Cheating Accusation!

I was riding (not driving) in the car the other night playing the game on 3G. I got the usual message about not being connected to the Internet. I clicked the circle which took me out of the game and saw I was on E. Then I believe it went back to 3G. When I went back to the game there was a message that said something about me cheating and accelerating the game! It said it was my first warning! That is absurd! I wouldn't even begin to know how to cheat in this game, nor would I want to. Today I once again got a message about no Internet. I once again clicked out of the game to check my Internet status. It was E again, and I was in my house where I have wi-fi (lousy AT&T coverage)! When I went back to the game there was a message that said, "Attention! You've used time cheating for accelerating the game. You risk to be excluded from players ratings and you are on your way to loosing feature of adding friends." What the heck? What can I do? I've done nothing to warrant this! I don't want to lose everything I've worked for because of some stupid bug in the game. Any suggestions?

This is just a guess, but it may be correct:


You're playing on a 3G iPad. At home on your WiFi, all is great. When you're on the road, your 3G data connection kicks in. When you hit areas with no 3G coverage, Edge service ('E') kicks in. Edge is a 2G service.

My guess is your iPad is configured to time sync with cellular towers. It sounds like whereas the 3G towers might have the correct time, perhaps the 2G towers have incorrect time. Thus when you enter one of these areas, your iPad might be automatically (even briefly) setting the time incorrectly. Maybe some of these towers did not switchover to DST time correctly.

Try to email support and ask them if this is the case. They should be able to see if your time was accelerated by an hour. They can probably link the cheat warnings to IP address changes as you moved from 3G to 2G service.

This is a lot of work for them, so they might just label you as a 'cheater' and brush it under the rug.

Good luck. I hope they work it out with you.

Been following your site for a couple of months, but this is my first questions/comment. I got the same "cheating" message today, and I don't have 3G. In fact my ipad was closed and unused all day because I was at work

Was it a first warning?

Usually, the first warning does not limit any in-game actions. I believe with the second warning, it does.

If you have limited game actions, definitely mail Game Insights and have them explain the situation to you.

Good luck.

I had a similar experience when traveling with my ipad. Was accused of cheating and. blocked from the game. I contacted Support ( I think Lily was her name) and she was able to get me back on board.Give it a try.

Hi all,

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I thought it'd be better to add to this than start a new one.

I've gotten pretty addicted to MM these last few weeks and I'm going on holiday this week, and will be in a different time zone, but would like to continue playing. I'll probably be playing on offline mode most of the time but will connect to wifi once or twice during the day to visit friends and give/collect gifts. I'm really paranoid about getting warned or worse, blocked, for cheating. I'll be in the different time zone for a week. I was thinking to make sure my energy/strength etc are already full when I leave, so I won't benefit at all from a time change? Will that be enough?

I was just wondering if anyone could put my mind at rest, e.g. have you changed time zones without getting accused of cheating?!

Any advice would be much appreciated

Thank you x

If you are not using a 3G iPad, you don't need to worry - just simply don't change the time on your iPad when you travel.

If you are using a 3G iPad, you can turn off your data connection while you travel, and connect only to WiFi.

3G connects to carriers towers which has time data. WiFi is simply data and has nothing to do with time synchronization.

Unfortunately, I recently received the message about cheating. My iPad (ver 1) doesn't have 3G, I haven't been travelling but 3 miles between work and home with it for weeks, and do not change the time EVER on it.

Yet I received the "cheating" message and contacted GI support for explanation. Their reply was pretty much what's already been said here about this being a warning and not changing the time and 3G vs Wireless. But none of it applies to my situation.

Not sure how it will turn out, but I've asked GI to apologize and look in to their reporting systems as clearly they are flawed.

My two cents...

I second the advice about not changing the time if you can.

I took my iPad with me to Paris a few months ago, and was worried about the cheating thing when I tried to play MM, but since I never changed the time on it and it's wifi only, I was able to play without any warnings. The timestamps on all my emails were 6 hours off, but who really pays attention to those, anyway?

I've had three "time acceleration" cheating accusations since I started playing in January 2012. The first two warnings occurred while I was a passenger in a car driving around town. So I completely disconnected my iPad from 3G. I got the third warning while I was sitting at my home office desk, only connected via wi-fi. However, I still have complete functionality in the game - I can visit and gift like always. I think if the warnings are spaced out over a period of time then maybe the game won't take away access.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the replies. I'm back now and only used wifi so no warnings or anything, whew!

I'm heading back to Jakarta next week from USA. I'll be there until mid December and really want to put the correct time on my iPad. I'm worried that I will get the cheating message. Do I need to do anything special to ward off this message?

ycul wrote:I'm heading back to Jakarta next week from USA. I'll be there until mid December and really want to put the correct time on my iPad. I'm worried that I will get the cheating message. Do I need to do anything special to ward off this message?

I learned this recently, and I wish I'd known about it when I was on vacation.

Make sure MM is completely closed (double-tap the home button until it shows the open programs jiggling, then hit the red X in the corner of the MM icon). As long as the game isn't running when you change the time, you shouldn't get the cheating warning. It's only when the program is open when the time zone changes that this happens.

AllisonPJ wrote:It's only when the program is open when the time zone changes that this happens.

You are sure? Did it happen to you that way? GI should say that you cannot play the game abroad, part of the iPads fun is taking it easily with me on vacation.

LaVentosa wrote:

AllisonPJ wrote:It's only when the program is open when the time zone changes that this happens.

