Hello. My account has been flagged and unverified thus. How can I get it back and understand things I might have done wrong. Or maybe tell me what went wrong.
You can, for a lack of better words, appeal this and see if they will reinstate your account by creating a Rewards Support Ticket
Brave’s policy is not to reveal what actions resulted in someone being flagged. In the past, they used to provide more information. However, rather than people using it to avoid doing such things in the future, it resulted in the opposite. People used it to try to learn how to avoid detection and/or to try to argue with Brave on things. As a result, Brave no longer specifies what resulted in accounts being flagged and often have it staggered, so you won’t be able to determine what you did specifically that resulted in a flag.
Long ago, I wrote an FAQ. The summary I gave then for some reasons were:
Using a VPN, Proxy Server, or other such thing to hide or fake your location. This is because it can be seen as you trying to bypass ad restrictions. Remember, advertisers pay so content is shown to specific regions. When you appear to be in a region you’re not, it is taking advantage of the system to see ads and receive BAT you shouldn’t be getting.
Modifying folders. There are some things you’re encouraged to do but some people do dig deep and try modifying folders that affect your encryption key OR where Users think they can fool the system into thinking they’ve seen more ads or have more BAT in their browser than they really do. Whether intentional or accidental, messing with the wrong things will get your account flagged.
Your setup sends mixed information to Brave. For example, maybe you’re in the United States. Your IP address shows you in California, your language is English-IN, and your time zone is correct. This will tell Brave you should see ads from India but then it sees that you’re actually in California. At this point it will think you’re trying to trick the system to see more ads and might flag you. If nothing else, it can result in you not getting BAT for ads that you do see.
Cloning your browser. Some people have learned how to do unofficial backup & restore and have the “great idea” that they can make multiple copies of the same browser on different devices and then Verify them with a custodial wallet like Uphold or Gemini. The system recognizes this and will flag the account and prevent anything from happening. Of course, even if unintentional, creating two exact copies of the browser and encryption key will be seen as attempting to do this and will flag you. So never have two identical copies of the browser running.
Uphold or Gemini identifies your account as fraudulent and/or there’s a violation of laws.
Any other type of suspicious activity is recognized by the system or Brave staff.
If I were to explain now, some of those still are accurate. However, the system overall looks for what is common sense. So think of things like:
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Using a macro/bot to automate your device to try to maximize earnings
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Using emulators to run Brave
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Having an unreasonable amount of devices to “farm BAT” (this is supposed to be for real use, not just farming/mining.)
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Using a VPN to appear outside your region. (VPN alone often won’t flag you. Again common sense. If you’re Pakistan and there aren’t many ads. You use a VPN to appear in the United States, where there are more ads and better BAT earnings, it becomes suspicious. When you are ALWAYS connected to United States VPN and never your own, it definitely gets flagged for fraud. The reason being, using VPN node so far away is worse performance and likely being used just to “game the system.”)
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Attempting to modify/hack files to artificially increase earnings or circumvent restrictions.
It’s kind of some of the same things, but phrased differently. It just comes down to unusual activity that likely is out to cause harm to Brave and its advertisers by not following the terms. (because at that point, you’re basically just stealing from them)
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