Boards›Player Behavior

Permanently banned for being Hacked

Ris··4 votes·3,031 views

Earlier in December, my account was hacked. One result of this hack, was that my account was permanently banned. Apparently this hacker had gotten control of my account, and used scripts to play 30 games.

The hacking all happened while I was out of town for the holidays, and I took care of getting my account back (the hacker didn't even change the password) once I got back home.

I wake up a few days later to see that my account was banned (January 5th). I (naively) thought that I could contact Riot and get it all sorted out. The person on my account is clearly not me. Notice the summoner switch after my last game played (the Nocturne game)

After I contact Riot, I find that they just continually delete my requests without giving a response. I even tweeted their customer service and get this as a response. If you can't read it, they say that all action taken, even if they know it was't you and was the result of malicious intent and hacking, gets punished. Seems like a great way to rehabilitate a player.

Does anyone else think it is extremely unfair to permanently ban an account, even with sufficient evidence that the account has been hacked? I've never been warned, I've never been banned, I've never been chat restricted. I've even spent a large amount of money on this game (I obviously know this has no effect on bans).

This seems HIGHLY abusable. If your account gets hacked and they happen to use scripts. You WILL be permabanned, and you will have no recourse because of their policy. I just want to bring light to this highly flawed system, even if no one reads this.

24 Comments

RPK9KM4K4A4 votes

Yes the hacker has so much free time on his hands to play 30 games in 5 days for you.

Come up with a better story please.

McFatal2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Serene Grace,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=OrfRPxkr,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-01-10T23:31:40.706+0000)

Yes the hacker has so much free time on his hands to play 30 games for you.

Come up with a better story please.

p sure when you hack an account its yours now and its not "30 games for the other guy"

such a dumb comment

Ris2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Serene Grace,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=OrfRPxkr,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-01-10T23:31:40.706+0000)

Yes the hacker has so much free time on his hands to play 30 games for you.

Come up with a better story please.

Why don't you read the post before you jump to that conclusion? It happened during the holidays, and you can see the summoner spells are switched. I'm also sure Riot has IP information. And before you say boosting, why would I pay someone to boost me to Silver 1, when I've been Gold+ every season besides season 1. And why would I pay the booster to play poro king games?

ThatEkko2 votes

That Is Such a good point my other acc was perma banned and i didn't even swear

Magical Player2 votes

Not an investment You spent money to obtain virtual goods those goods can be taken away at any time You made a purchase not an investment You're the sole operator of the account, you take full responsibility for the account

Ris2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=OrfRPxkr,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2017-01-11T00:51:54.699+0000)

Not an investment You spent money to obtain virtual goods those goods can be taken away at any time You made a purchase not an investment

You know what I meant, and I already said I'm not asking for my money back. How would you feel if you bought something and then the manufacturer came and took it away from you and you had no where to go to try and resolve the issue? That's my situation right now, and it's really shitty. If I knew that I was going to have my account closed for no reason when I first started playing, I never would've spent money to begin with.

This is more about the fact that I can't play the game anymore if I wish. Making a new account is out of the question, as the time commitment to get back to where I was would be ridiculous. I don't have the time I did when I was in school. I also had a decent amount of irreplaceable items in the game, and that's all gone with no way to actually talk the situation through with someone.

With almost ANY other company, I'd be on the phone with them and have it resolved and my account back by now. But as it is, I have 0 options to even do anything besides accept an unfair punishment (which they have already acknowledged it was)

Magical Player1 votes

{quoted}

You know what I meant, and I already said I'm not asking for my money back. How would you feel if you bought something and then the manufacturer came and took it away from you and you had no where to go to try and resolve the issue? That's my situation right now, and it's really shitty. If I knew that I was going to have my account closed for no reason when I first started playing, I never would've spent money to begin with.

This is more about the fact that I can't play the game anymore if I wish. Making a new account is out of the question, as the time commitment to get back to where I was would be ridiculous. I don't have the time I did when I was in school. I also had a decent amount of irreplaceable items in the game, and that's all gone with no way to actually talk the situation through with someone.

