Tale of a BanningFollow

So, thought a word of warning should go out to the community. I got banned. Why, you may ask? Because I have a bank character and sent and received gold in the mail.

I started LOTRO in open beta. I was impressed by its beauty (even though I thought the characters were quite ugly), and enjoyed questing rather than grinding for XP (the only other MMO I played significantly was FFXI). I was concerned once I hit 15, because I felt like I would not have enough money for the horses I needed, so I needed to come up with some ways to make money.

I levelled a Minstral, Loremaster, and Hunter to 15, and a few others, all on the same server. As you can tell from my sig, one of the things that attracts me to games is crafting. Quite often, I find that playing the same job, leveling the same craft, etc. quite boring.

After checking out the economy as much as I could during the open beta, I realized a few things, at least on my server. There were going to be people that rushed to 50, and those that just poke along (I was the latter). I also knew that the former were going to be purchasing goods at auction, and that is where I planned on making my fortune. My Loremaster achieved Grand Master Scholar so she could produce the dyes that everyone seemed to want. During beta, I also snapped up cheap items that I felt would go up in price upon release. Since she was also a Grand Master Farmer (pre-nerf it was a good income), I used her to make juicy blackberries, and had a couple stacks of them going into open release.

Then, I discoverred work orders. What wonderful things! Exceptional Hides were going for up to 1 gold right after release, and so were scholar materials. I was able to make a comfortable amount from those, but the real money was in dyes. My bank character (which I kept in Bree next to the auction) was in charge of selling all my goods at auction. This was my undoing.

When I was logged into my bank character, I would get several tells requesting goods, or requesting crafting items. Most of them I would agree to do on consignment. I.E. If someone wanted 5 black dyes, I would ask them to send me 1/2 of the agreed upon price. I would then make the dyes, and send to them, and they would send the rest of the gold.

This was the transaction that got me banned. I sold 7 black dyes for 30 gold - which was a bargain price at the time (black dye was going for 4-7 each at auction). Since I had crafted for the person before, they gave me 15 gold, and sent the other 15 once receiving the black dyes. One month later, I got banned for receiving too much gold on my mule character. The transaction I just described was the one that got me banned. It put me "over the limit" of gold to be received or sent by one character.

For the past 2 weeks, I have tried to contact Turbine, and have had no success. I have asked them on 9 seperate occassions to review my account, and they would see exactly what had transpired, but they have refused. What I think is the most ironic is this - most of the gold that was sent in and out of my mail system on my mule character was sent between my other characters. The other irony of this entire thing is the time frame I was supposed to have purchased gold, I didn't even have a credit card. I am dealing with identity theft, and both my credit cards had their numbers stolen, so it wasn't possible for me to purchase any items online. LOL.

I have been very anti-RMT in FF, and find it a bitter pill to swallow that someone accuses me of it without proof, and without recourse. I am saddenned I can't play with my friends (the reason I played to begin with was my friends all wanted to play).

So, to all of you out there, be careful. If it happened to me, it could happen to anyone.

Great customer service Turbine!

P.S. I was also a lifetime subscriber, so I really expected better customer service for my $199.

Edited, Jun 20th 2007 10:25am by kamkam

Color me skeptical. Do you have any supporting documentation or anything? I could see them using a certain level of money transfer as a flag to look into an account but it should be fairly easy to tell the difference between in-game commerce and people receiving piles of gold for no reason on a suspicious basis.

Is this limit your speculation or something documented in your banning notice? I've seen entirely too many people come here and to other boards whining, crying and ******** about their supposed unfair suspension or banning only to eventually reveal that they did something beyond what they originally claimed was the event that caused the unfair result so I'm a bit skeptical when I read these things. If I'm wrong and you truly were unfairly banned then I apologize now but I'm still going to take this with a grain of salt for the time being.

I leveled a Lore-Master to 35 and had almost 10 gold just selling items from mob drops, leather, and ore in the auction houses to other players when it came timwe to buy a horse (4.2 gold).

Auction house prices were set at minimum with no suggested buy-outs.

Money has not really been too much of a problem. Selling dyes for a few gold seem to be adding inflation to the economy but it is not against any rule.

People will pay alot for something they want but one has to wonder what means they might take to get 30 gold to buy dyes.

Sorry you got banned, I wonder if Beta was intended to give players a sneak preview of the game so they could take advantage of "opportunities" in the marketplace.

This is just a hunch, but I feel you where probably not flagged for the amount of gold, but more for the fact that some of your transactions seem to have been direct to players to bypass the AH.

My theory is that some of these players (30 gold no AH transactions???) may have been confirmed RMT and when they confirmed that these where RMT, they banned all the accounts linked to them in RMTish ways. So it was not that you sent gold to your Mule, but rather it was that your mule sold large quantiles of things for large amounts of gold to confirmed RMT. Turbine probably thought you where part of the RMTs gold laundering or something.

that really sucks but in a way it proves that Turbine really cracks down on gold sellers so that is good to see but still it does suck especially since u paid the life sub.

Not trying to start an argument here, but I don't think anywhere in the lifetime agreement it said you couldn't be banned if you indeed break the TOS. You're still bound by the same agreement as everyone else, you just don't have to pay a monthly fee. Also, pretty much all EULA/TOS say if you get banned you don't get any money back.

For the OP, I hope if you really are innocent like Tamandra says you are that you're fighting it and everything goes well.

Look into their ToS. If they broke anything of their own ToS, then I'd look into taking legal action.

Oh, I already know their ToS's are all well thought-out documents to protect the company. I was simply saying that if they broke their own ToS, then he/she can take legal action against them.

How in the world did you get 2 GM crafting skills during open beta? A lvl 15 cap would make the quests inbetween tiers nearly impossible.

Which exlains the lvl 12 and unders running around MM lately aggroing everything in sight to get to ore. /sigh

And in regards to the OP and this bannng thing, sorry but something just seems "off" to me here. Having been in gaming as long as I have, having been a guide in EQ and working in IT security and working for a domain registrar, I just see too many things that feel wrong here.

I don't know the OP, I don't know the character in other games but I do know that a gaming company doesn't just arbitrarily decide to ban a person based off mail received or gold received by one single character on the account. When investigating this kind of thing, they document it rather well just in case there is a legal issue. And frankly, every time you log in, you agree to their TOS so if you broke the rules, they can do what they like with the account.

We all saw the sweep they did on IPs or whatever and they even stated that they were a little too aggressive so there is room for error. But if they are still being overzealous, why have we not heard of more stories just like this?

The OP states they have a bank character and that they planned on making a fortune. The Op stated that two characters were Grandmaster at a low level which is going to attract attention as well if there are large sums of gold going to and fro. Then this work order thing. How exactly did a lvl 15 get exceptional hides I would love to know.

So, for all I know the Op did get shafted by turbine but from what I read, it certainly appears that there is a lot more going on here than they are actually telling us. Like, there is something not quite kosher going on here. And I always listen to that little voice, hasn't steered me wrong yet...

That's good Kamkam, and glad to see you are still coming around!

Turbine's lack of admitting responsibility really irks me. This is not the first time since release they have done some horrible customer service with unwarranted bannings. I am just glad he got his money. I am almost afraid to play the game and enjoy it, wondering when I might get banned for doing too many quests or something.