I can't even know if is this the problem because they don't say a word!
They obviously said something or you know something because you said in your OP that it was for use of 3rd party software.
Greetings Summoner,
Thank you for contacting Kabam Support. I understand that you are concerned about your account suspension.
After reviewing the account, Dottorkame, our records indicate your account has been temporarily suspended.
The account was actioned because it was found to be cheating, which is a violation of our Terms of Service [8. CODE OF CONDUCT AND STANDARDS]. Violations can include the use of exploits or third-party applications that alter the mechanics of the game.
To ensure the security of our game, we will be unable to share the exact investigation details that led to the action taken on this account. We reserve the right to make judgment calls based on the severity of the Terms of Service violations we take action on. Certain offenses may come with different suspension periods and may range from a temporary suspension to a permanent closure of the account. These time frames are not up for debate. These decisions are made with the overall health of the game in mind and in consideration of the negative impact that a Terms of Service violation may have had on other players in the game.
All account suspensions will remain in place until the time indicated. The Kabam Support team is unable to overturn an account suspension. Any such actions are considered final.
Hello Summoner,
Thank you again for contacting us at Kabam Support.
As indicated, our record shows that your account was temporarily suspended for cheating.
As for your request for more information about the violation we detected, we cannot provide information that may compromise our ability to detect and prevent players from cheating in the game or otherwise violating our Terms of Service. As such, we are unable to share the exact investigation details that led to action being taken on this account to uphold the security of our game.
All account suspensions will remain in place until the time indicated. The Kabam Support team is unable to overturn an account suspension. Any such actions are considered final.
As we have provided all of the help that we can in this ticket, this ticket has now been marked as Solved.
Kind regards,
I am seriously considering involving consumer associations to assert my rights.
You don't have any rights. The ToS states pretty clearly, even in legal jargon, that you don't own your account. Spending money, creating an account or anything to the sort doesn't matter.
You know it doesn't actually matter what the TOS says for a lot of video games, within reason. If you've spent money on a game, you actually can sue them if it is determined that they wrongly banned you. For example, many companies (e.g. gaming) say in the TOS you agree to, that you cannot file a class action lawsuit against them, it must be individual claims. But guess what? People have done exactly that and won lol.
It's all very confusing and actually, legally, very interesting. I think it's because even though you agree to the TOS of a game, judges can rule that they are actually unfair or invalid terms and rule in favour of the consumer. Such as games advertising one thing and then giving you another. Regardless of what you agree to in the TOS, you can still sue them, and you can win. It would be incredibly unfair for example if a person working for a company did not like a certain player who had spent a lot of money in that game and chose to ban them. That's why the TOS wouldn't matter in that case, at least in the US and Europe, I don't really have knowledge about the precedent in other countries.
Ofc 99% of the time this does not happen. 99% it's cheaters who do not want to admit to cheating. Like I said before, I think Kabam as a company are pretty accurate at detecting cheating, so I am highly doubtful of this guy's story.
I am seriously considering involving consumer associations to assert my rights.
You don't have any rights. The ToS states pretty clearly, even in legal jargon, that you don't own your account. Spending money, creating an account or anything to the sort doesn't matter.
You know it doesn't actually matter what the TOS says for a lot of video games, within reason. If you've spent money on a game, you actually can sue them if it is determined that they wrongly banned you. For example, many companies (e.g. gaming) say in the TOS you agree to, that you cannot file a class action lawsuit against them, it must be individual claims. But guess what? People have done exactly that and won lol.
Oh my gosh yes! Please encourage this! Then please please oh pretty please keep us all apprised of the ongoing proceedings and outcome.
I am seriously considering involving consumer associations to assert my rights.
You don't have any rights. The ToS states pretty clearly, even in legal jargon, that you don't own your account. Spending money, creating an account or anything to the sort doesn't matter.
You know it doesn't actually matter what the TOS says for a lot of video games, within reason. If you've spent money on a game, you actually can sue them if it is determined that they wrongly banned you. For example, many companies (e.g. gaming) say in the TOS you agree to, that you cannot file a class action lawsuit against them, it must be individual claims. But guess what? People have done exactly that and won lol.
