Niantic Bans Cheaters, Spoofers and Item Sellers

The official Niantic Labs blog reported that more than 500,000 cheating accounts had recently been banned in Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

That’s a lot of accounts people churned out — some make money on it, some just mess around, some even get in the way of normal players.

I wrote earlier about the GPS spoofers’ business.

Also, 22,000 Ingress accounts were recently banned for taking part in illegal trading of in-game items.

I’ve heard stories that it was a profitable business: people made bots that glyph-hacked, then multiplied items in red capsules and sold them to players abroad for dollars.

Or selling accounts — Pokémon GO, for example.

A level 23 Pokémon GO account was listed on eBay for £7,300!

Niantic reminds players that rooted devices aren’t supported and using them can lead to a ban. In a way that’s fair: rooted phones are usually where the spoofers “fly”. A small share of normal users have rooted phones too — just keep it in mind and better not do it, so you don’t get hurt by accident.

I used to have a Meizu M2 Note, where root was easy to enable through a Flyme account, and I flashed and updated it. Then I bought a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and my torments were over

So don’t spoof, don’t cheat, don’t sell Aegis shields, and everything will be fine.