Removed from the free company I started.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

I recently had this happen in the Free Company that myself and my friend are in. While I'm now the leader, it was originally started by my friend. There was a time back pre-2.5 that he stopped playing because he took on a temporary job that required a LOT of time from him, and after 30 or 60 days (I was logging in every day) I noticed that I had been made the FC Leader while my friend was moved to a lower position in the guild. While this is good in our situation since we know each other IRL and it allows me to access the FC vault and keep things tidy and relevant, it was also a sigh of relief that no one else was in the FC besides our circle of friends.

In terms of this problem, this is what I suggest, because there's a VERY good chance there's nothing of monetary worth left in your Free Company Vault. If you do have a friend in the Free Company who is currently active and has a position of power (which I'm not sure is required for the change to take effect), have them remove anything of value from the vault that they can and hold on to it until the potential shift in power occurs. If the new FC leader who was appointed in power is still active, you could try sending him messages to add you back and give you back your place in the FC, you could also try to notify the GMs in-game, but I'm at a loss in terms of what they would be able to do in this situation.

If it's unrealistic that you can ever get back into your FC, at least take comfort in the fact that you didn't purchase a house (I really hope you didn't needlessly deposit gil in the vault either since it sounds like you were pretty much the only one doing work). I would suggest that you either seize this opportunity and join a really active FC that you can rise through the ranks in or start over with a group that's actually active and cares about contributing towards the FC. Trust me when I say it's much easier to rank up an FC in a group than it is alone.

EDIT:

P.S. I read the patch notes and it says I should only be demoted to member not completely kicked out of the guild so you guys are wrong on two fronts.

Just to let you know, you can edit your post to bypass the character limit. On that note, the process DOES only change you to member, but it's a very high probability that you were kicked by the "new" Free Company leader since they would have been the ones with the "keys to the kingdom" so to speak.