It's been real, boyz. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF 🤮

Welp, finally happened. Somehow I managed to dodge a bullet during M25, but the dreaded ban hammer got me too. They wiped my coins a couple hours ago, for alleged, you guessed it, "coin distribution" ohh F off.

I barely participated in Blitz, wasn't really much to do - sold a couple 92s I got from 20k Bolts for whatever the going rate was at the time. Last evening I decided to do the Collector's set to grab my Rod Woodson BND, spent today selling all the components. Nothing out of the ordinary, unless the purple Epic strategy items for 449k somehow triggered the bot ban. This is so stupid.

Not sure if I've got it in me to wait out another Binding Arbitration. Maybe I still have an extra hard copy I printed out back in 2023, I'll just scribble out the date and reuse that. 😡

For anyone suffering from a similar ailment, this form letter is what I've used personally and recommended and shared with users in these fine forums. No guarantee, but this is all we've got. Please make suggestions if you can help improve upon the document or anything related to the process of pushing back on these ridiculous waves of bot bans.

Be advised that I am just some asshole who did a bit of research, spoke to more senior and knowledgeable members of the community to solicit advice and cobbled together the document, mostly using uhhh GPT3? It was quite a while ago. Either way, I'm definitely not qualified to provide any legal, nor financial advice... but if you wanna team build or bullshit about MUT, I'm your guy. Thanks for listening to my little diatribe. May the Madden gods spare you such a fate.

I'm sorry man.

It's so frustrating that this can happen when you're totally playing by the rules.

This is your second time being banned? That’s crazy. Which purple strat did you sell for 450k?

As for what to do, you are the resident expert here since youve been banned before. What’s the likelihood they reverse, and how long does the process take? Personally I’d chargeback point expenses if you spent money on that and just quit madden for good.

This is about as unfortunate as it gets man.

This is around the time I was hit with the ban last year and it completely erased any trust I had in EA as a legit company.

I know we have EA people working this site, otherwise how can they add players to our accounts through the raffles and auctions.

If anyone knows anything about you as a member of this community, they would think twice before accusing you of coin distribution.

If you want to write directly to the top guys at EA on their X account, I will gladly back you and I'm sure many others would do the same.

Just say the word.

Consider carefully whether what I'm suggesting next is good for you or your family.

Pursue binding arbitration. EA is relying on this clause to discharge themselves of the costs of binding arbitration:

This Section 15 offers a streamlined way to resolve disputes between us if they arise. You and EA agree that good-faith informal efforts to resolve disputes often can result in a prompt, low-cost, and mutually beneficial outcome.

When they offer to restore your coins and access to the auction house, that isn't good enough. You have also lost, at a minimum:

• Reasonable access to in-game content that you lawfully and legitimately earned the right to access during the time that you didn't have the coins or Auction House access. That is a minimum of a percentage of the number of days during which EA updates MUT 26's content. This is a financial loss, as you paid cash for the title and for in-game content (because you've spent Madden Points).

A true remedy should send you away with enough coins to make the loss of access acceptable (settlement), and to leave you with the assurance that if you are not violating the terms of use, you will not again lose access in the future (peace of mind).

If your experience with EA Help proves to be as expected, you will get a boilerplate Negative Answer without specific information enabling you to know what transaction purportedly violated EA's Coin Distribution Rules. This may begin to drag EA's dispute resolution procedures into the realm of unconscionability, which can be a basis for a court to rule that one or more of a contract's liability-limiting terms are invalidated by the gross negligence of EA to fairly fulfill its responsibilities as defined by the Terms of Service. That could potentially involve:

• Entitlement to financial compensation at least somewhat in line with an admittedly difficult-to-define value of your time
• Exposure to a class-action lawsuit if there are many similarly-situated users

It could take you weeks to get there, and it's for a game that you simultaneously hate and enjoy. A judge would likely be curious as to why you thought the issue was so important so as to involve him. If you don't have an answer for that question, you shouldn't be the one to raise the issue. I've said a few times that one day, EA is going to poke the bear. If you're not the bear, that's OK.

There aren't many lawyers that would want to get involved with this, as there isn't a precedent (that I know of) that's going to make this a slam-dunk case. A lawyer referral service is probably your best bet for finding a candidate.

Again, sorry this happened to you. A loss for you is a loss for this community.

phatalerror said:

Consider carefully whether what I'm suggesting next is good for you or your family.

Pursue binding arbitration. EA is relying on this clause to discharge themselves of the costs of binding arbitration:

This Section 15 offers a streamlined way to resolve disputes between us if they arise. You and EA agree that good-faith informal efforts to resolve disputes often can result in a prompt, low-cost, and mutually beneficial outcome.

