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nsvhqwgfgfg0's avatar
nsvhqwgfgfg0
Newcomer
21 hours ago
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Banned account was previously compromised, and I cannot reach anyone for help

The account I’m posting from is not the account involved. The affected account is banned and now also locked, so I can’t post from it.

I recently bought EA Sports FC 26 through Steam. When I launched it, I found out that the EA account linked to my Steam account had a full ban for “systems abuse.”

I hadn’t used that EA account in a long time, so I had no idea it was banned.

Here is the timeline.

I used to play Apex Legends through Origin and later moved to Steam when it became available there. My last recorded Apex playtime on Steam was May 24, 2022.

On November 7, 2023, EA sent me an email saying the primary email on my account had been changed to an unfamiliar Russian email address.

At the time, I didn’t pay attention to the email because I had not played Apex or used the EA account for over a year. I assumed it was some promotion or advertisement. Here is the email in question:

Hi Zkeith,
On November 7, 2023 8:36:16 PM UTC , the primary email address linked with your EA Account was changed to:

[edit: email address removed]

If you never made this change, please change your email address back and change your password. If you need additional assistance, please contact EA Help.

Happy gaming,
The EA Team

Three days later, on November 10, 2023, the account was banned.

I only found out about any of this recently when I launched EA Sports FC 26.

I somehow managed to reach an EA advisor and recovered access to the account by proving I was the original owner. I gave account details and information about the games tied to it.

The problem is that the ban remained, and the account is now also locked.

I’m not saying that whatever caused the ban didn’t happen. It probably did. My point is that the account email was changed without my permission only three days before the ban, so the activity appears to have happened while someone else had control of the account and over a year and a half after my last recorded apex play time.

The account is linked to my Steam account and has the following games attached to it:

Apex Legends

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which I bought through Steam and haven’t played yet

Battlefield 1942

Star Wars Battlefront II, which I don’t remember purchasing

I have screenshots and records showing the original email change, the ban date, my last recorded Apex activity on Steam, the linked Steam account and the games I purchased.

I already submitted a ban appeal through Penalty History. It was marked as “fixed” and closed within a couple of hours with no real message other than the email i will leave below here. I can’t reply, upload more evidence or request another review.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us regarding the action that was taken on your account due to a violation of our User Agreement or Terms of Sale.

 
After thoroughly investigating your account and concern, we found that your account was actioned correctly, and the sanction will remain in place.
Should you wish to review our Terms of Sale, they can be found here:
http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/termsofsale/US/en/PC/
Should you wish to review our User Agreement, it can be found here:
http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/WEBTERMS/US/en/PC/
ANY QUESTIONS?
Thank you,
EA Terms of Service

Since then, I have tried almost every support option I could find.

I recovered the account through an advisor.

I used Penalty History.

I tried EA Help.

I tried the EA Help AI chatbot.

I selected the compromised-account options.

I tried the account-deletion route.

I submitted the available support form twice with a PDF containing screenshots and evidence.

Both times, the form redirected me to a self-service page. I received no case number, no confirmation email and nothing appeared under My Cases or on my account.

The chatbot tells me to use the “Contact us” button. The “Contact us” button opens the exact same chatbot again.

Because the affected account is banned, I also can’t use it to post here. Now it is locked as well.

I’m not expecting forum moderators to remove the ban. I understand that they probably can’t review enforcement cases.

What I’m asking is simple: how am I supposed to reach an actual EA employee who can review the account-compromise timeline and the games tied to the account?

Deleting the EA account is not a solution because EA says that doing so may remove access to the games without freeing the linked Steam account for use with another EA account.

I would like either a proper review where I can submit the evidence, a manual unlink of my Steam account, or some way to keep access to the single-player games I legitimately purchased.

EA should be able to check the account’s login locations, devices and activity around the email change and compare them with the activity that caused the ban, as well as the activity around apex legends through my steam id up to may of 2022.

I didn’t want to create another account just to post here, but the affected account is banned, locked, and completely cut off from any useful support channel.

At this point, I’m simply trying to find a real person who can look at the situation instead of being sent around in circles by an AI chatbot in EA help.

  • Hey nsvhqwgfgfg0​​, 

    Thank you for taking the time to describe the situation, and I'm glad to hear that you were able to recover the compromised account.

    As you said, I'm afraid we aren't able to escalate or discuss account actions here on the forums, as we don't have access to that information. The only way to address an account action, regardless of the reason been placed on the account, is to follow these steps and create an appeal. From there, our Terms of Service team will conduct a manual review. So long as our Terms of Service team hasn't stated that they consider the decision final and the case closed, you should be able to appeal again. Once that appeal is created, you can keep an eye on its status on your case history page.

    This might be a disappointing response, but unfortunately, a platform account can't be unlinked if there's an active account action on the linked EA account, and live support also won't be able to assist unless the ban is lifted. 

2 Replies

  • EA_mplsnow's avatar
    EA_mplsnow
    Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
    21 hours ago

    Hey nsvhqwgfgfg0​​, 

    Thank you for taking the time to describe the situation, and I'm glad to hear that you were able to recover the compromised account.

    As you said, I'm afraid we aren't able to escalate or discuss account actions here on the forums, as we don't have access to that information. The only way to address an account action, regardless of the reason been placed on the account, is to follow these steps and create an appeal. From there, our Terms of Service team will conduct a manual review. So long as our Terms of Service team hasn't stated that they consider the decision final and the case closed, you should be able to appeal again. Once that appeal is created, you can keep an eye on its status on your case history page.

    This might be a disappointing response, but unfortunately, a platform account can't be unlinked if there's an active account action on the linked EA account, and live support also won't be able to assist unless the ban is lifted. 

  • thanks for the reply!! the main problem is i cannot create an appeal on a case that is already marked as closed and the original appeal marked as fixed. what bothers me the most is i bought a game recently and cannot access any online services related to the game for something i did not do, and that happened years ago. another thing that bothers me is the lack of options i have in this situation. what i see in the case history for the account is in the image 

    outside of the case marked as fixed and what seems like an automatic response, my options are as a consumer to just suck it up and just give up, i cannot make an appeal if i don't have an open case to review, and i cannot add onto a closed case, so i am just essentially locked out. my only real option is to make a new account on ea and to purchase again games i already spent money on, which i will not do.

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