EA Bans Users for Asking for Refunds

[The Lugz]

If you read it, they're only banning people who try to get charges reversed at their bank, which is common practice.

Yeah I noticed that too. Even Valve will ban you with no recourse for charge-backs.

This, chargebacks are generally big problems for companies because you have accused them of not providing the product.

A chargeback is an extreme option and using it when you have recieved the product is illegal. Typically it is when you pay for something by credit card and the business goes busto without giving you the product.

exactly, this is illegal and you could actually be charged with fraud in some places!
my bank won't allow a charge back unless you fill out the appropriate forms,
which prevents people getting in trouble over this

ea is actually following good business practice on this one, .. did i just say that? 'sticks fingers in plug'

 

[BloatedGuppy]

With all the information available, if people then ended up still purchasing the game with expectations of perfection, I say to them, "To bad, you don't deserve a refund".

At this point, I think EA needs to just put up a sign on their sites and in front of their offices, "No refunds, no exceptions".

Unbelievable.

You think the issue here is that PERFECTION was expected, and not delivered, do you?

That takes some gall. I applaud you for testicular fortitude.

This is probably the best worded and most clearly explained position on this topic I have ever seen. If I could give you karma for this I would. I'll probably be often citing this post in the future.

You do that. It's a heap of nonsense.

There's a country mile between "perfection" and "remotely functional". If you think the state of the game right now is acceptable for an online product at launch, then you might as well be an alien selling me moon rocks, because we do not inhabit the same reality.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/07/simcity-vs-the-people-why-apologies-arent-enough/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/03/07/amazon-pulls-digital-edition-of-simcity-as-ea-struggles-to-fix-servers/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57573053-1/simcity-launch-a-complete-disaster/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/we-built-this-simcity-on-a-shaky-foundation-of-drm/

You can wax poetic and pontificate on consumer awareness and the legitimacy of always online all you want. If you ship a product and sell it to consumers, you have an obligation to meet certain minimal quality standards. The situation with this game is WAY past the point of acceptable/understandable start up issues.

 

[VoidWanderer]

I wonder if EA and the guys that 'came up' with WarZ have lunch meetings to discuss 'business strategies'..

 

[Rachmaninov]

Depends where the fault is. Is it the companies' fault your graphics card isn't compatible with the game? Not really. System requirements come with every PC game I've ever seen/bought. Says it right on the box.

Now if it was an instance where let's say it's like Skyrim was at launch, that's a different story. That is fundamentally broken.

Since we're talking about EA, and most specifically, SimCity, I think that would be the best subject to analyze.

And there, the fault is not with the customer. It's not the customers fault they bought a game and can't play it. That fault lies with EA.

Under examples like this, people will so often preach patience, but that argument is incredibly flawed. Only in the gaming industry would people buy a product, find out they can't use it unless they wait a week for the issues to stabilize, and then get bitched at for complaining about it.

I'm sure if I was selling people computers, which wouldn't work at all, until they'd been in place in your house for a week, I'd go out of business before I could even finish writing a returns policy, let alone before I tried to bash customers over the head with it.

And EA has the weakest excuse of all. They pay to turn a single player franchise multiplayer just so they can crowbar in always-online DRM and microtransactions, and then refuse to pay for sufficient server space to handle the volume of customers.

If anyone is unable to log in to SimCity because of EA's server issues, that's EA's fault and EA is legally obliged to give a refund to anyone who asks.

I wonder if EA and the guys that 'came up' with WarZ have lunch meetings to discuss 'business strategies'..

Nah, the guys that dreamed up WarZ are much too subtle for EA. EA like their evil with red skin, horns, goat hooves and a forked tongue, sitting on a throne made of money stuck together will viscera.

 

[Madgamer13]

I am more concerned about the title of this topic, while I certainly do not mean to offend the original poster, but the evidence linked appears bias to me and only suggests threatening of a ban, not an actual ban. So far, I havn't seen any evidence that states that EA has actually been banning people for asking for refunds.

