GrogHeads Forum

Digital Gaming => Computer Gaming => Topic started by: JudgeDredd on January 12, 2019, 04:39:29 AM

Title: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: JudgeDredd on January 12, 2019, 04:39:29 AM
So my daughter went to play Battlefront II online and it came up with a message which basically said she was cheating an banned her for a week...I don't have the specifics.

I wrote to EA and explained it's my daughter who plays online who wouldn't have a clue how to cheat or install any software to help her. Her scores online are abysmal...she just likes playing online. I told them to remove the ban.

They replied today...here it is...
Quote
Hello,

Thanks for contacting us about your account action.

We got your note and did a full investigation of your account. After reviewing your case, we determined that we took the correct action in accordance with EA policies and procedures.

What this means

We have confirmed that your account was involved in cheating. Because of this, we will not remove the sanction on your account.

You break our rules(https://www.ea.com/terms-of-service#section6) if you:
• use software that interferes with or disrupts an EA Service or another user's account.
• use undocumented features, exploits or cheats in-game that disrupts an EA Service or another user's account.
• use software or cheats that disconnects other users from the EA servers.

Any questions?
• Read up on how to play by the rules at https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/play-by-the-ea-rules/
• Review our full user agreement. This is what you agree to when you make an EA Account or use EA services: http://www.ea.com/terms-of-service

Thank you,
EA Terms of Service

What's pissed me off most about this is they have not identified to me what has happened. Their response is very vague - you've been cheating OR using software OR using something to prevent other users from staying online. I can categorically tell everyone here, there is NOTHING on my system that has been installed by me which would do any of this. She doesn't even use any mods. She wouldn't know how to.

So they've banned my account and not identified to me what it was that was causing the problem and so I have absolutely NO recourse. They have made an arbitrary decision, not provided me with the information to counter their accusation and so I'm stuck.

I am livid. I don't play online as many of you know. It doesn't really affect me - but two things - they've accused my daughter of cheating - which is complete and utter bullshit - and second they just said "That's that"...no way for me to know what it is on my system that has caused this so I could remove it.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Destraex on January 12, 2019, 04:58:13 AM
Wow. I guess the silver lining is that it is only s week. But because you don't know what you allegedly did wrong Inwonder how many times it takes before a complete ban.
That note sounds like they did not investigate at all.

Is your internet ok? One thing I can think of is drop hacking. Where people pull their net cables for a second to lag across the map thus not getting hit by enemy fire.
Another thing may be that she got reported by a lot of trolls
Were there any people hassling her just before this happened?

The worst kind of cheating and the one I most hear about is a program called cheat engine. But you don't have that. It's only loaded up while in use as I understand it.

I am pissed off for you as well btw. Not looking forward to this happening to my son who also likes battlefront.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Ian C on January 12, 2019, 06:00:35 AM
Maybe it could be a Firewall or Anti-Virus that is preventing an EA process from working/calling home?

I'd escalate the issue with EA but approach it from the point of view where you are asking them to identify the specific issue that is preventing your daughter from playing so you can correct it.


Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Tuna on January 12, 2019, 08:20:49 AM
I though the EU had laws protecting gaming consumers.. Like WoWs can't nerf premium ships and such.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Jarhead0331 on January 12, 2019, 08:35:47 AM
Is it possible for a hacker to cheat and somehow do so by spoofing someone else's account? Or worse, maybe you're account has been hacked???
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Tuna on January 12, 2019, 08:49:57 AM
Kind of tough to figure out, when they give no real information on what he was accused of doing!  :pullhair:
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Tpek on January 12, 2019, 09:08:42 AM
Yeah, I really hate the sort of customer support you tend to get from video game companies.

As for the cheating thing, it could be some software running in the background that, despite being harmless, was mistakenly identified by the game's anti-cheat crap as being a hack.
This could be software that monitors the computer's vitals, graphics control, anti-virus, even parental control software.

As for account getting hacked (as suggested by JH), you could try changing the password, and make sure the password is something hard to crack, and make sure your system doesn't have key-loggers installed.

@Dest, the fact they did not specify what JD's account supposedly did wrong, means that even after the limited-time ban passes, there's quite a chance it will be banned yet again.
Without knowing exactly what the problem was, there's no way for JD to fix it.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: jamus34 on January 12, 2019, 10:47:27 AM
Wasn't msi's Overclock software (forget the name) causing issues at one point?

All in all it's crap. Guilty until proven innocent and we don't even have to tell you what you did wrong. I've come to really loathe the big software publishers.

Even Bethesda is starting to piss me off given the state they released Fallout 76. That game should never have been released.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Toonces on January 12, 2019, 11:56:47 AM
Without more details it's hard to offer any meaningful advice.  I do know from my son's experience that if enough people "report" you, you can get banned.  This has happened to him before.

Worse, he's had people do a DNS attack on him, where our entire internet will drop out for about 2 minutes.  That makes me very uncomfortable...on many levels.

