7 day suspension notice

Help Desk
1

So I logged into the game this morning only to be greeted by this monstruosity:

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I don’t use any “modified client software or unauthorized third-party software” to play the game, this is false and now I am suspended for 7 days… I don’t even know what I did specifically to cause this.

I looked it up online and apparently this happened to many other people who also are unaware of anything they’ve done wrong. Has this happened to any of you?

(in some cases, they logged in again, only to see an increase to 30 days, so I am not opening the game again!)

I’ve contacted support for this but I don’t get a concrete answer other than a repeated (see picture below) and then, after I replied, a “please refer to our previous communications about your appeal”:

same message
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I still don’t know what caused this and apparently it is not getting reversed. So now I’m permanently worried I’ll see my account banned permanently for something I’m not even sure what it was.

I will miss out on the spiritbomb challenge after all (I don’t see any pokemon, so I can’t catch them with berries - that’s the only one I had left), I’ll miss on costumed pokemon, the halloween event… I’m beyond frustrated.

The only thing I can think of that may have caused the flag is gps drift. It is worse when it rains (the weather has been like that here) and it has been happening more often since september. This only happens if I use wifi, so I’ve been using mobile data to play the game when I’m at home to avoid gps drift because I’m afraid of being banned, even though it’s something that happens to a lot of people and varies according to the phone, etc…
If I stay on wifi and manage my inventory, check items, the game will take me metres away or to a dfferent area (2 kms away from me, maximum). have I spun pokestops when this happened? Yes, I’m an addict to spinning pokestops, it’s automatic now. So I avoid using wifi altogether to avoid this scenario.

There’s been a lot of rain recently and I’ve been trying to hatch some eggs to make room for the special 7km eggs with costume pokemon, so I’ve been walking a lot inside my house, but I’ve mostly used mobile data. I’ve also played battle league but sometimes I had wifi on, which I can see may have been a mistake.

I don’t drive and play at the same time, I’m not a fool to jeopardize myself over a game, but I do use it as a passenger, not so much to catch pokemon, but to spin pokestops.

Again, I’m not sure if this was the reason I got the suspension or if there’s something else going on, since it appears many people are having this issue.

I’m extremely disappointed because I’ll miss out on halloween event and for a reason I’m unsure about.

If it’s indeed the gps drift, which happens to so many people, then they should correct it, not ban people. Something very light, that I do not cause it by using apps, gets too heavy a treatment.

Has anyone else got this message?

What else should I do, apart from waiting out the 7 day suspension? (assuming it doesn’t increase to a 30 day ban, of course)

UPDATE: it has been fixed, apparently (at least for me). I still have no idea what triggered the suspension, but everything is working normally now.

2

From our side? No possible help.
I have lost two accounts, passing first for the 7 days, then the 30, and in third case they ban your account completely. This has happened some years ago, now I’m playing more careful, but I will never be on the safe side.
I play with third party apps, and that’s not the problem. If you play careful they cannot detect it. But for this reason they use unsure measurements, and they don’t bother about side-effects like yours.
The individual player isn’t important, only the incoming in sum of all players.

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3

I’m really upset by this, only aggravated by the fact it feels unfair and they don’t give a specific reason. After the 7 day suspension I can’t risk using wifi again, but I guess I can’t use it either as a passenger on a car/bus/etc because the speed may trigger a false flag or something…

I’m questioning now if it’s worth it to invest (emotionally) in something that suddenly can just be taken away for such stupid reasons, too. I use the game mostly for collection purposes, so the timing of this is extra bad, because of the ongoing special event, I feel terrible about missing costume pikachu (and the other buddies). This seems silly but it it what it is.

I thought about creating another account and transfer my shinies/favourites/special pokemon so at least if I lose this one I have a back up… but what’s the point? Maybe I should just go back to the games (my last one was sapphire), at least that way I’d have more control over it and my collection doesn’t go anywhere (no costumes and the like, I know), but pokemon go is also my main walking motivator so…

It just feels very frustrating.

