Let me be clear in the most angry Obama voice possible, I understand my personal responsibility reigns supreme in giving known criminals from China who enslave people in dormitories to harvest virtual currency is wrong, asking for trouble, and worse of all plain lazy. I despise cheating and especially RMT currency slave holders, but I got one of those great emails for 8% off and a fire sale of leveling promised 75-90 in two days, I had a moment of weakness...
So I placed the order and anxiously awaited (reportedly honest leveling by hand) what happened next was a surprise as I watched FFXIAH.com to watch my character's transacting of gear, drops and other oddities. Being a recent return I assumed it was a gear for Abyssea content so no worries. After about 5 days I became concerned as no activity was occurring, and something seemed off.
So I made contact with a helpful chat representative, five times that is... This is when I was being told that all was in order and I could log into my account safely to check the progress. On day 6 I couldn't stand it anymore so I logged in...
I was greeted with the dreaded POL LM-17, that's Playonline.com speak for absolute, permanent, data deleted from server BANHAMMER. My draw dropped and I honestly felt a little sick, you know that feeling when you are aware and actually doing something wrong, and you have been caught. Sure it's nervous excitement when it's going on, but when you get nailed and you know it, it's a whole entirely different emotion. Sick. I frantically called Playonline.com to act dumb and see what was going on and the confirmation was sobering: My account of almost 10 years, with combined playtime of over 396 days, nearly every job past 50, all missioned out was gone, now and forever. There was no appeal, no remedy, no Moogle to rub my back. The charge? Third party tools being used to circumvent normal game mechanics, that's right these "honest" powerlevelers from IGXE were of course using bot leveling schemes apparently out in the open in Abyssea. My god the stupidity of this is monumental, christ if you're going to bot at least do it in a far away zone, and be mindful and courteous to those around you.
So naturally I went to PayPal expecting that since I did not receive my "virtual" item (the powerlveling) that I would be getting a refund. Nope. During the entire dispute/claim process IGXE denied everything, lied, and even told payPal that I had received all work and the order was complete. That is a complete and utter lie. This is not a trustworthy company, and honestly unless you are just buying hand delivered currency I would steer clear of all other services, you can and will be banned. The thing is SE tracks certain Chinese players/IP addresses, so they know if logged in from Michigan then two days later leveled 960 hours straight in China, Powerleveling is virtually impossible to do so heed my warning and stay away.
Conclusion; Maybe it was good to break the cycle or hold of FFXI. It has had me for almost ten years, I probably needed to get banned to finally get pushed out of this game that I seem to revisit like an old friendly heroin habit every 90 days or so. I just hate the decision being made in such an abrupt and painful way, with no consideration or second chance, I think if I was given something even the smallest token from IGXE Hell even just an apology it would have made a huge difference. But alas I did see the big bold red letters now featured prominetly on their page:
Using illegal leveling and gold service might terminate the account!
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