Seriously 3.0 Player Stat Mod - How safe is it? How does Epic handle its leaderboard status?

I have silver on all medals and I'm sick of it. My friend told me even if I mod it without updating the status (ie start up the game) it will still update the leader board which in turn will lead to Epic banning me from Gears or whatever. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Is it safe to mod, especially with Judgement coming out?

 

If Epic see you modding then they will ban you

 

don't do it I modded my level and all onyx 1 week later I got banned only from the game and any other accounts I try signing in gets banned to only thing that worrys me is I hope I am not banned in Gears J lol and what they do is ip ban the console I have played gars 1 and gears 2 after I am still able to go online them