Update: Players are reporting of receiving a one-day and seven-day shadowban without any warning or reason again. This has happened many times in the past months.
Players who got the shadowban said that they’re not using any 3rd party apps and they are not going beyond the daily/weekly catch limit.
Previously, players have received these types of bans because of someone at Niantic who likes to press the “red button.”
We’re investigating the case, and as soon as we have some info, you’ll be the first to know.
Update: It looks like someone pressed the wrong button at Niantic and players got the ‘Red Warning’ by mistake. We have reached out to Niantic, but we’re still waiting on confirmation. The following has been posted by finishcarts on TSR and you can find the info here.
Previous Story: Trainers, Niantic sent a new “First Strike” warning to a lot of players who transferred Pokemon to Let’s Go, to those who are using PokeBall+ and to a lot of Trainers who are using Apple Watch. Pokemon Go players are not happy with it – it seems like Niantic made a mistake with some accounts.
Many legit Pokemon Go players are concerned about the latest ‘First Strike’ wave, as they’ve never used third-party apps and received the following warning notice:
After reaching out to Niantic and sending them “Trainer Nickname,” they said the following:
Keep in mind that this is not a strike, just a reminder of our Terms of Service.
Now, if you read the message again, it clearly says that is the FIRST STRIKE.
They’ve also explained:
If you have previously received a warning or suspension notice, you may see a new acknowledgment screen when logging into Pokémon GO. This is a one-time acknowledgment for previous violations and it doesn’t necessarily indicate a new punishment on your account.
There are a lot of Trainers who received the one-day soft ban, and it stays unclear what is the cause.
Have in mind that if you received this warning notice:
If the first strike is issued, you will see a warning message within the Pokemon Go app informing you that we have detected cheating on your account.
In addition to this warning, your gameplay experience may be degraded in the following ways for the duration of the warning:
You may not be able to encounter rare Pokemon in the wild. These Pokemon may not appear on the map or on the Nearby Pokemon tracker.
You may be excluded from receiving new EX Raid Passes.
Our Conclusion
The Go+, PokeBall+ and Nintendo Switch are all 3rd party, as they are all Nintendo’s licensed products. In our scenario – Niantic advertised these products but forgot to put them in a whitelist, and that’s why most of the players who are getting these warning are both Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let’s Go players or players who are using the PokeBall+ accessory.
https://www.futuregamereleases.com/2019/08/types-warnings-bans-pokemon-go-everything-need-know/
This happened to me today and I blew up Niantics twitter and support messaging. I am extremely furious about this and hope they fix this. Do you know how long in the past it took them to fix this? I don’t play Let’s Go or have the watch or any if that, just straight up GO on my phone, I however got a new phone last week so maybe that made me prone to being one of the unlucky ones? Thank you-Sam
These types of ‘bans’ usually lasts from 1-7 days. At the moment we’re not sure what’s the cause, but we reached out to Niantic and we expect an answer anytime soon.
Ok yeah I’m assuming they’re not going to get back to anybody before Monday. Seriously sucks lol. Please let me know when you hear back. So this has forsure happened to a lot of people in the last couple days?
Hi. I got a 1st strike warning too and today is my 10th day and account is still on Softban status. Niantic support insists I’m using 3rd party apps (which I’m not) !! They refuse to help me now. Sigh
It’s ridiculous, I don’t even know how to go about spoofing, yet somehow I’m apparently using a 3rd party app to them. Totally unfair whatever is going on. My pokedex and items list isn’t even anything special. Also I find it odd that this is the only article I could find about this happening again. And yeah Niantic’s customer service is just awful.
Me too
I agree. Same here, I don’t use 3rd party apps, but they said I do. And until I stop using them, I’ll be in this restricted state. How to get out of this situation when I’m not using any spoofing apps or IV checkers in the 1st case? Sick…
Still waiting on a real response from Niantic at about 2pm my time. I have a feeling they won’t respond. This is just insane. All the hard work I’ve put into this game…and this is how I’m treated
I’ve waited for 12 days already and still stuck. They had given me standard replies and their latest was 5 days ago saying “Please understand that until you stop using 3rd party applications your account will not return to normal and you will continue to have restrictions. ”
So, isn’t this a catch 22 situation?
