Trainers appear to be caught in a cross-fire as Pokémon GO’s anti-cheat system repeatedly issued seven-day bans to various users.

There’s been a recent rumbling on Pokémon GO communities online. Players that received a seven-day ban for a first offense cheating case are returning to find themselves hit with multiple additional week bans upon their return. While some users are saying that the initial ban was justified, others are claiming that they’re innocent of cheating entirely, but are still being subjected to this issue. Whether they’re being honest about that is a different story, however.

Niantic does have a small history with erroneous flagging, in all fairness. Last year, they admitted to a wave of false cheating flags being issued. This issue, however, does appear to be a bit more complex. The official game policy states that they work with a three count punishment system. The first instance of cheating gets a week-long ban, a second instance gets a month-long ban, and a third instance results in a permanent ban. Since people are receiving multiple week long bans, it sounds like their system is failing to register when the punishment has been applied, instead constantly re-applying it whenever they go online.

We don’t blame Niantic for implementing automated anti-cheat systems. When you become one of the biggest mobile games of all time, you get a LOT of cheaters. We just hope that this issue is fixed quickly. 

Fortunately, the best way to avoid it is to not cheat. Hopefully that isn’t too hard for everyone.