But that doesn't matter, we're all too busy bashing EA and putting the world to rights by disussing important issues like consumer rights while atop our soapboxes.

 

[TheRaider]

Depends where the fault is. Is it the companies' fault your graphics card isn't compatible with the game? Not really. System requirements come with every PC game I've ever seen/bought. Says it right on the box.

Now if it was an instance where let's say it's like Skyrim was at launch, that's a different story. That is fundamentally broken.

Since we're talking about EA, and most specifically, SimCity, I think that would be the best subject to analyze.

And there, the fault is not with the customer. It's not the customers fault they bought a game and can't play it. That fault lies with EA.

Under examples like this, people will so often preach patience, but that argument is incredibly flawed. Only in the gaming industry would people buy a product, find out they can't use it unless they wait a week for the issues to stabilize, and then get bitched at for complaining about it.

I'm sure if I was selling people computers, which wouldn't work at all, until they'd been in place in your house for a week, I'd go out of business before I could even finish writing a returns policy, let alone before I tried to bash customers over the head with it.

And EA has the weakest excuse of all. They pay to turn a single player franchise multiplayer just so they can crowbar in always-online DRM and microtransactions, and then refuse to pay for sufficient server space to handle the volume of customers.

If anyone is unable to log in to SimCity because of EA's server issues, that's EA's fault and EA is legally obliged to give a refund to anyone who asks.

I wonder if EA and the guys that 'came up' with WarZ have lunch meetings to discuss 'business strategies'..

Nah, the guys that dreamed up WarZ are much too subtle for EA. EA like their evil with red skin, horns, goat hooves and a forked tongue, sitting on a throne made of money stuck together will viscera.

Apple iPhone grip of death?

 

[Cpt. Lozan]

Yiiiiiiiikes.
That's pretty drastic there E.A.
Even for you guys.

I mean even if let's say the users were in the right to ask for a refund....BANNING their ACCOUNT..for asking?
Makes you look a bit suspicious.

This is the same company who denied someone the right to play a game they bought because they said that "[bioware] had sould their souls to the EA devil"

I don't think this is that big of a step for them.

 

[Orthus]

At this point, I think EA needs to just put up a sign on their sites and in front of their offices, "No refunds, no exceptions".

So lets give EA a free pass on releasing broken games, just so they don't have to give out refunds for simcity?

I think refunds should be a case by case basis. I think those who haven't downloaded a game should be able to get a refund. this would mean that they have to track game downloads, but it does offer a way for consumers to get refunds in the digital age.

 

[Basement Cat]

Gooks isn't a racial slur in Australia. It's just a kind of general word we use to describe stupid people here or people that are being a jackass. It's not even considered a swear word around here, to be honest.

This is the first I've heard of it being either, but I assumed it was this. It doesn't make sense in context as a slur.

Don't worry about it. This is just a case of different cultural meanings for identical words.

FYI in the USA "gook" is a pejorative term that was used by American soldiers fighting in Vietnam to refer to the Vietnamese and Cambodians. It later became a generic racial slur used in reference to Asians in general.

I'm reminded of how the word "Bloody" was as vulgar a term for the British in the 19th and early 20th centuries as it gets, but to me and my fellow Americans it's barely a cuss word. Most wouldn't even consider it a cuss word.

Cultural semantic differences.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Yeah consumer rights, yada yada yada...

Consumer rights mean nothing if people aren't using consumer smarts, really, consumer common sense at this point.

Consumer rights doesn't give a person the ability to be oblivious when purchasing things. It is being downright stupid to just take everything on faith because, "stuff shouldn't/can't be released if it isn't perfect".

A good consumer does research on the product. If they have past experience, they use that experience to tell them what to expect from such a product, normal or expected cons.

