Shopkick Ban
It’s official! I’m BANNED.!!!
I have read articles and visited plenty of sites that talk about Shopkick cheats. I decided to do an experiment to see how long it would take for the app to realize that I’m using cheats. But of course I’m not going to put my account at risk for this, I decided to try this on my girlfriend’s iPhone. There are many ways to cheat the app and the following are just the ones I have heard:
- Scan the barcodes (UPC or QR code) online without actually going to the store.
- Record the inaudible sound that is played at store entrances for recognizing walk-ins
- GPS hack to allow the user to search more stores
I decided to use the first method to see how long it would take for me to get caught and what would happen if I do get banned. I did a simple google search for sites that have images of the barcodes for the products available to scan at the participating stores. I found a site where the barcodes are most up-to-date. With this, I started scanning the barcodes daily. It was extremely easy to gather the kicks as the barcodes are still images that can be captured by the camera steadily. Using this method, I was able to collect roughly about 200 kicks a day. However, the judgement date finally came for me on the 9th day where I received a big red notice right when I launched the app. Also, another error message was given when I try to use my kicks to redeem for rewards.
On Shopkick’s Facebook page, I found that many Shopkick users are complaining for getting banned for no apparent reason and getting no respond when they emailed this problem in. One of administrators for the page made the following comment: “Hi all- We do not ban users for redeeming rewards. If you were banned and not scanning barcodes from a website send us an email at support@shopkick.com. Thanks!-shopkick Cat.” I decided to send in an email to see if they would actually reinstate my account with no questions asked. For the moment, I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for some good news from Shopkick.
I was banned by Shopkick, too! I redeemed my points and when the item broke I returned it to the store where it was out of stock and was told my points would be returned w/in 30 days. NOPE! Instead, Shopkick sent me a notice that I had been banned. A friend of mine was also banned because Shopkick said that she scanned too quickly. It’s not her fault that the store stocked the items literally next to each other.
Hi Jeff,
I’m sorry to hear that you and your friend are both banned. I have seem a lot of complains out there and most were because they were banned for no reason. I tried emailing Shopkick to get my account reinstated but so far no respond for them…
I also got banned for no reason. I loved this app before getting banned. I really hope they would reactivate my account!! Having my fingers crossed!!
I have the stupid same fcking problem, if they said we should’ve followed the rules (which wasn’t listed) they would’ve emailed us! I blame them, I tried hard to get out of staying banned on my device so what I’m asking is how can I somehow restart the app entirely to make that ban note go away, forever?!!
Can’t you just delete the app, redownload and sign up with a new account?
Why not just follow the rules and quit trying to cheat the system!
How can they prove you weren’t in a store. Sometime I will walk in a store and forget to collect my walk ins but will scan items in the store. I don’t think they can prove you weren’t scanning in a store. I would complain.
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