CS2 player loses $100,000 of items after wrongful ban

Wrongfully accused and punished.

Image via Valve

We’ve all had mishaps that cost us progress, like when your game crashes and you haven’t saved for hours. But it hurts so much more when you’re not to blame for the problem. This is exactly what happened to a CS2 player after Valve’s anti-cheat wrongfully banned them for using AMD’s anti-lag feature, losing access to their coveted weapon skin collection in the process.

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On Oct. 13, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, a player shared that they lost over $100,000 worth of items when they were banned from the game in the middle of a match.

Recently, due to VAC’s increased activity in banning players, some players have been wrongfully banned for using the AMD Anti-Lag+ feature, as it resulted in false positives that led to their accounts being suspended.

Obviously, after getting your account banned, you’re prevented from any and all activities, including trading in-game items. This has proven costly for many players, especially Neon, who lost access to their account with items worth over $100,000 in total.

Neon boasts a collection of over 1000 CS skins, which include rare items like a Factory New Butterfly Knife Fade worth over $3,000, and a Field-Tested quality Dragon Lore.

In a recent update on Oct. 12, AMD released an Anti-Lag+ feature that has resulted in decreased input-to-response delay. This unintentionally causes VAC to flag it as an unpermitted feature, banning players who didn’t do anything wrong.

Even with these high-profile false positives, cheating issues remain rampant in CS2, with many pros complaining about the state of the game.

Valve has advised players to refrain from using the Anti-Lag feature and to disable it until a solution is found between Valve and AMD. This way, you can avoid being wrongfully flagged by VAC and banned. Valve has urged AMD to release a fix quickly, so hopefully, the problem will be solved soon.

Author
Image of Elmaz Sabovic
Elmaz Sabovic
Freelance Writer at Dot Esports. Covering AAA releases, indie games, and esports. Fell in love with video games at age 7, and never been the same since.