Oh my gosh yes! Please encourage this! Then please please oh pretty please keep us all apprised of the ongoing proceedings and outcome.
The spirit of Golivaez lives on strongly!
I definitely don't encourage this; the OP does not sound legit as many people have mentioned. I was simply pointing out an interesting legal fact.
Guys, again No VPN, NO MODS, NO MERCS, NO 3rd PARTY sw. The only think that I did was, 3 weeks ago, open a ticket with Kabam to request the removal of the Immortal Guillotine 6-star sword that I accidentally purchased instead the 7 star. So maybe that the operator that did this make some mistakes, but this is not my fault. I've never cheated in 7 years, why I should do this now?
They surely can't outright refuse you a reason as to why you were banned. There has been games in the past that have had class actions against them for wrongfully banning people that spent money in their product. Even console providers have been dragged into stuff like that for wrongfully console banning people due to flaws in their system.
Reading through the thread, I'm more so on the fence of you've been caught doing stuff you shouldn't have, but above point does still stand.
I am seriously considering involving consumer associations to assert my rights.
You don't have any rights. The ToS states pretty clearly, even in legal jargon, that you don't own your account. Spending money, creating an account or anything to the sort doesn't matter.
You know it doesn't actually matter what the TOS says for a lot of video games, within reason. If you've spent money on a game, you actually can sue them if it is determined that they wrongly banned you. For example, many companies (e.g. gaming) say in the TOS you agree to, that you cannot file a class action lawsuit against them, it must be individual claims. But guess what? People have done exactly that and won lol.
It's all very confusing and actually, legally, very interesting. I think it's because even though you agree to the TOS of a game, judges can rule that they are actually unfair or invalid terms and rule in favour of the consumer. Such as games advertising one thing and then giving you another. Regardless of what you agree to in the TOS, you can still sue them, and you can win. It would be incredibly unfair for example if a person working for a company did not like a certain player who had spent a lot of money in that game and chose to ban them. That's why the TOS wouldn't matter in that case, at least in the US and Europe, I don't really have knowledge about the precedent in other countries.
Ofc 99% of the time this does not happen. 99% it's cheaters who do not want to admit to cheating. Like I said before, I think Kabam as a company are pretty accurate at detecting cheating, so I am highly doubtful of this guy's story.
Whether there was cheating or not they should at least state the exact violation as in the particular 3rd party software used. I don't see how stating what the violation was exactly for would expose Kabam's methods for identifying such software. What if something was being use inadvertently? How can they fix it then if they don't know what to fix?
I see how it would expose Kabam's methods for identifying such software. Cheaters are not known for being the smartest people in the world, but they will incorporate such information into their cheating behavior over time.
The fact that you can't see how this would be problematic is, to be blunt, a limitation on your part. It is a limitation many cheating players share. And that's why Kabam lets them continue to hang themselves on that limitation.
Mistakes are extremely rare, and never just out of the blue for no reason. In every case where Kabam has made an error, there was an obvious logical source of that error which was eventually corrected. When someone says they did nothing wrong and did nothing that could possibly trigger a ban, it was always something obvious they just wouldn't admit to. It was never that they did nothing wrong, it was always that they didn't think they could be caught, so they think they can deny it and it is just their word against Kabam's.
Cheaters are not smart. They always make mistakes. They just don't think they do, so they think anyone who accuses them of cheating must be just guessing, so they are free to deny it. But it is always something. Sometimes it is account sharing with someone they trust, and that trust was misplaced. Sometimes it is using hacks they just think are untraceable. Sometimes it is using merc services that they think they were clever enough to mask.
I happen to know many of the ways Kabam identifies cheats, in part because I'm knowledgeable about how these things work, and in part because I've worked with Kabam in the past to identify violators and investigate potential errors in banning. What I find most interesting is that when I look around to observe discussions in dark places about prohibited activity, I almost never see discussions surrounding the methods actually used to track cheats. It is always silly stuff about VPNs and things. The cheating community does not know what they are doing wrong. And Kabam is not going to educate them.
