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PartTimeWarrior's avatar
2 years ago
Solved

Randomly Banned after not playing for months.

Randomly banned after being a EA Play member for years(sometimes off and on depending on if I'm playing EA published games) on Apex Legends after maybe 2hrs of gaming, then receiving an Email that I've been banned at 3AM in the morning that following night. I didn't know about it until I tried to play Apex tonight and started to research what I can do to dispute and understand why my account was flagged or banned. 

I can't think of any reason how it would flag me for anything considering I've never cheated in any online game since I've been playing games since the early 2000s. Those matches weren't wins, I didn't win every engagement nor did I have "cheating like map knowledge" as me and my 2 friends were ambushed and surprised numerous times. I didn't get disconnected randomly during matches, nor left early - let alone leaving multiple times. I can only imagine a trio of 3 players that we killed reported me or my 2 friends. They have not been banned as I know and will ask them to try to get on to see if they are as this is something I'm dealing with currently.. The other thing I can think of is the anti-cheat flagging my system since I'm running AMD's overlay software, a FanSpeed program or maybe the 2 RGB programs. Razer Synpase and the ASRock RGB to sync colors to Synapse.

I just wonder if there's anyone else who has been wrongfully banned and got their account back. I would like to know how long it took and how the customer service responded and listened as this would be my 2nd time requesting support from EA and the first time was handled well.

This will affect my future support of EA games and my EA Play membership as if I can't continue to play online games that EA offers and have to worry about being banned wrongfully. I have no reason to give any of their devs my money and will instead go elsewhere. It's disappointing to have to deal with this after coming home from work and unwinding to play Apex. 

7 Replies

  • @PartTimeWarrior7

    All the available information relating to your ban would have been communicated to you via the email associated with your EA account.

    You can also check out your ban history here, but please note not all bans may appear here:

    https://help.ea.com/en/my-ban-history/

    The EA staff who work here on AHQ cannot help you directly with account-related issues, such as bans, only the TOS team can help you.

    If you feel you have been incorrectly banned, the only thing you can do is to dispute any action taken against your EA account by following the steps in this article:

    https://help.ea.com/en/help/account/information-about-banned-or-suspended-accounts/

    There is also this AHQ guide on bans and suspensions :

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/EA-General-Questions/EA-Bans-and-Suspensions-How-they-work-and-how-to-get-in-contact/m-p/9754200#M355907

    It is my understanding that you can appeal a ban a number of times.

  • PartTimeWarrior's avatar
    PartTimeWarrior
    2 years ago

    Thanks for the quick response. I know there's nothing the people here can do but am also trying to see how others have dealt with this. I hope to get a response from the support in the coming days and figure out how to progress from there.

  • PartTimeWarrior's avatar
    PartTimeWarrior
    2 years ago

    I have received a new email from an automated system saying that my account was detected as cheating with no further information on when or what manner I was so called detected. This is exactly what I assumed will happen as this was how this issue worked out for many others on the internet. 

    I have already sent in a 2nd dispute and I will continue to do so until I get an actual human who has access to all information relating to my account.

    HellianXLITE is a youtuber who was wrongfully banned and his account was not given back until 3 months later. That is unacceptable and I encourage anyone else who feels they have been wrongfully banned to contact each other and work together to fix this ongoing issue. To continually dispute and get access to their account with money spent on it. Been gaming for years on the same account across many other EA games and have never been banned or even chat banned. A long, long history of gaming correctly and this just is a huge screw you situation.

  • @PartTimeWarrior7 The same thing happened to me on October 9th. I have been playing since season 0, I have around 80,000 kils, all the passes, relics and prestige skins, I haven't played for two days and when I come back this happens, I am also looking for a solution yesterday I sent a dispute and I am waiting for the answer,
    From what I understand,
    These types of things take 3-4 months to resolve.
  • I've also heard it takes a very long time for the correct people to respond. The anti-cheat used must have a high rate of false flagging/positives. As it makes sense why so many others have gotten banned wrongfully. 

    I'd imagine that there is a huge communication issue between all parties; Ea as publisher and the help contact source point, Respawn as the game dev, Easy anti-cheat as the engine used to detect cheating. The time lag of different companies has to be a factor as well.

    Also, a system based on AI or pattern recognition will always have issues with false flags more than a human sifting through data points and physical information before making a decision.

    Which is funny in a way. Because if they had a human watch my games I played before I was banned. I simply wouldn't have gotten banned haha.

  • PartTimeWarrior's avatar
    PartTimeWarrior
    2 years ago

    3rd Dispute filed now. 

    2nd email saying they detected cheating and will not change their answer.

    This is easily the worst experience I've had with a support process. I don't understand how anyone can be okay with the manner in how you never get access to a human who will do full diligence in supporting and helping a customer/user. 

    Again, long life gamer for 20 years who has never been hacked or cheated, no lag switches, no cheats of any kind and this is the first time I've ever been banned or dealt with this.

    If I can't continue to fight this wrongful ban. I'm getting a refund for my subscription and I will no longer be buying EA published games. I will also inform others online about EAC and how its use leads to false positives for clean players.  You can look back through history on this support forum, on reddit and other places online that show a pattern of periods where EAC wrongfully bans players and how long it takes to fix it. Let alone if a user can even get their account back.

    Reminder to everyone that if this happens to you. Vote with your wallet, stop buying games, stop your subscription and inform others of these practices and results.

    Because you may never know when it comes to you and you have no good help or result from a clearly wrongful ban.

  • I have this issue as well, on the 27th of Oct. 2023 I also got banned with no reason given.. When I went to contact the TOS team they said that I was "Cheating".. However I hadn't played the game since 2021.. 

    I am now in contact with them via a new case requesting proof / data saying that I played the game at that time. Really unfortunate 

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