Pokemon Go players who have been caught cheating are either getting a soft ban or permaban depending on the gravity of their offense. Niantic has earlier promised that it's dropping the hammer on cheaters.
Niantic Permaban Warning
On August 18, Niantic posted on its official website a warning to Pokemon Go cheaters. It said that the game developer will start deleting accounts of cheating players. Those whose account has been banned will be informed by Niantic through email. Pokemon Go players whose account has been terminated can still contest it by submitting a ban appeal form to Niantic.
Niantic launched Pokemon Go almost two months ago. Its popularity quickly spread which also caused the developer's servers to shut down from time to time due to the huge number of players. The game also attracted a number of third party service providers ranging from GPS locators to game bots.
Pokemon Go Cheaters Using GPS Spoofing and Bots
The worst Pokemon Go cheaters are the ones who use GPS spoofing and bots in the game. Players using GPS spoofing software tried to fool Niantic servers that they are at a specific location collecting Pokemon when in reality, they are different physical location. Bots, on the other hand, act like actual players collecting Pokemon creatures and items.
The recent crackdown, however, has forced many cheaters and third party cheaters to providers to either lay low or shut down their operations entirely. Necrobot is one such provider which closed down recently to avoid any legal reprisals from Niantic.
Repentant Pokemon Go Cheaters
One caught Pokemon Go cheater even posted his experience in Reddit. He claimed that he got "permabanned" by the mobile game developer but insisted that he deserved it anyway. He said that using a bot allowed him to rack up in XP points and increase his collection of various Pokemon creatures. However, cheating in Pokemon Go actually made him lose interest in playing the game.