If you are running on a supported device, using a supported app store, and not running anything that modifies, alters, emulates, or in any way counters the security of the device operating environment, you're fine. The moment you veer at all away from that, even if you don't count it as "cheating" yourself, you are taking chances. Chances you might lose. So don't do that. Kabam is not going to tell you how close you are to the line. You're either behind it, or over it.
You know it doesn't actually matter what the TOS says for a lot of video games, within reason. If you've spent money on a game, you actually can sue them if it is determined that they wrongly banned you. For example, many companies (e.g. gaming) say in the TOS you agree to, that you cannot file a class action lawsuit against them, it must be individual claims. But guess what? People have done exactly that and won lol.
In the US, you can sue anyone for any reason. However, and this is something I specifically track, to the best of my knowledge no individual player has ever reversed a ban for an online game in any western country (it has happened in China). I don't know why people think this is a thing that happens, but as far as I am aware this is a Mandela effect.
Under US law, even if you could get a ban reversed on the grounds that the cause of the ban was in error, any competent lawyer would tell you this would be a meaningless victory. The company could simply ban you the next day under the doctrine that they can ban anyone for any reason, and they decided to ban you at their discretion. There is no way to compel an online game to maintain your account.
You could sue them to refund your money, but you'd generally have to prove fraud which is difficult to do. You'd have to show you didn't receive what you paid for, and shutting down your account is not the same thing as demonstrating you did not receive what you paid for. As far as I am aware, once again no one in a western country has managed to sue for refund of their online expenditures on the grounds that banning the account deprives them of their property (there have been cases where underaged players have managed to recover expenditures from banned accounts on the grounds that they were legally unable to agree to the terms of service).
I know of no case where a group of players filed a class action lawsuit against an online game operator to attempt to reverse banning and won. I am aware of a couple class action suits filed against online gaming companies accusing them of fraud or other crimes. The Roblox one comes to mind. In that case, Roblox was accused of, among other things, explicitly executing a fraud whereby objectionable content was allowed onto the platform to generate revenue and then deleted after significant revenue was paid, citing moderation policies, and then not refunding the money. The fraud was knowingly taking money for purchases the platform knew it would not allow the players to actually keep for any length of time. The TOS would not apply in this case, because if it could be proven, this would be a statutory crime, and TOS agreements cannot decriminalize statutory violations in that way. In other words, you cannot legally agree to a contract that stipulates or requires illegal behavior.
In my time playing this game, three separate players have asserted they would take legal action against Kabam and would explicitly keep me updated on that process, essentially to "prove" to me that they were legally in the right. Two were claims they would sue the company, one claimed they would initiate a complaint in the EU regarding certain protection laws. In all three cases after about a day or two, I never heard from them again.
I honestly would like to see someone get farther, even though as I said competent legal counsel would probably advise against this course of action, because I would like a good example to point to as to what the likely eventual resolution of such an attempt would be. Give me a link to a court filing, give me a LexisNexis entry, give me something.
In my time playing this game, three separate players have asserted they would take legal action against Kabam and would explicitly keep me updated on that process, essentially to "prove" to me that they were legally in the right. Two were claims they would sue the company, one claimed they would initiate a complaint in the EU regarding certain protection laws. In all three cases after about a day or two, I never heard from them again.
I honestly would like to see someone get farther, even though as I said competent legal counsel would probably advise against this course of action, because I would like a good example to point to as to what the likely eventual resolution of such an attempt would be. Give me a link to a court filing, give me a LexisNexis entry, give me something.
Just promise to keep the rest of us informed. Change names as needed. But I too want someone to follow through and hear about the results.
I feel defamed by Kabam, as they are accusing me of misconduct without any basis. How is it possible that I am banned for 7 days without adequate explanation? As a player who financially contributes to the game, I expect fair and transparent treatment. I am seriously considering involving consumer associations to assert my rights. I hope that this issue can be resolved fairly and promptly.
kabam are the judge and jury and only take action if they're very confident that there was a violation.
You know it doesn't actually matter what the TOS says for a lot of video games, within reason. If you've spent money on a game, you actually can sue them if it is determined that they wrongly banned you. For example, many companies (e.g. gaming) say in the TOS you agree to, that you cannot file a class action lawsuit against them, it must be individual claims. But guess what? People have done exactly that and won lol.
In the US, you can sue anyone for any reason. However, and this is something I specifically track, to the best of my knowledge no individual player has ever reversed a ban for an online game in any western country (it has happened in China). I don't know why people think this is a thing that happens, but as far as I am aware this is a Mandela effect.
Under US law, even if you could get a ban reversed on the grounds that the cause of the ban was in error, any competent lawyer would tell you this would be a meaningless victory. The company could simply ban you the next day under the doctrine that they can ban anyone for any reason, and they decided to ban you at their discretion. There is no way to compel an online game to maintain your account.
You could sue them to refund your money, but you'd generally have to prove fraud which is difficult to do. You'd have to show you didn't receive what you paid for, and shutting down your account is not the same thing as demonstrating you did not receive what you paid for. As far as I am aware, once again no one in a western country has managed to sue for refund of their online expenditures on the grounds that banning the account deprives them of their property (there have been cases where underaged players have managed to recover expenditures from banned accounts on the grounds that they were legally unable to agree to the terms of service).
I know of no case where a group of players filed a class action lawsuit against an online game operator to attempt to reverse banning and won. I am aware of a couple class action suits filed against online gaming companies accusing them of fraud or other crimes. The Roblox one comes to mind. In that case, Roblox was accused of, among other things, explicitly executing a fraud whereby objectionable content was allowed onto the platform to generate revenue and then deleted after significant revenue was paid, citing moderation policies, and then not refunding the money. The fraud was knowingly taking money for purchases the platform knew it would not allow the players to actually keep for any length of time. The TOS would not apply in this case, because if it could be proven, this would be a statutory crime, and TOS agreements cannot decriminalize statutory violations in that way. In other words, you cannot legally agree to a contract that stipulates or requires illegal behavior.
I didn't mean sue them for an arbitrary sum for banning you, I meant just to recover the money you have put in to the game. Sorry for not making that clear. Obviously, only people who spend a very significant sum on a game would be incentivised to sue said gaming company (legal fees etc). And the number of people who have been banned from and spent a very significant amount on a game is an exceedingly small amount of people, so naturally it would be rare.
Also I think when I read about the class action lawsuits or cases of people suing and winning it was not for this type of game. It was a while ago but I believe it was when gaming companies have external moderators. Obviously Kabam (wisely) does not have this. Obviously roblox and cryptogames are classic examples where TOS of a game are invalidated by criminal activity which is a whole separate issue I believe.
I don't know the intricate details obviously, and I don't know whether it's on the company to prove the person was breaking the TOS or if the customer has to prove they did not break TOS, which would be very messy (probably could depend on the judge you get.)
As I said earlier, there are probably no existing case studies so to speak for a game like this one, as no high spender has ever been illegitimately banned to my knowledge and also kabam are an honest company I believe, unlike the dodgy internet games out there, or ones with external moderation. I did have a quick look on the internet and saw some people asking the question on legal sites and the lawyer answered them saying you can, but idk how practical/expensive this would be. As you said, there seems to be no one who has written up their experience.
Lastly, I think gaming companies can offer a settlement to a player and as part of the deal, require for them not to talk about it. Maybe this is part of the reason information seems lacking on the net? Someone did sue Riot games and win, but I believe that was in South America and have no idea what the court system is like in countries like Brazil.
Hold on, I got a hold of a supervisor. This is what they relayed:
Also, anyone who wants to sue kabam, feel free, starting costs are $10k and however long it takes to get to court where you run the risk of getting it tossed immediately.
I was one of the false bans for using Quake in AW in 2018, so let me tell you from experience that no one here cares. People that are on the forums all the time typically lean in favor of Kabam. I don’t know if you’re guilty or innocent so I won’t make any assumptions. Either call it quits if you feel unfairly treated, or just keep playing as normal. Nothing will make Kabam budge.
I don't know the intricate details obviously, and I don't know whether it's on the company to prove the person was breaking the TOS or if the customer has to prove they did not break TOS, which would be very messy (probably could depend on the judge you get.)
Kabam is not required to give a specific reason for banning a player. They can, at their discretion, terminate a player's access to the game servers at any time for any reason or no reason. The reason for not doing so indiscriminately is public relations, not legal.
There's an analog involving Black Jack in Vegas. For legal technicality reasons, counting cards on the black jack table in Las Vegas is not illegal, and they cannot actually ban a player for doing it. However, any Vegas casino can simply decide to ban a player from any table game or the entire casino at their own discretion without giving any reason. So when a Vegas casino detects a player counting cards, they will generally ask the players to leave the blackjack tables. They will usually allow them to play any other game, but if the player makes a fuss they can and will simply ask them to leave the premises completely, which is entirely within their legal right to do. They often say words to the effect of "your play is too good for us, so we do not wish to play against you any more." That is a perfectly legitimate reason for barring you from their tables.
It is not illegal to count cards, but it is also not illegal for a casino to ask a card counter to leave. You can try to prove you did not violate the game's TOS, but you cannot compel them to keep you around regardless.
I was one of the false bans for using Quake in AW in 2018, so let me tell you from experience that no one here cares. People that are on the forums all the time typically lean in favor of Kabam. I don’t know if you’re guilty or innocent so I won’t make any assumptions. Either call it quits if you feel unfairly treated, or just keep playing as normal. Nothing will make Kabam budge.
I got another player's ban reversed by demonstrating the ban was in error. If there is some substantive reason to believe a player has been banned in error, I would at least try to see if there was anything that could be done. However, most of the time the only evidence people present that a ban was in error is testimonial. They claim they did nothing wrong. Very few people will care about those claims, rightly so, because the vast overwhelming majority of the I did nothing wrong crowd did a lot wrong and are just trying to gaslight the community.
The Quake related bans from five or six years ago were definitely detection errors, and I hope you were eventually compensated for those if you were one of the players caught in that particular net and did nothing else wrong.
I was one of the false bans for using Quake in AW in 2018, so let me tell you from experience that no one here cares. People that are on the forums all the time typically lean in favor of Kabam. I don’t know if you’re guilty or innocent so I won’t make any assumptions. Either call it quits if you feel unfairly treated, or just keep playing as normal. Nothing will make Kabam budge.
Yes because that is an exact 1:1 scenario and definitely makes sense to compare
I was one of the false bans for using Quake in AW in 2018, so let me tell you from experience that no one here cares. People that are on the forums all the time typically lean in favor of Kabam. I don’t know if you’re guilty or innocent so I won’t make any assumptions. Either call it quits if you feel unfairly treated, or just keep playing as normal. Nothing will make Kabam budge.
I got another player's ban reversed by demonstrating the ban was in error. If there is some substantive reason to believe a player has been banned in error, I would at least try to see if there was anything that could be done. However, most of the time the only evidence people present that a ban was in error is testimonial. They claim they did nothing wrong. Very few people will care about those claims, rightly so, because the vast overwhelming majority of the I did nothing wrong crowd did a lot wrong and are just trying to gaslight the community.
The Quake related bans from five or six years ago were definitely detection errors, and I hope you were eventually compensated for those if you were one of the players caught in that particular net and did nothing else wrong.
How can you prove you don't have or didn't use 3rd party software?
Our detection methods are always getting better, and are in a great place right now, but we have made mistakes before. It's why we check these reports, and in this case, there was an error that resulted in a false flag
When we respond to others on the forums to verify they should be banned, it's because we've done the due diligence to check on the ban criteria, and in this case, we were wrong. OP, we are very sorry for this mistake.
Our detection methods are always getting better, and are in a great place right now, but we have made mistakes before. It's why we check these reports, and in this case, there was an error that resulted in a false flag
When we respond to others on the forums to verify they should be banned, it's because we've done the due diligence to check on the ban criteria, and in this case, we were wrong. OP, we are very sorry for this mistake.
Thanks for the clarification Miike. The fact is, the amount of false cases are very few and far between.
Comments
Greetings Summoner, Thank you for contacting Kabam Support. I understand that you are concerned about your account suspension. After reviewing the account, Dottorkame, our records indicate your account has been temporarily suspended. The account was actioned because it was found to be cheating, which is a violation of our Terms of Service [8. CODE OF CONDUCT AND STANDARDS]. Violations can include the use of exploits or third-party applications that alter the mechanics of the game. To ensure the security of our game, we will be unable to share the exact investigation details that led to the action taken on this account. We reserve the right to make judgment calls based on the severity of the Terms of Service violations we take action on. Certain offenses may come with different suspension periods and may range from a temporary suspension to a permanent closure of the account. These time frames are not up for debate. These decisions are made with the overall health of the game in mind and in consideration of the negative impact that a Terms of Service violation may have had on other players in the game. All account suspensions will remain in place until the time indicated. The Kabam Support team is unable to overturn an account suspension. Any such actions are considered final.Hello Summoner, Thank you again for contacting us at Kabam Support. As indicated, our record shows that your account was temporarily suspended for cheating. As for your request for more information about the violation we detected, we cannot provide information that may compromise our ability to detect and prevent players from cheating in the game or otherwise violating our Terms of Service. As such, we are unable to share the exact investigation details that led to action being taken on this account to uphold the security of our game. All account suspensions will remain in place until the time indicated. The Kabam Support team is unable to overturn an account suspension. Any such actions are considered final. As we have provided all of the help that we can in this ticket, this ticket has now been marked as Solved. Kind regards,This is what kabam answered, nothing usefull
It's all very confusing and actually, legally, very interesting. I think it's because even though you agree to the TOS of a game, judges can rule that they are actually unfair or invalid terms and rule in favour of the consumer. Such as games advertising one thing and then giving you another. Regardless of what you agree to in the TOS, you can still sue them, and you can win. It would be incredibly unfair for example if a person working for a company did not like a certain player who had spent a lot of money in that game and chose to ban them. That's why the TOS wouldn't matter in that case, at least in the US and Europe, I don't really have knowledge about the precedent in other countries.
Ofc 99% of the time this does not happen. 99% it's cheaters who do not want to admit to cheating. Like I said before, I think Kabam as a company are pretty accurate at detecting cheating, so I am highly doubtful of this guy's story.
The spirit of Golivaez lives on strongly!
Reading through the thread, I'm more so on the fence of you've been caught doing stuff you shouldn't have, but above point does still stand.
The fact that you can't see how this would be problematic is, to be blunt, a limitation on your part. It is a limitation many cheating players share. And that's why Kabam lets them continue to hang themselves on that limitation.
Mistakes are extremely rare, and never just out of the blue for no reason. In every case where Kabam has made an error, there was an obvious logical source of that error which was eventually corrected. When someone says they did nothing wrong and did nothing that could possibly trigger a ban, it was always something obvious they just wouldn't admit to. It was never that they did nothing wrong, it was always that they didn't think they could be caught, so they think they can deny it and it is just their word against Kabam's.
Cheaters are not smart. They always make mistakes. They just don't think they do, so they think anyone who accuses them of cheating must be just guessing, so they are free to deny it. But it is always something. Sometimes it is account sharing with someone they trust, and that trust was misplaced. Sometimes it is using hacks they just think are untraceable. Sometimes it is using merc services that they think they were clever enough to mask.
I happen to know many of the ways Kabam identifies cheats, in part because I'm knowledgeable about how these things work, and in part because I've worked with Kabam in the past to identify violators and investigate potential errors in banning. What I find most interesting is that when I look around to observe discussions in dark places about prohibited activity, I almost never see discussions surrounding the methods actually used to track cheats. It is always silly stuff about VPNs and things. The cheating community does not know what they are doing wrong. And Kabam is not going to educate them.
If you are running on a supported device, using a supported app store, and not running anything that modifies, alters, emulates, or in any way counters the security of the device operating environment, you're fine. The moment you veer at all away from that, even if you don't count it as "cheating" yourself, you are taking chances. Chances you might lose. So don't do that. Kabam is not going to tell you how close you are to the line. You're either behind it, or over it.
Under US law, even if you could get a ban reversed on the grounds that the cause of the ban was in error, any competent lawyer would tell you this would be a meaningless victory. The company could simply ban you the next day under the doctrine that they can ban anyone for any reason, and they decided to ban you at their discretion. There is no way to compel an online game to maintain your account.