Example this is how I viewed the game and situation for possible future purchase [which I will once I get the right PC. My internet is perfect so I don't have to worry about always online] :

EA said outright that the game would be an always online product, that single player is there, but the game has been shifted to a multiplayer for proper experience.

With the game economy and how many people can share parts of the game, it is basically a SimCity MMO.

From my past experience, MMO and other online games, never have perfect launches, and I don't expect them ever to[it comes with the territory].

So in that scenario, as a customer, I did my research and I know what is par for the course with such a product. So, if something bad or a bit worse happens, I know not to worry, that I will get to play the game soon.

Consumer rights aren't the be all and end all. The customer is always right, isn't a real thing.

As far as I'm concerned, oblivious customers lose the vast majority of their rights if they aren't paying attention to the info right in front of them that has been given to tell them what they are buying and what to expect.

It is why smokers can't sue tobacco companies anymore if they get cancer, companies no have label, and the research is available.

(Edit: finger slipped and accidentally hit post.)

It is common knowledge these days that online games are never perfect on launch. EA explained what they were making and what people were buying.

With all the information available, if people then ended up still purchasing the game with expectations of perfection, I say to them, "To bad, you don't deserve a refund".

At this point, I think EA needs to just put up a sign on their sites and in front of their offices, "No refunds, no exceptions".

I'm going to school to be an engineer. I'm not genius smart, but I'm not dumb. I read things I'm presented with. If I don't agree, like the EULA of Origin and that whole mess, I don't agree. My voice isn't important, but it does what it does for me.

Consumer rights and Consumer personal responsibility does not erode one or the other. Do companies hire lawyers to make the language in their EULA as common sense as possible? Do they hire the lawyers to make sure each party gets their fair share? No. They hire these guys to obtain as much as power as possible.

Now yeah, it's a great time to say 'Well, Consumer Responsibility'. I bring up the engineer thing for a few reasons. One, I'm obviously of the age where I can research things myself, but not everyone who was bought this game are. That's even middle of the road because those people who are buying it should probably read them, but those out of touch do not realize how badly we are consumers of games are getting screwed. But it does bring up another point: not everyone who plays games are as smart as to realize exactly what they are agreeing with.

I'm not saying because someone is stupid enough to buy something without reading, they should get a refund. But if Companies specifically muddy the language in EULA that maybe someone of average intelligence needs to get a dictionary or ask for help several times, it's probably not worded in his or her best interests.

Personally, I am wary when I see EULA, and they are popping up all over the place. I can't bring a lawyer to the table and counteroffer. It's always their way or nothing. It's a trend in gaming and a lot of digital media that is very unsettling, and I do like seeing 'Consumer's Rights' being dragged out of the closet with the dust wiped off of it. Maybe we'll get it right in the future, but if we just let it go by the way side it's just a down hill from here.

 

[srm79]

Well there have to be some of us around to fly the flag of logic when the rest of you are busy slinging your shit around with typical 'lol EA is the devilz' posts.

OT: From what I understand from the replies this was predictably blown out of proportion, but I'm sure I remember someone mentioning in a Sim City thread that it's written into EA's T&C's that if you ask for a refund you can be banned.

I dunno if he was kidding, but the rest of his post seemed serious enough.

See, I just don't understand this "logic". Are you saying it's acceptable for a company to turn around and say "regardless of how unsatisfactory you find our product, we're keeping your money. And if you complain about it, we'll take back our shit and keep your money"?

That's basically theft. And this is OK?

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a chip on my shoulder about EA. I don't like the route they have taken with insisting that all games have multiplayer, whether they need it or not, and I don't like what has happened to some once-great studios under their ownership but we're surely at the stage now where any studio selling itself to EA knows what they are getting into.

I even understand the logic behind the yearly sports releases that so many decry. If, say, a football fan is willing to spend £100+ on new strips every year, hundreds of pounds on tickets to games etc, then of course they'll pay £40 for an annual update to FIFA. And in fairness every couple of years they do bring something new into the game.

