“I Don’t Like Spam!”
by Olivia_Allin, HSM team writer and photographer
“In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.”
–Albert Einstein
To write this article, I have to share more than I normally would.
On New Years’ Day of 2011, I left a wonderful party. My husband was a designated driver and was driving people home. I admit that I had enjoyed myself at the party and had frequented the open bar. I knew that I had a ride home and that I could let my hair down for a change. I don’t go to parties very often nor do I drink that much outside the comforts of my own home. But it had been a long year, and not the best of times. The party was the talk of the town and a great chance for me to get out and to network. I also was looking forward to a new year and planned on making it better than the year before.
The party had ended and everyone was leaving, but my husband had not returned from his last outing to get others home safely. I made my way to my vehicle through the light sleet of an early January morning. I had no intentions of driving. I unlocked the door to my pick up and crawled inside. I started the truck and covered myself with my coat and laid down to rest till my knight in black-tie armor would come and whisk me away home. Doing the right thing, I thought, and not driving.
I wake on a hard surface. My eyes too blurry to make out where I am at first — but I knew it was not my truck nor my home. I didn’t need vision to confirm that. The smell alone tipped me off that I was not in the safety of familiar surroundings. The next sense that tipped me off was the sounds. Echoes of yelling, crying and stern voices. This was no party and it was not anywhere I wanted to be.
This was jail.
It seemed that while I was asleep — nay, pasted out in my truck — someone had called it in as a suspicious vehicle. I was parked two blocks away from the party because it was as close as I could park. The owner of the house that I was parked in front of heard my truck running and called the police. Long story short: in Texas, you can’t sleep off your intoxication or wait for a ride in your own vehicle with access to your keys. Heck, the way the law is worded, if you have had too much to drink and can get to your keys you show intent to drive and can be arrested for Driving While Intoxicated. That means that even if you had too much while sitting in your living room you can still be charged and convicted of DWI. Who knew. Anyway, five months later and $15,000 in legal fees, fines and court costs, I am on probation for one year and all that goes with the conviction of a DWI in Texas.
(NorseNote: Isn’t Texas a state with drive-through liquor stores? Man, there’s a Catch-22.)
I tell this embarrassing story because, one, I am not ashamed of what I did. I thought I was doing the right thing. And two, because I have run into the same feeling of helplessness again — but this time from Home and Sony.
On November 19th I received an email from a Sony PSN Community Moderator saying I was being warned because I had violated the Terms Of Service and User Agreement by spamming. I had only been on PSN for thirty minutes in the past twenty four hours and that had been spent in a personal space with my dear friend Sue and three very rewarding hands at the Home Holdem tables, again with friends. Nevertheless, I am not one to spam, ever! The only time I have ever spammed was while shooting machinima; that was in a private space and only to make my avatar move so that ADR could be added in editing.
The email went on to say that if I continued to violate the TOS I could be suspended or banned. Now, I don’t hold myself out to be perfect, but I can assure that I am no spammer nor have I ever knowingly violated the Sony TOS. I am a huge fan of Sony and Home! And even now I still am and want to make it clear that I am not taking shots at anyone or Sony. And I think the moderators do a wonderful job — a job I couldn’t do. I have invested close to $1500 if not more in the past three years on two Play Station 3s, games, controllers, downloadable content and Home clothing and personal spaces, et cetera. I would never do anything to risk losing all that and not to mention I wouldn’t spam even if I had nothing to lose.
I rushed to my computer to write Sony and defend myself or see if they could explain how this mistake was made. This is precisely what I wrote:
I was sent a warning for spamming which I have not nor would never do. I don’t know if this was a mistake or if someone has hijacked my account but I find it very alarming! I respect the TOS and have never violated any part of it to my knowledge. I don’t even respond to trolls. I am not asking for an explanation nor would I. I just am informing you that there is no possible that it was I that did the spamming. I am worried that if someone is spamming in my name that I will unjustly get my account banned. Please check my records and see that I have only ever been a model Home citizen. I am shaking while writing this because it is very important to me that I have my PSN and Home. I logged on to my account and checked to see if there were any sent messages that could be considered spamming and saw nothing. Thank you for reading this,
VERY CONCERNED,
Olivia
To which this is how they replied…
Hello Olivia,
Thank you for contacting us with your concerns regarding the warning you received for Spamming on your PlayStation®Network account. I can understand that this is a frustrating situation to encounter and I apologize for the inconvenience that this situation has caused you.
If you can access your PlayStation Network account then your account has not been compromised. If you feel that your account information may not be secure, I recommend that you change your password by following the steps outlined below:
– On the XMB™, go to the PlayStation Network icon.
– Choose, “Sign In”.
– Enter your Sign-In ID (email address).
– Select, “Forgot Password” and press the X button.
– Enter your Sign-In ID and Date of Birth, select the on screen “Continue” button and press the X button.
– Select the “Confirm” button and press the X button.
– You will receive an email with a link that will allow you to change your password within 24 hours.
The definition of Spamming is as follows:
Offender excessively posted the same word or phrase, or gibberish to the annoyance of others.
While we always want your gaming experience to be an enjoyable one, you have contacted the Consumer Services department for Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA).
