Valorant Banned Account – Reasons and Recovery Guide in 2024

If you ended up with a Valorant banned account, then this article is for you! Below, we covered all the reasons that lead to a suspension or ban, as well as how to recover it.

With that said, the most common Valorant ban reasons are:

• toxic and abusive behavior;
• cheating;
• account sharing;
• fraudulent activity;
• false positive.

Keep in mind that account bans in Valorant trigger a “VAN 61” error message, whereas hardware bans a “VAN 152” one.

Now, let’s see what each of these account restrictions mean, how to avoid them as well as whether or not they are the cause behind your Valorant penalty!

Abusive Behavior

Even though toxicity and abusive behavior often go hand in hand, there is a slight difference between the two. This also makes or breaks your case when trying to recover a Valorant account.

Similar to getting banned in League of Legends, behavior related punishments are issued for:

• toxicity, flaming, harassment;
• AFKing, griefing, inting, dodging queue, friendly fire;
• False reporting.

Toxicity in Valorant

Everyone has those games that throw you off the edge and before you realize it, you’re flaming and blaming your teammates. Yup, even though what you went through is not that big of a deal. Well, that’s why Riot implemented a variety of punishments based on the level of toxicity displayed.

That said, if your logs don’t include slurs, racism or other forms of graphic and offensive behavior, the penalties are:

• warning;
• chat ban (voice and text) for 3 to 14 days;
• suspension from ranked, for 3 to 14 days;
• entire account suspended for 7 to 14 days;
• permanently banned Valorant account.

As stated by Riot themselves, since Valorant is a voice-comms based game, they reserve the right to analyze and evaluate voice comms when a report for toxicity or abusive behavior is received.

Furthermore, this variety of account penalties is only followed for negative or rude behavior. In cases where your logs display hate speech, extreme harassment, slurs and life threats, you will get permanently banned from Valorant. Even without any prior warnings or suspensions.

Feeding, Queue Dodging and AFKing in Valorant

This happened at least once in a competitive game to every player. Be it a disconnection, a power outage, or even your cat stepping on the power button of your computer. These are normal and “happy accidents” that won’t get your account banned.

However, if you intentionally throw your game, or if you just “participate” without helping your teammates, this will probably land you an account restriction in Valorant.

Riot implemented specific trackers to find in-game behavior that they can connect to a player being AFK. They also gathered a handful of dedicated players to help them in their battle against in-game toxicity.

These players oversee reports received based on player behavior and deem it worthy of a punishment or not.

On top of that, Riot also came out to say that they might implement a “blocking system” resembling the “Avoid a teammate” system from Overwatch. This might give an advantage against griefers and intentionally throwing people.

That said, here are the Valorant punishments for AFKing and queue dodging, based on the severity of the offense:

• warning – for your first AFK / queue dodge;
• no XP for one game;
• minus 8 to 12 Rank Rating for AFKing / dodging competitive games;
• queue delay, preventing you from joining games for 3 to 240 minutes;
• ranked restriction, unable to play competitive games for 7 to 14 days;
• 7-day account suspension, followed by a permanent ban.

Lastly, keep in mind that harsher penalties apply to repeat offenders, and not for a once in a while incident. We’ve all been there, through disconnects and computer crashes, so don’t worry about that!

False Reporting

Keep in mind that while you can use the report function against players breaking the rules, it should be only your choice as to when you do it.

In that regard, you should never falsely report a player just because they played better, least of all to ask others to report them.

This falls under abuse of the report system, and can result in a suspension. More so, as with the game’s systems, you’re likely to trigger an automated restriction against a player who didn’t do anything wrong. And, once they submit an appeal, Riot will be able to see that you are the culprit behind their false punishment.

That said, if someone offended your or broke the rules, you’re more than free to report them. Just don’t encourage all your teammates to do it as well.

False reporting follows the same path as toxicity, starting with a warning or a 3-day chat restriction and all the way up to a permanent ban from Valorant.

