[Odyssey]

Sounds good buddy, hope they are able to restore your original account. I'm looking forward to knocking out that big trade but take as much time as you need.

[uvaspina]

From what I gather, accounts are suspended when there are "too many logins" per day. It hasn't been an issue with me so far, but it seems like every time I visit the site on my computer, I'm asked to log in (even though I've saved my password on the computer). Also, once in a while, I'll login from my phone or a library computer. I was wondering if the issue is the number of LOGINS, or the number of different DEVICES that causes the problem. Believe me, I'm not looking to game the system, but I was just wondering if there are any basic guidelines we regular users should be aware of.

[floydtown]

From what I understand, Its based on excessive logins from different IPs. Not a dozen or so going from laptop to IPAD to library.

[uvaspina]

From what I understand, Its based on excessive logins from different IPs. Not a dozen or so going from laptop to IPAD to library.

Makes sense. Thanks for the response.

[andyofandyland_iii]

i'm pretty sure it's both: 1) the number of ip's per month, as well as 2) the number of logins per day/week/month, even if they're all from one ip. they're probably looking at additional metrics other than those two, as well. there probably aren't specific thresholds used, or rather if they are they won't be published because they may be tweaked later and also because they wouldn't want folks to know "just how much they could get away with."

i'm pretty sure that in doing so, they're trying to identify both: 1) accounts that seem to be being shared between multiple humans, as well as 2) accounts that seem to be using scripts for automation insofar as a) the scripting may be poorly done and result in accidental d.o.s. attack, slowing or taking down the site, and/or b) the automation is for the purpose of "data scraping", for example harvesting opg pricing data for use after the subscription ends or to share or re-publish/sell/misuse.

they're absolutely correct in doing so, and they have our interests in mind, not just their own. i'm glad that they want to, for example, minimize site slowdowns that they suspect may be due to excessive traffic from scripts. however, from being on the other side of this kind of situation, i've realized that problems arise when the suspensions are not done very carefully, because they may act on false positives and suspend people doing nothing wrong, and they may not have the staff/processes/system features in place to timely handle those cases. in doing so, you can accidentally alienate your best customers and can inadvertently promote the exact kind of behavior that you'd like to discourage. for example, like you said, i'm also wondering what their login threshold is so that i can avoid it but not to "game the system." it also may encourage "good" people to retreat into anonymity in order to avoid false positive suspensions, it also forces trades to go bad, forces communication to be severed, and so on. and when users see good people getting suspended repeatedly, it undermines the whole point of suspension - it makes people not care about suspended people and not be suspicious of them, resulting in that legitimately suspended "bad" people are no longer easily identified and avoided. in my experience on the other side of things, most instances of people doing what appears to be automated account activity are not really anything bad after all, and instead is actually people just trying to get around the slowness of the site or lack of particular features or presentation of data in a certain way. things that the company would love to do and provide, but that cost too much to develop for the time being.

[petillo64]

All are sound purposes behind the suspensions, but they are clearly able to tell between the scammers and non-scammers with a quick analysis of the info. They should do this BEFORE suspension, not make legit customers jump through hoops afterwards because they are suspending people based on some crude data of log-ins/IPs.

[andyofandyland_iii]

yeah, and i think they are improving on that process. i think most companies go through it like this where they accidentally paint with too broad a brush at first, "sniping first, and asking questions later," and later iron out the process, staff attention, and messaging that is necessary. it seems like they've developed very well and rapidly in that regard - i'm satisfied. when i got suspended in jan, i didn't even get any explanation at all, and i couldn't get someone to respond for a month+, lost access to literally $1000's of dollars of paid services in the process for a month+ so far. but in feb, i immediately got an (albeit, automated) e-mail notification indicating the reason for suspension (even though it ultimately was a false positive), and for whatever reason i was also able to get them to talk to me about it within a reasonable number of days this time. we'll see what the outcome for my case is; it's up in the air atm. but i'm glad that at a minimum it looks like they'll be getting me my BCA PDF's, grading and BCA receipts, and so on, back to me since i paid a lot for them and it doesn't seem right to axe all of that even if i did do anything wrong. and also good that i'll know that my case was reasonably considered by someone appropriate rather than just being automatically zapped due to log summary data without it being analyzed. it will be tough if they do keep my old account suspended even after review, but i'm prepared for that because i know it's tough to be in their position and in cases where log activity is reasonably ambiguous. i hope they at least send me off with some reasonable assurance of what i can do to avoid getting zapped again...

i can see why i was zapped in jan - not that i was doing anything wrong, but i realize what it may look like from the other side. but in feb with the 2nd account, it just doesn't make sense and leaves me scared to do paid and unpaid stuff with beckett because it seems my account may get suddenly zapped again just from regular activity. we'll see.

[jonathani]

Wait, Andy, you're not implying this site has some fixable bugs that no is fixing, are you?

[andyofandyland_iii]

i think anywhere i implied that has been stripped out by now...

[shezdoni]

i'm pretty sure that in doing so, they're trying to identify both: 1) accounts that seem to be being shared between multiple humans, as well as 2) accounts that seem to be using scripts for automation insofar as a) the scripting may be poorly done and result in accidental d.o.s. attack, slowing or taking down the site, and/or b) the automation is for the purpose of "data scraping", for example harvesting opg pricing data for use after the subscription ends or to share or re-publish/sell/misuse.

Have you stopped and thought about, that it may just be your little automated loading program that may be triggering their system to block you?

Odds are, that is exactly what is causing your continuous account suspension/bannings