EA - Ban appeal process is broken

Hi burgard,

While there isn't anyone on the forums who can help directly with bans, I can hopefully give you some information. 

Ban appeals are handled by EA's Terms of Service team rather than EA Help, and they're only contactable by email. This might be the process you followed previously, but just in case, the guide below covers how ban appeals work and will give you a link to appeal the ban with the ToS team:

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

The ToS team will review the appeal and will respond by email, usually within 10 days but may be longer, with the outcome of the appeal. If the appeal is declined then it can be appealed again, but you have a limited number of appeals before they will no longer investigate or respond. If you reach this point then the account will remain banned permanently. 

Moreover, any communication from the ToS team will be set-text for uniformity, and they will not always be able to provide in-depth details about the ban. However, the reason for the initial ban should have been communicated over email when it was applied.

I am very aware that folks on the forum cannot help directly with bans, which is not what I was seeking.

I was highlighting a new customer's experience and how the ban appeal process is flawed. Flawed in either design or implementation, but either way, it is fundamentally broken. As was stated before, the process of the ban was followed, and therefore, the conclusion is that the current ban appeal process is broken due to the lack of accountability and transparency within the TOS team.

While you mention that details on the ban should be annotated within the email response of the ban, this was not how the process was executed. Please see the attached screenshot. The only information received was that the TOS and/or user agreement was violated. The exact message was: "WE WISH TO NOTIFY YOU THAT WE HAVE FOUND YOUR ACCOUNT TO BE IN VIOLATION OF OUR USER AGREEMENT OR OUR TERMS OF SALE, AND DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS VIOLATION WE ARE LEFT WITH NO OPTION OTHER THAN TO PERMANENTLY CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT."

The first appeal was described above. The second appeal took about 24 hours to be reviewed before the ban was reversed. Again, I was provided zero explanation on why the account was banned in the first place or what specific area within the TOS or user agreement was violated. After the ban reversal, the account is playable again. However, I am worried at every moment that something will get the account banned again. This is not a great experience. EA should design a system that prevents this type of situation. The account/purchase was literally 2 days old, and the game was only played through the Xbox with no taunting, AFK, or other behavioral issues that could lead to a suspension. But the punishment for an unknown cause was not a suspension; it was a full account ban for a game that was just purchased with real money and had less than 20 matches played.

I highly recommend that EA review the ban automation and conduct a full assessment of the ban appeal process to hold the TOS team accountable. Providing clear and concise communication should be mandatory. Details may be left out, but a specific reason within the TOS or user agreement should be disclosed at the time of the ban. The ban history has a field for the reason, but as the screenshots showed, no reason was given. Since the ban was a mistake on EA's side (bad programming, logic, etc.), then EA should admit the fault, fix it, and apologize. But when EA does not admit fault, nor provides a root cause or justification, it is absolutely improper conduct. This leads to a horrible first impression for a newly acquired customer. This experience leads to lost revenue since trust has been broken. Instead, this experience created a customer who is afraid of the flawed system that may again randomly ban an account. Do you think this customer will spend another dime? The answer is an obvious no.