For Anybody who thinks false bans/flags dont happen - here you go

I’m Don, a pretty long customer of Amazon and player of both Amazon Games, New World and Lost Ark.
I’m playing Lost ark with love and super stoaked to play it and have a lot of fun, which you can see from the screenshot.

In advance, all screenshots i will cut out names of regular players or Supportmembers because i wont get them in anything involved.

I’m also a loyal player to the game, not participating in any RMT because i never wanted to get banned for the playtime i put into that game, i also think RMT kills the game for everyone which i dont support. All purchases i do is from the ingame store which can be seen in the second Screenshot.

I also try to report any Gold Farming Bot that comes my way, because as i said, i dont encourage RMT and want it to be gone also.

Screenshot of me reported multiple Gold farm bots:

To the case:

Penealty applied: Flagged/warned for RMT + 104999 Gold Removed
Date: 30.09.2022 - around the evening

got kicked out of the Game with the Message i violated against the code of conduct. I logged back into the game and got a popup message my account has been warned and punishment has been taken.

contacted the Amazon Games Support and got told that the reason behind is is RMT for 104999 Gold.

Screenshot of it in German, which confirmed 104999 RMT gold + flag/warning has been done.

Because of the Worth of the Gold i knew where it came from, its because of a Level 9 CDR Gem which got probably bought with RMT Gold. Now to the story behind this:

Prior the release of the next major content update i wanted to equip my second Character, which is Shiiv. I wanted to create a level 9 Damage Gem for this character, so i saved up all my gems for some time to creat one Level 9 Gem and hoped for it to become a damage gem. When i fused all Gems on Shiiv together it became an Cooldown Gem. My thought here was that it wasnt to bad because i just could sell my level 9 CDR Gem and buy a Level 9 DMG Gem for it, because the difference between these 2 gems isnt that high, like 4-5K Gold difference. I bought the level 9 Gem right away because i had already enough gold on this account, i dont have any screenshot for that because i never thought i would need it but i bought the level 9 Damage Gem right away, Sold my old Level 7 Demonic DMG Gem and but the Level 9 CDR Gem up for sale on the 24.09.2022. I did a Mistake to the CDR Gem because i forgot to set up a buyout price and left it with a bid price, i dont remember what the exact lowest bid i set up was, but it was a different price to that what i set it up the day afterwards, because this Gem didnt Sold that day, and this might be a crucial information about it, because if i would have participated in RMT, my counterpart could have been bidding on it that day for the price, but it didnt sell. So i set it up the day after when i got it back. i set it up again on the auction house, this time with different pricings - 103999 bid and 104999 buyout, which was the lowest price during the time i posted it on the auction House. After several Hours past - the gem has been sold on the 25.09.2022, which was like 4-5 Hours AFTER i put it in the Auction House. Remember : this was one of the lowest prices on the market, everybody would have interest in it. Below you can find a screen of me prooving the selling of the gem for the accused gold price. There is no reason for me to use RMT for this, because this was a regular price for a valueable Item, why would i sell an item for its regular worth to a third party when i could just sell it to any random person for its actual worth? there is no sense in paying real money for that. And also remember : it sold after quite some time, and it was posted a day before and didnt sell, he could have just bid on it, but that didnt happen because i didnt assign anybody to do so. The real case is that someone bought it who probably used RMT money - but i dont know that person or either did i had a choice who i sold it to, because it was a regular price with some time passed after posting the gem.Below you can find a screenshot where you can see the sellings of Level 9 CDR Gems some days afterwards, which are like similar in the costs when i sold mine.

Screenshot of the Sale History today with the level 9 Gem beeing sold for 104999 Gold, which is the accused RMT gold i got flagged for:

Screenshot of my Old level 7 Demonic Damage Gem beeing sold a day before:

Screenshot of regular Level 9 CDR Gem Sellings some days after i sold mine ( i didnt take a screenshot when i put it up, because i thought i wouldnt have to prove myself) :

Also notice that my Gold in the screenshots isnt really low and i wouldnt had to get Gold right away, this gold is with the removed 104999 Gold. Just as a quick throw-in.

