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How is this story important news? this kind of nonsense happens all of the time in the conservative areas of the world.

Just trying to see if anyone else has had this problem.
I started school last August and with no time to play, after about 4 years of loyal gaming, I had to deactivate my account. I had checked it right before it went inactive and it was just as I had left it. I go back just last night to check it, thinking I might start playing again, and I find my password and email have been changed. I search my characters on the Armory and out of the 5 I searched, I can only find 3, 2 are stripped bare, and the 3rd is almost bare with a new spec to beast mastery.
How someone can hack an account that isn't even active is something I can't figure out. My only guess is that someone at Blizzard has a little too much access to our private information. After talking to a few friends, they tell me they've heard of similar experiences. I'm waiting for a reply now, though I don't expect one soon.

I got banned too. Given only a 3 day ban, but thats as bad as a permanent ban because they simply wont tell me what I did wrong.
I will prolly do it again without knowledge because of that. They only said that I was sharing my account with an unauthorized person, but I never did such a thing. They prolly think I paid a leveling service or something like that because 4 days after I reactivated my account I had leveled from 70 to 75 and I guess that can only mean some chinese power leveler, by their logic...

I am still trying to explain them that I did nothing wrong, but they already rechecked the issue (or so they say) and said again that someone unauthorized accessed my account.
I even checked for any hacks on my computer, never noticed any gold or items missing or character being used in a different way (like being in a different place from where I logged off from). My password is also pretty secure.

My account is 4 years old. Thats what I get for being loyal.

Anyway I can convince them?
I already thought about BBB.com.

SO my account go banned... haha.. go figure right? Ive been playing for 3 months... no problems.. then BOOM.. its gone. I stood outside at midnight just like millions of other people for the release of WOTLK and it looks like level 80 is never happening for me! I emailed and called and emailed some more... still no response. If I dont get one I do plan on making this a very OPEN thing.. even if its just a 2 min overview on my local news station I will take any Jab I can back at Blizzard. I wasted over 100$ just on the product, and 15 a month for the priveledge to play... y'no what.. most people would either say oh well, or just go buy a new set of disc's and start over. NOT ME.. I am not going to give in, hell with the game but you create something that is so easily addicting to some people and expect that when a MISTAKE does happen that your not going to fix or resolve it? No.. not with me.. and I wont except any b/s excuse that somehow I am a hacker/goldfarmer/or used third party software... feel free to look at my shitty lvl 77 and my crappy 42 gp... and realize that IT WASNT ME. DOesnt take a rocket scientist...

i woke up, got on, played for 5 hours, got of came back and im banned. i dont have to say much but thanks blizz, your a scam.

I am not sure why this is important to know, user accounts get deleted by accident at online gaming sites all the time.

Account lockouts and banning and pretty common actually in online gaming, it has happened to me once.

Dammm seems like this is a huge problem

I have only been with wow for 2 weeks and just started to really get into it when all of a sudden last night i was dissconected from the server and when i tried to log back in i had a message to say my account had been closed i went to my E-mail in box and sure enough i had a e-mail in there that read..

My account had been closed for Involvement in online trading activitis ...wtf

I have broken no rules in the ToS nor have i bought gold or had any dealings with any charecter buying or any thing i have started my account from scratch as a new member to the wow world and now my account has been closed for no reason what so ever i payed for the game from a game shop i even have a game card pr paid also and after 2 weeks my account has been closed i have called technical service and all they say is contact account admin witch is via e-mail only. there should be laws against this YES i understand baning when Rules are broken but really i have not broken any rules so the ban is very unjust and very random so almost £60 i have paid for online time and the game and yet there is nothing i can do about it seems like day light robery  a huge Scam by a huge gamming company Can they really get away with it Im gutted and bitter the joke is really on me THANK YOU BLIZZARD.