When they offer to restore your coins and access to the auction house, that isn't good enough. You have also lost, at a minimum:

• Reasonable access to in-game content that you lawfully and legitimately earned the right to access during the time that you didn't have the coins or Auction House access. That is a minimum of a percentage of the number of days during which EA updates MUT 26's content. This is a financial loss, as you paid cash for the title and for in-game content (because you've spent Madden Points).

A true remedy should send you away with enough coins to make the loss of access acceptable (settlement), and to leave you with the assurance that if you are not violating the terms of use, you will not again lose access in the future (peace of mind).

If your experience with EA Help proves to be as expected, you will get a boilerplate Negative Answer without specific information enabling you to know what transaction purportedly violated EA's Coin Distribution Rules. This may begin to drag EA's dispute resolution procedures into the realm of unconscionability, which can be a basis for a court to rule that one or more of a contract's liability-limiting terms are invalidated by the gross negligence of EA to fairly fulfill its responsibilities as defined by the Terms of Service. That could potentially involve:

• Entitlement to financial compensation at least somewhat in line with an admittedly difficult-to-define value of your time
• Exposure to a class-action lawsuit if there are many similarly-situated users

It could take you weeks to get there, and it's for a game that you simultaneously hate and enjoy. A judge would likely be curious as to why you thought the issue was so important so as to involve him. If you don't have an answer for that question, you shouldn't be the one to raise the issue. I've said a few times that one day, EA is going to poke the bear. If you're not the bear, that's OK.

There aren't many lawyers that would want to get involved with this, as there isn't a precedent (that I know of) that's going to make this a slam-dunk case. A lawyer referral service is probably your best bet for finding a candidate.

Again, sorry this happened to you. A loss for you is a loss for this community.

Love the effort you put into this 💯

Sorry mate, that sucks big time. Obviously there's a huge issue with EAs automated system if they think you've done any wrongdoing. 

This happened to me at a similar time in M22 and instead of giving up on madden I decided to make a NMS account. Honestly I feel like NMS is more fulfilling than being a pay-pig, so there is always that option if you don't want to give madden up.

kurtpoole555 said:

Sorry mate, that sucks big time. Obviously there's a huge issue with EAs automated system if they think you've done any wrongdoing. 

This happened to me at a similar time in M22 and instead of giving up on madden I decided to make a NMS account. Honestly I feel like NMS is more fulfilling than being a pay-pig, so there is always that option if you don't want to give madden up.

Completely agree with you.

I was banned the day before opening presents last December and I went all in on NMS 

I will never again purchase a single Madden point.

I learned my lesson the hard way.  Did absolutely nothing wrong and got screwed anyway.

Something is not right here. I don’t think you’re telling 100% of the truth. The fact that you said you barley participated in the blitz promo but somehow managed to get 40k bolts for a couple of 92’s from the store? You also said you have been banned before this. I’m sorry but there’s more to this story. 

I’ve played Mut since it came out in 2010 and I’ve played the auction house and did every set imaginable and I’ve never been banned. 

You even said “it finally happened”. So did you actually buy or sell coins? Or did something to rightfully get banned?

Try emailing ea support. Back in M17 they took my whole team because they thought I was acct farming. I had to provide proof that I bought my cards legitimately.

I got banned back in the first week or two of Madden 24. It was weirdly a "match cheating" ban that banned me from all maddens past. present and future.  I had done nothing but grind objectives in solo battle and won a bunch of squad trios games with buddies. I was in the process of moving at the time so didnt do much with it besides the initial 2 acc reviews that were not in my favor. 
 
Before M25 I decided to fight it through their arbitration process, got unbanned without a word from anyone before it dropped then contacted later by a rep. They initially only offered me a couple VERY garbage packs as comp. I ended up getting like  12000 madden points which imo was still weak for being banned a whole year and missing RP content especially but better than nothing. I don't think coin distribution carries over year to year? So might not be worth it in your case but the process took 2-3 months before I saw any result. 

This type of shit is the no.1 biggest reason I'll never spend money on this game. There's a lot of scummy BS they pull but it all pales to the fact anything you put into the game can be taken away for simply playing the game.

Mythomaniac said:

Completely agree with you.

I was banned the day before opening presents last December and I went all in on NMS 

I will never again purchase a single Madden point.

I learned my lesson the hard way.  Did absolutely nothing wrong and got screwed anyway.

Yeah but don’t NMS players have to use the auction house more than money spenders? The only way a NMS team is viable if they flip cards and complete sets to make enough coins to keep up w the money spenders. I would think NMS players get banned more often than money spenders?

Fuck em! I'm sick and tired of hearing people play within the rules and get banned for some bullshit "coin distribution." For a company that is so stingy and willing to ban off a hunch it's surprising they don't fix their "glitches" where they don't take back what was unauthorized.

I pick the option where you take this as a sign and quit Madden, should improve your mental health.