Gaia Online, Gaia Interactive Inc. Gaia Online can, and will ban you with little or no explanation, regardless of loyalty or contributions. Milpitas San Jose California

I had also originally contacted Gaia via their own feedback system. When I sent my mail, it took them 3 days to reply to me telling me "The account will not be unbanned. Regards"

After such, I created this ripoff report, and simultaneously filed a Better Buisness Bureau complaint against Gaia online. They replied giving me the full list of charges against me. After having read it over, I replied to it, and Gaia was given untill July 4th to reply. July 4th became July 8th when the report was closed unresolved because Gaia Online had not taken any effort to reply to the complaint.

Thinking that contacting them through their own system again might provide better results, I sent my rebuttal from the BBB report to Gaia via their Feedback system on July 9th.

July 25th, no reply had been received so I replied to the first feedback form I had recieved with their quick reply time, and told them the new feedback ticket number and asked that they contact me to let me know anything is being looked into.

I have to date never received a reply.
I understand they have plenty of users to reply to, but why can they take 3 days to tell me that they don't want to unban me, yet take at least a month to give one any notice that it's being looked into? I'm feeling ignored.

As someone who saw some of the events that lead to the need for this complaint against Gaia Interactive, this entire incident illustrates some of the changes that have happened on this site. The site promotes itself as one of the largest internet communities, which was built due to its loyal users. In the site's recent expansion over the last couple of years the shift seems to be more on getting more new people to sign up and join than on the loyal user base that has supported the site over the years through monthly contributions and purchase of their merchandise.

This specific indecent was due to mistaken identity and unfortunately when action was taken to notify that an error was made that information was disregarded and resulted in the original poster having their account banned. In the past when similar incidents occurred a detailed investigation was done to make sure the matter was solved properly. However, recently there have been more incidents where users were banned due to various reasons. For those who were not guilty and could prove their innocence, they were not allowed to do so and are basically told their case will not be looked at.

In the drive to improve their reporting and banning system there has been an increasing number of users who are getting banned but unable to appeal their cases like they have been in the past. Some are long term loyal customers who have contributed to the site over the years the site has been in existence. By ignoring the requests by loyal members and customers to do things like looking into the reason for account bannings, they are alienating others from wanting to keep contributing to the site in the event something similar might happen to them.

In this specific case in the couple of years I have known the original poster on the site I can say they have been honest and loyal when it comes to their dealings on the site. When any site or business starts to ignore its loyal members in such a way it shows that the company is placing growth and profit over customer loyalty on which all business depends and is built upon.

Coming from someone who has only seen such happen, I find that the victim here is probably one of many who have lost time and money over a unfit punishment to a small-time 'crime'.

It is understandable that punishment is required for a crime, but the punishment given is way to large for the small crime committed, while others get away with much worse or don't get nearly as much punishment. And there is no sympathy or no listening to one who wants to appeal, receiving only stoic repeats of the rules and such, with little to no customer support. It would somewhat seem the moderation team is always too small for everything and most cases like this are overlooked and passed by.

It is sad that all the things advertised on the site, from the one of a kind monthly items to the wide arrange of nice items in the on site cash shop can all be lost by getting on the wrong side of the moderation staff with no help beyond that, with all your invested money and time swept away. And if there is help, it comes many months or even year(s) later.

This is coming from someone who browses the site daily and hears about such time to time.

But I can vouch for the victim here that the intentions of said actions were not that to have been taken so seriously. I can understand the moderation team may seem too busy to bother with millions of users on site at many intervals of the day, but if its like that then they need more capable ones to the moderation team to help prevent unjustified punishment occur as often as it does.

RS~

Coming from someone who has only seen such happen, I find that the victim here is probably one of many who have lost time and money over a unfit punishment to a small-time 'crime'.

It is understandable that punishment is required for a crime, but the punishment given is way to large for the small crime committed, while others get away with much worse or don't get nearly as much punishment. And there is no sympathy or no listening to one who wants to appeal, receiving only stoic repeats of the rules and such, with little to no customer support. It would somewhat seem the moderation team is always too small for everything and most cases like this are overlooked and passed by.

It is sad that all the things advertised on the site, from the one of a kind monthly items to the wide arrange of nice items in the on site cash shop can all be lost by getting on the wrong side of the moderation staff with no help beyond that, with all your invested money and time swept away. And if there is help, it comes many months or even year(s) later.

