The warning email came after the suspension :rolleyes: we didn't reply

Points haven't posted for me since 9/6. The Holiday Inn is next to my house and DoubleTree is 32 miles away.

I logged in and it says my account was suspended!

Same for me. Good while it lasted.

Well, I got the letter over the weekend, but am still getting points from my automatic check-ins. I have stopped my automatic check-ins, and we'll see what happens. Here is the letter:

Suspicious account activity

Hi Don, We noticed you're a big user of Topguest (great) but that you seem to be using the service in ways that violate our Terms of Service (less great). Specifically, we have noticed over time that you seem to be checking in to our partner venues in a way that is not in the spirit of the Topguest program and in breach of Section (1) (c) of our TOS. You can find more information about our fair use policy on http://www.topguest.com/support. If we continue to see this behavior, we will terminate your Topguest account and you will no longer be eligible to earn points for your checkins. Regards, Topguest.

+1 on 6 separate accounts.

Chalk another one in for the "problems logging in only to end up finding out I was suspended days later." :(

my wife got her account suspended. Mine is still open, but no points are posting, no emails are coming either. I will continue until TG no longer allows me to sign in.

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Yes, I just checked and exact same thing happened.

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I just checked in manually and received points immediately, but I assume my days are numbered.

Welp, looks like I might as well put everything on hold for a minute. It appears Auto4sq needs some spelling help.

You can put hurdles in the way, but there are ways around everything.

Oh, so we just have to make sure that our checkins are from something that looks like an Iphone, Android, or Windows Mobile. With the Android SDK that will be super easy.

Not quite. More accurately, that location isn't known. Plus, it's easy for them to know that you can travel only so quickly.

I can still log in, however no record of my check ins over the weekend have shown. My days maybe numbered along with TG.

I don't understand. With the Android SDK I can set the location to anything I want before checking in.
Well, there is no reason to give yourself away by moving at the speed of light. I am sure most people here can cook up a suitable route, or limit themselves to one checkin per day (per ...).

Here's another data-point for the recent suspensions....and I thought I was fairly conservative...

I checked in once every weekday at the Holiday Inn that I happen to live 150 feet from via my foursquare app on my iPhone.

It was good while it lasted, but perhaps checking in every weekday is now setting off flags? I feel for the regular business travelers..

That's what I meant. It's the location being unknown or custom-set that matters, not the platform.

so no more 4^2-ed mobile web check ins? Since my city lacks just about everything, I was checking in to a neighboring states double tree...sigh....

my auto stopped posting when i got my warning on friday, so i reinstalled foursquare onto my phone and went back to the manual check in nd the points started again, we will see how long i last,

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My account vanished for awhile, with no warning or other email from TG. I'd checked in to a Doubletree only twice! I was going to let it go, but today I tried to log on again, and my account is back, with all of my 150 points in my history. For me, it seems like a lot of effort for not much reward!

I didn't receive any warning on Friday, but mine stopped also. Just resumed auto last night and still none to be found on topguest. Will try a manual check in today and see if it posts.

Automatic check-ins, as long as you do it right (location unknown, reasonable frequency, various accounts, etc) still works fine. If you can't get it to post hundreds of points per day with little to know time required on your part, probably not worth it.

Hmm. Interesting this shows up given the downward spiral of TopGuest. No harm in submitting to see if you get the 500 points for linking your Hilton account to Facebook: http://doubletree.topguest.com/ I suggest choosing "Only Me" from the app permissions so none of your friends is annoyed. If the points post later, you could always disable to app completely with no consequence.

Suspended
 

wow, I didn't think it would happen to me :(

What will I do now at 7pm CST?

I just got booted as well. Looks like I'll need to find a new place for a "drink after work."

For the record, I was using my fake Facebook account and manually checking in ~4-5 times/ week, alternating between a Doubletree and HI.

Just for everyone's information, once a FF or hotel program was linked to one locked account, it cannot be linked to another account. :-) If someone has information otherwise, let me know.

And if you do manage to change the account numbers before they shut you out, then your new TG account with the old account numbers will be closed very quickly.

Party is over for me too. I got my warning email from Celeste on 9/28 and stopped everything. I have been logging in to my topguest account each day fine-till today suspended-

No more editing/changing account numbers, they took away the feature.

To those that have gotten shut down: just curious what your frequency/total time elapsed was before getting shut down. I've been checking in to both venues (same place) every weekday via the iphone 4sq app with no problems (so far).

I had one account which only checked into PC-one time per day for 5 days a week.

Made it to 5,000 points before shutdown.

I'm starting to think they're just shutting down anyone who's earned over XX points. keeping the casual users who earn 200-500 total points across a couple programs in a month.

My account is still there but I stopped check ins for now, hoping that they don't close it during the clean up. Maybe I'll start again after I buy a smart phone but no more laptop check ins.

Same thing for me with Hilton - hit a little over 5000 and it hasn't budged since. VA died earlier. PC seems to be going strong, but that's about it.

For the record, I only ever earned 350 points (200 on Choice Privileges and 150 on PCR), and I got the warning e-mail.

Best I can figure, the only remotely suspicious thing I did on Foursquare is check-in at two eligible hotels in one day (over a year ago). If that's the new Topguest standard for cheating, it's going to catch people (like me) who attend large conventions that spread events between multiple hotels. (I was at Gen Con Indy.)

Anyway, Starwood is partnering directly with Foursquare as of today, which is an example of the real reason Topguest is doomed. Now that most of Foursquare's competitors are dead, there's very little reason for loyalty programs to bother with a middleman company.

anyone ever successfully appeal when suspended?

It appears the Topguest account I was using for United was suspended, but the accounts that I have for PC and Hilton are still alive. Strange since they haven't been giving out United points for a long time.

I find this whole suspended account issue interesting. I've earned over 3k PC points in the year I've signed up and had no issues whatsoever....at least thus far...thankfully!