It's been real, boyz. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF 🤮

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.

Thank you for the condolences in your first reply... but especially for this delightful little write-up.  I wasn't entirely sure how to react last evening, or what my goal was when posting this, other than to inform the community -- was intending to sleep on it before making any rash decisions.  Initially I was inclined to see if I can get Sony to charge back any recent MUT Points purchases, using however many hundreds of dollars I'd pissed away to fund a special Christmas for the family.  Obviously i'm disappointed, I still very much enjoy my Squads sessions with the boyz and the thrill of the competition, despite the overall poor state of Madden franchise.  This is potentially the silver lining i've been waiting for to escape the madness.  Sure i can migrate over to my spare account, I can throw good money after bad money and continue forever down this path, allowing EA to abuse each and every single one of us...

You've definitely piqued my interest.  All i've got is time.  I know this would be a David versus Goliath type scenario attempting to battle this out in the courts, but I'd essentially be representing myself here.  I don't have the financial resources to hire an attorney, nobody would (or should) have to crowd fund this madness, but I'd be okay with having a fool for a client (i.e. myself) in small claims court.  I'm honestly not even informed enough to understand the venue I'd be choosing here.  Guess I should start by brushing up on EA Legal site.  In an effort to provide full transparency, here is every bit of information I have.  I don't know that the date is even correct, using UTC time perhaps, but I doubt even EA knows what they purportedly banned me for.  I received my ban email around 10pm (Eastern) on December 2nd.

Would I even be able to get this in front of a judge somewhere?  I've got years of documented history, thousands of dollars spent on this bad game, 1000-1500+ hours per game year invested/wasted... you at least motivated me to submit an appeal with EA no-Help, so I can continue to debate the process in my head.  I honestly expected this during Madden 25, but somehow managed to dodge a bullet.  Perhaps indication that i spent way too much money last year.  Tried/trying to cap my spending, but I clearly have a gambling problem, which manifests itself in Madden Ultimate Team.

Cannot thank you enough for taking the time to directly respond in such a thoughtful and insightful manner.  In the past, I've never had an opportunity to accept or refuse the Binding Arbitration, EA Legal just either does it (and magically I get my account access back) or they completely ignore it.  I'm not sure I got any type of email response in the past, except from EA no-Help, who do the usual series of canned-responses, we've investigated your account and found EA is perfect in every way.  We think you're talking about soccer anytime you mention football, but you are definitely wrong and your appeal has been denied.

Foobarbaz said:

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.

Apparently, according to my EA Penalty History, this is now my third infraction?  I feel liek they're missing one, or perhaps there was some other type of "warning" slapped on my account, which does not appear to show on the list.  I managed to get the SEPT2023 "Coin Wipe" overturned, only for them to yet again hit me about a ~month after getting my account back, so I was only able to play through OCT & NOV of 2023, before ultimately getting nailed twice in a short period.

Buying coins and packs from EA is the real issue here, at least for me personally.  Seriously tempted to revert any charges, i'd be willing to part with my EA account.  I'd prefer to keep my Sony PSN account in good standing...

droblunts313 said:

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?

I dropped maybe $100 on Blitz... for me, that was "barely" participating.  You're not wrong, there's always more to the story than i could possibly convey through message boards and forums in simple text, but i've got nothing to hide here.  I wear my emotions on my sleeve, for better or worse.  I've been banned numerous times.  Anyone that's managed tens of millions of Madden coins should be fairly acquainted with the waves of EA ban hammers that constantly go around.

Glad you've never been banned, count your lucky stars.  Always gonna be some clown(s) that show up in the comments victim blaming, I get it.  Feel free to ask any questions you have.  I've never purchased (nor sold) coins on the secondary market.  There are no "rightful" bans when buying and selling in a controlled market where EA literally sets the minimum and maximum price ranges... that's such a silly statement.

rhyen51 said:

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.

