My Xbox Live experience has been destroyed by the "avoid me" reputation status

Novaprospekt_518 · Dec 13, 2018

I have reached a level of frustration and disappointment that is difficult to put into words regarding the Xbox One reputation system. I have been an Xbox Live Gold member from the very beginning, and my account is well over a decade old. In that time, I
have never cheated or in any way violated the XBL Terms of Service or User Agreements. I have a perfectly clean record. I admit I have done my fair share of trash talk over the years, but never anything malignant or personal -- or something you wouldn't encounter
if you were playing a game of football or hockey and were being competitive. Lately, I don't even use my microphone unless it is in a party.

I have never had a problem with the Xbox Live/One reputation system up until now -- in fact I didn't even know it existed until I tried to play a game of Red Dead Redemption 2 online and was strangely unable to find any multiplayer games and had repeated
matchmaker failures whereby I am confined to a large empty world all by myself. The reason: my reputation is set to "avoid me." Prior to Red Dead's release just over a month ago, I had not played any online Xbox games for well over 6 months (work/life constraints)
and even as early as this past Spring was not active much - few games of SWBF2 here and there -- but never had any reputation issues before going on hiatus.

I discover now that my reputation has been set to "avoid me" without warning, without premise, without due process, and without recourse outside of nebulous "play more games, but not the games you like" suggestions. In fact, after reviewing my reputation
dashboard on the XBL enforcement page, I learned that my reputation has bounced back and forth from "Good player" to "Avoid me" month to month dating back to July during a period of time I wasn't even playing online (my account is secure, before you ask).
The dashboard revealed I received 1 report of "cheating" in the last 6 months, but otherwise have no other feedback that I am supposed to act on as recommended by the published guidelines for this issue. As I stated before, I never cheated (or exploited) in
a game.

It has now been almost 10 days where I have endlessly "grinded" multiplayer games like Fortnite, BF1, World of Tanks, Neverwinter - in the process squandering
hours of my life and the majority of some paid time off I had from work - trying to do what I was instructed to do by 3 Microsoft support representatives and from players who found themselves in similar situations across the web in order to
repair my reputation. Despite my best efforts, I still have nothing to show for it but the big fat banner saying "avoid me" on my profile.

My paranoia that someone could still report me (read: a disgruntled player who I bested in combat in any of the above games) has now grown to a point where I have intentionally let people kill me especially if I have killed them in the same match (in a pathetic
attempt at "being a good sport") which is ridiculous. If a teammate came across a chest in fortnite that I just looted before he could get there, I throw my orange and purple guns on the ground for them to take out of fear they might frivolously report me
because I got the better loot (and with the hope that the good karma will come back my way). In other words, I am actively trying to hurt my own competitiveness in order avoid inadvertently pissing someone off and getting a report while grinding these games.

I don't know what else to do at this point. I am sick of spending hours upon hours playing games I do not want to play with no sense or means of knowing my efforts are not being wasted. My dashboard has yet to update with any sense of feedback (positive
or negative). No support technician has the means to help me. I believe I have been unfairly punished by this system and effectively banned from most multiplayer games, unable to chat in games if I wished, and have a huge blemish on my profile that is visible
within games (akin to a "kick me" sign taped to my back for other players to report me if the wanted to be a troll).

I never received a warning of my status change or any due process to contest the supposed "community" allegation(s) against me -- i.e. the one report of cheating (according to the Xbox Enforcement page) -- and no one at Microsoft seems to have any answer
other than the Enforcement department deals with this but we don't know how to contact them and don't believe they can be contacted unless your account receives a suspension, so just keep playing games. I find it asinine that other players can determine my
ability to play online without any checks/balances or accountability outside of a mysterious "algorithm" that is supposedly very sophisticated and worthy of not needing human supervision or contravention in the event a player/customer disputes its actions.
The solutions to this problem are a nebulous and unhelpful "keep playing games and it will improve over time" for the reasons I've stated above. In fact, the FAQ page still references Xbox 360 on there making me question whether it is even accurate or whether
anyone that handles customer service truly understands how this system works or how it affects players.