4

I got the 7-day ban only when I played around foolishly with a modified version of the game. GPS drift had afflicted that account for years (sometimes wildly enough to finish long walking field tasks) without Niantic giving me any hassle. So I suspect your issue isn’t from drifting. No clue what it might be, though; sorry.

2 Likes
5

well, at least that’s one relief! It seemed so silly to be from it, but who knows, maybe they’ve updated something.
Is it a coincidence this happened on the day gigantamax launched? I wonder if it caused something to be off! :upside_down_face:
I just hope it will be fixed (reverted), since it’s happening to many people maybe they’ll see it’s an undeserving strike! If it’s indeed a correct strike, I’d like to know for what exactly, since I don’t have anything they claim I do on my phone…

I had all activities planned this weekend, to prepare for next week, get some gym coins, hatch eggs, go out of my way to do 2 or 3 raids… All gone.

6

Are you using Poke Genie by any chance?

7

no, I only have pokemon go on my phone, nothing else pokemon related. My phone is an android, as seems to be the case of a lot of other people affected by it.

8

Yes, it has been suspected that it has something to do with Android users who frequently use Poke Genie, however it seems that isn’t entirely what happened, then, if you don’t have that app installed.

From what I have read though Niantic has been undoing the bans, so chances are your account will fix soon.

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9

Well, fingers crossed for that then. I haven’t checked the game again yet, for fear of the situation worsening, but I’ll do it a bit later, just to give it more time! The whole situation is absurd.

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10

What bothers me even more is trying to contact customer support and not only get bots to reply but, after attempts on my side and more automated responses on their side, the final response is this: “Your appeal is closed. We’ve previously conducted a full review of your account and we informed you of our decision, which is final. Any further inquiries into this case will be ignored.”

Imagine sending someone to prison for claiming they did something and when they ask what they’re being accused of, you not only refuse to tell them specifically, but warn you will ignore every single word they say. It’s beyond stupid. :rofl:

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11

It’s just Niantic :man_shrugging:

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12

I checked the game just now @Jormdeworm and everything seems to be working properly now. I didn’t have that initial warning with the 7 day ban appear or anything like that. I can see friends, pokemon radar works, showcases and pokemon actually spawned when I opened the game.

The situation seems to have been fixed somehow and hopefully everyone affected by this also gets the account like it was before. I wish they had addressed the issue properly with some kind of comment on official pages, but… at least they were working on it behind the scenes.

This was a huge scare for me and, not knowing what really caused it, I won’t risk playing the game unless I’m using mobile data and I’m not even sure I’ll risk it while being a passenger on a vehicle either!

The not knowing really bothers me, honestly, because I can’t really prevent it 100% if I don’t know what it is.

I’m very relieved it’s back to normal and I won’t miss the costumed pokemon or spiritbomb. However, I think I need to find other ways/games to motivate me to walk/work as collecting/pokemon related, because this really made me very upset (emotionally) and perhaps that’s not the best thing in the long run!

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13

Glad!

Honestly they should compensate all accounts that were striked incorrectly, but unfortunately this isn’t the first time they randomly accidentally did a massive ban wave and previously they never have any compensations nor did they own up to their mistake I believe (although, actually, maybe they did own up to it once, not entirely sure).

Either way, though, the fact this can happen is truly mind boggling. This company just can’t keep getting away with it. I have never seen a company care so little about their customers.

I totally understand. I’ll dive into the community’s experiences again and see if I can derive what exactly caused this to happen, if it had any reason at all, because it might just be an every day Niantic bug as well. However, you should totally be fine playing while on the highway (as a passenger of course), for this does not go against their ToS. In fact I do it basically daily, I always run the Daily Adventure Incense in the train or bus to maximize the amount of spawns.