This is an interesting and somewhat unique story, based on my years of conversations regarding the overall ban situations -- i've heard TONS of folks slapped with the usual "Coin distribution" type nonsense, most of which are unfounded, but clearly there are robust and active secondary markets going on all around us.  Cannot possibly load up a Madden YouTube video without some type of sponsored segment from these resellers.  Heck, it's not even that difficult to pluck out which cards are being used in-game to move large volumes of coins around.  Anyone selling knows exactly what they are doing and can easily evade the bot bans.

Thanks for sharing your personal experience here.  EA probably did me a favor, i've wasted far too much time at this point.  I might fight it, just because... but for now, i'll try to welcome the break and all the extra free time (and newly found disposable income) i was just blessed with.

JDrum99 said:

I find it really weird when I see these kinds of posts.
I bought coins back in like M15 or something from a coin site, and it was not a lot (maybe 500K or something) bc I had my doubts about it all being a scam. Luckily, I was able to use the coins before EA quicky wiped the rest of my coin balance and sent me a warning. It happened within the first couple hours of me buying coins.
I never bought coins again.
This past Monday I flipped a profit of ~7M from Blitz, bought ~4M in new investments, then flipped another 3M in profit within about 16 hours. 14M in legit coins were going in and out of my account at a rate of $875K/hour. That alone seems like I should have ben flagged, but year after year I go on huge coin runs like that by flipping cards and accumulate tens of millions of coins and I have never even seen a warning since that first one.

Hopefully I am not tempting fate here, but I am usually skeptical of posts like this. I see you on here a lot and seem like a legit helpful dude, so I have no reason to doubt you or call you a liar. Moreover, it would be nice to know how they flag these kinds of transactions. 

How soon after your last card sold did you get the ban?

All great questions and extremely valid -- i'd been having these same, if not identical questions recently... ohhh, i'd been selling my purple epic strategy items for 449k, no issues.

I'm have been wracking my simple brain trying to figure out which specific card could have gotten me flagged and have no clue.  I regularly have 10 if not all 20 auction spots filled.  Doesn't cost anything to list an item, so why not throw em up there and watch and wait and hope stuff sells.  It's wild how many cards will be scooped up at obscene prices, especially on weekends.  We exist in an instant-gratification type society, so people are willing to pay pretty much anything to have it RIGHT NOW.

I received the email from EA around 10pm Eastern last evening, while in the midst of a multi-hour long Squads session with the boyz.  Let's assume EA is using UTC time for their game servers, as most companies and places would and do, so ~10pm Eastern is 3AM UTC.  If we're using their DEC03 date, that's only a ~three hour window when I could have been hit, so there obviously has to be some lag time.

Any auctions i had posted are still running... there's apparently ~6 hours left on this Peyton Manning i was hoping to offload before new season kicked off today.  I lost access to the Mobile Companion App as soon as the email arrived, no longer able to even log in, that's the first place I checked to confirm.  When i started last evening's Squad session, I had 21M+ coins, by the time i finished, i had 3,065 or whatever we earned from playing our games.  So I guess my point is, i'm not sure anyone (including, or especially EA) have any indication of what i did to run afoul of their bullshit ToS.  I sell dozens of cards per day, highly doubtful that the components from the Collector's Series set caused a ban hammer.  I bought and sold a couple 4-5M coin Deion cards over the weekend, but again, those were fairly "normal" (despite obnoxious) prices for those cards.  Your guess is as good as mine.  I wasn't keeping spreadsheets to track my market performance, it was just a requirement to fund the rosters.  I absolutely hate playing MUT Menus, I don't get off on it, but it's become a bit of a compulsion... a necessary evil, to do some market work to gain a competitive advantage.

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.