Dejan Kacurov, do you have any advise for us?
Hello and thanks for your comment. There is no word from Niantic regarding the “ban” situation at the moment. We’re still investigating the case and we hope to hear from them anytime soon. My advice is to contact them here pokemon-go-support@nianticlabs.com and explain them your situation. Thanks again for your comment and we hope to hear a positive outcome.
Thanks. I’ve repeated contacted them. This is now their latest reply. Strange that they applied 30 day ban on me.
“Hello Trainer,
We take fairness seriously at Niantic. Accounts that have been found to not be playing within our Terms of Service (https://www.nianticlabs.com/terms/) and the Player Guidelines (https://nianticlabs.com/guidelines/en) will be suspended. Your temporary suspension will be lifted within approximately 30 days.
If we find that you continue to violate any of the Pokémon GO Terms of Service and Pokémon GO Trainer guidelines, your Pokémon GO account will be terminated.
For more information, please review the Three Strike Discipline Policy (https://niantic.support/2qJe8Bp).”
We still haven’t heard from Niantic regarding this matter, but we did some research and it looks like rooted device is automatically a strike. Also, if a third app party was granted access at some point, this might be the cause too. For last, if you use IV checker its considered as 3rd party app.
Any update from Niantic on this?
Still no update? I went ahead and went through my phone for anything that could be remotely considered a 3rd party app and disabled them. I just really hope I get my full gameplay back after the 7 days, it really sucks that they already have a strike on my account in case it ever happens again, considering I didn’t do anything. I don’t get how people who are clearly spoofing don’t get caught and I get in trouble for playing by the rules..
Hello there im from Germany and since Today i get the One Strike Warning every Time i open the Game.
I already tried uninstall, checked the Settings, i only have connected to my Phone a Smartwatch and the Pokeball plus.
I am not using cheat software, i dont wanna risk losing my Account.
Already contacted Niantic and the answers are not helpful.
I dont know whats going on there.
Is this an Error from them which they need to fix ??
I have the Honor View 20 Phone which is not rooted.
I dont know anymore what to do.
Going for walks when there are Mewtwo Raids but besides that theres no fun to play at the moment,
every one besides me is catching Unova Pokemon which are not spawning for me.
Any Updates yet ??
Greetings from Germany
Janine
In the exact same boat as you Janine. Today is day 7 of my original ban and every time I open the game it says I have a 1 day ban….This is so frustrating.
My shadow ban was just lifted exactly 7 days after it happened. Relieved as all h***, I’m just praying it does not happen again as I’ve read has happened to people who posted about it on reddit. Still never a real response from Niantic for why it happened in the first place…
My girlfriend got the same problem….she received 7 day warning at 11 september and just at 21 she could see gen 5 pokemons. Now at 22 september open the game and received again 3 day warning.
Niantic dont care…i have send more than 4 tickets. they dont answer anything besides automatic messages. This makes no sense, she never used anything.
The fun part is according their rules the second warning is always bigger than first and in this case is “7days” plus “3days” pathetic…
I think i ll quit the game too. Cba playing a game like this
I am a little more unlucky than you guys. I got shadow banned for 7 days for no reason at all. After the 7 days I played normally for 3-4 days and then I was shadow banned again for 7 more days. At this point I reinstalled the game and log off pokeball plus and Nintendo switch. I never used 3rd party apps, not even iv checkers and I never do any modifications to my devices… After the second shadowban I was able to play normally for 1 day and now my account is suspended for 30 days. I unistalled the game completely in order to protect it from permanent ban but I don’t have many hopes as I have already sent a ton of mails and the Niantic support team gives me canned responses that don’t help me at all…
Please… Anyone that finds a solution share it with us….