I came home on May 20th, to find that both my wife's account and mine were closed permenately due to vague reasons (wont bother listing, you are all familiar with the form letter).  We are both in our thirties, and recreational players.  I have two 70 lvl toons with about 50g total across all my toons, my wife has one 70 and is the guild leader of a medium sized guild on muradin.  There is absolutely nothing in our play history that would indicate that we are bot'ers or have hacked the system in any way.  We have been playing for over 2 years, and agree with the above posters that our loyalty to the game deserves more attention than what we received.  So those are the basics of our account closures.

We have gone back in forth with Account Admin for over a month, during that period (about a week after our closure) there is a big security alert on WOW.  The security issue is that Adobe has a patch that fixes a huge hole in Flash that allows attackers to 'remotely' operate your system without any knowledge of the user.  In the course of my emailing account admin, they mentioned that security of an account is completely on the user's side.  My issue is that Adobe presented the patch on April 8, 2008, Blizzard didn't mention it until May 29.  Therefore if they knowlingly allowed a hack into the system, then security no longer rests on the shoulders of the user.  Considering that from Adobe themselves, the hole in flash allows the attacker in, and there is no way for the user to know. 

We have a small business that specializes in security, and wow was the only program that was allowed through the firewall...since the account closure, we have had numerous security issues with the network ie clients having to change their credit card numbers. 

I have opened a BBB compliant with the idea of addressing these security issues with Blizzard.  After waiting a month on a response to my BBB complaint, this is the 'form' response:

An investigation into the allegations contained in the complaint of Mr. ###### in association with account #######, BBB Complaint number ######, has revealed the Account was found to be employing a third party program that automates the actions of the characters in-game. On 5/16/08, 5/17/08 and 5/18/08 when the account #######, logged into the game server, Blizzard’s system detected a third party program that has been prohibited for use in conjunction with World of Warcraft by Blizzard. According to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use Agreement which all subscribers agree to upon registering an account to play World of Warcraft, “You agree that you will not (i) modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of the Program of the Service; (ii) create or use cheats, bots, “mods”, and/or Hacks, or any other third party software designed to modify the World of Warcraft experience.” Under these circumstances, the account, ####### was terminated on 5/20/08. A notice of Account Closure detailing the Terms of Use violation was sent to ############# on that day. Any disputes or questions concerning this account action can only be addressed by Account Administration at wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com

Which is funny because this was my wife's account, who wasn't even online during that period.  I however was, on my acount farming for mats to make a cloak that I got to use ONE day.  Regardless, my BBB complaint had nothing to do with the account closure, but the security hole that they knowlingly allowed into my network.  Point, if Blizzard doesn't even read the BBB complaints, what will they read?  I am going to start hunting for a lawyer or class action suit already filed, because I can't be the only one that has received actual harm from wow.

In regards to WOW, this is a lifelong Blizzard fan (diablo, starcraft...etc) that is now looking forward to Stargate Worlds, and will never give Blizzard another dollar.

I have an even better story about my account, although it doesn't involve bannishment. An alt character I own on an alt server I use was sent an in-game e-mail about a simple warning for violation of Blizzard's TOS. I read the e-mail they had sent to my regular e-mail address and was given the details of what had happened and why I had recieved the warning.

Sounds like I was satisifed, right? No.

They tried to say I had made a comment on trade chat that was a racial slur. Firstly, at the time listed in the detials of the incident, I was no where near a city with trade chat. Secondly, the e-mail they had sent me with the details arrived on the 28th of the month but the alleged comment was listed as being "said" on the 29th. ><  They must have Dionne Warwick's psychic friends or even MIss Cleo on their emplyment roster for anyone to even make that kind of claim.

Of course, I asked for proof, pointed out what I mentioned here, and even gave a definition of the word I had used in trade chat and pointed out how it was NOT a racial slur, and someone with a sensitivity issue could take it out of context, often repeating the words "alleged" and "allegedly" in the response I wrote. I recieved a generic e-mail thanking me for my actions regaurding the matter and that I could be ASSURED the matter was looked into and the correct action had been taken. >< Needless to say, I didn't bother arguing with an automated response.

Cat/ Sanniana