Yep its true.  Me and my b/f was going to give FFXI another go since they now implimented this Level Sync thing we thought it might be easier to find members to party with since we used to sit around for hours getting no where.  Now around 2 days ago, during the time that me and my b/f were actually playing he suddenly got booted out of the game and got error LM-17 which according to most websites means a ban has been placed on the account.  I managed to contact their so called live chat support and got told the same shit I already gathered, that it was banned, and according to STF his account was banned because of improper obtainment of the trial key O_o  Whats mostly funny is that we did go via the official site, the only thing we did wrong was use Hotspot Shield instead of waiting forever to obtain 2 keys since it only seems to allow you to gain one every god knows how many hours and used a fake/rerouting email address because we didn't see why we should give a real one when we just want the damn key!  So.. I donno what kind of shit STF are smoking but if these are the reasons to why they did it then well they clearly have nothing better to do and still letting RMT run wild over innocent potential customers who just wanna try the damn game!   Oh and get this, chat support was uncooperative about doing anything about it and kept telling us to phone them, how does this make any difference?? Anyways, just wanted to get that off my chest and share this funny news with you guys, thanks for reading.

Just gonna venture to guess here, but you probably got your account terminated because you used an outside source to get your key? I am not sure what that Hotspot thing is. Just think of it as someone looking from the outside. RMTs probably do the exact same thing you did so they can get in get some gil and get out as quickly as possibile to avoid detection. I am not sure how the whole trial thing works to be honest I know in WoW you can't really interact with anything to counteract this very thing. Maybe that is more like the answer to the problem, but then again FFXI is a much more communal game than WoW.

Also, for the tech support thing: Making a phone call is more effort than an email. I do not believe those that were temp banned eariler this year were turned back on until people called up support. It might help show that you are not some person who is just going about to farm up some gil. They would probably just go get another account and keep moving on and an email is not much effort to try and fix the problem. Plus it helps when you don't answer the phone: "Nei ho"

So, you got keys illegally for the most part and got banned for it? Sounds like a fine thing to happen then. If you had just done it legit, then you wouldn't have had any problems. RMT have been all but erased from the game with STF. The RMT tells from the free trial have started and that's why they're banning if you do something like that.

If you don't see why they want your real e-mail, then I don't know what to tell you. Well, I already did... but if you don't understand that, then I don't know what to tell you. Just think of it as a lesson learned. Although, I don't know what the big deal is since you could just make another one I'm assuming since you didn't even use your e-mail.

It is an anti-RMT measure. Using Hotspot Shield, or webproxies and using fake e-mail addresses are the most common things for RMTs to do, so they can create a thousand accounts, log into a game and spam the hell out of people.

If there is a next time, use real e-mail addresses. Also, if there's two of you, I assume there's two computers(unless you devised some magnificent way to play split-screen FFXI). That means one key per computer. No need to even use Hotspot Shield, and I don't see why you did. Even on the same network, different computers have different external IP addresses.

Wow, that really sucks ;:/

Originally posted by NotArkard

 Even on the same network, different computers have different external IP addresses.

different sockets ...

Lesson learned, you really can't say SE doesn't take this stuff seriously.

you should have went thru the prossess like many others have. its not that bad give in correct info take the right steps.

Now you lost more time due to the banned trail than actually takeing the correct steps to get into the game. go figure.

let me get this straight:

You obtained your trial key using anonymity software and by not following instructions plainly stated on the FFXI website.

That very same account that was created by that key, was banned.

and you're creating a forum about this, to say that SE sucks because they ban people for doing things in a deliberately devious manner? 

Thank you for your wonderful insight.

Please hang up, and try your call again with a decent complaint.

Originally posted by Satimasu

So, you got keys illegally for the most part and got banned for it? Sounds like a fine thing to happen then. If you had just done it legit, then you wouldn't have had any problems. RMT have been all but erased from the game with STF. The RMT tells from the free trial have started and that's why they're banning if you do something like that.

If you don't see why they want your real e-mail, then I don't know what to tell you. Well, I already did... but if you don't understand that, then I don't know what to tell you. Just think of it as a lesson learned. Although, I don't know what the big deal is since you could just make another one I'm assuming since you didn't even use your e-mail.

