Banned unjustly and seemingly without evidence.

Today, I have been banned by BladeBro in an act of, what i feel to be, complete and utter incompetence.

BladeBro came across one of my sales threads earlier today where I am selling an AGS pure and he, for whatever reason, thought I was hacked. Seemingly without bothering to gather evidence of any kind to back up his theory, he went ahead and banned me claiming: "James doesn't even play RuneScape".
After which I've had to go through several mods and even provide them with a photograph of myself holding a piece of paper with the current date.

• BladeBro said to have checked my IP, which I doubt. I have lived in the same town since I was 7 months old and the last time I change provider was in September 2014. - Even if he did check my IP's, it has undergone no drastic changes and should NOT be sufficient reason to request a permanent ban on my account, for it to be recovered later.
• He said there were no matches to the IP address currently in use by my Sythe account. - As my IP is registered as non-proxy personal use IP address, surely this should be a reason for me NOT to be hacked ?!
• BladeBro evidently has gone through my recent posts and locked some of my sales threads. But even when being slapped in the face with SEVERAL of my sales threads made over the course of THREE MONTHS. All of which have been sold and all of these trades have been vouched for on my only vouch thread...Not even this would not make him reconsider his earlier decision, let alone try to contact me directly or through someone else, to check whether or not he was right.
• I have also conducted several other RuneScape related trades in the past six months and, they may not always relate to the account as I'm selling now. but it's still a fair indication of involvement within the game and, if anything, should show my account has not been hacked. Once again, most of these trades have been vouched for on my only vouch thread.
• A simple search in the RuneScape sections of Sythe.org would have shown 9 posts in the OSRS section in 2015. These would not be hard to go through by simply searching for my posts in the Runescape section. As shown here: LINK & LINK I have once more shown, on several occasions, to be active within the game.
• BladeBro is fully aware of the fact I know most of the admins on a personal basis, BladeBro is fully aware of the fact I know at least half the remainder staff team and I can't begin to imagine how many currently active users. Yet, instead of contacting them or me. He immediately placed a ban on my account, seemingly without evidence to support his theory.
• After BladeBro concluded I supposedly had my account compromised, he seemingly still didn't bother to contact anyone to inform me! My 2factor was enabled and the minirank was showing. If someone got through my 2Factor, my entire system could have been infected with malicious software to get my codes and still he seemingly saw no reaspm to contact me (in)directly.
• He claims that "over a dozen" exmods have been hacked recently and tells me therefore the ban was just a precaution. - A lot of exmods have been getting hacked, yes. however none of them had 2factor. Not a single one of them! But that put aside, even if there is a large threat and someone is actively hacking ex-mods, shouldn't you have proof before banning them? Or is suspicion enough nowadays to place a ban on an account which is possibly trying to do legitimate business. Not ONCE have you asked me to identify myself, not once have you even attempted to contact me. A ban off of an assumption is NEVER justified. Then again, arguing that this ban was precautionary, he should have NEVER stated the reason for this "precautionary" ban on my official sales thread, a thread used by customers to identify me and my legitimacy. Stating "James doesn't even play RuneScape" is clear as day. Let alone LOCKING my only active sales thread. This statement was so ignorant that I can't comprehend it and can't classify it as anything other than incompetence as to this point I have yet to find any evidence that I supposedly don't play Runescape and have shown there is plenty evidence on Sythe.org to show I am currently actively involved in the game.
• He has actively undergone steps to, literally, cover up the initial post he made on my thread. Though purposefully or not, this is NOT behaviour one would expect from a sectional moderator with not one, not two, but THREE moderator ranks under his username.
• With his actions, BladeBro has scared off several potential customers. Most of which are NOT returning out of fear I might be hacked.

I would like to discuss his course of actions, his reasoning and his covering up of the message posted on my original sales thread. After a general consensus has been reached I would like to request the upper staff to evaluate whether BladeBro's active role as a moderator in the Sythe community is an asset or a liability and act on this decision.

Please note that I have only seen BladeBro as an acting moderator in a handful of cases and have heard nothing but complaints. After personally being involved in a case like this, I feel my opinion towards this subject might biased. Besides that possibility, I have no insight in his monthly contributions and have not looked into his public posts when tending to reports and/or disputes. Therefore I simply do not have enough information to make an informed decision for myself and can only share my story.



Please let me be absolutely clear, these are experiences and opinions from MY point of view. Please consider all information and possibilities on both sides before making your own.



Further links of interest:

Link to his original post: http://puu.sh/inv05/f34c96255a.png
Link to Sales thread: http://www.sythe.org/runescape-2007...ng-1-def-ags-pker-75-95-1-osrs-gp-rs3-gp.html
Link to dispute: http://www.sythe.org/dispute-ban-twc/1848353-bladebro-you-incompetent-idiot-any-mod.html

 

You're probably one of the few ex mods I know who had 2fa enabled for the longest. A hacking should've been ruled out after looking at the minirank lol.. I guess it's not his day today.

