The opposite of cheating (but still kinda cheating the system)

General Discussion
1

I stumbled across a user today who seems to create an account, ride one ride of approx 20-25km, get to 2nd Lvl…and then create another account with the same username for the next ride. Ride approx 20-25km, get to 2nd Lvl…then create a new account with the same username, and etc.

This person currently has 18 different accounts with the same name. All with one ride each.

I have no complaint here, I just thought this was remarkable. Some people say they aren’t concerned about levels and status. This person creates new accounts to avoid leveling up entirely.

Edit: derp, obvious now why he’s doing this. See below, lol.

2

Is that not just using the free 25km and so never paying for the service?

1 Like
3

Except that you get two free trial weeks with a new account. So might be what he’s doing. But unnecessary to do it to that extent.

But I suppose that is the intent, now that you mention it.

4

And it’s been going on for months, so certainly he could be circling back around for more free kms from those accounts each month. Now the inefficiency of the plan bothers me :smiley:

Makes me wonder if Zwift cares, or has a way to stop this if they do. Given that he could (but doesn’t) use a different name each time.

5

All they need is 31 accounts and then they can ride for free every day of the month.

The real genius of the plan is you could use it to get around Category Enforcement limits for racing. If you exceed the cat limits then you just use that account for easy training for the next 60 days until it drops you back down to D cat.

Last weeks ZwiftInsider Tiny Races had someone win all 4 cat D races with a brand new ZwiftPower account. It’s possible they are simply a new rider. It’s also possible they created a free account just to sandbag the Tiny Races.

I don’t want to link to their ZP profile directly because Zwift doesn’t like it if you point out cheating on the forums but anyone who is interested could track them down:

2 Likes
6

This is probably why some organizers use ZP DQs in CE events.

7

Not quite the same thing but I’ll piggyback on this thread.

I noticed a user today [REDACTED] with over 160km ridden when they passed me. Check their account a minute ago… they have a total of 3 visible logged activities, one of them 4001.4km.

I shrug this type of stuff off and just “ride my own ride”. Maybe it’s a bot account designed to test something?

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EDITED to redact user name. (reported the account)

8

It’s a bot. Look at his numbers for each ride
And his totals do not match the addition of the rides.

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9

Yup, that’s a bot. Although the mods don’t like usernames being posted. Even if the user isn’t a human being.

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10

Set up a Zwift account using a Gorilla Mail address (or similar) and you could have an infinite number of free accounts.

Is it worth the bother, though? :man_shrugging: