Some innocent GTA Online players have been permanently banned from GTA Online without any reason or warning. This appears to be limited to fans located in China and was brought to our attention by a reader from the country.
First reported on Urizo, some GTA Online players shared their experience of being banned from GTA Online around December 2023 and January 2024. The first report of such a ban occurring was the day after The Chop Shop update came out. This is unrelated to the more recent anti-cheat Rockstar added to the game.
There are at least a few hundred players affected by the situation so far. The affected players did not receive any form of communication about the ban to their email and it was an instant perma-ban rather than the 30 day ban first strike Rockstar typically do.
The only reason given by Rockstar to some users is that they were banned for “Egregious Spammer Accounts” even though many plead their innocence and are long time players of the game. This was said by Rockstar Support in a ticket to affected users.
The ban is also not just an account ban but also a hardware one too. This means if the player buys GTA V again and makes a new account, they can’t play on their PC still. They will have to buy a new one. This measure is not used by Rockstar Games lightly.
Strange Occurrences
Strangely, the users who had their accounts banned can still access their character on the Rockstar Social Club website. They’re able to do all of the things an unbanned user can also do. The data is there meaning it is not lost.
Furthermore, fans could claim the free Obey 8F Drafter last year despite Rockstar saying this would not be possible if your account was suspended or banned. Oh, and the GTA Online characters of banned accounts are still present in Director Mode. This incident is being called the “Fake-ban” in the affected communities.
What’s The Issue?
According to the report by Urizo, a few players have speculated “the temporary ban system targeting spammers deployed in the Chinese region may have mistakenly classified normal players as spammers and banned them. They also believe they got the “Fake-Ban” by joining a public GTA Online lobby that had a spammer in it. Perhaps Rockstar’s system has a flaw in it though why it has not been rectified yet is surprising. For more information on the issue, we’d recommend checking out the Urizo report. We hope these players get their accounts unbanned in time.
Rockstar Games have a process of unbanning accounts which they have found to not have actually cheated. For example, they launched a ban-appeal form alongside the new anti-cheat back in September last year. That said, it appears this has not been effective for the Chinese players who have been incorrectly banned.
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