With all this information which i could gather afterwards i got this catalouged Answer from my Flag Removal appeal, i even added that im willing to give insight about my bank account/paypal wallet so you could check if i would have paid dubious 3rd party sellers:

All this and no chance of getting the flag removed makes me feel uncomfortable to play the game again. The AH is a big function in the game and the game evolves around it, means if something like this happens to me again and i get a permaban. Also the feeling i have to prove everything i put on the AH is not the way i want to play the game, i want to have fun and not beeing watched for everything i do. I guess anybody who can kinda relate what im trying to say can understand why i feel bad about this decision.

It is even Superhard to get to the Support and try to give them evidence, they dont tell you what they want, most of them are hard to come by and its even hard to get any evidence because you never thought you’d need it.

I also didnt thought that this doesnt exist in the first place, in my head i thought anybody who did related posts to this there gotta be more to it. But i guess i was wrong.

I even told the support in the ticket i dont even care about the gold, its just the feeling beeing watched which bothers me.

I now that most people dont face stuff like this, because its like playing russian roulette, and i just hit the 6th chamber…

Take care and think twice before you post Stuff on the Auction House, if its expensive gather evidence that you dont encourage RMT.

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thanks for the constructive comment, dont worry i know people just wish bad things to some random people on the internet for entertainment purposes.

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When it happens to him, he will remember the pop corn gif.

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Interesting post, doesn’t appear you were trying to RMT, specially with a Level 9 gem like why would you try to RMT when you can sell that gem legit.

Now you need to continue to appeal and appeal, it will take time but you will eventually get a more consistent reply.

Also, InB4 this topic gets locked and they tell us you will never have issues if using AH as intended.

Edit: post this on Reddit as well, needs to rise awareness.

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sadly reddit doesnt encourage ban related post and mine got deleted right away, i tried tho.

and thanks for the heads-up, appreciate it

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You can post it following rule 8, don’t make it a ban discussion topic but a topic to rise awareness.

I hope you can get your ban removed, it is really sad and annoying that amazon doesn’t have a good appeal system. Tho if you can even call it that

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thanks, im trying to let pass some time and try to appeal again.

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okokok I’ll be serious for a sec putting on suit:

CMs have stated countless times already that posts like these are *NOT allowed. If you wish to appeal your ban you must do so through the proper channels and that means following the appeal process regardless if you think it is efficient or not. This is not a democracy and playing Lost Ark is a privilege not a right. You and I do NOT know all the facts of this case and obviously OP will provide nitpick IMGs to present a positive image.

Second COUNTLESS of false RMT/Ban threads have been made recently and it was revealed by CMs that some said posts were proven to be guilty of RMT purposely leaving information out. That we should not believe everything we read. Lately forum kb heroes have been demanding CMs to rebuke these threads every time they occur and CMs have rightfully so chosen to ignore them imo should delete them. Maybe this OP will get lucky maybe not grasping at straws. Policies exist surroundings issues like this and he did not like the outcome. So to give the game bad press negative publicity he or she purposely chose to circumvent UNDERMINE the process or people running the game. Like on the job trying to find a back door does not help your case. I believe a CM more or less stated the obvious.

Did he DM Roxx or any CM to get immediate attention no a clear Red Flag b/c he or she doesn’t have the balls to do so. Which means this thread is probably bait. However as stated earlier could be legit we just don’t know and will never know.

Ted Talk over

*Edit: According to some people here, complaining about your ban on a forum documenting your case, clearly with hopes to get an appeal…is allowed. WOW you learn something new everyday OK

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the funny thing is you can join me on discord and i can show everything you wanna see, any information and any email i got from them including the ones not acknowleding my messages either.

what do you also want to see? what is missing?

if you want i can screenshare you all correspondence of the support and me, including the ones calling me by a delivery adress because i bought something for my father and shipped it to his address, after i told them im not that one im the owner of the account, they continously called me by my fathers name.

I can show you all bank details the past months, i can show you via screenshare all of my characters and that none of these characters have sold something for that value. So tell me just want you want to say which is missing, because its nothing i can think of.

did i dm roxx? true i did not, because this is not possible. i tried to reach out to different supports but it doesnt help me, i just face the support brick wall. so tell me how am i baiting.