You are sure? Did it happen to you that way? GI should say that you cannot play the game abroad, part of the iPads fun is taking it easily with me on vacation.

I have not actually tried it, but I read it somewhere else that GI had said that you can avoid the cheating warning as long as you make sure the game is fully exited before you update your time zone. I wish I could remember where I saw it now. It might have been in the comments on one of the posts on their Facebook page.

AllisonPJ wrote:

LaVentosa wrote:

AllisonPJ wrote:It's only when the program is open when the time zone changes that this happens.

You are sure? Did it happen to you that way? GI should say that you cannot play the game abroad, part of the iPads fun is taking it easily with me on vacation.

I have not actually tried it, but I read it somewhere else that GI had said that you can avoid the cheating warning as long as you make sure the game is fully exited before you update your time zone. I wish I could remember where I saw it now. It might have been in the comments on one of the posts on their Facebook page.

Actually it is posted here.........somewhere. I will try to dig up the post.

http://www.mmuff.com/t615-here-is-some-really-useful-information-about-travelling-with-your-ipad-and-using-mm

I got the time cheating message yesterday. (First Warning)
I really don't know what I did wrong, I was at home (all day), playing the game and using WiFi as always.
I was visiting one of my MM friends when the message shows up.
I contacted GI but up till now, no response.

Someone seen this before? Any suggestions? I'm afraid I'll lose everything without any reason.
Thx for reply/comment

I got the cheating message last evening while sitting on my couch with my ipad like I always do. I was visiting friends and the warning came up. I had done nothing different---and wouldn't know how to anyway. I have an ipad 3 and our home has wi-fi. Never had a problem before and definitely have never cheated! And I certainly don't like being called a Cheater!! I sent a meggage to GI and the reply was that they are reviewing my case.

Hi, trying to keep this as brief as I can. I had a time cheat warning in August, I believe it is because my collection counter froze and I sent more than 10 collection items, therefore the 'system' thought I had accelerated the time and reset the counter. This is more than a theory I have started counting how many collection items I send and sometimes it doesnt register (sad I know but I couldn't find another explanation as like many others I hadn't changed the time).

I have had numerous discussions with GI about this as you can imagine. The bottom line is that they are aware of the problem and are looking into it!!! They have said that they are unable to cancel the time cheat warning from my game as it is automatically recorded and they have no control over it.

My knowledge of IT could quite easily be written on the back of a postage stamp and GI aren't willing to answer any questions in relation to it, therefore is there anybody who can help me with the following questions:

It would appear that the three strikes rule about time cheating is pre-programmed into the game and GI have no control over it, this strikes me as odd because they can access your game and change just about every other aspect of it remotely. does that sound right?

If it is pre-programmed how easy is it for GI to change the banning format?

I apologise to all the IT experts that probably think I'm a bit wet behind the ears but any info would be good.

Thank you

Hi Rosie - your common sense is leading you in the right direction. What can be programmed "in" can be programmed "out". Probably the easiest option would be to disable the whole cheating edit until they figure out what is going on. Figuring out the error that generates the warning, and subsequently fixing it, could be easy or difficult - but the biggest hurdle is they have to make it a priority. Likewise, for erasing false warnings and helping customers caught in this bug who lose their game and have to start again. I have a solid It and customer support background - but your own instincts are on target.


Hoping you updated your rating in the app store!

Ruth, thanks for replying I certainly am! I think the problem is they have their standard 'one stock answer fits all' replies for everybody and it doesn't apply to most of us. I not only find it incredibly frustrating but also insulting. Think they need some training in customer services first

I got a reply from the support staff after I got the warning. Lily, the person who responded to me, said the engineers have identified the problem and hope to get it corrected in future updates. My case was marked as solved. I certainly hope this does gets fixed! Thanks to all of you who have given information about this topic.

Hi All,

I got a warning once in Spring that freaked me out. I have no idea why I got it since I've never tried to manipulate the game clock. It happened while I was asking for wall requests. Nothing happened so I relaxed but got another one on the day of the big update, when GI shut a lot of people down for that Saturday in August. But actually I still did have access to the game and was playing (and again doing wall requests) when I got another warning.

I heard other people got warnings during that day. Has anyone here experienced that? It seems totally unfair if we are penalized and kicked out of the game for doing nothing!! I'm a 200+ player and am now living in fear of a third warning - or would I even get a third warning before being banned?? Does anyone know how they do it? I don't have the heart to start over, especially in this sad little environment of no MG.

Any info people have about the warning/banning process would be greatly appreciated. I did have one friend get banned and start over, but she's Russian with almost no English so I can't ask her about it.

Thanks!

I have had three warnings for time acceleration cheating since I started playing last January. I also had the additional warning on the day of the big shut-down/update, but I completely ignored that. The first two cheating warnings occurred as I was a passenger in a car, riding around town. So I think the explanation on this site that different cell towers might have slightly different times on their clocks is probably correct. The third warning occurred while I was at home, sitting in front of my wi-fi router thingy, not using 3G. I think I was also accepting gifts at the time.

Each warning came with a threat that I would lose game functions. I was really scared at my third warning, but nothing in my game changed. So I ignored the warnings. If there ever does come a time that my game functions are diminished I will probably "raise a ticket" with GI, not that that ever does any good.

Perhaps if the warnings are spread out over a period of time, in my case about 6 months, nothing bad will happen to your game. I do find it so annoying and offensive even, that GI is so quick to rudely accuse us of cheating. Shame on them!