Here's my story of short.. I have been playing Aion since the beta with my husband and two kids. My favorite part of the game is crafting, I tend to spend all day crafting and when my guild (dear friends) make me,I go out and level . On the 10th I went to log in and found NCSoft had banned my account. At the time they told me I had sold items to someone who had hacked another's account. When I called they pulled up my incident number and it belonged to a person named Josh (not my name). So when I brought up that they had the wrong account and person, suddenly I was being banned for gold buying.The person on the phone even told me that she had no logs showing I ever bought gold. When I protested and tried to prove myself innocent, even offering to show my bank statements to prove my innocence, they warned me that further questioning could get my account closed for good. Basically that I was lucky to just be banned for 72 hrs and stripped of EVERYTHING. All my gathering materials gone, everything all the guildies sent me to craft with gone and all the armor that my guild mates made me gone. But NCSoft doesn't want to answer my questions or show me this "evidence" they have. In the last conversation they told me it was people like me who victimize the players of Aion. So a friend suggested I post all their letters so everyone could see how they work. Enjoy!

Customer (Tammera Lanterman) 02/11/2010
I have spent all morning trying to reach someone to talk to. I am willing to send my bank records or any other proof you need that this violation was not committed.

Customer (Tammera Lanterman) 02/11/2010
I was also told you only took gear that you believed to be bought with The kinah I supposedly bought , all my gear was made by friends and guild mates, Lestalia and Ryushinn and my husband Morael, so those by your own words should be left on my character.

Customer (Tammera Lanterman) 02/11/2010
Also, you say my character inventory has been removed, everything that is in my warehouse are all gatherables, not bought items, all the potions, food and other items I have made will be left alone right???I want to know exactly what is being removed and when and at what time I will be able to play again. Thank you

Customer (Tammera Lanterman) 02/11/2010
You just said my account was not directly related, I would like all of items returned and my kinah that I made fair and square to be replaced. This is an atrocity, I am being punished for have a crafting skill and selling items to characters in the game, how am I supposed to know where their money comes from? I will be calling tomorrow to speak with someone. I have done nothing wrong and all my items need to be returned.

Hello Tammera,

I am escalating your petition to a Senior Customer Support Representative to further assist you. Please be aware there may be a delay in reviewing the issue based on the ticket volume at the time your ticket was submitted.

Someone will be in contact with you as soon as possible.

Take Care,
GM Aaron
Aion Support Team

Hello,

Thank you for your inquiry. The account has been closed because it has received Kinah/items from hacked accounts. Because your character has received and used the kinah/items, it is believed that your actions possibly caused the hacking of those accounts.

Unless you have information on why you have received and used the Kinah, the account will remain closed.

Best regards,


GM Finn
Game Surveillance Unit

Hello,

Upon review, our logs show that account was not directly involved the account intrusion situation under investigation.

Our logs show that one or more characters on this account have received Kinah from confirmed RMT (Real Money Transaction) sources. This activity is a violation of the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct.

To resolve this issue, all currency and items have been removed from the characters involved. A set of basic gear has also been provided.

Please be aware that further violations on this account, committed by anyone for any reason, may require us to close it.

User Agreement
Aion User Agreement | NCsoft

Rules of Conduct
Aion™ Rules of Conduct | NCsoft

Sincerely,

GM Ash
Game Surveillance Unit

Hello,

We have conclusive evidence to support our decision in this matter, but to preserve the integrity of our investigation techniques, we are unable to provide the information you have requested, or any additional details about the evidence we have gathered, or how we gathered it.

We have provided all the necessary and appropriate information to bring this matter to its proper resolution. You may submit other questions or comments, but further inquiries along these lines will not be addressed.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

GM Finn
Game Surveillance Unit


Needless to say I'm off to find a new game....

I'm not going to point out the specific evidence that we have pertaining to your account, but I'd like to use this as an opportunity to paint a clear picture that shows why tracking this activity is a difficult process, but ultimately easy to prove.

/transparency_mode on

After Aion launched, botting and RMT activity exploded and quickly became a nuisance that we decided to fight on a higher level than we ever have in the past. Our initiatives to combat RMT were so successful that we were actually banning Kinah farm accounts before the Kinah could be distributed. As a direct result, RMT organizations weren't able to keep Kinah in stock. Because of this, there was a shift in strategy by the opposition.

These organizations created a keylogger, now commonly referred to as AION2010.dll with the intention of collecting a login/password database of accounts that could be used as needed. Instead of farming with bots for weeks, these organizations began to take Kinah orders, login to a compromised account, change the password, liquidate all of the items, and subsequently fill the order. This is to say that when someone buys Kinah, more often than not that, the Kinah comes from another players hacked account.

Now to paint the picture that will hopefully explain why it's fairly simple for us to connect the dots. The following is a short story. Some names have been changed to protect those involved.

You see, we don't want to ban anyone, but we're in the middle of a war. This is a war that you can help us win. You can do so by taking a firm stance against the purchase of Kinah or other RMT related activities (power-leveling services, character auctions, etc). These services will continue to exist until we rise up as players and loudly proclaim, "ENOUGH is ENOUGH!".

/transparency_mode off

I've heard that argument, and while it does make a valid point that there are design mechanics that could be utilized to reduce the desire of RMT abuse, the argument is still very subjective. I believe that the root of the problem still boils down to the individual desire of instant gratification. Take a look at some of the other MMOs on the market. Many of them are much easier, less time consuming and designed in a way that doesn't at all require RMT. Does that stop the abuse? Unfortunately no.

I could go on for hours on the subject, but I'll save it for another thread!

I think it's safe to say that there are mixed feelings regarding this subject. Without enhancing the strong feelings that many of you have voiced, I'd like to reinforce my comments to this thread thus far.

This scenario is very well in-line with what happens in these cases. We're not banning people that were involved unintentionally.

When someone is hacked and subsequently stripped, we determine how the Kinah was distributed and take the appropriate action. This has never, and will never involve players that buy items from stripper characters on the broker. The players this involves are those buying Kinah. It's often easy to connect the dots because the ordered Kinah is usually shipped directly from an account that is compromised (during the compromised dates/times).

I'm not saying that at all. Our customer service team spends a large chuck of time manually researching each account. Action is not taken until we have logs, IPs and other proof that we feel justifies action. Is this a war? Yes. But we're never going to fight this with the mindset that occasional causalities are acceptable.

In an attempt to make sure that there wasn't anything else going on here, I looked into Rynn's account myself. Now that I've established that there hasn't been any action taken, I'd also like to know the "whole story".

I can't go into anymore detail than I already have without violating our internal policy discussing specific information regarding accounts. I've defended our position and I've done so after spending several hours investigating the matter thoroughly.