 

You really are upset, lol.
Precautionary ban > no ban.
It lasted all of a half hour, and nothing came of it. If one non-hacked member is falsely banned for a short time once in awhile, oh well. Knowing that the majority of other times, precautionary bans serve their purpose is enough for me.

-I did check your IP, it wasn't even close.
-I was linked a few threads by the user who reported you may be hacked, those were the ones I locked. I offered to unlock them, but instead of being a mature adult you simply cried and posted this thread.
-How am I supposed to know that you talk to admins?
-I didn't cover up anything. You were crying so much that I changed it, so your customers would understand you'd done nothing wrong. Attempting to help you, i thought.
-I didn't look back far enough into your RS history, you're correct. That, most likely, wouldn't have changed my decision.

"several potential customers" in the span of 30-45 minutes is worth far more than a potential hack/scam of a trusted account.
I assumed, based on previous dealings, that you'd be responsible and mature about this. I didn't immediately contact you as I was busy, and as well, if a 2FA account can be hacked there is no reason to suspect your Skype wouldn't have been as well.

 

The hacking should have never made it past a theory as there is no evidence to support it, and a lot of evidence to disprove it.

 

Vouch.


I feel like James was treated unfairly and deserves compensation for the customers he lost because of Blades neglect.

 

Yes I am, I find your behaviour completely unacceptable and I am not afraid to call you out on it for it to be discussed in a public setting.

As shown by the timestamp of your post and Govind confirming my being, it lasted over two hours. Right now you are just making up information and not even addressing the true issue at hand.

Close to what exactly? I have never moved outside in or out of my current town since I was 7 months old. Even when comparing to an older IP, it might look different but still traces back to the same town.

Other than two of my sales threads I don't even know which threads you are referring to. The problem isn't that they are locked, the problem is that you locked them without sufficient reason and merely based off of a hunch.

We have known each other for years, you even know my girlfriend. You know full well that I am currently or at least have been in contact with several members of the staff team. You would be lying if you were to say that you do not.

You actively saying I'm supposedly "crying" just goes to show the level of your inadequacy as a member of the staff in my opinion and is exactly the reason I created this thread. And I am asking you to stop, there is no logical reason to continue this behaviour. I am merely trying to discuss this subject in an open setting in the feedback forum. If you do not feel up for the task, please leave.

Back far enough? If you would have looked into my history at all, you would have seen these posts and/or threads. I am not as active as I used to be and most of these threads show up in the first page without filtering.

Yes, I agree. And when there is evidence you should definitely follow up on it but in this case there wasn't. What you perceived to be evidence of being hacked, was actually evidence of me NOT being hacked. If you would have done your job, double-check your information, you could have easily found out you were mistaken. Instead, you acted on an impulse, an assumption. You were wrong and did not even bother to double-check your theory. You had inadequate reasoning let alone proper evidence for a ban yet you proceeded and now I am the victim of your incompetence.

To my knowledge I am not the one giving out misinformation, working off of estimates, guesses or assumptions. I am not making claims to your supposed physical state let alone your emotional state.

As stated before, I am merely trying to discuss the issues in an open and truthful setting. If that is not a mature mindset, we have different definitions of maturity.

Now please, stop attacking me personally and tend to the issues at hand.

Skype is far from my only means of communication. Let alone the fact that, once again, you're going off of the assumption that if my 2FA is hacked, so is my Skype. An infection is by no means an absolution when it comes to being hacked. Not all systems have to be hacked when one is infected.

Your logic is flawed: If you're truly doing this out of the protection of Sythe members, shouldn't you be trying to protect them? e.g. informing me of my potential infection whether or not my skype may be hacked ?

Besides, if you were that busy. Why were you even handling reports in the first place ?! How can you properly handle reports when you run into something you classify as potentially devastating, you're suddenly, and I quote, "busy".

I am not looking for compensation, I am merely requesting this issue to be addressed.

 

To be honest James has 2FA, how exactly would he have been hacked unless the hacker had broken into his home, most likely kidnapped him and picked up his phone? There's no way someone else could have gotten on otherwise.

I know you can put 2FA on a PC, but most people use it on a mobile phone (as intended).

 

Honestly, I didn't see the 2FA, which I've said. Not sure if here yet.

I should have looked into it further, yes. That said, I haven't seen or heard your name in forever. It's come up, as you're still in the suspended staff usergroup somehow. I'd asked about you a couple of times, but nobody ever gave a concrete answer.
I do remember talking to you and your girlfriend, but it was ages ago, i can't recall a single conversation topic.

I understand that you feel you were wronged. It was my mistake that I didn't see the 2FA in your miniranks. I did check your IP, and it differed from what I'd checked, tracked via ipLocation.