Thank you for the kind words and offer of support.  Obviously I have not learned my lesson, i'm a glutton for punishment.  Kind of expected another bot-ban last year, but somehow avoided it for an entire season.  I'm tempted to see if Sony will refund me any recent Points purchases and just wash my hands and walk away.  Problem is, i've come to VERY much enjoy squads sessions with the boyz.  No other game mode compares, if it hadn't been for this great community and for the great fun offered through 3 v 3 gameplay, I would have thrown in the towel LONG ago.

I could almost certainly field a somewhat competitive squad, on the cheap, from my spare account... i may end up doing some or all of the above; refunding my Points purchases, starting pure NMS on a spare account (maybe this time i'll learn my lesson to stop spending on this bad game) and turning into a casual while attempting to navigate the lengthy and arduous Binding Arbitration madness.

Bang bang, brother.

Damn dude. That sucks. I wish you the best in whatever you decide. Ideally you'll get the ban reversed and I'll hope for that to happen. The community needs to keep its helpful members around.

EpicDude28 said:

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

My mental health suffered last year, but i was finally getting to a decent place.  Haven't been this happy in a VERY long time.  My spending wasn't wildly out of control, i'm sinking a ton of hours, but not staying up (too) late and not blowing off wr0k or family or life to feed an awful MUT fix.  This was actually the "balance" i'd struggled with and been working towards for years.

I'm very much the obsessive-compulsive type, so I have to be cautious what I get involved with, because once i start, forever will it dominate my destiny.  Madden is no different... I set a personal goal to be able to learn the game and compete and after a couple/few seasons I've finally reached that destination and now get to sit back, enjoy Squads with the boys and help pass on the knowledge that many in this community have blessed me with over the years.

But you're not wrong, seems a couple/few month break might be in order.  I was really looking forward to Zero Chill.  Please repeat this to me in 1-2 weeks when i'm spending money on my ALT account, that's when we'll know it's a problem.  UNLESS i've refunded $1000 and somehow justifying a $100 elsewhere.  =)

Your communication with EA Help should clearly declare your position as having complied with the Terms of Service, and you should respectfully demand all of the data that contributed to the adverse determination. Further, you may declare that in the absence of evidence of a material violation of the Terms of Service, your expectation of a fair informal settlement involves a credit of a specified percentage of Madden 26 Madden Points proportional to your total past expenditures on MUT 26 microtransactions.

If they refuse to give you that information because of "policy", "security", or some other requirement, or if they refuse to do more than simply return your coins and restore your access to the Auction House, inform them that in arbitration you are prepared to show proof of all payments made to play MUT, and you intend to obtain disclosure of the factors that contributed to the past two adverse determinations, a disclosure of the policies that are in place to resolve ban and coin-wipe disputes 'informally,' and that your intention is to seek monetary compensation in excess of what you have spent on the cumulative price of both affected Madden software purchases and all associated microtransactions.

Note here that I am making a distinction here between the informal resolution (pre-arbitration) and the arbitration process. Ideally, in an informal settlement you get modest compensation for your loss of functional use of MUT due to EA's failure to fairly fulfill their obligations under the Terms of Service. Otherwise, in arbitration, with the stakes higher, you may find you have the right to additional compensation.

Your risk in arbitration is the loss of significant time, and whatever financial costs may fall to you as enforceable by the Terms of Arbitration or California Law. EA initially risks minor loss on a number of fronts, but if something about arbitration opens them up to a review in civil court, certain discoveries could escalate to the point of protective terms in EA's Terms of Service being severed. If discovery obtains sensitive information that could clearly indicate EA was neglectful, capricious, and/or exploitative, it may not be difficult for a plaintiff to establish evidence of unconscionability. Once unconscionability is considered, it could open EA's Terms of Service up to the process of severance, which could involve striking out protections EA had initially written into their Terms of Service, including the terms that prevent class-action certification of a case, or that strictly limit liability. The risk of either one of those things happening is what EA will seek to contain if they come before an arbitrator without adequate evidence that you violated the Terms of Service.