I could even (gasp) be accused of being part of the "EA problem" - I bought into the Premium thing on Battlefield 3 and have loved every bit of it.

This, however is blatantly wrong, even for a company with EA's reputation. I don't see how any reasonable consumer could look at this situation and say to themselves "nothing wrong with that". They put out a press release saying that unsatisfied customers could ask for a refund. Why do that then tell someone who follows up on it to fuck off? It's not even like the guy trying for the refund was being a douche or being overly aggressive to the EA rep. It's just plain wrong, end of story, and if the guy is in the UK I hope he takes this up with the Office of Trading Standards.

 

[rob_simple]

Well there have to be some of us around to fly the flag of logic when the rest of you are busy slinging your shit around with typical 'lol EA is the devilz' posts.

OT: From what I understand from the replies this was predictably blown out of proportion, but I'm sure I remember someone mentioning in a Sim City thread that it's written into EA's T&C's that if you ask for a refund you can be banned.

I dunno if he was kidding, but the rest of his post seemed serious enough.

See, I just don't understand this "logic". Are you saying it's acceptable for a company to turn around and say "regardless of how unsatisfactory you find our product, we're keeping your money. And if you complain about it, we'll take back our shit and keep your money"?

That's basically theft. And this is OK?

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a chip on my shoulder about EA. I don't like the route they have taken with insisting that all games have multiplayer, whether they need it or not, and I don't like what has happened to some once-great studios under their ownership but we're surely at the stage now where any studio selling itself to EA knows what they are getting into.

I even understand the logic behind the yearly sports releases that so many decry. If, say, a football fan is willing to spend £100+ on new strips every year, hundreds of pounds on tickets to games etc, then of course they'll pay £40 for an annual update to FIFA. And in fairness every couple of years they do bring something new into the game.

I could even (gasp) be accused of being part of the "EA problem" - I bought into the Premium thing on Battlefield 3 and have loved every bit of it.

This, however is blatantly wrong, even for a company with EA's reputation. I don't see how any reasonable consumer could look at this situation and say to themselves "nothing wrong with that". They put out a press release saying that unsatisfied customers could ask for a refund. Why do that then tell someone who follows up on it to fuck off? It's not even like the guy trying for the refund was being a douche or being overly aggressive to the EA rep. It's just plain wrong, end of story, and if the guy is in the UK I hope he takes this up with the Office of Trading Standards.

Oh don't misunderstand, I'm not defending EA's actions, what I'm against is the droves of people who flock in every time EA is mentioned to say 'well what do you expect it's EA' or 'and this is why I will never buy a game from EA' before all the facts have come to light, and some even have the cheek to have a go at those of us who actually say, 'well hold on, do we know what really happened, here?'.

I've not been keeping up with this particular story, but my understanding from reading the first couples of pages was that while the OP had implied that this was happening to hundreds of people, the actual story only regarded one user having the problem, and it was the threat of a ban not a flat-out ban. Then it came to light that the ban happens if you reverse the charge for the product at your bank which, if EA's system shows you own the product, they will regard as stealing which is absolutely a bannable offense, not to mention a crime.

The point I'm getting at, here, is that while EA's delivery system is clearly broken and their customer service sucks judging by the posts I've read, it is a completely different story to what all the kneejerk reactionists were painting when this topic first came up.

Like I say, I'm not defending EA in this situation, but I will always give them the benefit of the doubt until we can get all the available information, because the (partially justified) hate against them almost inevitably leads to a heavily biased chain of events, and if people weren't always so quick to jump in with 'told you so' remarks we might be able to foster more rational discussion and get to the truth that much quicker.

 

[Church185]

Well, the way I look at it is this:

If someone buys a game with an online component, say for example Diablo 3, and they (for whatever reason) use a chargeback to get a refund for the game, I think it would be fair for Blizzard to ban you from Diablo 3. After all, if you bought Diablo 3, and felt so appalled that you had to request a chargeback, you clearly didn't want the product after all. And I'd even agree on Blizzard refusing to sell anything else to this person.

