Banned for no reason?
Final edit after the final edit (MAJOR plot twist): OK... So after talking to the only match I was really bothered about losing contact with basically all day over WhatsApp, like multiple voice notes, just some hints of flirtation, seemingly sharing a lot... HER account gets banned.
Shortly after that she suggests moving to "sign*l". I've never had anyone suggest this to me before so was a bit weirded out and joked about it but she did not seem to get the joke... I couldn't put my finger on it... I thought there was some weird sudden vibe shift... once I expressed I was finding this weird, she makes the excuse that sometimes she gets ads for stuff she mentions on WhatsApp on other apps (does that happen, really?! WhatsApp is still E2E secure.... isn't it?? Doesn't happen to me...) and that she usually gives her Signal or Telegram (!!!) contact details... THEN suddenly makes an excuse and BLOCKS ME simultaneously on both WhatsApp and Signal.
So... what the fuck?! I think I actually almost got romance scammed... but... she left voice notes... she sounded real... maybe she was a bit too good to be true in some ways, like some manic pixie dreamgirl vibes... In hindsight, I can pinpoint certain conversational patterns - she ignores specific questions about tastes she's expressed or life specifics, mirrors my own expressed interests readily without much specificity about her own experience of it... maybe the backstory was too tailored as well...? Fuck man I'm just spinning out over this, like kicking myself if I somehow weirded her out with some crazy neuroticism but... that is fucking weird right? Or is it? But also what was the play? I have basically no money right now, things have not gone that well for me the past few years... was that what made me the target? A vulnerable person to exploit? It's fucking wild though, like holy fucking shit if she wasn't real or was talking out of some scam farm prepping me for handover to the real scammers I don't even know what to believe about anything anymore or who to trust. The swift exit as well! Like, my joke about "wait - are you a romance scammer?!" with a laughing emoji - at this point, genuinely still a joke, well, like 90% joke - was NOT well received - 2 messages later, BAM, BLOCKHAMMER.
Also I made a joke about crypto right at the beginning of the WhatsApp chat and it initially went completely over her head, like the joke obviously is... fuck I don't need to explain this shit but holy fuck this is a headfuck. What the fuck guys/gals I need some perspective on this, I thought I was too smart to be sucked in so deep to something like that but what the actual fuck.
....
Final edit 2 days later: OK so my account was unsuspended approximately 36 hours later. No details regarding the cause of the initial suspension were provided. This may be entirely unrelated, and just a weekend support delay thing, but as I'm based in the UK I had the thought that the fact that I was initially unable to use the same number I used to open an account I'd requested was deleted 5 years ago, they must have retained that number somehow which may have been a GDPR violation. I therefore opened a second support ticket from the email address of my old, supposed-to-be-deleted account, referencing the actual suspended account and laying out every detail step by step but beginning with my suspicion of a possible accidental GDPR violation. Again, this may be pure coincidence - but 12 hours later my account was unsuspended and although no cause was provided, I was also given a link to information regarding rights to redress provided by the EU Digital Services Act. Again - this may just be a standard policy or a stock response, I don't know. I'll leave my original post below because I still think it's important information, and it's still left me a somewhat sour taste about the whole situation... but maybe I'm just an impatient, whiny bitch.
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Original post:
I've read the terms. I didn't violate any of them. I'm not some chump who is sending dick pics or insulting people, being hateful, disrespectful, honestly the fact I've been banned makes me feel kinda dirty by association... this sucks man, I was literally just at the point of arranging to meet someone I felt I connected with, I know I know, no point getting too emotionally invested before meeting but I just can't help it, I've never been into just spamming profiles, the "numbers game" and all that and it is pretty rare to actually have a genuinely 2 sided conversation, y'know... maybe that's just me... only reasons I can think are... I had an account years ago under a different email address but same phone number - I deactivated it and asked them to delete it, obviously somehow they didn't properly delete it because I had some trouble signing up with the same number but was able to do so via the website, after which I could sign in with the app.
Second issue... I use a VPN frequently, I'm just paranoid about internet security what can I say, usually just the same few European countries, nothing dodgy about that I thought... I've opened a support request, I read somewhere here not to open multiple support requests, so I haven't but I did reply to the confirmation email twice - basically each time I remembered another possible reason. I ASSUME that's OK and will be read by SOMEONE... but, ugh, this is just sad... I'm overthinking it but it feels like some kinda sign from the universe, "go fuck yourself", and a bad omen in an age where big tech is already fucking us with no consequences.
I talked about capitalism in the conversation I had with the person I woulda probably met if we'd exchanged numbers in time, lol, just lightheartedly of course, was that too politically controversial nowadays? Are there trigger word ban-bots looking for signs of Antifa cells?
I've been polite in the support messages of course, I haven't expressed any of my most hyperbolic frustrations, like I wanna believe in some sense or goodness in the world but this is just making me sad. It's been almost 24 hours with no response.
Edit - because there's clearly something fucked going on:
A bunch of other examples of similar claims, ordered by recency, most within last 2 months:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/1ucmpcw/bruh_i_got_banned_idk_why/
https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/1u1jxva/my_account_was_deleted_randomly/
https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/1tdiezn/i_was_recently_banned/
https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/1spji42/randomly_banned_today/
https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/1t0mkxf/okcupid_the_sad_ending/
On the other side of it, there's ALSO a bunch of recent threads of people complaining about people they're talking to randomly being banned - and being informed that these people "might have been fraudulent" or something - and complaining about there being so many bots, and often that everything actually seemed fine, getting down on themselves for being fooled. I didn't bother to collate those threads too but there's a bunch of recent ones.
WTF is going on?! OKC used to be my favorite online dating platform, ugh. This sucks.