If there even is something to prevent, that is… :sweat_smile:

Hopefully Niantic will finally bother to make sure this doesn’t happen a sixth, seventh or eighth time, but if that really were the case they would’ve done it much sooner. I’m just glad they reverted the bans, because that is honestly just sickening.

2 Likes
14

Your situation really sux @Stridian and is a frustrating one for someone that is not breaking any of the rules using third party apps.
Apart from a major bug from Nianshit’s end causing this the only thing it can be is massive GPS drift Spinning/Catching something in one spot than immediately doing the same immediately after the GPS Drift. The distance between the 2 interactions needs to be great enough to trigger Nianshits detection methods though.

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15

I didn’t even care about compensation, I just wanted the account not to be suspended, honestly. Although a pack of at least 30 or so berries would be very nice, so I can actually move that task along… :laughing: Nothing can give back the ruined plans and stress over this, though. I mentioned raids planned, but I didn’t mean those giant ones, just tier 1 for me, but I was going to try and hunt a tier 3 Umbreon, just to see how it would go. (My last attempt was with that stork, I got very close on the 2nd time, but couldn’t do it…)

Either way, though, the fact this can happen is truly mind boggling. This company just can’t keep getting away with it. I have never seen a company care so little about their customers.

Agreed! And, aftr seeing so many people were affected, all they had to do was release a short statement with something like “we are aware of the situation and we are looking into it”. That would be something good (and basic!) already. Instead we have to rely on automated replies that don’t help at all and are actually rude.

However, you should totally be fine playing while on the highway (as a passenger of course), for this does not go against their ToS. In fact I do it basically daily, I always run the Daily Adventure Incense in the train or bus to maximize the amount of spawns.

I think I’ll lay low for a while, at least until I get more answers (if any)… But if that was indeed the case it’s absurd.
I really don’t think it was a coincidence this happened to so many people on the day gigantamax is launched. They must have tweaked something and it triggered wrong flags. I really don’t know and just hope it doesn’t happen again anytime soon!

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16

when that happened it was under 2km (I checked online for accurate distances), no more than that. I don’t know if that’s enough or not, but sounded alarms in my head, so I won’t be risking it anymore. Their whole policy needs a refresh asap.

17

If they’re going to ban over pokegenie, then they can kiss their revenue goodbye. It’s never going to go back to their profitable days, and for a lot of people genie is the only way to do raids. Good luck finding active groups because they’re getting smaller (Dynamax and Gigantamax being catastrophic failures and shadow raids prove this).

I understand Genie might be questionable, but good luck getting legendary and mythical Pokémon if you live in rural/small areas, and you refuse to go to cities let alone a sanctuary city (aka hell holes).

18

I fail to see how it could be PokeGenie.
The only real interaction it has with the game is copy/paste the friends codes.
Taking screenshots of your Pokémon and using them to assess IV is not interacting with the Pokémon App.

19

If you were abusing bugs to gain a competitive edge that would do it too.

I feel bad for accounts mistakenly hit with a ban but the fact is it’s been an epidemic for like 3 seasons.

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if gps drift is considered a bug they should put more effort into fixing it, although I don’t see how as it varies with so many things. As I said, I was avoiding using wifi at home because of that, only mobile data, but admittedly I got to spin pokestops the (few) times it happened, it’s automatic by now. So to avoid that, as I’m not really there and I don’t always show full restraint not to spin, I just use mobile data instead.

Most of the times when it happened I wouldn’t spin anything, either, I’d close the game and wait awhile to keep playing, but it still counts some metres/km towards the eggs. This cannot be helped. I’m not gaining an advantage on purpose, I’m not controlling the gps to make me go somewhere else, it just happens.

This is not the type of situation that should get people banned. I don’t even know if this was the case, of course, I’m just guessing because they didn’t give an offical explanation on the issue. This was a massive wave that targeted a lot of people, not specifically people actively cheating, and there wasn’t much of anything solid behind it. Maybe it’s connected to speed, to gps drift, to android, to some apps… We didn’t get to know what triggered it, unfortunately.