If someone buys a game from a digital distribution platform, and feels (again, for whatever reason) the need to use a chargeback, it would not be fair to then deny them access to the rest of the games they've already paid for.

And it doesn't even make sense business-wise. If I used a chargeback for a refund of a Steam game, and permanently lost my access to my extensive Steam library, I'd be after Valve for compensation for all of those games, instead of just the one. At the very least, I'd be a bigger headache, and at most, they'd end up paying me for over a hundred games instead of one.

I completely understand that losing all your games is shitty. I get that, but using a chargeback is claiming that the company put a fraudulent charge on your bank account or credit card. Using it inappropriately to get a refund is fraudulent activity against the company you make the claim against. Getting banned from their digital distribution seems justified in that case. I'm still saying that losing your games is really awful, but if you are really in the right and deserve a refund for the product, they will give it to you. If they don't, take your evidence to the Better Business Bureau, I'm sure they would love to know that a company is screwing consumers. Posting on a forum to get attention will not solve a whole lot.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip

This is probably the best worded and most clearly explained position on this topic I have ever seen. If I could give you karma for this I would. I'll probably be often citing this post in the future.

Thanks. I do my best to be as clear as possible, thought it is one of the reasons I try not comment as much as I want to.

I tend to tell myself that I'm going to make a quick and concise comment, but then it ends up being twenty or so minutes later before I post.

You do that. It's a heap of nonsense.

There's a country mile between "perfection" and "remotely functional". If you think the state of the game right now is acceptable for an online product at launch, then you might as well be an alien selling me moon rocks, because we do not inhabit the same reality.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/07/simcity-vs-the-people-why-apologies-arent-enough/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/03/07/amazon-pulls-digital-edition-of-simcity-as-ea-struggles-to-fix-servers/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57573053-1/simcity-launch-a-complete-disaster/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/we-built-this-simcity-on-a-shaky-foundation-of-drm/

You can wax poetic and pontificate on consumer awareness and the legitimacy of always online all you want. If you ship a product and sell it to consumers, you have an obligation to meet certain minimal quality standards. The situation with this game is WAY past the point of acceptable/understandable start up issues.

You can point out "articles" like those all you want, which some have already been pointed out in this thread(and other similar rage and news threads.

I still stand by what I said concerning consumer rights and responsibilities. I didn't say those things without full knowledge of whats going on.

I've had plenty of experience with new online launches, and even with all that has happened, I still see a typical online launch with expected out of nowhere problems. I've seen people play the game with no problems and others that did have problems, typical hit and miss online launch problems. With millions of people playing, it is expected you will have large amounts of both types of encounters with the game.

You can test and tweak a game and the servers all you want but you are never going to get a launch where every person can play and is happy.

I consider, if it works for some, as minimal quality standards. With the complexity and temperamental nature of online gaming technology, especially using such a new technology with Cloud storage and processing to run the game, your minimal quality standards for release can't be that the game is outright playable for everybody on the start. That is the reason I say people are looking for perfection, because in order for the game to be at that playability level, it has to be functionally perfect.

If you want online games to be released with that level of playability, developers would have to work on such games for around as long as Duke Nukem Forever's development time(and we all know how that turned out), but then the developer would be faced with the other edge of the proverbial sword with the problem that when they finally release their perfect functioning game, it will be out of date for the times and probably again face functionality problems because it took them so long to tweak the game that it isn't compatible with what technology has progressed to.

At this point, an online game not working for everybody on launch is expected. It is something we have to live with if we want the games we have an invested interest in to come out within a reasonable time.

If I had gotten SimCity on launch and I was one of the ones effected, yes I would be a little annoyed, but I would spend the maintenance time playing one of the other hundreds PC or Console games I have at my finger tips in my room.

