Thank you Deuce, it seems that your posts have been the first to illicit some form of comprehensive response from the Community Management.
Sadly, after the first few paragraphs however (which seem to illustrate an almost human fallibility and efforts to improve) there is really just more of the same in respect of paraphrasing the "help yourself" pages. What EA_Blueberry is missing here, is any real attempt to address the issue at hand - a number of us have received wrongful bans. This cannot have gone unnoticed by EA - its not like their "Help" pages are littered with a history of this other than the last 2 months since late September and early October when it all seemed to go off in a big way - I note similarly after a relatively quite November, it all went off again in December, perhaps linked to next gen console releases.
So is it really too much to ask the EA come clean and give an explanation? Yes we know there will be false positives, but to the extent this has been happening recently, surely an explanation linked to a new system, an upgrade to the anti-cheat that made a recent bout of false positives isn't too much to ask for? Although I expect the answer is that EA don't wish to admit fault because this will expose them to some form of compensation claim - sure I have been unable to play the game I paid for over a 6 week period, the events, the lost tokens, the lost progression, all insurmountable now.
Mirroring your post Deuce,
- I posted my TOS claim within 24 hours of noticing my account access was denied (to the companion app and AH in game) on 13 October. I have NEVER received an email from EA telling me I have been banned (yes, I have checked by junk/spam etc, there is nothing there). I have still not received a response to my case/claim.
- Like you, cheating is not something I need to do, Integrity is a big part of my work life (I am a Chartered Member of a professional Institute who adheres to a Code of Conduct professionally) and its also just not something I know how to do. Coin Distribution is beyond me.
- When I presented my claim to Playstation Network asking for a refund, they actually received a fairly quick response from EA to my claim - albeit this actually contradicted the information I was receiving via the Splash Screen when I log in to Madden. PSN were told that I had used third party software, bots I guess, to automate Auction House activity. Again, no idea how to do it, and no interest in doing it. I refer to my above point about being a Chartered Professional as an indicator of my otherwise good character.
- Thank you Deuce for reference to my own case - your point is entirely correct - my own ban seems now to have been lifted (since late November perhaps) and I can now access the AH. However, the splash screen still shows up when I log in every time to Madden. This is the same "COIN DISTRIBUTION" splash screen (not I hasten to add a changed one to anything to do with BOTS). I re-iterate, it has happened several times, although I no longer play Madden as much as previous as the pressure to keep up with events and tokens was lost having been forced to miss 6/7 weeks already....
- Similarly, having read the TOS, there is no reason I had been banned. Its frankly insulting. The conclusion I draw is a glitch, that EA are unwilling to admit. Even if I'm just one of the unlucky false positives, an apology is still warranted.
All that said, and this is more for EA_Blueberry after his lengthy post - which I assure you is appreciated, as it at least shows recognition of the problem to some degree - what your post misses is that you address it still in the certainty that we have received some email, that we aren't a false positive.
You write "What happened in this scenario is that the emails notifying players of an action were delayed....." - yet in my case, no email...I still haven't had one. Not one saying I have been banned, not one replying to my TOS case, not one saying I have been unbanned. It can obviously be inferred from the fact that I have now been "unbanned" that I was a false positive (or a glitch) but where does your post go on to set out the case for restitution or what happens in this case? It doesn't really, its just a presumption of "you're guilty, and here's what...." with an admission that there may be some false positive, but no attempt to respond to the "then what"