With almost ANY other company, I'd be on the phone with them and have it resolved and my account back by now. But as it is, I have 0 options to even do anything besides accept an unfair punishment (which they have already acknowledged it was)

"Irreplaceable items" digital goodies, 90% can be purchased with money or ip why is making a new account out of the question. Buy a xp boost by 30 quickly? Additionally, why not call them up? keep harassing them. If you think you're right. Keep sending tickets in. Idk, but gl with your endeavors

Ris1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=OrfRPxkr,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2017-01-11T01:21:50.693+0000)

"Irreplaceable items" digital goodies, 90% can be purchased with money or ip why is making a new account out of the question. Buy a xp boost by 30 quickly? Additionally, why not call them up? keep harassing them. If you think you're right. Keep sending tickets in. Idk, but gl with your endeavors

Because I have icons and skins that you can't get anymore, therefore irreplaceable. I would love to call them up, unfortunately the only phone number they have just is a message from Phreak telling me to go to their website. Making a new account is out of the question because I'm not spending the little time I have to regrind my account back to every character unlocked as well as level 30.

Hopefully a Riot Employee will see this and I can then open up an actual conversation, but they only respond to the reddit front page so I feel like I'm just screwed.

Ada Wong1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=OrfRPxkr,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2017-01-11T00:51:54.699+0000)

Not an investment You spent money to obtain virtual goods those goods can be taken away at any time You made a purchase not an investment You're the sole operator of the account, you take full responsibility for the account

And Riot could prevent account hacking by putting a function that allows players to do 2FA to their email white listing IP addresses lol.

Ris1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ada Wong,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=OrfRPxkr,comment-id=00040001,timestamp=2017-01-11T03:07:07.939+0000)

And Riot could prevent account hacking by putting a function that allows players to do 2FA to their email white listing IP addresses lol.

Funny that you say that, because when I reported the hack once I came back, I asked if 2FA is available. Canned response obviously. It's not even complicated for them to implement, they can just use google's service. Their account security is one of the worst in the business. I'm actually pretty furious at this point because of the way they handle their customer service.

Magical Player2 votes

Again tbf, this is rarely looked at by "riot employees" -make the reddit plea.

  • make account and just enjoy league again, drop a few bucks on heros you want to play and move on
  • leave league forever -etc
Ris1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=OrfRPxkr,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2017-01-11T01:27:48.226+0000)

Again tbf, this is rarely looked at by "riot employees" -make the reddit plea.

  • make account and just enjoy league again, drop a few bucks on heros you want to play and move on
  • leave league forever -etc

Just trying to do whatever in my power to try and solve this. I'll probably give up in a few days and just not play again, I already only played about 1 or 2 games every few months as it is now.

But that guy made a post earlier asking if he was toxic and got a Riot response pretty fast, but that was memey enough to get an answer.

Paquay2 votes

Sorry man, I'm really not buying that your account was "hacked" and someone else used scripts. It's possible, but things just don't add up.

  1. I looked at your history and I see no true deviation in consistency from your Nocturne play to every match that followed. Of course the summoners were different because different champs were used and they pretty much all make sense. It's not like you always used one champ and the same exact summoners and then it all of sudden switched to something odd.

  2. The hacker didn't change your password or attempt to do anything malicious with your account. At least you didn't mention any weird charges for RP or anything being gifted. This doesn't really make sense because why would they hack you just to log in and play with some scripts?

  3. There's no reason at all why someone would go through the trouble of getting your account info, play 30 games in 5 days, and then just disappear into the abyss. That doesn't make any logical sense.

I'm sure The Twitter response was a canned answer and they don't truly believe that you got hacked and are innocent. Besides, unless the IP was like across the world, why would they think it was a hacker and not just you or a buddy logging in? You already mentioned you were on vacation so it's not like one day the IP was logged in from Florida, the next from Washington, and the next day from Florida again.

This just doesn't add up. They probably detected something that flagged their system, they checked it, found it to be ban worthy, and now the case is closed. Sorry man, I'd say you could start over but it sounds like you'd rather move on. Best of luck to ya.

OnlyYouCanHearMe1 votes

I'm sure this is a devastating and extremely upsetting experience for you. I'm a bit on the fence with this type of scenario, because while there are people who come through the boards like yourself, who mention cases like this that I cannot help but feel quite a bit of sympathy for, there are also many others who come through who are... how shall I put this... obviously lying. And it's those people who have probably led to Riot having such a strict policy with regards to accounts. I have a feeling if they made their policy more lenient, then many of those less scrupulous people would simply resort to cheating and boosting to gain MMR, and then any time they were caught, would claim that they had been hacked.

Ris1 votes

All I'm trying to do is get in contact with someone that isn't a low level tech with scripted responses. With any other company I can actually elevate to talk to someone that can help me, but here they just delete your tickets. Kinda sucks to lose a $1000 dollar investment because I got hacked while on vacation.

GoleBilon1 votes

Sad story i think you just need to spam more tickets to riot support.

Ris1 votes

{quoted}

Sad story i think you just need to spam more tickets to riot support.