We regret to inform you that we do not issue, nor do we have any control over the reporting process for the various online games for the PlayStation Network nor do we have information regarding what type of punishment there may or may not be for this type of offense. These types of offenses are regulated by online moderators based on conduct witnessed during game play.
We value your input and appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Please rest assured that we will convey your feedback to SCEA appropriate management.
I’ve double checked the information that I provided regarding the warning you received for Spamming on your PlayStation Network account and I am confident that this addresses what you were looking for. If not please feel free to contact us again with any additional questions or concerns you may have.
Regards,
(name omitted)
I understand that there is not much that can be done about all this. It’s still pretty scary to me. If I could be warned for something I didn’t do and it happens again, I could be punished for something I am not guilty of. And there is no real way to defend myself. So again I would have to accept a punishment I don’t deserve. When the letter of the law is used to defeat the spirit of the law, something’s wrong. And dealing with a byzantine legal system in real life or online life is simply a nightmare.
Let this be a reminder, then, to keep your password safe — and change it every so often. It’s bad enough to be inadvertently guilty of a victimless crime. It’s even worse when there’s practically no recourse to fight it. And it’s simply tragic when it sunders something you use for much-needed recreation.
December 5th, 2011 by Olivia_Allin | 8 comments
Olivia_Allin is a team writer, photographer, model, curator, graphic artist, researcher and comic relief for HomeStation Magazine; she lives in Texas with her boyfriend, and Home is more than just a game to her. Years ago she discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. On weekends, to let off steam, she participate in full-contact origami. She saw a Bigfoot once, made a sound you never want to hear twice, and was so proud of her Special Olympics gold medal that she had it bronzed. She is, in her own words, adorkable.
Interesting article! I will heed your warning. Sorry to hear about your ordeal. I’m very happy to see HSM give ex-con’s like yourself a 2nd chance at life!
Lets party responsibly!!!
This comes from someone that has a recurring character credit on NBC’s Dateline “To Catch a Predator” …lol… just kidding PW
Sorry you had to go through all of that Olivia, it is a shame that the judge didn’t think the whole incident through and instead of seeing “intent to drive” there he should have seen “intent not to drive”.
My nephew went through something similar in a different state, he did the right thing and it still got him a DWI.
Sometimes doing what you think is right is misconstrued in today’s society. The whole country has gone sue happy for example about the stupidest things. Sony is doing their best, but I have had friends banned for just defending themselves and for things like “over reporting” because they made too many reports about the same incident.
I always warn new people I see spamming not to do so, they do it out of ignorance and many thank me for telling them. But in this case I think that Sony really needs to investigate how your warning came to be, they have enough on their plate without totally false information being accepted as real and causing innocent people who are upstanding Home citizens harm. Whoever did this needs to be permanently banned so they don’t do it to others.
Can’t say for sure that my account was hijacked. It could have been a case of mistaken account assigning. Maybe I was in the same server as the offender and my screen name was mistakenly reported by the mod. As you well know though, it was for sure not me that spammed.
This article was very interesting, I learned a lot from the read and I appreciate you sharing your personal experiences with the readers of hsm. It’s so sad how some innocent are punished while more than some…of the guilty roam free. I report home abuse daily. The only savior I have is the mute and ignore function.
I love mute and ignore! Withed it worked in real life.
Where to start with this?1st If I’m not mistaken mod’s don’t even investigate ppl unless a complaint was given by someone else so if you were in a private place,and your account wasn’t hijacked,then someone tattled on you.2nd spamming can consist of merely saying “Hello” as few as 3 times,maybe less.I know at least 2 ppl that got warnings for 3 “Hello”‘s so I know 3 and over is for certain.Now if you have a sticky controller and accidentally hit a term 3 times and someone tells on you you’ll get a warning.Intent has absolutely nothing to do with whether the rule was broken,this applies to laws as well as you found out.There’s an old quote,I believe attributed to Thomas Jefferson,that ignorence of the law is no excuse for breaking it.There is seldom any way to prove intent which is why the government,and probably Sony,don’t want to have to establish what you or I intended.
3rd if someone truly hijacked your account the 1st thing they normally do is change your password,as you were able to use the account with the old 1 hijacking seems unlikely but if you are ever logged-off automatically with a message saying another user logged in on that account then someone else is using it without changing your password.4th I have had similiar service issues with Sony lately,for months now I’ve been unable to use my account on the Forums yet it works quite fine in Home.I still can’t get any help for that problem and probably never will.5th I’ll bet they didn’t even tell you what the offending spam was.This makes it incredibly harder to determine when the infraction actually took place and will impinge your investigation.Sony really should give us the offending phrases when e-mailing us about the problem.6th this is a very good instance of how possibly innocent ppl could be affected by stricter enforcement of the rules.By giving mods total,irrevocable power over our accounts without any appeals process Sony has put us at the mod’s mercy.I’m not saying mod’s are bad(in fact they’ve been quite fair with me) but they are fallible and as far as I know their decisions are final and we are unable to offer a defense.Lastly,Norse just because you can buy the booze from your car doesn’t mean you should drink it in the car,lol,I think the state probably allows drive-thru alcohol purchases with the hope that some ppl will violate the law so they can collect more fine money.I also wouldn’t be too surprised if the cops in those states waited just down the road from those stores hoping to catch violators.