Weigh your options and their costs, and determine how far you want to go with this. Representing yourself in small-claims court is not a legitimate option, as it will not likely entitle you to more recovery than you could get out of arbitration (primarily because it's hard to quantify monetary damages when the property lost is digital). You either settle informally, obtain a satisfactory outcome in arbitration, or go it alone in a state trial court, which is a certain loss. The only individual likely to pull off a civil suit against EA will be someone attending advanced classes in law school, with a chip on their shoulder and a desire to make a name for themselves before they have passed the bar exam. If that bear gets poked, things will get spicy.

droblunts313 said:

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?

👀👀

peatrick said:

Thank you for the kind words and offer of support.  Obviously I have not learned my lesson, i'm a glutton for punishment.  Kind of expected another bot-ban last year, but somehow avoided it for an entire season.  I'm tempted to see if Sony will refund me any recent Points purchases and just wash my hands and walk away.  Problem is, i've come to VERY much enjoy squads sessions with the boyz.  No other game mode compares, if it hadn't been for this great community and for the great fun offered through 3 v 3 gameplay, I would have thrown in the towel LONG ago.

I could almost certainly field a somewhat competitive squad, on the cheap, from my spare account... i may end up doing some or all of the above; refunding my Points purchases, starting pure NMS on a spare account (maybe this time i'll learn my lesson to stop spending on this bad game) and turning into a casual while attempting to navigate the lengthy and arduous Binding Arbitration madness.

Bang bang, brother.

My advice is to speak to your bank directly.

I spoke about charge backs with my friend who is a personal banker and he told me that it's their job to help you get your money back in situations such as this.

You just need proof that you no longer have access to a product that you have paid for and that EA did not provide proof that you broke any rules.

If you have specific questions just let me know and I'll ask.

phatalerror said:

Your communication with EA Help should clearly declare your position as having complied with the Terms of Service, and you should respectfully demand all of the data that contributed to the adverse determination. Further, you may declare that in the absence of evidence of a material violation of the Terms of Service, your expectation of a fair informal settlement involves a credit of a specified percentage of Madden 26 Madden Points proportional to your total past expenditures on MUT 26 microtransactions.

If they refuse to give you that information because of "policy", "security", or some other requirement, or if they refuse to do more than simply return your coins and restore your access to the Auction House, inform them that in arbitration you are prepared to show proof of all payments made to play MUT, and you intend to obtain disclosure of the factors that contributed to the past two adverse determinations, a disclosure of the policies that are in place to resolve ban and coin-wipe disputes 'informally,' and that your intention is to seek monetary compensation in excess of what you have spent on the cumulative price of both affected Madden software purchases and all associated microtransactions.

Note here that I am making a distinction here between the informal resolution (pre-arbitration) and the arbitration process. Ideally, in an informal settlement you get modest compensation for your loss of functional use of MUT due to EA's failure to fairly fulfill their obligations under the Terms of Service. Otherwise, in arbitration, with the stakes higher, you may find you have the right to additional compensation.

Your risk in arbitration is the loss of significant time, and whatever financial costs may fall to you as enforceable by the Terms of Arbitration or California Law. EA initially risks minor loss on a number of fronts, but if something about arbitration opens them up to a review in civil court, certain discoveries could escalate to the point of protective terms in EA's Terms of Service being severed. If discovery obtains sensitive information that could clearly indicate EA was neglectful, capricious, and/or exploitative, it may not be difficult for a plaintiff to establish evidence of unconscionability. Once unconscionability is considered, it could open EA's Terms of Service up to the process of severance, which could involve striking out protections EA had initially written into their Terms of Service, including the terms that prevent class-action certification of a case, or that strictly limit liability. The risk of either one of those things happening is what EA will seek to contain if they come before an arbitrator without adequate evidence that you violated the Terms of Service.

