Charge back CC for broken SimCity? Your Origin account may be banned instead!

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IanM

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I must inform you that if you choose to dispute it, your account will be banned
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Gameranx - SimCity: EA Refuses Refunds, Threatens Customer With Origin bans

Incredible customer service from EA. Want a refund for a game that doesn't work? Not satisfied with the offer of a 15% off coupon? Well if you dispute it your Origin account can be banned instead.

Nice job EA.

EDIT: the threat of a ban was referring to a credit card chargeback, but even so a chargeback looks to me like a very reasonable course of action in this instance.
 
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It was because he threatened to do a chargeback not because he asked for a refund. Do that on a Steam game and your Steam account will be banned too. :p
 
DeathPrincess said:
It was because he threatened to do a chargeback
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Fair enough if true, but actually a charge back seems like a fair course of action. Under what circumstances is it reasonable that you buy something that doesn't work at all and not get your money back?

polonyc2 said:
misleading thread title to make Origin look bad! :D
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That's what I got from the report on Gameranx, if it's not true then the mods can edit the thread title. I still feel EA are behaving in a disgusting way though, anyone wanting a refund over this SimCity issue should get it without any hassle.
 
Well the lesson to learn, if you haven't already learned not to buy EA games, is:
Make a new Origin account when you buy one of their games.
 
It's time there is some multi-billion dollar class action against game publishers that release non-functioning crap. I am really surprised that hasn't happened yet, seems like publishers would be a good target to go after.
 
Thuleman said:
It's time there is some multi-billion dollar class action against game publishers that release non-functioning crap. I am really surprised that hasn't happened yet, seems like publishers would be a good target to go after.
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well this would be the time to do it. Blizzard at least gave anyone who wanted it a no-questions-asked refund.
 
chockomonkey said:
well this would be the time to do it. Blizzard at least gave anyone who wanted it a no-questions-asked refund.
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That was the best customer service for a game ever. They gave everyone at launch 30 days to return the game for a full refund. Now with that said I wonder how long until someone gets their entire EA account banned for saying that SimCity sucks on the official forums.
 
IanM said:
Fair enough if true, but actually a charge back seems like a fair course of action. Under what circumstances is it reasonable that you buy something that doesn't work at all and not get your money back?
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You can read in the text where he threatened that.

User: I can call my bank and have the refund done that way
Support: I must inform you that if you choose to dispute it (aka chargeback), your account will be banned.

There isn't any point where the support guy said "asking for a refund means your account will be banned". It's just a nonsense article made for clicks, and silly people will fall for it and get all angry. DD clients can't allow chargeback otherwise people would play games for a week and just do a chargeback claiming anything. Unless this guy has never bought a game or taken part in a new service ever before (he does seem kind of stupid) then wanting everything to be perfect on the first day or even the first week isn't how things work in the real world.
 
It amazes me how many people jumped on SimCity. Everyone should of seen this coming a mile away.

Whats more.... say that in 3 years, there are only a small handful of people playing it anymore. Are they going to release a SP patch or will they just shut down the servers, rendering everyones purchased game unplayable (like they've done in the past)?

As a huge fan of SC... I wont ever be buying this game.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Unless this guy has never bought a game or taken part in a new service ever before (he does seem kind of stupid) then wanting everything to be perfect on the first day or even the first week isn't how things work in the real world.
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Hey now, they COULD!

Just because most corporations are too greedy to do shit right doesn't make it okay.
 
Yeah my account got banned because I did a chargeback when I didn't get some DLC i ordered for Mass Effect. I even emailed them first a few times but they never responded so I did a chargeback.

Long story short, my account was banned and they kept my $15 I spent on DLC which i never got.

Bunch of A-holes.
 
dr.stevil said:
It amazes me how many people jumped on SimCity. Everyone should of seen this coming a mile away.

Whats more.... say that in 3 years, there are only a small handful of people playing it anymore. Are they going to release a SP patch or will they just shut down the servers, rendering everyones purchased game unplayable (like they've done in the past)?

As a huge fan of SC... I wont ever be buying this game.
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Of course they are going to shut down the servers when it isn't profitable as they have always done.
 
Yellow journalism. This is how the Spanish-American war started. Do you want that blood on your hands? DO YOU?!
 
chockomonkey said:
Hey now, they COULD!

Just because most corporations are too greedy to do shit right doesn't make it okay.
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It's probably not a question of greed, more one of practicality.

First day there is going to be more users than at any other point. Do you set your network for 10x the traffic and have server merges and 10x the costs for the next few months or set it to handle normal levels and expand when needed?

It's predicting stuff that you can't really guess. Even if 300m people bought the game, that's not going to be 300m people online simultaneously and you could have 3m using it and 99% of the servers and bandwidth doing nothing. I've still never seen any company get this right, nor seen a 100% hitch free launch of any "service" based game (you'd think companies would just not do "service" based games...but...). :p
 
dr.stevil said:
It amazes me how many people jumped on SimCity. Everyone should of seen this coming a mile away.

Whats more.... say that in 3 years, there are only a small handful of people playing it anymore. Are they going to release a SP patch or will they just shut down the servers, rendering everyones purchased game unplayable (like they've done in the past)?

As a huge fan of SC... I wont ever be buying this game.
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I didn't see it a mile away. I thought the game would stumble a bit but SURELY they had some idea of how much load the game would be under based on pre-order sales. I thought they would at least have enough servers up at launch. I did not expect them to start hacking features away left and right in a blind attempt to get the game to work in a basic way for people. I don't think there is any precedent for that.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Unless this guy has never bought a game or taken part in a new service ever before (he does seem kind of stupid) then wanting everything to be perfect on the first day or even the first week isn't how things work in the real world.
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No one forced EA to put always-online DRM in the game.
 
DeathPrincess said:
It's probably not a question of greed, more one of practicality.

First day there is going to be more users than at any other point. Do you set your network for 10x the traffic and have server merges and 10x the costs for the next few months or set it to handle normal levels and expand when needed?

It's predicting stuff that you can't really guess. Even if 300m people bought the game, that's not going to be 300m people online simultaneously and you could have 3m using it and 99% of the servers and bandwidth doing nothing. I've still never seen any company get this right, nor seen a 100% hitch free launch of any "service" based game (you'd think companies would just not do "service" based games...but...). :p
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I do get that... but i mean, if i did the same this at my job... i wouldn't have one anymore.

If we are expecting unprecedented loads, then i better have shit ready for those loads. There's no excuse.
 
MavericK96 said:
No one forced EA to put always-online DRM in the game.
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But the guy bought then game knowing it had this DRM knowing what he was getting himself into and what it would likely be like, but he isn't to blame when what the sentient people on this planet expected to happen, happened? :p
 
polonyc2 said:
misleading thread title to make Origin look bad! :D
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Just booted up mass effect 3 today and it is "checking downloadable content..." endlessly. Turns out you can't play mass effect 3 while BF3 is doing a update. Only own like 3 games on origin but i constantly have problems with their service it's ridiculous.
 
DeathPrincess said:
...There isn't any point where the support guy said "asking for a refund means your account will be banned"...
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OK so I did miss the line about the bank (probably because the talk of a ban comes after the comment that Amazon users are getting refunds.) However, I don't believe chargebacks are available on a whim, the card issuer actually has to investigate and see some evidence before backing the customer - so whatever policy wording the store wants to hide behind, they're wrong. They should give a refund, and if the customer asks for a refund before going the chargeback (or small claims court) route then the customer is behaving responsibly and should not be retaliated against by being banned.
 
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about 4 years ago I started a boycott against EA / Origin. BF3 almost got me to break it, but i held out. I build a lot of systems for friends, family, myself, etc. I liked using crysis 2 as a benchmark tool, so i installed it quite a few times. Then that mechwarrior living legends mod came out so i started doing that -- then one day Crysis says my key code has been deactivated from to many installations. I called EA, they told me to call origin. i called origin, they told me to call EA.

I never got a resolution and now refuse their products.
 
DeathPrincess said:
DD clients can't allow chargeback otherwise people would play games for a week and just do a chargeback claiming anything.
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Initiating a charge back is not a "done deal" operation, however. Card issuers provide charge back capability as a service to cardholders and perform their own investigations to determine the validity of cardholder claims. If the system were as trivial to game as you suggest, everyone would just charge backs on everything they purchase. By and large, however, charge backs are done infrequently.

It's my understanding here that EA has to provide functional products and provide some level of assurance to customers that those products will work. If they don't, for reasons due specifically to EA's negligence, a charge back is the proper course of action if EA does not work with customers on refunds. It's the right mechanism.

Whether EA banning accounts over it is legal is another issue, but initiating a charge back after getting stonewalled is the right approach. Suffice it to say, though, that EA should not ban accounts over charge backs. Removing those specific titles from a user's accounts is totally reasonable.
 
This is EA we're talking about, a wretched hive of scum and villainy and the very definition of soulless evil and all that's wrong with gaming.
 
DeathPrincess said:
It's probably not a question of greed, more one of practicality.

First day there is going to be more users than at any other point. Do you set your network for 10x the traffic and have server merges and 10x the costs for the next few months or set it to handle normal levels and expand when needed?

It's predicting stuff that you can't really guess. Even if 300m people bought the game, that's not going to be 300m people online simultaneously and you could have 3m using it and 99% of the servers and bandwidth doing nothing. I've still never seen any company get this right, nor seen a 100% hitch free launch of any "service" based game (you'd think companies would just not do "service" based games...but...). :p
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There really is no excuse with modern scalable systems. Need more power for a short period? Just spin up some more VMs. They made the same mistake with SW:TOR. Not enough servers at first, then too many, and then ghost towns. Anything like this that is going to have a big initial inrush should plan ahead for more temporary capacity. Damn, a well designed system should be able to add and remove resources on the fly as needed to support current demand.

