Appealing for help with a failed appeal! (BF4DB)

Battlefield 4 General Discussion
1

I just had a global ban appeal rejected on BF4DB and unfortunately, because there are no exceptions to their rule of appealing a ban based on an account being hacked when the cheating occurred, the thread was closed immediately.

I know that a LOT of people have tried to bring this subject up before, I just don’t know if anyone has ever been successful in proving anything once the appeal has already been rejected once.

So I’m just hoping I can use this forum to at least *discuss *my points.

I get that hackers will use that as an excuse for themselves and security measures are the responsibility of the user. But, surely if I feel that statistical evidence does back up my claim, then why can’t it make a difference and be discussed further?

I know that it would be too much for the team at BF4DB to do extra research for every individual case. But, I’m just hoping anyone reading this on here can use any of the evidence to help me prove my case.

I have never really paid much attention to my stats before, so I don’t know which site is the best in that regard, but the guy who reported my account linked my stats from bf4cheatreport.com and this is the site that I used to check and felt that it showed well enough that my account was hacked.

This is the report link - https://bf4db.com/player/ban/356001963

My account was comprimised on June 26th and the 3 battle reports that the guy on BF4DB linked were all from that same day, as you can see from the list of my last 200 rounds here - http://bf4cheatreport.com/?pid=&uid=HoIden_McRoyne&=200&startdate=

I realised that my account had been hacked the next day (27th) and changed the account name and password straight away, however the report was only made on BF4DB on July 6th. So while I know that is not ‘evidence’ per se, at least it seems strange that if I had been hacking, I would have stopped doing it before any complaint had been made

As for actual evidence that the stats show in terms of being unusual, the battle reports used in my investigation and all the others from that day (26th) all show suspicious values for HSKR and a few for KPH. You can see from that list of most recent rounds (200) that it is the only time those values have been suspiciously high like that. Plus, you can see the guy hacking never used any vehicles, while I use a lot, he uses guns I never use (with SCAR-H being used in 2 rounds as an exception), he plays on game modes that I don’t and on servers that I don’t.

I’ll link back further than the previous 200 reports in the hope that it helps my claim of unusual activity being restricted to only that 1 specific day.

http://bf4cheatreport.com/?pid=&uid=HoIden_McRoyne&=200&startdate=20190425

http://bf4cheatreport.com/?pid=&uid=HoIden_McRoyne&=200&startdate=20190304

http://bf4cheatreport.com/?pid=&uid=HoIden_McRoyne&=200&startdate=20181027

http://bf4cheatreport.com/?pid=&uid=HoIden_McRoyne&=200&startdate=20180803

http://bf4cheatreport.com/?pid=&uid=HoIden_McRoyne&=200&startdate=20180615

Of course you can go back further if you wish by changing the dates on the search from for the website.

My Battlelog - http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/soldier/HoIden_McRoyne/stats/356001963/pc/

With 3200 hours played, one day of play won’t alter overall stats dramatically, so looking at my general stats on my Battlelog page are basically what they were before June 26th. Having racked up these sats over the YEARS of playing are surely not really going to be those of someone who decides they suddenly want / need to purchase hacks?

BF4 is one of only 2 games that I play, and I have only put in so many hours in to playing it because I am housebound with health issues (not saying that others with similar playing times have no lives necessarily, lol), so unfortunately it is really depressing to think I’m not going to be able to play it anymore. If anyone can agree with my points here and more importantly, someone who can help with bringing this up with someone involved with anyone from the BF4DB team, I would be so grateful, because as I said, I’m not allowed to with them directly because my thread was closed immediately.

Thanks

2

Ok, so, it seems those links I pasted are not actually showing all 200 reports per page… anyone know how to fix this?

3

For some reason it is showing 20 instead of 200… if you change the value in the box labelled 'BR count (1-200) from 20 to 200 for each link and click on submit, it should regenerate each page to show all 200

4

Theres nothing anybody here can do as BF4DB is a third party plugin.

@Il-Scavenger-lI may be able to look at this for you.

That said, If your account was phished or hacked into, Then not much CAN be done because regardless of you not cheating per’se, The fact that the cheating from your GUID can be 100% verified means that the detection was correct and is unlikely to be removed.

This is because there is a chance that your account could be hijacked again, particularly if you did not enable 2 factor authentication.

Your account security is of course solely your responsibility, e.g using strong passwords, 2 factor authentication ( such as using an authentication app on your phone ) or having EA text you a single use code to a verified mobile phone number, again.. via 2fa.

5

Unfortunately for you, I fully agree with Tags.

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We (BF4DB) can not secure accounts for players. They need to take care of that themselves. Our full statement about hacked accounts can be found here: https://bf4db.com/forum/thread/hacked-accounts-1174
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By not making exceptions, we can only hope that one day people will start taking their online security more serious. Cause not doing so will have consequences one way or another. For both the owner of the account but even more so for the players having to deal with another cheater profiting from someone else his mistake of not having basic security measures enabled.

6

@Il-Scavenger-lI

So your point is - that once the hackers have had their original accounts banned, they are only able to continue using their cheats by accessing other accounts used by people that have not added the extra security measures? And I am in the wrong for allowing them to do so.

