Like many others I have seen in recent months, I have been falsely banned from Fortnite for a year.
The situation unfolded similarly to other posters:
I was playing Ranked Squad Zero Build Reload with friends (not random fills) and I was suddenly kicked from the game. I got the "There was a problem" message which mentioned I was kicked due to "internet lag, IP or machine, VPN usage, or for cheating". I thought it was just a weird occurrence and waited for my squad to finish their game.
On readying up and loading into spawn island, I was kicked again, this time with a ban message saying I was banned for 24 hours due to "exploiting". The next day I got a message that my ban had been upgraded to yearlong ban due to "cheating".
Like many others, I contacted the chat support on the Epic website and also opened an appeal. My appeal has not been handled and I have received no communication regarding it, it is still in the "Appeal in review" stage.
My experience with chat support was very disappointing, I kept receiving the same canned responses - they would not elaborate on whether my appeal was being reviewed or why I was banned in the first place. I understand that they cannot give specific details about cheat detection, but to absolutely refuse to explain why a ban was put in place is incredibly unhelpful.
It should go without saying - I did not cheat. I have never cheated, in any game. I have never used mods. I have played on this account since around roughly the first year the game was launched. I have been using the same, old PC to play Fortnite for 5+ years, and I have not downloaded or installed new software in probably over 2 years. I have been using the same wired controller for several years as well. I do not use a VPN and I have had the same internet provider for over 4 years.
To any of those reading who think that the anti-cheat is some magical device that can never be wrong, you are incorrect. It is software, and software has bugs and produces false positives. It can absolutely be wrong.
Search this subreddit for the term "banned" and you will come across a decent number of posts over the last 6 months that describe situations similar to mine. Even if a few of them may have actually cheated and were justly banned, there is still a large number of these situations, and it is clear that no one has received a reasonable response from Epic support.
With the huge number of layoffs at Epic recently and the rise of AI/LLM use by big tech companies, I suspect that there are less humans and more atomic agents used to handle ban appeals and support tickets. For example, take a look at the screenshots I shared. The support team keeps claiming they have reviewed the request and that the ban stands, however, they refuse to acknowledge my ban appeal, and the appeal has not changed status.
Sharing this in commiseration with all the other players who have had their accounts unjustly banned.