We didn't do it the illegal way fyi, using proxies for web browsing is perfectly legal.  Besides, its a free trial with no benifits, no expanions, zip, what would I gain out of trying to get a free trial key illegally?

Originally posted by Urvan

Originally posted by Satimasu

So, you got keys illegally for the most part and got banned for it? Sounds like a fine thing to happen then. If you had just done it legit, then you wouldn't have had any problems. RMT have been all but erased from the game with STF. The RMT tells from the free trial have started and that's why they're banning if you do something like that.

If you don't see why they want your real e-mail, then I don't know what to tell you. Well, I already did... but if you don't understand that, then I don't know what to tell you. Just think of it as a lesson learned. Although, I don't know what the big deal is since you could just make another one I'm assuming since you didn't even use your e-mail.

 

We didn't do it the illegal way fyi, using proxies for web browsing is perfectly legal.  Besides, its a free trial with no benifits, no expanions, zip, what would I gain out of trying to get a free trial key illegally?

Maybe because you did it that way? :P

Originally posted by NotArkard

It is an anti-RMT measure. Using Hotspot Shield, or webproxies and using fake e-mail addresses are the most common things for RMTs to do, so they can create a thousand accounts, log into a game and spam the hell out of people.

If there is a next time, use real e-mail addresses. Also, if there's two of you, I assume there's two computers(unless you devised some magnificent way to play split-screen FFXI). That means one key per computer. No need to even use Hotspot Shield, and I don't see why you did. Even on the same network, different computers have different external IP addresses.

Thats where you're wrong, they use the same ISP that provides an IP, which is used to connect to the internet, never LAN IPs.  Which is why if one user gets banned from lets say a chat room via their IP address, the whole network gets blocked.

Originally posted by star.buck

Originally posted by Urvan

Originally posted by Satimasu

So, you got keys illegally for the most part and got banned for it? Sounds like a fine thing to happen then. If you had just done it legit, then you wouldn't have had any problems. RMT have been all but erased from the game with STF. The RMT tells from the free trial have started and that's why they're banning if you do something like that.

If you don't see why they want your real e-mail, then I don't know what to tell you. Well, I already did... but if you don't understand that, then I don't know what to tell you. Just think of it as a lesson learned. Although, I don't know what the big deal is since you could just make another one I'm assuming since you didn't even use your e-mail.

 

We didn't do it the illegal way fyi, using proxies for web browsing is perfectly legal.  Besides, its a free trial with no benifits, no expanions, zip, what would I gain out of trying to get a free trial key illegally?

Maybe because you did it that way? :P

for the last time proxies aren't illegal and there is no rule stating that you can't or shouldn't use em, so until proven this isn't a valid reason nor is the assumption that it is illegal valid.

Oh and another thing I'd like to add, its very hard to detect if someone is using a proxy and if the service allows the person to obtain whatever its providing then it clearly does not block it nor does it detect it.  Rerouting emails, masking emails or using anti-spam email boxes is not illegal either.

Oh and another thing I'd like to add to this debate, if SFT were really keeping ontop of RMT then how come I reported 3 over the first 2 days of playing? Quite ironic that.  No justice for the innocent if you ask me and its not my fault that they have a stupid system that forces you to wait for god knows how long to obtain more than one key, they obviously never heard of a network before where more than one person might want a key on the same IP!

I don't mean illegal as in breaking the law, as in with SE's terms.

The reason you're seeing RMT is because they're using the exact same methods to as you have used to spam characters on free trials. They aren't getting much further than that though. The high level ones and fish bots are pretty much gone.

I'm not trying to argue. Just saying if you did it the right way, you wouldn't have had a problem, waiting or not. The whole reason the process can be a pain is because of well, RMT...

I think "the only thing we did wrong was use Hotspot Shield" may be part of the problem. Here is my guess: :)

Square Enix may have experienced unnecessary spam from RMT for free trial keys, so time limits were added with the assumption that normal players wouldn't mind waiting to obtain additional keys. Afterwards, STF could have observed that RMT was using various methods to bypass the time limit, and in response tracked or marked such cases for banning.

To me, your situation to use Hotspot Shield is definitely a special case. If I'm trying to get my friends to play FFXI, I would tell them to get keys when they're home and provide links later. If I'm trying to get family members to play FFXI, I would have them play my character while we wait for the time limit to get additional trials for them. Why not give FFXI another go using the old accounts that you and your boyfriend had before?