For now, I am stuck wearing my scarlet letter and effectively banned from the game I paid to play and from the service I paid to play without any way of appealing to a human to look into how I somehow entered this purgatory while not using my Xbox and, to
my knowledge, playing within the confines of the Xbox Live TOS.

Any help or feedback to my situation, or the reputation system as a whole, is welcomed. Thanks for reading.

:)

FabryZio3

This could be an idea... You can also check on your email account if you see some strange connection activities

Novaprospekt_518

No I am sure I have not -- I have two factor authentication set up and I also change my major passwords every 6-9 months or so to coincide with when my employer makes me do it for job-related stuff. The only other Xbox I log in on (very infrequently) is
my brother's when I visit him and even then, it requires a passcode -- I trust him with my life anyway so it's definitely not that.

Besides, when I first noticed the issue I had looked back at "recent players" -- to eliminate surreptitious use as a possibility -- and the last time my account had played with anyone was in SWBF2 and it said something like 38-40 weeks ago. This is congruent
with the timeline when I had last initially played online around the Spring of this year.

My Xbox enforcement dashboard describes a single (1) user report for cheating in the last 6 months. And the graph of my reputation like I said shows an "up-down-up-down-up-down" pattern month to month from Good Player to Avoid Me from July until now in December.
Though I never played online in that interval, I did turn my Xbox on periodically for updates and to stream movies or videos whereby I connected to the Xbox Live service so that's the only explanation I can have for why my reputation could have changed (but
still begs the question how, if I wasn't playing a game)?

Still, a single user report of cheating (as the enforcement dashboard displays) shouldn't nuke my reputation and especially without warning or some sort of opportunity to address it hence my frustration here. Further, after over a week of playing various
other games for hours on end, one would think that would outweigh whatever frivolous reports I received in such a sparse interval of gaming. Part of me also wonders whether the reputation even updates in real time or whether it is a monthly update requiring
that I wait until January?

All of these questions and the nebulous descriptions of what to do about it, I feel, prove that this system needs a lot of work and improvement if it wishes to accomplish the goals it sets out to do per Microsoft's website.

RandyAU93

Since your account was what was reported, and you insist you were not playing in online lobbies, the only other logical explanation is that someone else is using your credentials. Have you given your account information to ANY user for ANY reason?

When you click on the Reputation tile at the Enforcement site, it shows you the types of reports that have been filed over the last six months. In your case, that would be the period in which you say you have not played.

Novaprospekt_518

Indeed, I have reviewed that website in its entirety and is what I am referencing when I question the accuracy given it continues to cite "Xbox 360" in the information as opposed to Xbox One. Who knows what might be different about Xbox One's reputation
system?

A major purpose of this post was to renew feedback and discussion on how this system is incredibly inappropriate for having the power to punish players beyond a mere cosmetic "scarlet letter" as I put it.

I am unable to use my Xbox Live subscription to its fullest, and unable to participate in a games' multiplayer mode that I paid for -- all because of allegations made against me anonymously and without human review for accuracy much less my own ability to
contest them. This is the biggest issue I have with the whole reputation system.

There is no way for me to reach out to a "GM" or supervisor like there would be in any video game where adverse action has been taken against you for them to investigate whether that was appropriate or not. I didn't play my Xbox for 6 months, and somehow
between then and now I was reported for cheating and my reputation was tarnished.

The fact that my "punishment" amounts to having to grind in games I have zero desire to play (while wearing the Scarlet letter on my profile), and with zero sense of progress or how many of these games I must play, is also reprehensible for a triple-A service
such as Xbox Live. Hence my point above, if I don't play games I do not have interest playing, then I have no recourse in repairing my reputation.

This feels like the twilight zone...

steeledwand7664

Unfortunately the only information anyone has is the information that is on this website.

https://enforcement.xbox.com/en-US/Home/HowTo#sub-topic0-0

Which from what I can gather from your post you pretty much have already read because it sounds like most of the stuff you have said is on that site or have gotten from the support team or other players that have gotten it from that site.

Which basically says to do what you have already been doing by playing a wide range of multiplayer games, avoid making unsportsmanlike comments and, reduce unwanted background noise and audio feedback.

My Xbox Live experience has been destroyed by the "avoid me" reputation status