Permanently suspended over a messaged

I’m extremely frustrated with the permanent suspension of my Xbox account. My younger brother, who has autism and severe learning difficulties, was playing Modern Warfare 2 (2009) through these games being backwards compatible on my Xbox Series X/S. He ended up in a hacked lobby, saw someone cheating, and messaged asking about the cheats. No cheats or tools were passed on to him, and there was no actual use of cheats—he just asked about them. Despite this, my account was permanently banned.

Modern Warfare 2 (2009) is the most publicly hacked and modded game of all time, and everyone who is familiar with this game knows this. Microsoft should have known the risks when deciding to make these games backwards compatible. To be permanently banned for something as simple as messaging asking about cheats in a hacked lobby on a game that’s widely known for these things is unfair and extreme. Cheating isn’t even possible on this generation of consoles, and my Xbox doesn’t have any cheating software on it, nor do I condone cheating. The game is full of modders, and yet it’s still available to play on Series X/S. People play this game for fun, and there is no competitive edge to be gained. If this is the case, then there should be better safeguards in place to prevent situations like mine from happening.

Microsoft is about to add this game to Xbox Game Pass, and I can’t help but wonder how many more players are going to end up in these hacked lobbies and get banned. If this is how it’s going to be, is everyone who gets into a hacked lobby going to get a permanent ban? This game has been around since 2009, and it’s not even played competitively anymore—it’s just for fun.

There are filters in place in the LFG system to block inappropriate terms and keep things clean, and there are also blocked terms when creating a gamertag, so why aren’t there similar safeguards in the messaging system? If asking about cheats is going to get you banned, then those terms should be blocked from being typed in the first place. This wouldn’t have happened if there were proper protections in place for the messaging system. Additionally, I’ve been communication banned in the past simply for trash-talking back after being harassed in game. If curse words and insults are the issue, there should be filters in place for child accounts, but adult accounts should have the freedom to trash-talk, with bans only in extreme cases like racism or hate speech.

I’ve had my account for over 12 years, bought hundreds of digital games and items, and just recently paid for Xbox Game Pass. Now all of that is locked behind a permanent ban, for something as simple as messaging asking about cheats in a hacked lobby on a game that’s widely known for these things. Losing everything I’ve worked for over a question like this is incredibly frustrating and feels completely unfair. I hope this ban can be overturned or that some form of compensation is given, such as a refund for the digital games I’ve lost access to.

I am hoping for a response from the enforcement team or anyone who can help resolve this situation.

:)