We also heard from Rob. Robs encounter with EAs seemingly arbitrary banning process makes much less sense. His account was suspended for having posted a commercial. What he had in fact posted was a link to his non-commercial blog, to a guide to network troubleshooting, recently updated for helping gamers get connected to BF3. A link thats been repeatedly posted to the same forums for a couple of years, and better still, has actually been linked to by EA Support themselves. The link, says Rob, is mentioned on their own corporate support site and FAQ! He too found that the live chat support was absolutely useless, with those replying unable to deviate from a script that endlessly, uselessly loops. This led to his being banned from his gaming account for 72 hours, as well as a permanent strike on EAs three strikes system. Something its not possible for him to dispute.
Then we heard from James, whose tale is even more extraordinary. He has been permanently banned for using the word e-peen. (For those unfamiliar, this is short for electronic penis, and tends to be used to suggest someone is egotistically willy-waving.) However, he did not even introduce the word. It was in reply to someone else whod said it, and responded, Ah, back to the e-peen talk. He was originally told this ban would be for 72 hours, but on Saturday received an email informing him that it was now to be a permanent ban from his Origin account, with no further explanation given. It was added that the matter was now closed. And, as ever, EAs live chat and customer support are refusing to help him in any way. Hes also been told that his BF3 characters and levels will be deleted.