Anyway, EA is the devil, no surprises to be read here.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Sir Slash on January 12, 2019, 01:08:09 PM
EA-- Enough Already.  L:-)
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Gusington on January 12, 2019, 01:58:51 PM
As JH and Toonces alluded to, maybe your account was hacked, JD.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: demjansk1942 on January 12, 2019, 06:03:50 PM
I probably have over 4000-5000 hours with ea.  One thing, lousy customer service.  Something like this is stupidity on there end.  Now, EA will lose a customer for a $ 10 game or so.

How many people do they really have investigating this stuff?  Anyone know?  Just curious about how many people work in this area
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Staggerwing on January 12, 2019, 06:53:14 PM
At a company the size of EA these kinds of bans (and the response to inquiries about them) are probably all handled by bot algorithm, similar to the way Youtube flags and then demonetizes peoples videos for possible offensive or copyrighted content without any company human actually taking a look.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Destraex on January 12, 2019, 07:20:46 PM
These kind of instances are where I wish that their was an office that would let you walk in and talk to people. Not to abuse them. But to show you are not a threat. Not some clever dweeb pretending to be a girl on the internet. Knowing what to say to EA to beg for an account to be let through once again.

Cheating is something that ruins gaming. Stopping it is a real challenge. Innocent people are always caught up in this kind of thing.
Real people talking to real people in person may be the answer. Game companies could cross check records with other game companies to see how many times a person has been accused. Word would get around quickly for the real troublemakers.
I guess thats why starcraft went with full real names.
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Boggit on January 12, 2019, 10:59:03 PM
@JD

What a bloody cheek for EA to have treated you in such an arbitrary way! :knuppel2:

If you want to find out what they base their decision on (if anything) you might want to make a Data Protection Act 1998 information request, which will hopefully reveal the grounds for the ban. They should have a Data Protection controller, whose details should be publicly available to whom you direct your request. You make your application as the data subject, under your statutory right, to see whatever data they hold on you.

IIRC, the annoying thing is that there is a standard administration statutory charge of £10 for such applications.

Were I in your shoes, if your search shows you did nothing wrong, then I'd at least ask for a reimbursement along with an apology so that you are not out of pocket.

Anyhoo, just an idea to hold them to account... :-"
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: JudgeDredd on January 13, 2019, 04:17:36 AM
Thanks all. I guess EA unites all  ;D

I hate cheating in gaming. It's been one of the main reasons I quit online gaming so many years ago and the more companies can do about it the better.

However - not giving someone any recourse isn't justified. I need to know what they are basing their ban on so I can deal with the issue. If it's a piece of software completely unrelated too the game and I don't need it, I'd make a decision on whether to remove it or not. If it was something I could identify, I could at least approach them and say "Well, it's this software you're talking about and you need to make sure it's accepted in your cheat algorithm.

Apparently they just took ages to let me know, because the one week ban is over and my daughter was playing during the week.

As for people reporting her, it could've only been because she's piss poor at it. That's what's annoying as well - she's not good online at all, but she just loves it. Completely opposite to me who gets frustrated at attack, dead, attack, dead...she just brushes off and jumps into any type of unit and goes. She doesn't try to master a specific one or anything...she loves the variety and so doesn't give a shit about her score.

I'm totally pissed at this and I'm sorry to say that EA are now on my hit list for saving money.

I'm going to write to them and tell them it's unacceptable to tell someone they've been banned for cheating and then not give the specifics. I'll see what they say.

Actually, I don't care. I don't play online anyway. In the words of a very famous band, If it happens again, I'm a leavin' These company's will eventually dry up and die - hitting them in the pocket is the best way to deal with them.

They won't give me a reason why my account was banned, I won't give them a reason why I'm not buying their products.

Cheers
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Yskonyn on January 13, 2019, 07:12:04 AM
The more frustrating thing is that EA's reaction is the typical corporate reaction we get from so many different companies and governmental entities in our modern society; they are standard protocolized reactions making it very clear you are just a number. A faceless one of many and they give the impression time and again that they just don't care.

Fortunately there have been some small indications that things might be changing. Players voting with their wallet and making a public case of their discontent with how companies go about their business (Blizcon Diablo mess anyone?).
It's a good thing IMO. It looks like smaller independent studios might be consistently having a much more dedicated community. I feel it would be great to downsize on a general level. But that goes for a lot of things these days. :)

But JD, if you do get worked up about it you do best just digressing and take some distance indeed.  O0
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: demjansk1942 on January 15, 2019, 05:34:08 PM
I always bring up Radio Shack.  They used to hassle us for bringing things back in the 70's.  They were one of the worst.  I have to say, Amazon is good with returns
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: Silent Disapproval Robot on January 15, 2019, 06:29:51 PM
Until they decide you've returned one item too many.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers-who-make-too-many-returns-1526981401 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers-who-make-too-many-returns-1526981401)
Title: Re: Downright pissed off with EA
Post by: demjansk1942 on January 16, 2019, 06:11:44 PM
True, but then I will cancel everything and then Bezos will not have the ability to get gifts for his new flame.  Man, that guy was thinking with the wrong head.