Please unflag my devices & give advice on how to prevent flagging

Dear Brave,

I’ve been using Brave Browser since June/July 2020, and have experience numerous issues when it comes to rewards and ads.

Since I started using the browser, I believe I’ve had, by a very rough estimate, 7 or 8 payouts total. I’ve had numerous months of no ads and no payouts to Uphold and later on Gemini, and had to experiment on how to resolve the issue.

I found that if I uninstalled the browser, deleted all Brave Software folders and registry entries, I could get ads and payouts, (due to new wallet and ‘new device’ profiles being made I imagine) but the problem kept happening, and my two devices kept having the same problem. I since cannot use Uphold for payouts (3 devices and you are out rule), and only one device can be used with Gemini now due to this.

I’ve tried to use the sub reddits that Brave has to resolve the issue, and this forum, and as of late and much frenetic searching have discovered that browsers/wallets can get ‘flagged’ which prevents payouts and ads. I had always thought I had either closed the browser before it could sync with Brave systems or something along those lines, something finicky.

I believe my devices have therefore been flagged, as I have no received ads in a month.
Can I please trouble someone from the Brave team to PM me to help me get my devices unflagged, and also to get them to provide information to the Brave user community on how to prevent the flagging from occurring, what behaviour on the browser leads to flagging, and perhaps at some point have a UI indicator on the browser state that it is flagged?.

Thanks beforehand.

1 Like

@snowleopardhugger Hi and welcome. :slight_smile: I’m just going to post a couple of topics from the past that may be able to help. I just copied the info from this post: PSA: Friendly Reminder For People Having Issues with Rewards/Ads

To check if your account has been flagged:

  1. Sometimes things just go wrong. In this situation you’re asked to reach out to staff/moderators such as @steeven . It is often best to DM him and provide the below quoted information. Again, that’s in a direct message. Keep your data safe and try not to share publicly.

Reasons why your account may be flagged:

  1. Your account may have been flagged.
    There are many reasons this can happen. One example is running multiple browsers with the same wallet ID (each browser on different devices have a different internal Wallet, so cloning this flags as possible issue or fraud) Another would be using a VPN to pretend you’re in another region to earn BAT. Essentially any activity that violates TOS, poses a security risk to your account, or anything that might be questionable will flag the account so that Brave and Brave users aren’t losing money. Currently there is no way to know if you’ve been flagged beyond messaging moderators/staff as mentioned in #5.

I posted a Feature Request to have something displayed indicating to the user their account/wallet has been flagged. Not a lot of votes. Seems like there are more people requesting this in other category topics than voting. :wink:

I am hoping that an “account flagged” error message is included in this open project:
Add error messaging in Rewards settings if user cannot see Ad

As for device limits (4 total), if you reach the max, you can use this to have one device removed:

Hope this can help get you started getting help! Good luck.

3 Likes

@snowleopardhugger There’s a lot of little things that can interfere with ads or earnings. When people say they are having issues with it, the challenge is trying to figure out where to start looking and it can be a lot of troubleshooting before a solution is found. Sometimes it can be that you were “flagged” but it’s not always the case.

The answer is suspicious activity and modification of Brave files. Things like manually copying or editing files/folders in the main Brave folder can get you flagged. Having a VPN that shows your location somewhere while your computer Locale has a different location is triggered as suspicious as it doesn’t know if you’re trying to cheat the system. Having multiple browsers using the same Brave Rewards wallet ID.

While it is not all encompassing, I did create a post you can read that covers some details at PSA: Friendly Reminder For People Having Issues with Rewards/Ads There are also lots of little links provided in that post which brings people to yet even more details on things that cause issues. Some of the things in that post seem to have been quoted over by Chocoholic.


Also as they mentioned, you can unlink wallets from Uphold by completing the Wallet unlinking request form


Lastly, only way to figure out for sure at the moment if you’ve been flagged is to contact one of the Brave staff who work the forums. While many come and go on here, there are 3 primary people who handle all requests. Those three are Mattches, Steeven, and SaltyBanana. They would be the ones you’d have to DM with your Wallet ID and all from brave://rewards-internals along with an explanation of what issues you’re having, so they could investigate from the server side if you’re flagged or there’s any other complications. What is important to remember is they handle thousands of posts, comments, and other issues on a daily basis. So they aren’t always quick to respond and can appear to “vanish” for days at a time as they wait for responses and continue helping others. It’s a neverending job.

2 Likes

@Saoiray Dangit, you just mostly repeated what I had just posted!! What did I do wrong? lol Or were we both posting at the same time?

I’m trying to be helpful… even if it is just reposting your links. :wink: Any tips on getting the message across appreciated. :smiley:

2 Likes

@Chocoholic and @Saoiray - thank you both for the detailed information replies :slight_smile: .

Regarding the ‘suspicious activity’, I can say that when I first started using Brave I did use a VPN (for security, back in 2020 with all my PCs) but stopped when I read on the Brave Browser Reddit that it can affect earnings.

As for multiple browsers with the same wallet ID, that might be interesting - because as I said in my original post I deleted what I could of the browser files, directories, and registry, and re-installed to fix the issue of lack of ads/rewards payouts - if what I did, did not delete the wallet ID then that could also be a cause of constant flagging - however doing that was my attempt to remedy the problem, not game the system as it were.

Once again, thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it. I will try and get in touch with a member of staff and message them the relevant info.

2 Likes

I messaged both steeven and Mattches to no avail weeks ago. I guess I’ll just uninstall Brave. Thanks to you both for helping me out anyway.

Conversation moved to DMs.