Spurious account suspension

Manchard · Apr 11, 2022

Hi,

I want to get in touch with enforcement, but there seems to be no way to do that. Reading some of the other posts on here it seems that the enforcement team operate without oversight and total impunity, they have a joke on their front page where they talk about values of integrity, compassion, precision and team, they certainly don't meet the first 3. We pay for this service and expect to be treated fairly on the back of it. If I cannot complain directly to them (even their feedback button is broken!) How do I reach the actual complaint department?

I've received a suspension for messaging a new player that was getting repeatedly badly beaten on Forza Horizon, I basically told them not to worry about it, these are high quality players they were up against, and that the game was great and they should stick with it. I received a 30 hour social suspension that I can not appeal (despite the limit being 24 hours). This is unlikely to affect me, I don't really use chat, and just wanted to reassure. However I'm concerned that the massive over enforcement of rules (that haven't actually been broken in this instance) will affect someone who relies on Xbox chat aand gaming as their social output. You cannot on the one hand be encouraging community interaction and then issue account suspensions without cause. The risk to someone who relies on this service to hold their mental health together as a form of escapism and perhaps their main form of human contact is too great a risk. For the avoidance of and doubt, I totally respect peoples right not to engage in a conversation they don't want to, it's silly to think that should be forced on someone, but to issue a suspension for opening a dialogue is both fully unreasonable, and points to the other person being the problem for presumably misreporting a message as spam. Your current policy of presumably no investigation (it's clear in this instance it's automated, I refuse to believe a genuine human would have taken this action) is dangerous to vulnerable players

:)

Manchard

the image above shows the duration, it says 1 day, but it's clearly 28 hours and therefore greater than the 24 hour cut off mentioned in the how submit a case review section, screen shot below, so when it comes to ToS infractions, the problem appears to be with enforcement:

The terms of service , part 3 code of conduct, section a, part 3 state that for something to be consider spam it must be bulk, so that's not applicable. Nothing else on that list is applicable either, the message is deleted so I guess you'll just have to trust me.

The somewhat more lenient Xbox rules state that if someone had a great game you should let them know, which I would assume also encourages support for people that had not so great games.

If calling a new player a new player is now a form of trolling that can be punished, maybe we should remove players levels from games, that way it won't be blindingly obvious to even the most casual observer that a player is new.

Manchard

The infraction occured Saturday night, I havent sent another message in years.

I get the ToS, I know how they work, I'm aware of the consequences when I sign up for them and pay my subscription. What I expect is that they will be enforced correctly by a reasonable human.

As I said in my post, unreasonable suspensions like this, with no appeal and no recourse could be very damaging to an isolated person. If the enforcement 'team' act like this they will damage someone.

What are the complaints procedures, I want my account cleared of this. I refuse to believe that enforcement act without oversight of any kind.

Manchard

Further, because it's becoming fun that I understand the Xbox terms of service better than enforcements bot 'human' here are further extracts from the code of conduct showing what is acceptable and what isn't:

Again, I used no profanity, I was polite, I encouraged the new player, I didn't spam.

I really need that complaint address now, as it's starting to look like Microsoft has breached the terms of service and are unreasonably restricting my access to features I have paid to access, which I imagine would also be a breach of the Xbox live contract on their part.

Obsessive Power

You can only challenge suspensions via https://enforcement.xbox.com/ However, actions that are 24 hours (I'm not aware of a 30hr suspensions) can not be challenged as the enforcement would be long over by the time your query would be looked at by the team.

There is no other avenue to go other than the enforcement page. Xbox support do not deal with enforcement and will be unable to take any complaints you have regarding an action by said enforcement team.

The fact that you're paying makes no difference with regards to enforcement as you agreed to abide by the Xbox Live ToS when you signed up for the service.

Bear in mind that your suspension can be from an infraction that could have occurred days or weeks ago, it is not necessarily based on the last user you were in communication with on Xbox Live. It's not entirely automated, you won't be banned for just being reported.

Smwutches

There is no email for complaints. You can try contacting support to send a complaint. http://support.xbox.com/contact-us

Spurious account suspension