LOL!

FFXI Community =1
Pissed Off Girl =0

There's more that I wanna say to the OP about the matter. But what's the point? lol

Originally posted by curiindi

I think "the only thing we did wrong was use Hotspot Shield" may be part of the problem. Here is my guess: :)

Square Enix may have experienced unnecessary spam from RMT for free trial keys, so time limits were added with the assumption that normal players wouldn't mind waiting to obtain additional keys. Afterwards, STF could have observed that RMT was using various methods to bypass the time limit, and in response tracked or marked such cases for banning.

To me, your situation to use Hotspot Shield is definitely a special case. If I'm trying to get my friends to play FFXI, I would tell them to get keys when they're home and provide links later. If I'm trying to get family members to play FFXI, I would have them play my character while we wait for the time limit to get additional trials for them. Why not give FFXI another go using the old accounts that you and your boyfriend had before?

If SFT had any brains at all they'd have all known proxy IPs blocked from using that service, which obviously they don't and since there is no way to tell if you are using a proxy to web browse other than IP detection, I believe this assumption would not pass as a valid reason.  As for using our old accounts, I don't wish to reactivate only to find that nothing or not much has changed and end up getting no where again.  What better way to test/try out FFXI again other than a free trial?

As for chainspell, your comment is rather childish so I'm just going to ignore you and block you so I don't have to see any further childish comments from you.  Oh and fyi I am male, thanks for noticing

Anyways, you guys clearly don't see past your own noses and see why I say SFT fails so do us all a favour and stop posting in this thread, your remarks don't justify PlayOnline's stupidity, they just add to it.

One more pointer I'd like to make is they have our real phone number, and they could have contacted him ingame but did not try either method so me thinks they seriously do not do things the right way at all.  And their lack of cooperation was the biggest piss take if you ask me.  It makes no difference if you use live chat or phone to speak to them, a voice makes no difference, I could be the pope for all anyone cares and they'd still believe I was Bob Joe (random anonymous name) owning a free trial since it requires no credit card there's no way of proving otherwise.

Pissed off male 1

Community 0

PlayOnline -1

Thanks and good day.

I still don't see how they failed when they nailed you for the exact thing they were made to do in the first place. That would say they're actually doing the right thing. If you were giving them some sort of test, I'd say they passed it. I wouldn't sweat over a free trial. If you wanted to know how the game was, all you'd have to do is read some of the recent threads.

Everyone got on your case because you're defending what was clearing not the right thing to do. I could say that SE fails because of the changes they made to fishing to prevent RMT. It didn't stop them in the least, but I still roll with it, even though I could just fish and fish until I fall asleep.

I will agree that the Customer Service can be lackluster for sure. But, it's just normal people that don't really know anything about the game or anything of the sort trying to figure out what your problem is. Pretty much like most other companies customer service. You can see what that leads to.

If you do it how it's suppose to be done, there would be no problem. Don't do it the way it's suppose to be done, you get banned. Simple enough.

Originally posted by Satimasu

I still don't see how they failed when they nailed you for the exact thing they were made to do in the first place. That would say they're actually doing the right thing. If you were giving them some sort of test, I'd say they passed it. I wouldn't sweat over a free trial. If you wanted to know how the game was, all you'd have to do is read some of the recent threads.

Everyone got on your case because you're defending what was clearing not the right thing to do. I could say that SE fails because of the changes they made to fishing to prevent RMT. It didn't stop them in the least, but I still roll with it, even though I could just fish and fish until I fall asleep.

I will agree that the Customer Service can be lackluster for sure. But, it's just normal people that don't really know anything about the game or anything of the sort trying to figure out what your problem is. Pretty much like most other companies customer service. You can see what that leads to.

If you do it how it's suppose to be done, there would be no problem. Don't do it the way it's suppose to be done, you get banned. Simple enough.

There is no right or wrong way for obtaining the key, no mention of the use of proxy servers or masking email addresses.  Oh and another little note, POL client allows you to add proxy to connect to their service, that to me is hypercritical if that were the case but to put it simply, its not, so as I already said, your assumption is flawed, learn to review the facts before making accusations and excuses for why POL made a mistake.