So sad to hear your story OP.
I do hope you get your appeal and can play again with us in the future.

But fact remain, sadly for ags/sg/forum member/support staff you’re guilty as an rmt/gold seller/bot user until proven to be actually guilty.

It’s staggering that AGS have the tools to autodetect rmt gold thru mail/AH when an rmt bought items from legit player. BUT NOT WHEN THAT RMT GUY GOT HIS GOLD FROM AH/MAIL IN THE FIRST PLACE

So legit player keeps getting flagged and banned. This is so wrong.
I hope they fixed their auto flag/banning system.

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Just to be in the picture:

im not banned, im flagged for RMT, which means i get harder punishment if that happens to me again. I can still play the game freely.

Yes, i totaly understand your point with that, and i also understand that staff members have to also accept the answer of the AGS support team.

This is just me about bringing it to attention and speaking the words out because i have no other social media platform to raise awareness since reddit doesnt allow these kind of posts.

thanks for your appreciation

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I can do it for you then
ChinGG is spot on

@Roxx
When you get a chance, can you escalate Shiv case and clarify how bans work in Lost Ark?
I think it will be beneficial for the community if we got some clarity.

i guess most people are aware how this works.

The Biggest issue is i cant prove more information because i dont know what they could want more from me tho. I dont talk to anybody, i basicly ask someone to revert it and the answer is either yes or no, not no, because … That is what it makes the hardest for me to provide further evidence or proove.

I know that not every case is also the same, i know that there might be people who got banned for good reasons or letting important information away, but as i stated im willingly to give any information needed to prove that im not guilty.

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I just sold a 20k gold accessory and i’m close to crapping my pants out of fear i’ll start the game tomorrow and find myself banned

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I posted this in the feedback section yesterday but ill post it again here since it is relevant again.

  1. CMs cannot/will not discuss these issues openly on the forums. They would most likely risk losing their jobs if they did. They cannot talk about anything related to in game security systems.

  2. I doubt that the CMs would even have knowledge of these systems, as that information is not relevant to their jobs.

  3. SGR is probably responsible for all automated systems in the game currently, as AGS does not have any development team for Lost Ark, nor do they have the level of access necessary to implement things like that. This is also another potential reason for denials as well. As AGS may not even have any knowledge that these systems exist. Communication between the 2 companies has certainly been… lacking(?) since the game launched.

  4. Just because you personally have not been banned does not mean that this is not happening. You are 1 player out of what? 50k+ active players? Is it happening in extremely large numbers? No. Probably not. But also keep in mind that most players probably don’t even know these forums exist. The majority of cases are likely not reported on publicly, so its hard to accurately guage how wide spread this is.

  5. Not everyone being hit by this are receiving account bans. Seen at least 2(3 now) cases here on the forums now where they logged in to a warning flag and found that they had gold from recent sales removed without explanation or warning. Appeals team sent them responses showing the exact amount of gold removed which matched up with the sales (Minus AH expenses) but stated that they would not be able to return the item or reimburse them.

  6. In most cases I would say you are probably not going to have to worry about this. In extreme cases where you are selling a very valuable item you may want to take screenshots of the item and sale history, so that in the event of a ban you have evidence to provide them. Just as a precaution.

They actually are, so long as they are strictly for feedback and not for the purpose of trying to appeal through the forums. OP isn’t banned, nor is he asking for any staff to personally elevate his case.

Why do you think that DMing a CM about an account penalty is a good idea? She would just ignore the message. I know for a fact the CS team are not even permitted to send players DMs, I would guess it’s probably the same for the CMs. Even if it weren’t do you know how many notifications she probably has every day? Too many. Far too many to go out of her way for something that she can’t even do anything about.

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as for my personal exprience i never saw one post / someone dm me who got banned/flag for 20k, lowest case for now i’ve seen is 80k i think you are good to go, dont worry.

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thanks for this post, i fully agree with you in that terms. I appreciate you for spreading that throughout the threads and raise awareness.

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So sorry for you. Got scared and glad too, cause my machinist gem for 55.000 Gold wasnt sold. Otherwise I would have took him out right after reading your experience. Not gonna use the Auction House ever again. ITs obviously not save.