of the line for me with this publisher.
