For COD’s sake: One player’s 763-day legal quest to make Activision unban their account ends in total success: ‘Worth the effort’
I’ve never been banned from a videogame or even got a single warning before. But sometimes, simply playing by the book isn’t enough to avoid a ban. Maybe you’ve run into a few too many salty players who’ve reported you out of spite, or maybe you got a message in-game telling you that third-party software has been found on your PC, even though that’s not true. I can’t imagine what I would do in this situation, but one player known as b00lin decided that he wasn’t going to stand for it.
One day, after 36.2 hours of playing the early beta version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, b00lin opened his Steam profile to find a ban message. At first, he thought that it could’ve been a result of encountering a couple of bugs in the beta. But after appealing the decision, Activision held fast: “We’ve confirmed with our security team that your account has been permanently banned for using unauthorised software and manipulation of game data. As you were the account holder at the time of the infraction, your ban will not be overturned.”
This short message from Activision Support was the start of a long and arduous process of using the legal system to get his account unbanned and receive a refund for his initial purchase of Modern Warfare 2—all of this would take two years.
Before taking the matter to court, b00lin tried going through Activision one last time. He used Activision’s ticket system, attempted to phone Activision support, and even tried contacting someone who works at Activision through Linkedin, but nothing seemed to work.
“When appealing these bans, I would often ask if there was any proof of the ‘unauthorised software’ used,” b00lin says. “The answer I always received was that they are unable to [provide examples] due to it being a security risk and could expose how the anti-cheat works.”
To date, I still don’t know what caused the false ban.
b00lin
Protecting anticheat software is a must, especially when it comes to competitive games where players stand to gain the most from cheating. Within a week of Activision announcing its new kernel-level anticheat, Ricochet, back in 2021, the Anti-Cheat Police Department (a group of players dedicated to rooting out cheaters) announced that the driver had already leaked amongst cheat developers. When something like this happens, Call of Duty games and Warzone are usually swamped with cheaters for weeks afterward until Activision can make the necessary changes to root them out.
While keeping security secrets and information about Ricochet in-house is clearly important, b00lin does point out that he wasn’t exactly asking for top-secret information. “Knowing the information such as the name of the software, IP address that was used, and how the software manipulated game data would all be known to a cheat developer,” b00lin says. “Not even this harmless information [was] provided. How can I prove that I didn’t cheat when no information has been provided? Was it Logitech G Hub? iCUE? OBS? To date, I still don’t know what caused the false ban.”
The last stop before taking the matter to court was an attempt to settle the matter by signing an NDA and using an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), which would involve an independent third party helping both parties involved come to a “mutually acceptable outcome.” But that was shot down by Activision.
Court’s in session
First, b00lin filed a Money Claim Online (a service that allows people to make small claims online) for the cost of the game and the fee to file the claim. Due to Activision not responding to this, b00lin automatically won, and Activision paid up. But, the developer still stood firm against lifting the ban.
“Activision paid me out but still refused to remove the suspension placed on my account,” b00lin says. “Their reasoning was that the courts did not order them to do so—therefore, they wouldn’t. I am sure they wish they had done so because it ended up costing them in the long run.”
So the next step saw b00lin filing a non-money claim, and after Activision passed the case off to a law firm, b00lin tried settling the case with them. In exchange for paying court fees and getting unbanned, the agreement stated he would not take this matter any further and would sign an NDA regarding the terms of the agreement. Unfortunately, this was also shut down.
By the time b00lin actually stood in front of a judge in court, he had amassed a great deal of information and examples to help his case. This included presenting his squeaky clean record in other games like CS2, in which he has over 1,000 hours, pointing out that he didn’t want money, just the ban lifted, and that after this case was closed, he “wanted nothing to do with Activision.” He had come prepared. So b00lin was surprised when the defendant presented their case, and it became clear that they didn’t have any concrete evidence to prove that he actually cheated.
