Ingress is an alternate reality game that relies on the GPS in your cell phone to know where you are so that you can interact with the portals in that location. Spoofing is the use of tools to falsify your location so that you don’t really need to be there.
In bird culture spoofing is considered a dick move.
Collect the relevant information
- agent name of the suspected spoofer
- intel links for the portals you suspect they spoofed
- date/time stamps with timezone for when you suspect they spoofed the portals
- if you are going to seek portal restoration then you should record the configuration of the portal and any links you will want restored
Pro Tip: Preserve The Link Order
Be careful to get the direction of the links, source and destination, and the order of the links right. It could be important to restore any fields that might have been dropped by the spoofer.
You don't need anything else.
NiaOps doesn't care about your theories as to how they are spoofing, or who is spoofing, or what you had for breakfast two nights before your portal was spoofed. Just collect the relevant information, submit it in the Support Portal and let NiaOps investigate.
Access the Support Portal
Niantic hasn't made it easy to find the Support Portal, but they have published a guide on how to to get to it in the scanner. The important part is clicking that icon in the upper right hand corner of the Help FAQ in Step 4. That will open a chat with Niantic Support.
- choose “Report Inappropriate Gameplay”
- follow the prompts
- at the end of the process Remy will reply with a ticket ID and the link to the Fast Track form
- fill out the Fast Track form
If your ticket is eligible for Fast Track then it will get escalated and it's also the first step in the process to getting your portal(s), link(s), and field(s) restored. What makes a ticket eligible for Fast Track? Only NiaOps knows.
Pro Tip: Don't Feed The Trolls
For fucks sake, don’t comm the suspected spoofer. Just submit the ticket and let Niantic sort it out. It’s what you pay them $5 a month for.
Also, don't comm any agents you suspect are responsible for the spoofing. Baseless accusations in comm are just begging for a comm ban.
Wait For Your Ticket To Close
NiaOps sends you a generic email when they close your ticket. Prepare to be disappointed. The email will assure you that they did something but they won't tell you what they did or to whom they did it.
How can you tell if the agent was banned? In the old days we would comm them in order to get a link to their profile. However, read the pro tip above. Don't do that. It just feeds the trolls.
Here's some alternatives to tagging a spoofer in comm:
- attack messages that are still in your alerts
- local cell score (useful for identifying name changes)
- any portals, resos, or mods that they own (useful for identifying name changes)
- any portal photos they submitted (useful for identifying name changes)
- if all else fails take this link and substitute 'Ace' for the spoofer's agent name