With online games, if I can't play on launch because of problems(doesn't matter how much I paid), my first response will never be that I want refund.

Besides, I guarantee that the reason this little problem is getting this kind of attention, is because it is EA.

EA....The company that people love to hate because it is EA. They could give money to help feed starving orphans and people would still find something wrong with what they did. I would at least expect a stupid comment like, "Stupid EA! Orphans can't eat money!"

I'll end by saying:

I'll never be a part of the Rabble Rabble Refund Gang. Patience is a virtue. With calls for refunds only a day or two after an online launch, it's pretty sad how many people aren't virtuous.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You can point out "articles" like those all you want, which some have already been pointed out in this thread (and other similar rage and news threads).

I still stand by what I said concerning consumer rights and responsibilities. I didn't say those things without full knowledge of whats going on.

I've had plenty of experience with new online launches, and even with all that has happened, I still see a typical online launch with expected out of nowhere problems. I've seen people play the game with no problems and others that did have problems, typical hit and miss online launch problems. With millions of people playing, it is expected you will have large amounts of both types of encounters with the game.

You can test and tweak a game and the servers all you want but you are never going to get a launch where every person can play and is happy.

I consider, if it works for some, as minimal quality standards. With the complexity and temperamental nature of online gaming technology, especially using such a new technology with Cloud storage and processing to run the game, your minimal quality standards for release can't be that the game is outright playable for everybody on the start. That is the reason I say people are looking for perfection, because in order for the game to be at that playability level, it has to be functionally perfect.

If you want online games to be released with that level of playability, developers would have to work on such games for around as long as Duke Nukem Forever's development time(and we all know how that turned out), but then the developer would be faced with the other edge of the proverbial sword with the problem that when they finally release their perfect functioning game, it will be out of date for the times and probably again face functionality problems because it took them so long to tweak the game that it isn't compatible with what technology has progressed to.

At this point, an online game not working for everybody on launch is expected. It is something we have to live with if we want the games we have invested interest in to come out within a reasonable time.

If I had gotten SimCity on launch and I was one of the ones effected, yes I would be a little annoyed, but I would spend the maintenance time playing one of the other hundreds PC or Console games I have at my finger tips in my room.

With online games, if I can't play on launch because of problems(doesn't matter how much I paid), my first response will never be that I want refund.

Besides, I guarantee that the reason this little problem is getting this kind of attention, is because it is EA.

EA....The company that people love to hate because it is EA. They could give money to help feed starving orphans and people would still find something wrong with what they did. I would at least expect a stupid comment like, "Stupid EA! Orphans can't eat money!"

I'll end by saying:

I'll never be a part of the Rabble Rabble Refund Gang. Patience is a virtue. With calls for refunds only a day or two after an online launch, it's pretty sad how many people aren't virtuous.

I know it's fait d'accompli that a contentious response to a forum post will provoke an equally contentious reply, but all you've done here is regurgitate your previous talking points, and I've already been pretty frank about how I view your perspective. On the surface, it appears almost willfully obstinate. You hand wave all evidence of the disastrous launch...which has been EXTREMELY well documented and given to us from reputable sources...as "articles", and attribute them to "rage threads". You continue to insist that this is all part and parcel of launching an online game, and that expecting the game to work within a 3-4 day window of launch is "expecting perfection". I honestly don't know what to say to that. It is so far from reasonable you have stunned me into blinkered confusion. So well done on that count.

You carry on with inferred ad hominem in the form of "I would just spend my time doing something else", as though that hadn't occurred to me, or that wasn't exactly what I was already doing. I've not even asked for a refund. I am not leading the refund charge. I do believe, however, that launching a broken product should carry consequences, and customers asking for refunds can and should be one of them.

You ALSO carry on with "people love to hate because it's EA", as though I hadn't defended and promoted this game in spite of that fact right up until the moment of launch. I've hated EA since the late 90's, yet I continue to buy their games. Because I assess games on a case by case basis, and don't run publisher/developer boycotts. I realize the canned response to this is "Lol sucks to be you for trusting EA", but EA products hit as often as they miss. This has nothing to do with who is publishing it, although to be frank EA has done very little in the preceding 12-15 years to earn good will, so they don't have much political capital to draw on when they shit the bed.

I'll say it again...I've been playing online games since the 90's. I've been in like a dirty shirt on almost every major MMO launch since Ultima Online, and I've seen some doozies. This is by far, and without question, the most bungled and singularly fucked up launch of an online product I have ever been witness to. Those "articles" are spot on. The savaging the launch of the game is getting in the gaming press...a press, I might add, that is traditionally sycophantic...is entirely merited. For someone to preen on a forum and claim this is business as usual for online launches takes a level of chutzpah I wasn't even aware existed in the human race.

You have created a false dilemma between "the perfect game" and "a completely non-functional POS" in order to argue that everyone is impatient and silly, and EA are good dudes doing a good job, and little things like "The game doesn't work" is just par for the course in this exciting new era of online gaming, which is almost 20 years old now. It's ridiculous to assume that they, say, would have launched the game with more than 6 servers, to assure this wouldn't happen, after bloviating endlessly about how much they learned from the Diablo 3 fiasco. Or that they'd freeze sales of the game after the demand crushed the servers, like Arena Net did with GW2 despite not experiencing 1/10th of the technical difficulties SimCity has. Or that they'd communicate more clearly and readily, so that it wasn't a constant mystery as to whether or not the server was actually up, or just claims it was up in the bugged launcher. Or that they wouldn't continue to smugly suggest everyone "play on other, available" servers long after it was demonstrated server swapping was bugged and almost no one was able to make cities anywhere. Etc, etc, etc.

No, those would be crazy, reckless assumptions, on the part of impatient, childish consumers. Expecting their game to work. What babies! The Rabble Rabble Refund Gang, we'll call them, and pontificate at length about the merits of infinite patience.

You may reply, if you wish, but unless the reply is "Actually upon reflection I drank some bad milk last night and found myself believing this Simcity launch was entirely business as usual" then you can expect the tenor of conversation to devolve from here. It's probably best we just accept that our views wildly diverge on this issue and leave it at that. I'm going to end up getting a host of infractions if I continue to debate this.

 

[vasiD]

http://i.imgur.com/VEJIVmk.jpg

Ok apparently this guy got a refund with little to no fuss so...what the fuck is going on.

What do you think of Origin & EA?
Answer should be gooks.

Regardless of him being an asshole I still laughed. EA have been acting like assholes to their customers a lot lately. I don't see the issue people have with giving them a little back.

because the little guy you deal with doesn't make these policies, he's just a front of house work a day dude trying to pay his bills like the rest of us and the last thing he needs is a load of abuse from a self entitled customer when all it takes is simply and politely explaining the situation.
Ever wonder what causes bad customer service? It's dealing with people like that for five hours that makes you wanna dick over everyone. Anyone who's worked in customer service knows exactly that.

I think it's more likely the customer Rep actually laughed at this bit here. You have to remember these people hate their company just as much as we do, if not more because for every fucked up thing the CEO does they have to put up with all the pissed off customers while the guys causing the problems are getting extra-marital hand jobs in 'massage parlors'.

While I don't think anyone should ever yell at or get personal with a customer rep (which isn't happening here), I don't think it's unreasonable to be forceful with your demand for a refund when a big company like this has genuinely ripped you off and has already made it publicly known that they're going to be thorny over giving you a refund.

 

[vasiD]

Snip.

Snip.

BLOATEDGUPPY WINS!


FLAWLESS VICTORY!


Seriously though short of being in EA's PR no one has any reason to defend the practice of selling a broken product and refusing refunds, even if that product will work at some point in the future.

