Ok, so Zipper finally takes notice on the whole rank-up thing, and just banned like 5000 or more players.
So if you happen to see your rank jump....
From DevGru-Echo
Account Verification - All NEWLY CREATED accounts are now automatically 'verified'. This means features that used to be restricted to 'verified' accounts are now available to everyone. This includes Friends lists, Clan creation, and Stats / Rankings, etc. So no more verifying with new accounts, much like Socom 2 now.
Inactive Accounts - If an account is inactive for a period of time, the player name for that account will not be displayed in game (stats, rankings, friendslists, etc). To 'remove' the inactive status, the player needs to log into the game via the Playstation 2.