Weigh your options and their costs, and determine how far you want to go with this. Representing yourself in small-claims court is not a legitimate option, as it will not likely entitle you to more recovery than you could get out of arbitration (primarily because it's hard to quantify monetary damages when the property lost is digital). You either settle informally, obtain a satisfactory outcome in arbitration, or go it alone in a state trial court, which is a certain loss. The only individual likely to pull off a civil suit against EA will be someone attending advanced classes in law school, with a chip on their shoulder and a desire to make a name for themselves before they have passed the bar exam. If that bear gets poked, things will get spicy.

Well, well, well... let me read through this again, possibly even a third time to ensure I've fully digested things and understand my (albeit extremely limited) options. Cannot thank you enough for your wisdom, experience and sharing your obvious expertise. You have no idea how much I appreciate you taking the time to write this all up.

My sister went to law school and is practicing (in NY), but highly doubtful she'd agreed to invest much time or effort into my fatball and/or video game hobbies and passions.

You have without a doubt motivated me to pursue this, however, based on prior experience, I assume it'll be difficult to get much (if any response) from EA Legal. Last time I went through this nonsense I had my account access restored, but they never actually wiped any coins, despite saying they had done that, just restricted account access to auction house.  This time the coins were gone before I even finished our Squads session. Will start documenting everything and putting together what limited info I have available. 

EA makes it more and more difficult to continue caring about the once great and storied John Madden Football franchise, was preparing to walk away or take a break, but that has now changed, thanks to your input. Genuinely appreciate you helping to light a fire under my ass, cannot say that enough... I've got nothing to lose at this point and quite a bit of extra free time on my hands all of a sudden. What little disposable income I had went towards gambling in the MUT casino, might as well divert those limited funds towards this battle.

Thank you kindly, sir. Wish I were able to properly compensate you for your time and expertise.  Should you ever find yourself in need of tech support or light DevOps, that's about all I have to offer at the moment. If my coin stack were to ever come back, I'd offer to donate to your MUT team, but even that runs afoul of the almighty terms of service. Tsk tsk on me for even having or expressing such naughty thoughts.

Power to the people. ✊  Much obliged, kind sir.

Mythomaniac said:

My advice is to speak to your bank directly.

I spoke about charge backs with my friend who is a personal banker and he told me that it's their job to help you get your money back in situations such as this.

You just need proof that you no longer have access to a product that you have paid for and that EA did not provide proof that you broke any rules.

If you have specific questions just let me know and I'll ask.

Whoa, thank you. That was my immediate and initial (rage-fueled) reaction after reading the EA email. I saw it pop up and ignored it for an hour, because we were having a great squads session last night, I just assumed they were inviting me to the next EA beta or whatever. 

My primary issue or concern is that I had still been using a debit card, versus actual credit card, which would have provided me with extra purchase protections (I think), but I'm basically a crakkhead and couldn't, or shouldn't be trusted to buy overpriced virtual playing cards on credit, just as I shouldn't be using 100x leverage. 

I assumed I'd lose my EA account if I began refunding purchases, but I had the full transaction history pulled up in my PSN app. Figured I should at least sleep on it before making a bad situation worse. Thank you for the expert advice. Maybe I'll reach out to my bank and see what they can recommend, if anything before taking drastic measures. 

With all the community support and lovely advice, I'm coming around and finding the motivation to fight for my account back. Submitted my initial appeal to EA no-Help earlier this afternoon. Will get to work revising and drafting a new form letter for the community to leverage, clearly I'm not alone here. There is no end to this madness. 

Was hoping the European Union would come to our rescue, make casinos for children illegal... not sure the new EU guidelines went far enough.

I spend time and some money and never do anything for coins other than buying the platinum packs in store. This far in the season, I’d just delete the game and quit MUT overall if this happened to me. 

So many good games out and more coming out next year. Or maybe just stick with regular H2H and franchise ? I can’t imagine having the dedication to start from scratch knowing EA might pull some nonsense again.

Idk you other than you’re one of the louder Niner fans on this site, and I appreciate you for that dawg. Best of luck with whatever you choose to do.