If you brought home a microwave but for some weird reason it wouldn't work when you plugged it it, you would be entitled to a refund even if the company said "oh, well it will be working at some point soon..." Only in the games industry is this becoming acceptable to offer a broken product without any recompense.

And don't tell me how this 'happens all the time'. No, no it fucking doesn't, buggy games get released pretty often and patched later but rarely is a game ever ENTIRELY broken, to where you can't even play it at all, and when it is that shit raises a stink.

I seriously can't understand this corporate ball-licking that I see on gamer sites, either it is absurdly fucking crazy how brainwashed into loving these amoral multinational corporations fans of their developers have gotten or they're public relations people in disguise: either way fuck off, we'll be drinking none of your special kool-aid today.

 

[vasiD]

Thats harsh and unfair as hell for the customer but OK its true than they all do this lol.

Harsh? possibly. Unfair? Not really. Chargebacks exist for when a customer has had their credit card info stolen and used to buy things. Or if the company they dealt with has DEFRAUDED them. Not getting a refund is not fraud. People can argue the semantics on if EA delivered what the customer agreed to buy all they want, that is still not fraud. Fraud is a legal term that requires precise things to have happened to be true. In *THOSE* cases is when when chargebacks should be used... and when they are, it costs's everyone money.

I used to run the billing department at a web hosting company about 10 years ago. People liked to sign up for service, then issue a chargeback. When they did, I would have to spend several hours gathering documentation for the credit card company, filling out forms, etc. If they found in our favor great, we keep the money and the customer usually got dumped by their card provider. If they found for the customer however, we would loose the money we got form them, and get hit with tons of fees plus the cost of my time (which billed at about 35 an hour) and the time lost on other more important things I should have been doing.

Chargebacks are no joke and companies are within their right to sever and and all business relationships with someone who issue one against them falsely. As a matter of fact, the credit card companies ENCOURAGE them to do it to lower the likely hood of it happening again by that customer.

Let me just pop in here and cut your ill-defined argument off at the knees. Fraud isn't some magical term that only applies under special conditions, Fraud is defined as the following: In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain.

By this definition it is arguable that EA committed Fraud when it accepted a high number of preorders without purchasing proper servers in an attempt to save themselves money: They even publicly claimed this wouldn't happen, if I may take an exert from this Kotaku article from around the time Diablo III was launching:
"We've got experience from Spore and Darkspore," Katserelis said, citing other recent Maxis games. "EA is an on online company. We're definitely watching what's going on at Blizzard, and we're putting in backstops and checks to try to prevent those kind of things from happening."

So: They publicly claimed their game would be prepared at launch, and it was not ready for that launch just so they could save money on servers they might end up not using after the user base quiets down post-launch, yet they still took a high number of pre-orders.

If I may translate: They lied to people across the world about the state of their game and their readiness for launch so that they could take in extra money from purchases and save money on servers. AKA They created an intentional deception made for personal gain, visa-vie Fraud with a capital F.

Check and mate.

 

[Awexsome]

Again with the EA overreaction hate?

It's already been explained by others how the ban was only threatened for the charge-back action which seems entirely reasonable to do to a customer that would go through with that.

Yeah EA released a broken game with all these issues but other than continuing to keep the internet abuzz with how shit they are (which they've earned) there is no precedent for forcefully taking refunds. They're still working on trying to fix the game so that it does work as intended and so long as they get it into working shape the only thing they earn is more vitriol being thrown at them while the game doesn't work so they don't think they can just leave it and move on.

So yes, EA's launch has been incompetent and horrible but there's always customers that expect more than feasibly and legally possible when things do go wrong.

 

[cefm]

The ban threat is probably a reply to the possible charge-back. But I think it does showcase what a weak position we have as consumers if disagreements arise.....

Your position as a customer is considerably strengthened if you wait a week or so for initial reviews of the product to come out from critics and players. If your money stays in your pocket until you KNOW what you're buying, you don't end up in this situation.