I could have gone further, and knowing your history I should have, as well as checking over your overall activity instead of just recent threads/posts. My mistake.

 

2FA put aside, My current IP traces to ~300 meters from the house I grew up in and ~1200 meters from the one after that. And even all that put aside, some IP's track to a city not even remotely close to the one you're living in. So just the fact the IP came from a different part of the city is and has never been sufficient reason to ban someone let alone without further investigation. And if it was, I estimate at least 75% of Sythe would be banned right now. Including you.

 

I can't post them, but the IP's I located were hundreds of miles away.

 

The last time I was hundreds of miles away and on Sythe was in Austria several years ago and I am assuming you did not track the IP from a post I made several years ago.

All of my proxies are redirected through another browser that I have never used for anything but account creation for Oldschool Runescape. the client has no automated log-in for Sythe and my password is too long and difficult to remember without looking it up.

Therefore accidental contamination is impossible, you must have tracked the wrong IP address. Feel free to share it with me in a private manner.

 

Yay drama. Honestly tho James he was trying to look out for you. But then again you had 2fa so idk lol.

 

After talking to you on Skype, I have come to find out the following information:

1. The actual distance between IP locations was a rough 60 miles.
2. The IP address you used for a comparison was taken from a post THREE YEARS OLD if I hadn't moved I would have changed ISP several times by now...

I'm sure he was, and this guy was trying to safe a "turtle" - However well your intentions may be, if you make rash decisions off of unconfirmed assumptions, chances are you will do more harm than good and should by no means be an acceptable standard.

 

I think this james guy deserves some kind of monetary compensation for loss of customers and emotional distress.

 

For real though blade bro4 is a moron. I remember deciding to dispute a ban that took him around 15 days to reply to. I wouldn't have even bothered disputing it until blade bro4 proved his retardation in this post: http://www.sythe.org/dispute-forum-archive/1809931-syeds-dispute.html

I posted an IP that was in the same /21 as his - that's 2048 IPs, so there was almost definitely no chance of him being DDoSed, then the purported victim said he didn't mind the personal information leak(even if it wasn't his IP). So what exactly what was I banned for?

And then he says this:

He was going to perm me? Over what exactly?

The dude is legitimately retarded so I really don't know why the fuck he's a mod.

 

In my previous dealings with blade, I felt as if he had done as less than adequate job. By so fervently sticking to completely literal interpretations of the sythe rules and regulations, he seemed to dodge the veracious aspects of the situation. Maybe that's "required" for certain types of moderation, but it still seems like a very in-effective way to moderate.

In this specific situation, I feel as if the mishaps resulted from the same bearing principle, and as if the OP should be compensated for any customers that were hypothetically deterred from transacting with him due to inefficient moderation policies enacted by blade.

However, I do also feel as if the OP is complaining a bit too much, which not only has exacerbated the whole ordeal, but also seems unnecessary in juxtaposition to the fact that blade did make an effort to compensate him (seemingly from his above post). The tirade seems unnecessary(post 6), but again, I do not know what exact compensations were offered.

 

I am not looking to receive monetary compensation.

No compensations were offered, nor am I looking for any. To date he hasn't even offered an apology.

I am requesting his actions as a moderator to be evaluated by the Sythe staff, as I feel the mistakes he's made in my case and in others are inexcusably incompetent.

 

Dumbest shit i've seen on Sythe so far.

I'd much rather have my account banned based on precaution than the staff be lazy and me having to repay $$$ to victims of the hacker.

Everybody makes mistakes. Does his mistakes outweigh his contribution to Sythe? I dont think so.

 

Well you aren't the brightest person around so that isn't saying much.

"I'd much rather"

There is a thing called preference. Some people value legitimacy, and rightfully so. Potentially losing customers because of a haste decision that lacked a proper investigation isn't anyone's cup of tea. Well maybe yours, but I wouldn't be surprised.

When was the last time someone got their sythe account hacked with 2fa enabled? Never? Oh. What is the point of activating 2fa if it isn't taken into account when requesting bans? Blade said he didn't notice the 2fa, so that's why this whole thing happened.

You can at least try to hide your bias in this thread.

 

Agreed, though there has to be evidence to support the theory of an account being hacked. You can't go banning people off of a hunch without doing any proper research.

In this case he:

1. Compared IP's.
2. Used the IP from a THREE-FIVE year old post as a base.
3. Banned me because there was a slight difference in location.
4. Posted on and locked my sales thread indicating I was hacked.

As I said, I do not know. This might be a rare incident, this might happen every week, I do not know. Therefore I am requesting Sythe Staff look into this matter and other issues that have surfaced in his time as an active moderator.

Please read the thread before replying and undermining half the issues I'm trying to address.

2FA alone should never be a reason not to ban someone. If there is proper evidence to support an account being hacked it should be banned as a precaution. However, you do need (proper) evidence before taking this course of action.