Bans work in a couple of ways.
First, you can get banned on points. Build up enough points, and the system issues an automatic 90-day ban.
Second, you can get banned by the staff as an additional corrective measure relating to some particular issue/event.
Bans can, and do, become longer if a member shows repeat behavior that warrants a ban.
And yes, we absolutely have the capability of permanently banning a member. Permanent bans are rare, however. They don't serve much purpose, since members will simply create another account to come back anyway. As seen in other threads, this issue is not uncommon, and we deal with multiple accounts and people trying to game the system on a regular basis.
As an example, Tara was permanently banned. She requested to come back. She's been banned several times since, due to not following the site guidelines. If she gets banned again, it will likely be for a longer time than the last one.
To address something from the Lola/Calendar issue: having multiple handles for an agency or business is COMPLETELY FINE. But you need to request permission from the staff to do so. It's in the provider advertising guidelines:
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Some verified providers may have a "helper" This is defined as someone who you are allowing to access your account to post your ad on a weekly basis. This is fine at ECCIE Worldwide, however we do require that you request approval from staff prior to allowing someone this access. This will be approved on a case-by-case basis. In any case where you request a male member to assist you with your ad, conditional approval may be given and your settings/usergroup adjusted to disable access to the female-only forums. This is especially important, since you would be placing your account access in jeopardy by allowing another party to access your account without prior staff approval.
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In our efforts to minimize the multiple handle scams (fake reviews, ROS access by providers, male access to provider areas, agenda/PR posting, review bumping, etc.) we need to know if multiple accounts are accessing ECCIE from the same location. It's a painless process to set up an account for something like that. In Lola's case, we uncovered much more than just some assistant trying to promote their business venture.