Valorant Cheating Ban

Vanguard, the anti-cheating system implemented by Riot for Valorant, is doing a good job at protecting the game’s integrity.

But, no system is perfect and thus, it might ban a player by mistake, instead of another who that’s cheating. This is called a false positive ban.

In simpler times, cheating was always caught by an anti-cheating system. Especially if you add several reports sent by suspicious players. Nowadays however, cheat developers are using new methods to make sure that their tools remain undetected. Among them, there’s machine learning and AI implementing, which makes Vanguard’s job a little more difficult.

As with most FPS games, and similar to what gets you banned from Apex Legends or The Finals, cheating in Valorant means:

• aimbots;
• ESP;
• radar hacks;
• no recoil;
• wall hacks;
• skin changers.

Unlike other games, such as World of Warcraft for example, there are no bots in Valorant. Instead, most cheats are related to aiming and landing headshots for you, such as no recoil or aimbots.

Second in line, you have awareness cheats. Similar to the reasons behind PUBG bans, here you’ll find ESP, radar and wall hacks. These reveal the entire map, enemy location and information, allowing cheaters to gain unfair access to all the intel they need.

Lastly, there’s cosmetic cheats, such as skin changers. They’re essentially harmless for other players, because only you can see the unlocked skins. Regardless, they’re still treated, detected and punished as cheats.

Not all cheating software is created the same, however. In fact, quite a few of them temper with the game’s engine and assets, making them harder to be detected. The key word here is harder, not undetectable.

At this point, you might be wondering – I know I didn’t cheat, how come I’m still banned from Valorant? Well, how about playing with a cheater? Even if they get banned, you’d get to keep your rank, right?

Well, no. Riot has confirmed that any player caught teaming up with a cheater will get punished as well, with a 90-day Valorant suspension.

Thus, if you’ve been playing with that friend that was “very good” at Valorant, and all of a sudden they “are bored of the game”, you probably have your answer.

Other than that, if you are caught cheating, you will get a permanent Valorant ban without a warning or a temporary suspension. That is, on top of a HWID restriction, but we’ll discuss that later.

Account Sharing in Valorant

To put it in short, you can’t share your Valorant account with anyone, regardless of them being family members or not.

The fact that it’s a free game makes it accessible to everyone, so if your cousin or brother wants to play it, they can create their very own accounts.

What falls under account sharing in Valorant? Every suspicious activity that didn’t come from your PC or IP. Say you logged in into your account from New Jersey and after 15 minutes, another login from your account pops in from New York. That’s considered account sharing and will most likely be flagged by Riot as such. However, this is mostly because of the following two reasons:

• boosting;
• selling or buying accounts.

You should always be careful with whom you share your credentials. A lot of suspensions happen when a friend or brother uses one’s account to be toxic or to even cheat. And you wouldn’t want to lose all your hard work and skins due to being negligent.

Account sharing in Valorant is usually punished with a temporary suspension, followed by a permanent ban if repeated.

Boosting

As we’ve previously seen, Riot doesn’t take lightly to boosting. And especially if cheats are involved.

In fact, Riot encourages players to report boosters (cheaters included), along with their party teammate.

Another form of boosting occurs when a high ranked player creates a new account to play with their low-rank friends. Commonly known as smurfing, this is more of an unintentional boost that disrupts the game for the others.

Regardless, smurf boosting can’t always be frowned upon because high rank players often get bored of Immortal and Radiant games. But, nonetheless, it’s still something to keep in mind when you make a new account and play competitive ranked games, as you will receive a few reports.

As for boosting punishments, they are:

• temporary suspension;
• removal of earned rewards / rank reset;
• permanently banned Valorant account.

Selling and Buying Accounts

Let’s paint this picture. Enthusiastically, you find a website that sells Valorant accounts. Seemingly legit, you purchase one of those accounts.

Now, you log into this account, start playing and perhaps do something that gets you reported a few times. At this point, when reviewing the reports, Riot might notice the unusual activity behind the account.

Because of that, they’ll ask you for ownership verification. Without it, you will get locked out of your Valorant account, until you’re able to prove that you’re its creator.

Then again, the same thing can happen if the original owner of the account ever tries to claim it back.

You see, in these types of deals you’ll always get the short end of the stick because you never know for sure what can happen with that account. Even if the service you buy it from is legitimate, the person from which they too bought it prior to that might be ill-intended.

In that regard, it’s very tough to lose an account you paid a hefty amount for, and where you most likely put your heart and soul into.

Valorant Penalties for Fraudulent Activity

There are many forms of fraudulent activity regarding your Valorant account and you should be mindful of the following issues:

• real-money transactions;
• fraudulent purchases;
• compromised accounts.

All of the offenses in this category tie really well together but there are a few differences between them. Thus, we’ll try to go over all of them for better a understanding as to steer clear of.

Real Money Transactions

RMT is when you make a transaction using real-world money in exchange of in-game services or goods. This can be VP, boosts, accounts, cosmetics and so forth.

If you ever find yourself restricted in Valorant for RMT, it doesn’t necessarily mean you made a fraudulent purchase. It just mean you’re never allowed to make any purchases from other sources other than Riot and its official partners.

The risks for RMT are similar to the ones for cheating or boosting, including temporary suspensions, removal of the purchased in-game goods.

On top of that, for RMT you can also have your Valorant account locked, depending on the nature of the purchase and the amount in question. The lock will only be lifted when you pay back the missing amount. But, we’re covering that below, under fraudulent purchases.

Fraudulent Purchases

Fraudulent purchases in Valorant are offenses related to money transactions as well as to the source of the funds. Among them, there’s:

• chargebacks;
• compromised accounts used to buy or send in-game goods;
• stolen payment information, used for in-game goods;
• third party websites disputing their payments after you received the items.

Riot has zero tolerance for anything even remotely close to fraud, and will issue a permanent Valorant ban for any account involved in it.

However, in most cases where the chargeback comes as a result of a mistake, they offer the chance to pay back the missing amount. For example, if you buy VP from a third party seller, and they charge it back, you still need to pay the full value of the VP to Riot, to get your Valorant account unlocked.

That said, if this happens as a result of your account getting hacked into, submitting proof in that regard should be more than enough to have your Valorant account unlocked and reinstated.

So, what else can get you a penalty in Valorant for fraudulent purchases?

• Parents or friends charging back a purchase you made using their credit card information;
• You (accidentally) disputing a payment to Riot;
• Your bank blocking or reverting a payment made to the Valorant store;
• Third party sellers you used to buy VP disputing their payments.

Truly, the only way to resolve this kind of problem is to simply pay back the amount you owe. This can mean that you need to talk to your relatives if they disputed the payment or call and clear up any misunderstanding with your bank.

The good part about this, is the fact that if your account gets locked due to a chargeback, you won’t have to pay back Riot until you have the full amount owed. As in, they will keep your account suspended until you’re able to cover the balance.

However, a good portion of bans happen to people that use stolen credit card information and that really is against the law. Never engage in this type of activity, as not only it will get your Valorant account permanently banned, but you may also face legal repercussions.

Be cautious when purchasing from third party sites that are not affiliated with Riot or Valorant, especially if they have those amazing deals that are too good to be true. They probably are.

Hacked Valorant Account

Every now and then, some unfortunate folks fall victims to having their accounts hacked. As a result, they’re used for fraudulent purchases or sold to others, and it may seem like there’s nothing else to do about it.

But that’s not true. A compromised Valorant account is easy to recover with the help of its Support Team. In order to recover your Riot account, you’ll need to prove your account ownership through a series of questions.

They’ll help you recover it, but it is ultimately your responsibility to secure it and keep it safe. Also, ensure you secure the email behind your account as well, as that’s another way to prevent compromises.