They just delete the tickets when I send them in

GoleBilon1 votes

got no other ideas :(

Ris1 votes

{quoted}

Sorry man, I'm really not buying that your account was "hacked" and someone else used scripts. It's possible, but things just don't add up.

  1. I looked at your history and I see no true deviation in consistency from your Nocturne play to every match that followed. Of course the summoners were different because different champs were used and they pretty much all make sense. It's not like you always used one champ and the same exact summoners and then it all of sudden switched to something odd.

  2. The hacker didn't change your password or attempt to do anything malicious with your account. At least you didn't mention any weird charges for RP or anything being gifted. This doesn't really make sense because why would they hack you just to log in and play with some scripts?

  3. There's no reason at all why someone would go through the trouble of getting your account info, play 30 games in 5 days, and then just disappear into the abyss. That doesn't make any logical sense.

I'm sure The Twitter response was a canned answer and they don't truly believe that you got hacked and are innocent. Besides, unless the IP was like across the world, why would they think it was a hacker and not just you or a buddy logging in? You already mentioned you were on vacation so it's not like one day the IP was logged in from Florida, the next from Washington, and the next day from Florida again.

This just doesn't add up. They probably detected something that flagged their system, they checked it, found it to be ban worthy, and now the case is closed. Sorry man, I'd say you could start over but it sounds like you'd rather move on. Best of luck to ya.

  1. The summoner keys were switched. You can look back as far as you want. I always use flash on D, the hacker used it on F. You can also look at my Season 6 match history and see the clear change in champions played from season 6 to season 7. I haven't personally played a ranked game in season 7, so the hacker was the one with those games

  2. I have no idea why he didn't change my password. He did purchase items with IP, Lethality Runes. He also changed almost all of my rune pages, which I switched back. Some were copies of some I already had. My guess is that he bought the account from a hacker and just played it as another account.

  3. He only played 30 games because I changed the password shortly after I returned on the 1st of January from Baltimore.

I appreciate you looking into it yourself, but I'm sure they have IP info logged and they can see it wasn't from Florida (where I live) or Baltimore (where I didn't have access to the game and offered to provide them my flight tickets as evidence). They just refuse to communicate with me in an effective manner

They have now communicated with me saying that they found no evidence of account compromise and will not be unbanning my account, which is factually untrue.

Paquay1 votes

Well the points you bring up are definitely plausible. I think I like to believe in a just system and if something had pinged Riot as ban-able, then it was probably right.

To the entire rest of the world, Riot stands absolutely nothing to gain by banning you for no reason. On the other hand, you have everything to gain by not being upfront about scripting/cheating etc. Not saying you did it, just that it is an uphill battle.

I guess a hacker could have just sold it, which would be a bummer not only for you, but for the other purchaser as well.

Anyways, best of luck to you.

Ris1 votes

On another note, I just remembered I was emailed this earlier in the month, Email Regarding Suspicious Activity. Riot seems to conveniently ignore that one

Ris1 votes

As an update to the situation, after I was told by a customer service rep that I could not escalate, I created a new ticket asking to have it escalated. They investigated further and unbanned my account.

COBRA C0MM4NDER1 votes

justice? oh man...so glad you got the stuff returned.

Persistence with Riot seems to be the only way to get results.

ex ethereal1 votes

I just logged on for the first time in at least a month, maybe two. A message pops up telling me I'm permanently banned for toxic chat. I mostly play ARAM and am a not a worthless human being, however the very first line of the complaint is "Come mid n******" At first I was just confused and annoyed, but i'll have to try to figure out how to appeal this. I've spent more money on this free game than any normal video game, and probably more than I'd pay for a premium subscription for something like bf1. I'm not super internet savvy or anything but if there was an opt-in option to save my IP adress or something I totally would have done it. So frustrating that someone would bother to hack a freaking videogame account just to get a person banned. Probably wasted my RP on Shyvana while they were at it :/ I'm not sure I'll be able to talk myself into starting over. What a bummer.

More from Player Behavior

The indefinite banning of Tyler1
Player Behavior4,799 comments
2,942
votes
14 day ban because playing Nunu Support with Smite is "stealing other people's roles"...?
Player Behavior1,525 comments
1,086
votes
Riot should add monthly status cards
Player Behavior241 comments
843
votes
Reminder that we haven't gotten our Summoner report cards yet :/
Player Behavior145 comments
619
votes
I'm not "triggered" by you throwing insults.
Player Behavior361 comments
548
votes
Black Alistar, King Rammus!!!!
Player Behavior462 comments
503
votes