I also don't trust EA one bit to keep the service online. I've already been burnt on a few games that EA killed support for (but still were happy to keep on selling like Mercs 2). I am a huge Sim City fan, it was one of the first PC games I ever played, but I'll be damned if I pay for this the way it is.
 
Blizzard allowed some people to refund their diablo 3 purchase when the servers were down at launch.
People still bitched about that
 
dr.stevil said:
It amazes me how many people jumped on SimCity. Everyone should of seen this coming a mile away.

Whats more.... say that in 3 years, there are only a small handful of people playing it anymore. Are they going to release a SP patch or will they just shut down the servers, rendering everyones purchased game unplayable (like they've done in the past)?

As a huge fan of SC... I wont ever be buying this game.
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All of this.

This game had ALL the warning signs on it.
 
Really reminds me of Fight Club.

Take the number of games sold A
Multiply by rate of failed activation B
Multiply by average no of refunds and lost sales C
A*B*C < money from suckers who will continue to buy our broken crap

Which game company do you work for? EA !!!
 
MrCrispy said:
Really reminds me of Fight Club.

Take the number of games sold A
Multiply by rate of failed activation B
Multiply by average no of refunds and lost sales C
A*B*C < money from suckers who will continue to buy our broken crap

Which game company do you work for? EA !!!
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brilliant.
 
If you go into the chat and kindly ask for a refund, and the CSR declines, then you can be upset. By the way that person chat log looked it seems that he had quite an attitude when talking to the CSR. I wouldn't want to refund someone with that kind of an attitude.
 
bigdogchris said:
If you go into the chat and kindly ask for a refund, and the CSR declines, then you can be upset. By the way that person chat log looked it seems that he had quite an attitude when talking to the CSR. I wouldn't want to refund someone with that kind of an attitude.
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True. But EA could have handled it with more tact , something they greatly lack it seems.

The more I read about Simcity the happier I am I passed on it. I loved previous Simcity game but this one has just about everything that's wrong with the gaming industry stuffed into one game.

If I bought this game I would honestly wait for a crack and play it offline. I really hope EA finally fucking learns even one lesson from this debacle.
 
I asked for a refund through Origin chat, and was given one immediately (no 15% off coupon with it, or threat of banning). Of course, I wasn't a massive fuck wad when I asked.

General Info
Chat start time Mar 6, 2013 10:28:21 AM EST
Chat end time Mar 6, 2013 11:31:44 AM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 01:03:23
Operator Isaac
Chat Transcript
info: Your approximate wait time is 59 minute.
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info: You are now ready to chat with Isaac.
Isaac: Hello and thank your for contacting EA Games. My name is Isaac. May I have your first and last name please?
Isaac:
you: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Isaac: Hi XXXXXXXXXXXX. How can I help you today?
you: I would like to get a refund for Sim City.
Isaac: Okay. I can assist you with that. May I have your order number please?
you: Sure. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Isaac: Thanks. One moment please.
Isaac: can your verify your account for me please? Town of birth?
you: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Isaac: Thanks. Can you also verify the last 4 digits of the card you used to place the order please?
you: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Isaac: Thanks. Give me a moment and I will refund this for you.
you: thank you
Isaac: So you know it typically takes 2-3 days for your funds to be returned to your account.
you: ok
Isaac: Thanks for your patience. I have refunded the purchase for you. Your refund number is XXXXXXXXXX. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Isaac:
you: That was everything. Thank you.
Isaac: Thank you for contacting EA Games. Have a good day!
Isaac:
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to [email protected] at the end of your chat session.
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I'd be shocked if the CSRs are that wildly different in how they choose to give out refunds.
 
Katalysis said:
I asked for a refund...
... I wasn't a massive fuck wad when I asked.
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Was the original guy complaining a "massive fuck wad" when he first asked for a refund? Seems like he started out from a neutral attitude? He's clearly irritated by the refusal of a refund and I don't think his comments to the CS rep are out of line (although I wouldn't handle it that way myself, I'd ask for my complaint to be escalated to the customer service manager)
 
IanM said:
Was the original guy complaining a "massive fuck wad" when he first asked for a refund? Seems like he started out from a neutral attitude? He's clearly irritated by the refusal of a refund and I don't think his comments to the CS rep are out of line (although I wouldn't handle it that way myself, I'd ask for my complaint to be escalated to the customer service manager)
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Well, I think it is made up, actually. I have not seen anyone else that has had that experience, and my personal experience is the complete opposite. Until I see the actual chat log data and not just some forum text, I am going to assume it is made up. Everyone on Reddit seems to be getting refunds.

And yes, he pretty much was when he started in about Amazon, "this chat text goes viral," etc. If that chat text is true, he should be emailing the chat log to EA's CEO and every gamine site on the internet and I bet you he gets his refund and more.
 
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