So, if as you say, the main point is that this is more about how others are affected, this is more of a punishment for me as an individual for allowing it to happen?

If so, how does the punishment fit the crime in that respect? My ignorance about the security measures only resulted in other players having a cheater ruining their games for around 12 hours, before I became aware of the situation and put those security measures in place. Yet I get a lifetime ban, equal to what is rightly considered what the actual hackers themselves get and deserve. If a punishment does have to be imposed at all for my mistake, can’t I please at least request that it is reduced to a temporary ban? That is, as long as you are satisfied with my original explanations about me not being the hacker myself in the first place?

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I can keep bringing up reasons, but everything you need to know has already been said.
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I personally think that facilitating the “crime” should be punished similar as committing it.
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Our policy regarding hacked accounts won’t change.

8

@HoIden_McRoyne
It is the exact same if punkbuster were to issue the ban.

They can not ( and will not ) unban an account that has been correctly flagged as being used for cheating, Simply because a cheater could claim they were hacked and once the account got reinstated they would then be free to cheat again.

Your only recourse here is to enable 2 factor authentication and improve your account security by changing your password frequently, Or use a very strong password ( a password that is unique and not used elsewhere, e.g Google/ YouTube/ email )

As you are aware, it is your responsibility to ensure your account is secured as much as is possible.

So if you have not done so yet, I strongly advise enabling 2FA as soon as possible to prevent further breaches and further potential bans.

All you can do now is to play on servers that do not run the BF4DB plugin, And that is assuming that your account details arent added to any other databases ( pbbans for example ).

https://help.ea.com/en-gb/help/account/origin-login-verification-information/

9

OK, thanks for taking the time to reply anyway, both of you.

10

I wish I could have given you better news but I’m afraid it is what it is.

11

Thanks Tags for the detailed explanation. I couldn’t have said it any better, really :slight_smile:

12

For entertainment purpose only. Most of this went over my head, but I recognize PB and them not budging if you have been hi jacked. I kept going back to EA. They wanted to help, but PB didn’t care. EA said they could tell where the hi jack came from, so after so many times talking to them I basically demanded new games and I was granted new games.

Long version bla, bla.

I was just happy to get back into the game, but starting over suck since I lost all my history even though I don’t play for stats. I got banned after coming back from trying BF1 beta and thought it was something simple when I kept getting disconnect. The forum inform me I was banned, since I don’t pay attainting or read pop up messages. lol Game 20 years with no problems and getting old. Use to format my PC weekly and tweaked until I killed the OS, but to tired to put that much effort in now of days. So having 2 factor authentication was something I learned after the fact. I just game and build. All this other stuff is work. It’s a pain to come up with passwords since they have to be complicated and you have to write it down. I have hundreds of papers on my sloppy desk. Build a great game and I’ll tattoo the password on my arm a so so game I’ll write the password on a bumble gum wrapper. My interest is gaming and building. Gaming must be a young mans thing now of days if you have to keep changing your password. I bought Origin Assess and put it under my name that was hi jack with out even thinking. I was able to play the game, but the whole thing has me scratching my head since that name was banned. I don’t care about any of this stuff and just want to play a game I paid for. I gone against the odds and still play the games I paid for, besides starting over and losing a Tomb Raider game. So EA has done me right, mostly, but not with out a fight.

Just to break up the great wall of txt. Gaming use to be fun and I don’t think cheating was a problem or people would even want to. Gaming use to be more brotherly and helping each other. BF3 seem to introduce the stat bashing and the focus was switch from having fun to having bragging stats. Which I don’t get. Gaming is almost ruined in my eyes since crying in the game and forum took over. I hate hackers, but I hardly notice them and high pingers is what gets under my skin. That and noob players not realizing the internet can be in your favor or work against you, but people pat themselves on the back like their all that. Noobs is the real problem. lol The game has gotten to serious about hackers and reporting players after you get your butt beat. There’s always the next game. Good games, bad games just try to make the most of it and learn how to have fun. Which a large amount of people can’t seem to do and blame other players because their not having fun if they are losing. All crying about snipers just made a run and gun game and made the game more simple to play.

13

A game is only a minor thing to lose. Try to convince a bank of refunding the money you lost after your online banking account got hacked because of a simple password. 9/10 times you won’t get it back.

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Use a password manager like Keepass to generate the passes for you and store them in an encrypted DB.

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Yes, the internet became more “dangerous” and gaming also suffers from this. But just like in real life, where 40 years ago you could leave the door open cause your neighbour was always watching (at least according to my grandmother), generally speaking this is a bad idea in 2019.

14

When I got hi jack and was led to re buying BF3P/BF4P over was not minor to me. And I’ll just leave it and that, since EA did make things right with me.

Thanks for suggesting a simpler way of coming up with passwords, though the process is more work. ; )

Yeah I didn’t do the 2 factor authentication until after the fact. Game for a long time and that was new to me. Plus I didn’t like it wearing a tin foil hat, but it’s norm now of days.

15

Well at least you had a discussion about it. Results are unfortunate but lesson learned I suppose. BF4DB puts a lot of work into what they do and are appreciated.