You could sue them to refund your money, but you'd generally have to prove fraud which is difficult to do. You'd have to show you didn't receive what you paid for, and shutting down your account is not the same thing as demonstrating you did not receive what you paid for. As far as I am aware, once again no one in a western country has managed to sue for refund of their online expenditures on the grounds that banning the account deprives them of their property (there have been cases where underaged players have managed to recover expenditures from banned accounts on the grounds that they were legally unable to agree to the terms of service).
I know of no case where a group of players filed a class action lawsuit against an online game operator to attempt to reverse banning and won. I am aware of a couple class action suits filed against online gaming companies accusing them of fraud or other crimes. The Roblox one comes to mind. In that case, Roblox was accused of, among other things, explicitly executing a fraud whereby objectionable content was allowed onto the platform to generate revenue and then deleted after significant revenue was paid, citing moderation policies, and then not refunding the money. The fraud was knowingly taking money for purchases the platform knew it would not allow the players to actually keep for any length of time. The TOS would not apply in this case, because if it could be proven, this would be a statutory crime, and TOS agreements cannot decriminalize statutory violations in that way. In other words, you cannot legally agree to a contract that stipulates or requires illegal behavior.
I honestly would like to see someone get farther, even though as I said competent legal counsel would probably advise against this course of action, because I would like a good example to point to as to what the likely eventual resolution of such an attempt would be. Give me a link to a court filing, give me a LexisNexis entry, give me something.
Also I think when I read about the class action lawsuits or cases of people suing and winning it was not for this type of game. It was a while ago but I believe it was when gaming companies have external moderators. Obviously Kabam (wisely) does not have this. Obviously roblox and cryptogames are classic examples where TOS of a game are invalidated by criminal activity which is a whole separate issue I believe.
I don't know the intricate details obviously, and I don't know whether it's on the company to prove the person was breaking the TOS or if the customer has to prove they did not break TOS, which would be very messy (probably could depend on the judge you get.)
As I said earlier, there are probably no existing case studies so to speak for a game like this one, as no high spender has ever been illegitimately banned to my knowledge and also kabam are an honest company I believe, unlike the dodgy internet games out there, or ones with external moderation. I did have a quick look on the internet and saw some people asking the question on legal sites and the lawyer answered them saying you can, but idk how practical/expensive this would be. As you said, there seems to be no one who has written up their experience.
Lastly, I think gaming companies can offer a settlement to a player and as part of the deal, require for them not to talk about it. Maybe this is part of the reason information seems lacking on the net? Someone did sue Riot games and win, but I believe that was in South America and have no idea what the court system is like in countries like Brazil.
Also, anyone who wants to sue kabam, feel free, starting costs are $10k and however long it takes to get to court where you run the risk of getting it tossed immediately.
There's an analog involving Black Jack in Vegas. For legal technicality reasons, counting cards on the black jack table in Las Vegas is not illegal, and they cannot actually ban a player for doing it. However, any Vegas casino can simply decide to ban a player from any table game or the entire casino at their own discretion without giving any reason. So when a Vegas casino detects a player counting cards, they will generally ask the players to leave the blackjack tables. They will usually allow them to play any other game, but if the player makes a fuss they can and will simply ask them to leave the premises completely, which is entirely within their legal right to do. They often say words to the effect of "your play is too good for us, so we do not wish to play against you any more." That is a perfectly legitimate reason for barring you from their tables.
It is not illegal to count cards, but it is also not illegal for a casino to ask a card counter to leave. You can try to prove you did not violate the game's TOS, but you cannot compel them to keep you around regardless.
The Quake related bans from five or six years ago were definitely detection errors, and I hope you were eventually compensated for those if you were one of the players caught in that particular net and did nothing else wrong.
Our detection methods are always getting better, and are in a great place right now, but we have made mistakes before. It's why we check these reports, and in this case, there was an error that resulted in a false flag
When we respond to others on the forums to verify they should be banned, it's because we've done the due diligence to check on the ban criteria, and in this case, we were wrong. OP, we are very sorry for this mistake.