“This meant that if I didn’t commit any abuse of process within the courts, my case would be heard, and Activision would have no evidence to show what they are claiming,” b00lin explains. “It would appear that Activision’s anti-cheat/security team is so strict that the people they hired to defend them were not allowed to see any ‘evidence’ of the ‘unauthorized software or manipulation of game data’.”
In the end, the judge found that b00lin should have his suspension removed on Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, and Warzone, and Activision must pay the Claimant’s £711 fixed costs, thanks to all the examples that he put forward and a lack of evidence presented by the Defendant. But that’s not all: “The Judge also found Activision to be the one in violation of the contract,” b00lin says. “And with that, two years of phone calls, emails, and reading pages of legal jargon had finally come to an end.
“For over two years (763 days as of writing), I was wrongly accused of cheating and falsely banned from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2022. As of 08/01/2025, this has been officially lifted on all platforms.”
But why?
When I first read about b00lin’s two-year-long fight, all I could think about was how anyone had the time and strength to keep up with all of that. B00lin had bought every Call of Duty PC game since 2003, and he’s dedicated a significant amount of time and energy to build up an in-game character, and going to court wasn’t about getting the best of Activision.
“Having a Steam profile’s reputation ruined after seven years of ownership is what fuelled me to keep going and not give up,” b00lin says. “A ban for something I did not do on a profile I cherish and have spent thousands of hours on did not sit right.”
The negative effects of the ban also seeped into other games that b00lin played: ” If I ever did well in a game, someone would look at my profile to see how many hours I have and instantly see the red marker that shows ‘I am a cheater.'” b00lin even shares screenshots of a CS2 match in his blog where one player accuses him of cheating to win in their match: “You wouldn’t have a VAC ban if you didn’t cheat.”
I have seen so many stories of innocent players being banned.
b00lin
B00lin is also part of the COD False Ban Community Discord, where players who have encountered false bans or shadow bans come together to try and help themselves and one another. “I have seen so many stories of innocent players being banned and referred to this community in court,” b00lin says.
Shadow bans are probably one of the most prevalent problems in Call of Duty. It relies on player reports or on Ricochet’s internal system to identify cheaters, but even if you’ve done nothing wrong, you can still get flagged for it if enough players report you. The consequences of being shadow-banned can include not being able to play at all, worse matchmaking, or getting placed into poor-quality lobbies with other cheaters. Whatever the punishment may be, players will have to deal with it until the security team investigates the situation, which can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks.
Whenever Activision released an update to its efforts against cheaters, like when it revealed that 136,000 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 accounts had been banned, there’s always a sizable chunk of comments that point out how detrimental shadow bans still are for the community.
“I feel the COD False Ban Community on Discord helped because it was a community of people trying to accomplish the same goal,” b00lin tells me. “Not only did it give me a bunch of anecdotes I could use to show a pattern of this behaviour, a few people in there had taken legal action, too. Speaking to one of those people in there gave me a good idea of what to expect and what I should aim to do.”
This is also the same Discord that Mike Swanson is a part of. A few years back, Swanson published a blog post detailing how he had been banned without cheating despite only playing singleplayer in Modern Warfare 2. “A good chunk of the pages I submitted to the courts was this blog (with Mike’s consent),” b00lin says. “It was extremely helpful to be able to refer to someone with credentials to get my point across.”
Some of the material that b00lin ended up using in courts included a research paper from the University of Birmingham, which was conducted to demonstrate how cheaters will commonly bypass Microsoft Windows kernel protections, Activision’s own terms of service, and one of our articles on how innocent Call of Duty players got permabanned.
All in all, the two-year-long battle to get an account unbanned may seem like a shed load of work—that’s putting it lightly—but it’s not something that b00lin regrets: “After fighting this false ban for over two years, I am happy to say it is finally over. In my opinion, it was worth the effort just to see the account alert.”
PC Gamer reached out to Activision for a comment about this court battle but is yet to hear anything back.
