Update: Players are reporting of receiving a one-day and seven-day shadowban without any warning or reason again. This has happened many times in the past months.

Players who got the shadowban said that they’re not using any 3rd party apps and they are not going beyond the daily/weekly catch limit.

Previously, players have received these types of bans because of someone at Niantic who likes to press the “red button.”

We’re investigating the case, and as soon as we have some info, you’ll be the first to know.

Update: It looks like someone pressed the wrong button at Niantic and players got the ‘Red Warning’ by mistake. We have reached out to Niantic, but we’re still waiting on confirmation. The following has been posted by finishcarts on TSR and you can find the info here.

Previous Story: Trainers, Niantic sent a new “First Strike” warning to a lot of players who transferred Pokemon to Let’s Go, to those who are using PokeBall+ and to a lot of Trainers who are using Apple Watch. Pokemon Go players are not happy with it – it seems like Niantic made a mistake with some accounts.

Many legit Pokemon Go players are concerned about the latest ‘First Strike’ wave, as they’ve never used third-party apps and received the following warning notice:

After reaching out to Niantic and sending them “Trainer Nickname,” they said the following:

Keep in mind that this is not a strike, just a reminder of our Terms of Service.

Now, if you read the message again, it clearly says that is the FIRST STRIKE.

They’ve also explained:

If you have previously received a warning or suspension notice, you may see a new acknowledgment screen when logging into Pokémon GO. This is a one-time acknowledgment for previous violations and it doesn’t necessarily indicate a new punishment on your account.

There are a lot of Trainers who received the one-day soft ban, and it stays unclear what is the cause.

Have in mind that if you received this warning notice:

If the first strike is issued, you will see a warning message within the Pokemon Go app informing you that we have detected cheating on your account. In addition to this warning, your gameplay experience may be degraded in the following ways for the duration of the warning: You may not be able to encounter rare Pokemon in the wild. These Pokemon may not appear on the map or on the Nearby Pokemon tracker.

You may be excluded from receiving new EX Raid Passes.

Our Conclusion

The Go+, PokeBall+ and Nintendo Switch are all 3rd party, as they are all Nintendo’s licensed products. In our scenario – Niantic advertised these products but forgot to put them in a whitelist, and that’s why most of the players who are getting these warning are both Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let’s Go players or players who are using the PokeBall+ accessory.