King.com skyrocketed my rankings

[Henke]

Hi all, great forum, my first post here, sorry if it's too long

Has anyone else had their rankings suddenly inflated after trying to make a withdrawal at king.com?

I started playing 2 months ago with a €25 deposit and had some luck early on to place first in a Colour Connect tournament, winning some €50. From there I quickly learned some of the games and played mainly cups and progressive tournaments and did really well. I then decided to do a €50 withdrawal 2 weeks ago. Then, over the last two weeks, I've been playing as usual and now have €400 on my account.

Then it all began, with my account being blocked. Having read a few posts here about withdrawals I wasn't too surprised, so I sent them a copy of my ID and reassured them that I don't have other accounts and so on... They then sent me a second email still finding "indications" of possible breach of their TOS, asking if my friends or family were playing, and if I've had a "practice account", since they saw signs of "previous experience". I have no previous experience and told them so. The day after, I find that they have indeed made a €50 deposit to my paypal and have unblocked my account.

All is well I thought, a bit annoying since I had to leave Walk-Over on a cup game, but ok, they're keeping security tight against cheating. But then I noticed they had raised my rank in ALL games I was ranked in, in some cases more than doubling it! For example, I went from 6200 in FreeCell to over 10000, which would put me in top-10 of all players. Of course, I'm not that good. In other games, like Bejeweled, my rank was raised to 3500 from around 2000, and I've only played them a couple of times since I'm not even good enough for the initial ranking.

So I mailed their support asking what had happened and received the following reply (translated from swedish):

Hi,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Due to indications in our security system of a possible breach of our terms of service we have been forced to increase your ranking. This is for security reasons and unfortunately the only thing we could do to allow your account.

Your ranking is raised to a calculated level based on your skill.

Regards,
Terese
King.com / Support

Kind of confusing since their previous mail stated that "... When receiving your ID-copy a manual screening of your account was done, which showed that these suspicions could be dismissed and you are welcome to play all of our games again on this account ..."

I'm at a loss here, what to do. It's clearly no fun to play at my current ranking, I don't stand a chance. And it's certainly no fun being "possibly" accused of something and not knowing of what...

Anyone here had a similar experience?? Is it worth arguing with them? I have more than €400 on my account. I'm thinking of just leaving king and withdrawing my money, but reading testimonies of others around the web makes me think they might just block my account again, keep my money, and give me some strange excuse.

Thanks

[crazybob]

hey, I had the same issue... I withdrew $1000, and went through the same crap, and when they finally unblocked my account, my ranking was increased by ~2000 points in every game that I played regularly...

King.com wants people to play at a level where they can't make a profit... obviously there goal is to maximize deposits and minimize withdrawals... so increasing your ranking to a level where you can't make a profit helps them accomplish that... sucks for users though... and is kinda shady in my opinion, but everything about king.com is pretty shady.

I just started playing new games that I hadn't tried before and I've made a few more smaller withdrawals without any issues, so I wouldn't worry about your account being blocked again...

[Kworb]

The FreeCell one is very strange. The Bejeweled one doesn't really make sense, 3500 is still very low in that game.

Some of my rankings have been boosted up, they usually do it for players who consistently do well in progressives but don't play smaller tournaments (progressives don't alter your ranking that much, unless you have a rating of 2000 and win a huge jackpot).

They're always trying hard to keep players from winning money. But if they blocked and unblocked you once, the next time you withdraw will probably go without problems. If they do close your account again, just send them more e-mails. It is worth arguing with them, although it can take time; maybe because you're Swedish the waiting time won't be as long.

The first time I tried to withdraw, I had to send them a copy of my ID, and also had to record myself (with Hypercam, Camtasia or other desktop recording software) playing Mahjong Masquerade and Katana Kaunto. After that I've never had trouble with them again, except for when my brother opened an account (when we still lived in the same house) and also when I logged in at my brother's house (after he had moved out). Then they blocked me, but that was lifted a day or two after I contacted support and explained the situation.

You can make a lot of money on King (I've made almost €7000 in two years) but they sure don't make it easy for you.

[Henke]

Thanks for your replies! Kind of surprising that they actually required you to record yourself playing! Yeah, I don't play many smaller tournaments, seems kind of hard making any money that way even if you're good. Actually, such tips I've read here have helped me alot.

Kind of bad practice by King if you ask me but I'll guess I'll accept it. I'm thinking withdrawing €300 and see if I can make the last €100 grow.. I'm finding it kind of hard playing other games though. Almost all my winnings come from the few games they have that doesn't rely much on playing fast.

For fun, here's how my rankings changed (approximately):

Jungle Bubble     6300 to 10500
Midas Solitaire   3600 to 8700
FreeCell          6200 to 10100
Gogo21            5800 to 9700
Spider King       2050 to 3600
Crescendo Catcher 2400 to 5400
Rainbow Rescue    1950 to 4100
Bejeweled         2050 to 3500
Colour Connect    3400 to 7400

In the last 5 at least, I didn't stand much chance even at my previous ranking. Just can't figure out games like Bejeweled for example, with scores around 3000 most of the time.

The only good thing out of this was Gogo21, where in my new ranking once again you're only allowed one try one the progressives, which makes the game more interesting and fair if you ask me.

[Kworb]

It's bizarre, I mean €400 isn't a crazy amount of money, certainly not enough to warrant such huge jumps in several games. Really no way to justify what King has done here.

[Studs100]

Henke what is your king.com nick ..

[Henke]

Studs100, my nick is Raylight

[Kworb]

I don't see any crazy scores. No idea why your account causes alarm bells to go off.

[Studs100]

Studs100, my nick is Raylight

men hej där...

and I do agrees with kworb..I didn´t find anything abnormal or even very good about your scores..
pretty normal
in cresendo catcher you are dead meat.. with a hiscore of 109k..stay away from moneygame b4 you have improved..

[Henke]

I have no idea either... Feels like an "indication" in their security system could be as simple as "has won Y money after playing Z games".

Anywho.. nice to know that I don't have very good scores Yeah, I've stayed away from Crescendo Catcher. After some practice I made some money on cup games by scoring 80-100k consistently, hence the 2400 ranking. But then I tried a progressive and needed like 120k to even get a price..