Hello everyone,
I am creating this thread because I have been hit with a permanent Wayfarer ban under the exact same circumstances as my friend, who recently posted about their ban here: Banned for Alleged Voting Ring Participation Despite hundrets of Legitimate Wayfarer Contributions
Niantic’s enforcement message cited participation in a voting ring and multiple accounts on the same device. Neither of these claims is true, and the ban seems to be a massive false positive triggered by our local community work and my household setup.
To give some context, the poster in the linked thread and I are close friends. Together, we did the heavy lifting to improve our local community, creating most of those 100+ new Wayspots they mentioned. We spent hours exploring, taking photos, and submitting high-quality nominations strictly according to Niantic’s criteria. We talked about nominations and shared the excitement of building up our local map, but we never engaged in coordinated voting, manipulation, or voting rings.
The accusation regarding multiple accounts is also off-base and unfortunately punishes my Pokemon Go obsessed household. I live in a house with five active Niantic players: two parents, two children, plus my brother who lives with us. Because we are a big family living under one roof, we all share the same home Wi-Fi network, and family members occasionally pass around or share devices to play. Every single account belongs to a unique, real person, but it feels like Niantic’s automated system is flagging this normal family activity as multi-accounting.
Like my friend, I had a very high agreement rate and put a massive amount of time into reviewing properly. Getting a sudden, permanent ban with no prior warning or explanation is incredibly disheartening for a household and community that has contributed so much to the map. Especially after 10 years of continuous play.
Since we are dealing with this situation simultaneously but cases are, as we have been informed, looked at on a case by case basis I am also creating my own thread. Any advice and assistance on resolving my case would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading.