That was part of my argument during the appeal. And like every other report of similar things happening, all I get back in response was some canned copy/paste email from their policies. It seemed very out of my control for something like this to happen and I felt wrongly punished - and for a lifetime!? I can understand "banned for X amount of time" but as a young developer's first offence a lifetime ban seems a bit overkill.
I also developed a website young (mid teens), which was essentially a "beautiful/unique website ranking" based on visitor submissions and upvote/downvote system. I had the essential pieces done and launched the website, super excited as my first real project.
I decided to toss on Google AdSense to see if I could potentially monetize the website by putting a single picture advertisement on the right side of the website. I was starting to generate some money (small, but exciting for a young developer). I was talking to my high school friend about what I was doing and how AdSense worked. Unbeknownst to me, he later visited my website and clicked the ads repeatedly expecting to make me hundreds of dollars... well, my account was shut down.
I tried to plead my case, Google didn't care at all. I was "banned" and a small fish. Years later (in my early 20's) I considered revisiting the idea of monetizing a site I had for an online community. I tried to appeal to Google again lifting the ban and was denied.
I was effectively banned for life from using Google AdSense as a young teen because of a friend "trying to make me rich" without him knowing the repercussions. I know there are alternatives to Google AdSense, however, Google was the one that payed the best. Still irks me to this day when I think about it...