This is coming from someone who browses the site daily and hears about such time to time.

But I can vouch for the victim here that the intentions of said actions were not that to have been taken so seriously. I can understand the moderation team may seem too busy to bother with millions of users on site at many intervals of the day, but if its like that then they need more capable ones to the moderation team to help prevent unjustified punishment occur as often as it does.

RS~

Coming from someone who has only seen such happen, I find that the victim here is probably one of many who have lost time and money over a unfit punishment to a small-time 'crime'.

It is understandable that punishment is required for a crime, but the punishment given is way to large for the small crime committed, while others get away with much worse or don't get nearly as much punishment. And there is no sympathy or no listening to one who wants to appeal, receiving only stoic repeats of the rules and such, with little to no customer support. It would somewhat seem the moderation team is always too small for everything and most cases like this are overlooked and passed by.

It is sad that all the things advertised on the site, from the one of a kind monthly items to the wide arrange of nice items in the on site cash shop can all be lost by getting on the wrong side of the moderation staff with no help beyond that, with all your invested money and time swept away. And if there is help, it comes many months or even year(s) later.

This is coming from someone who browses the site daily and hears about such time to time.

But I can vouch for the victim here that the intentions of said actions were not that to have been taken so seriously. I can understand the moderation team may seem too busy to bother with millions of users on site at many intervals of the day, but if its like that then they need more capable ones to the moderation team to help prevent unjustified punishment occur as often as it does.

RS~

Coming from someone who has only seen such happen, I find that the victim here is probably one of many who have lost time and money over a unfit punishment to a small-time 'crime'.

It is understandable that punishment is required for a crime, but the punishment given is way to large for the small crime committed, while others get away with much worse or don't get nearly as much punishment. And there is no sympathy or no listening to one who wants to appeal, receiving only stoic repeats of the rules and such, with little to no customer support. It would somewhat seem the moderation team is always too small for everything and most cases like this are overlooked and passed by.

It is sad that all the things advertised on the site, from the one of a kind monthly items to the wide arrange of nice items in the on site cash shop can all be lost by getting on the wrong side of the moderation staff with no help beyond that, with all your invested money and time swept away. And if there is help, it comes many months or even year(s) later.

This is coming from someone who browses the site daily and hears about such time to time.

But I can vouch for the victim here that the intentions of said actions were not that to have been taken so seriously. I can understand the moderation team may seem too busy to bother with millions of users on site at many intervals of the day, but if its like that then they need more capable ones to the moderation team to help prevent unjustified punishment occur as often as it does.

RS~

Hello,

About what the complaint stated of gaia: it is practically true. Now, I'm sure that in the vast majority of cases the mods, admins, and whoever else handles issues is trying their best to do the right thing.

However in this case, something broke down. I know what happened, and I didn't even witness the event in question. All I did was ask around and read. The person banned (behind the above complaint) wasn't behind the incident. However, somehow during the "investigation" some small part of evidence pointing towards him popped up, and he was banned. Maybe the "investigator" (eg. mod, or whomever was behind this) genuinely thought that he was behind the incident and took action, or maybe figured that he or she could just do this and make a statement so it didn't happen in the future, or maybe just wanted it over with and banned the first person that came up. I would hope it would be the first, but even then, afterwards when the issue was asked to be reopened, I would have thought the mods (or admins, or whoever) would have at least had the decency to do more than do a one line response.

Furthermore, even if he had done something bad, which I know he didn't, I would have thought that his long term loyalty and support of Gaia would have come into play. I mean, something that shows at least a little bit of concern, recognition, or God forbid, compassion, for someone who has been with them for a good deal of time (and not been a troublemaker during the time either).

In addition to the above, I'd like to say that I know the person in question. That not only do I know what happened, I'd like to vouch for his character as well. I've known him for a while, he's done nothing bad, and has contributed a lot to the community at the business (website) in question, as well as to his friends there.

It'd be nice if this could be worked out somehow, as for the most part in other incidences, Gaia's been pretty nice. I hope this isn't signaling a change for the worse. But maybe, though some thoughtful actions on the part of Gaia, this might be fixed. Of course, I only expect nothing, unfortunately.