The whole way they went about this thing sucks. They need to spend more time and effort to develop a system of analyzing accounts before banning because alot of good people got caught up in this fray including one of our admins, a long time player. We posted his story on our front page yesterday: http://www.abfnet.com/ Here's the whole story, just on case: Warning to all who play World of Warcraft By ctcost Late last week, one of our Administrators, *cough cough* Wolfman. Had his World of Warcraft account summarily banned. The sequence of events went like this: 1) Wolf received a letter out of the blue stating his account was suspended because a character he had never created, or heard of received "something" from a compromised account. 2) 2 days later, without any questioning or correspondence from Blizzard on the account, he received an email stating his account was permenantly closed. Not for the original reason mind you, but because he supposedly had let someone else accesss his account this time. 3) Wolf replied to this letter with the following: Quote: Hello, My account name is w0lfman I have recently received an email saying my account was "banned/closed". Please provide me all the information available regarding this matter. 3) He called Blizzard Support. After a half hour of wrangling the guy said he could do nothing, his Supervisor could do nothing because it was the wrong department. Wolf had to contact the account admins that had closed his account via EMAIL ONLY. His second option was to send a letter to a PO BOX in Irvine, CA. No matter how hard Wolf tried he could not get a phone number for these people, he could not get a physical brick and mortar address. Also, there is no listing on the State of California's website for a Blizzard Entertainment in terms of INC. LLP, LLC or any other limited partnership. 4) Wolf receives an email return from his original query: Quote: Hello William, > > Account Name: W0LFMAN > Offense: Unauthorized Account Access Policy > Details: Unauthorized access to another World of Warcraft account > > The actions detailed above have been deemed inappropriate for World of > Warcraft by the Support staff of Blizzard Entertainment. Please review the > World of Warcraft Unauthorized Account Access Policy at > http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01889 p. Access to another World > of Warcraft account which is not registered in your name constitutes > unauthorized access to another World of Warcraft account, whether or not you > had permission from the registered user. As such, this World of Warcraft > account has now been closed by the Account Administration staff based on > review of the above account infraction incurred. This action has been taken > in accordance with the Terms of Use > (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.h tml) and our game policies > (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm0171 2p). > > Last, according to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use, to which all players > agree when installing World of Warcraft, Section 3, Paragraph C [Rules Related > to Game Play] states that you may not do anything that Blizzard Entertainment > considers contrary to the "essence" of World of Warcraft. This entails access > to another World of Warcraft account, including, but not limited to, the > deletion of items/characters and redistribution of in-game currency or > possessions. The bottom line is that we want World of Warcraft to be a fun > and safe environment for all players. > > We thank you in advance for your time and for respecting our position. > > > Regards, > > Alchavian > Account Administration > Blizzard Entertainment > http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ Talk about general....there is nothing in this email that remotely tells what exactly wolf was supposed to have done. No instances, no evidence, no proof of anything except the Blizzard tin gods are on a rampage!!! more proof of Blizzards Naziesque tactic lies in this press release from their own site: Quote: World of Warcraft Accounts Closed - 6/9/06 In keeping with Blizzard's aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, we banned over 30,000 accounts in the month of May, and with that removed well over 30 million gold from the economy across all realms. The banned accounts were taking part in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items, which severely impacts the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players. We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and its players from the harmful effects of cheating. Please note that selling World of Warcraft content, such as gold, items, and characters, can result in a permanent ban of the involved accounts from World of Warcraft. Many account closures come as the direct result of tips reported to our GMs in game or emailed to our Hacks Team by legitimate World of Warcraft players. If you suspect that a World of Warcraft player is using an illegal third-party program to farm gold or items, or is otherwise violating our Terms of Use, please report the suspected infraction via one of the means listed above. All reports will be investigated, and those that prove false will not result in corrective action. Thank you for your continued support, and good luck with your adventures in Azeroth! We are both wondering how many other accounts they have closed on such nebulous terminology. The analogy of the kid that saved his lunch money for weeks in order to get a copy of WORLD OF WARCRAFT comes to mind. For Wolf, he's an adult, he played this account for over a year, put in hundreds of hours on character creation and LEGAL play in order to get his characters the way he wanted. For the nebulous reason of "It goes against the "essence" of the game"...Seems the "essence" is a total witch hunt, and that sucks. Furthermore, World of Warcraft has 6 million players...they are grossing roughly $86 million a month. Seems they are getting too big for their britches. Out of all the players they are saying there were 30freaking THOUSAND people cheating in some way? That's a little over half of what we lost in VietNam for Christ's sake! We have setup an email address if you feel you have been cheated out of an account by Blizzard's overzealous Administrators scammedbyblizzard@abfnet.com. Please list your name, address, phone, email and a good time to be contacted if we move forward. If we get enough people we'll find a lawyer and launch a class action against them. You may only get a check for $1.35 after the monies get divided up but you'll be sending a message to Blizzard and all other game companies not to steal your money and time! Also, remember with World of Warcraft, if you are thinking about playing and investing your hard earned money and time, they can and will cancel your account WITHOUT considering your account history, any prior infractions, anything!!! They will not question you, they will not treat you like a person, they will bowl you over like you didn't exist. If you play, good luck. We'll keep you updated as Wolf's case moves along. One last paraphrase from the Blizzard user agreement states that it is your responsibility to monitor your account and if you see any suspicious activity to report it to the account admins...K here's the problem, Bllizzard doesn't give you any tools to accomplish this. There is no way to monitor IPs signing on to your account! And yet, you can be banned for a part of the user the user agreement that you have no way to comply with. If this article in anyway helps some poor sole avoid the pian wolf has gone through, it will be considered as wolf said "Mission accomplished". The Blizzard site is located HERE