Once you get it back, always pay attention to:

• fake emails impersonating Riot, asking to verify your password;
• weak passwords, or shared same password across different accounts and platforms;
• account sharing;
• running an updated antivirus software (even a free one is fine, rather than nothing);
• playing from other computers;
• using unsecure internet connections;
• things you download on your computer.

Apart from that, be careful as to who has access to your device. If you don’t have your own and personal computer, ensure you scan it before any login (email, games, banking, etc.), and never set your apps and browser to remember your passwords.

Lastly, ensure you set up two-factor authentication for every account possible (including emails).

Valorant Banned Account for No Reason

You already heard about false-positive bans, and even though it feels like a summer-camp scary story, it does happen, more often than you think. What it means is that Vanguard, the anti-cheating system wrongfully detects something on your account, flags it and bans it.

Valorant false-positive penalties can come due to:

• players massively and wrongfully reported you;
• being mistaken for a cheater (yes, it can happen);
• logging in from various devices or locations within a short period of time;
• genuine software being mistaken for a cheating one (coding, overlay, streaming software).

Another form of a false positive Valorant ban is unusual activity or gameplay that happens on your account.

Say you’re lucky and you get a 10 or 20-win streak, leaving you euphoric. Well, this might be a red flag for some, leading to a suspension. Add to that playing behind a VPN, and you’re set for a boosting case, even if that’s not the situation.

HWID Bans in Valorant

HWID bans are essentially restrictions placed on your entire computer, not just your account.

They cannot be bypassed with a VPN, as your actual computer parts (their unique identifiers) are banned. Sort of like a console ban, if you’ve ever seen that happen.

HWID bans in Valorant are usually confirmed by an “VAN 152” error message.

Unlike other games, Valorant HWID bans are not permanent, as they expire in about 4 months from the time they were issued. But, don’t try bypassing it during this time, as that can lead to your new PC parts getting banned as well.

What you can do, however, is appeal them. Valorant HWID restrictions can be appealed in the same way as account bans, using the exact same form and process.

What is not Bannable in Valorant

This might be good news for some of you, but smurfing and owning multiple accounts is not bannable in Valorant. A suspension only applies when you’re purposefully boosting someone else or you’re griefing low-rank players.

The Valorant Team also announced that if you’re at the beginning of your journey and you somehow friendly fire your teammates in the process, there’s no hard feelings, only a warning. Don’t go around killing your allies on purpose though! You might land yourself a ban.

Connection problems or faulty routers, even though frustrating, especially when you queue up, won’t get you banned in Valorant. The Agents have good systems in place, that protect players from such actions. But just as with friendly fire, don’t disconnect on purpose if you want to steer clear of an account restriction.

How to Avoid a Valorant Account Ban

Although there’s still a small chance to get suspended from Valorant for no reason, it can be significantly decreased. Here’s what to keep away from:

• cheating, of any type (including software, glitches, bugs, exploits);
• boosting;
• toxicity and abusive behavior;
• account sharing;
• buying accounts;
• RMT or fraudulent activity;
• running heavy or coding software while playing (such as AutoIt);
• putting yourself in a position to be reported multiple times, for any reason;
• logging in from unsecure computers or connections;
• placing yourself at risk of being compromised.

That said, as we’ve mentioned, there’s still a small chance to restricted from Valorant, be it as a false positive or a human mistake.

With that in mind, let’s see how you can recover your Valorant account!

How to Recover a Banned Valorant Account

The account recovery form is similar to submitting a Valorant unban appeal.

Once that’s in place, press the red “Submit” button underneath the form, and your appeal is sent to Riot, for review.

Keep an eye on your email (Spam folder included), to know once they get back to you!

Conclusion

This is it! These are all the reasons for which you can get banned in Valorant, its recovery guide as well as how to avoid going through this altogether.

Once again, be on your best behavior when interacting with other players, don’t cheat in any way and don’t put yourself in a position to get hacked or reported!

Let us know if you encounter a different ban reason and remember, if you ever need our help, we’re here for you!

And lastly, here’s a quick Q&A about Valorant bans: