Thanks for the heads up about something we've all been aware of since last year. Not knocking your warning, but "I swear my friends were banned!" is hardly empirical evidence. All posts like these do is insight unnecessary fear when absolutely nothing is confirmed. Not to mention, if your friend is banned there is no guarantee it was from Pokemon unless they were using Festival Plaza online.... Just saying the proof is in the pudding. Pics or it didn't happen.
Bans are hardly every done on a one on one basis outside of blatant online cheating. More often then than not the console is "flagged" to be banned and in a culling, they implement these bans at one time; not one at a time when they breach ToS/EULA....
Not to mention I'd hardly trust someone with no proof and one post.....