FIFA 15: FUT coin traders and buyers to be banned under new EA rules

EA Sports is banishing cheaters in FIFA Ultimate Team. With FIFA 15 on the horizon it has put plans in place to rid the game of bots and game currency exchanges.

Here's what is being combated in FIFA titles: overloading servers, phishing, compromising other player accounts, and unauthorized exchange of virtual currency.

Those who manipulate in-game exploits in FIFA Ultimate Team but using bits to automatically buy items off the Transfer Market and farm coins to sell online for real money will no longer be tolerated.

This is the main reason trading in the FUT Web App has been unavailable since May 9, since EA found bots are generating "four times as many Transfer Market searches than all human FUT players combined."

Therefore, gamers detected using bots, third party bot services, or scripts "for any purpose will be subject to our ban process."

Those who use bots to farm coins, or buy and sell coins will result in an FUT account ban, possibly even a full EA account ban. This will happen immediately or after a warning or FUT Club reset. Participating in this form of cheating will cause the player's entire FUT Club, FUT account, and FIFA online access being banned.

Hundreds of thousands of FIFA 14 accounts have been banned since February for coin selling and buying

Those who violate the Terms of Service outline by EA in its FIFA games will also be banned. A player can check if their account as been banned by accessing their EA SPORTS Football Club Alerts from the FIFA 14 main menu, or look for an email. The email will be sent to the address used by the player's Origin account within 24-72 hours of action being taken - including an account ban.

Players can dispute the ban if they feel it was done in error, and below you will see how the ban process works in stages.

EA said those promoting coin selling websites is also against the Terms of Service and they are asking people to report occurrences along with the offender's Xbox/PSN gamertag or Origin ID .

Just link in MMOs, coin buying can result in a player's account being phished and ultimately compromised. If you feel your account as been accessed without your permission, you should set a new Security Question and register for Two-Factor Authentication. This is also a good idea for those who haven't had their account hacked as well.

"Moving forward, we will be more proactive in taking action, including banning accounts, against players engaged in coin buying, coin selling, coin promoting, and the use of bots," said EA. "Our main goal is to counteract bots and resolve in-game exploits used to farmed coins.

"This is an on-going process but the wheels are already in motion. Our team is constantly investigating ways to track them and keep them out of FUT."

The firm is also taking stance on Match cheating in which users "record false match results in FIFA Ultimate Team" on PC. At present, new anti-cheating tools and measures to implement in the future are being researched, and anyone caught match cheating on PC will "receive a permanent FIFA online ban."

Cheaters are also using exploits in Pro Club to boost the stats of their in-game Online Virtual Pros. With FIFA 14, EA said it has improved security and is keeping cheaters out of Pro Clubs. Gamers caught cheating on Pro Clubs will receive a permanent FIFA online ban.

Finally, cheaters who falsify match results in order to move up the FIWC leaderboards in FIFA Interactive World Cup should know that these leaderboards are being cleaned bi-weekly for cheaters. This is to ensure "a level competitive environment."

"From here on we’ll be more proactive in upholding our Terms of Service and banning those who violate the Terms of Service," said EA. "We plan on giving you regular updates on our progress against cheaters throughout the year."

You can find out more information, which is more in-depth than the summarization above, through EA's blog post.

FIFA 15 releases on September 25 in North America and in Europe on September 26 on 3DS, PC, PlayStation 3, PS4, Wii, Vita, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.