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Need help dealing with Ea / Origin
maliusmaximus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey everyone.
I have had multiple issues dealing with EA / Origin and failed credit card purchases, points not showing up etc...
I've been trying very persistently to get resolution and today they threatened me with a permanent ban because I am contacting them too much.
What options do I have? What can I do? they are bullying me now because I'm standing up for myself.
I have had multiple issues dealing with EA / Origin and failed credit card purchases, points not showing up etc...
I've been trying very persistently to get resolution and today they threatened me with a permanent ban because I am contacting them too much.
What options do I have? What can I do? they are bullying me now because I'm standing up for myself.
maliusmaximus on
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If the company actually supports this behavior all you can do is ask your credit card company to refund the charges for anything you actually did not receive then go somewhere else. It is a bad business decision but a company can decline your business for stupid reasons.
It was one of their operators on the chat tool.
They're not from EA, so for all of my issues involving billing and server disconnection they have to escalate the issue. They give a time frame and response time.
I'm definitely being really assertive when I talk to them now, because they are just making up answers, timeframes and promised responses, none of which occur or are true, all are just their best shot at getting me off chat. So I'm calling them on it and they have nothing left except to tell me to wait more or admit the information they have just given me is false.
So anyway today I refused to accept an answer I had been given many times before, when reporting another failed billing issue (bioware points taken, and nothing credited to the account), and she threatened me with a permanent ban. She also refused to escalate a complaint I had about a previous operator.
Regardless, make sure you DO get in contact with somebody higher up and file complaints about these people (don't just rely on the chat people to make that happen). People being rude and threatening action against your account, unless you're actually instigating anything, should be reprimanded at the very least for that behavior. I mean, seriously? Telling someone you're going to ban their account just because they contact support a lot? That's ridiculous. It's one thing if you're spewing invective about their support team's mothers every time you talk to them or something, but I'm guessing from your post you aren't.
Are you being polite? I understand being frustrated, but acting like a goose to a faceless customer service representative who probably knows no more than you isn't going to get you anywhere. You're getting lines right out of books. It's all they have to give you because they simply don't have exact answers. How much money are you out?
You will probably never get anywhere with them. And that's why people try to never buy anything on Origin. Ever.
I could have sworn someone brought up that these individuals work off of scripts with little understanding of actual processes. I know that I get a lot of complaints about front-line, call-center reps in my job as I'm Customer Service a good number of levels above them. What I can do is huge compared to what those front-line reps are allowed.
But it seems that you aren't the only one to find an issue with EA's customer service. Either be polite and keep opening tickets or let it go.
The other option is to contact your credit card company / bank and tell them a charge was authorized but goods were never delivered. They can usually help to recoup/reverse the charge. It doesn't fix the actual issue going forward, but if you've hit a wall you can get paid back, potentially, that way.
What am I getting at you ask? Well, quite frankly, I don't think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by boycotting EA products altogether. That's what I've done and I can tell you that my life certainly hasn't felt less complete just because I can't play a few video games. It may not be the answer you want, but consider cutting your losses and sending a message with your wallet.
About four hours later the download was complete, and I was ready to play. Or not, as apparently when I tried to launch the game, it launch a browser window that took me to battlelog and asked me to enter the username and password for my Origin account, which did absolutely fuck-all, just looping back to the same login page.
So this time I decided to give the chat support a try, which was a MASSIVE FUCKING MISTAKE. After half an hour of copy-pasta support articles, of which included deleting all Windows temporary files, opening task manager and terminating any processes associated with my username to prevent possible conflicts, resetting my TCP/IP stack to restarting in safe mode with networking. At one point I noticed that on my attempt to login the URL of the login page it loaded changed to include a bit at the end that said 'reason=notallowed'. I inquired about this potentially being a symptom of the actual issue and was met with a resounding "NO". By this point I had long since determined this fellow was as useless as Stephen Hawking in Texas and decided to request another phone call.
So I got a call back, again within about 15 minutes, from a nice girl. Right off that bat I mentioned the URL discrepancy to which she responded "hold on, I think I know what's going on" and proceed to fix the account setting which was preventing me from logging into battlelog. Also sent me an additional 15% off code for Origin.
tl;dr version: Origin Chat Support is a bunch of useless script-kiddie cretins, while Origin Phone Support is a group of helpful if somewhat forgetful nice people.
I contact them when the time frame has expired, or if a new issue arises.
Most recently I have been buying Bioware points (through bioware's site, EA still refuses to accept purchases from Vietnamese IP addresses I believe). Occasionally the points are deducted but nothing is given at all. This has occurred over 10 times in the last few weeks. I've lost count.
Most recently when I contacted them, their operator was rude and disconnected the chat because I refused to accept the standard response that although the timeframe had expired, I had to wait longer. So I contacted them back to complain about this guy (I've had problems with him before). During the 2nd time my computer crashed. On the 3rd connection, the operator refused to put me through to the supervisor who i had been talking to and said my complaint would be investigated. I hadn't even given all the details or explained why I was angry so I dont know how they can do that unless they are psychic.
She refused to transfer me or offer any more information, then said she would also disconnect if I had no further enquiries.
I said "fine" and gave her a list of all of my outstanding enquiries. She said that all had been escalated and I would be contacted.
When I started to explain that I hadn't been contacted and that I had already been waiting too long, she pulled out the "permanent ban" card.
Maybe she was expecting me to back down or be scared, so when I didnt, and queried her on this threat, she started trying to back-pedal.
This is just one thing in a string of incompetencies and lies by the chat team. I have been chaing up these issues for months, and I was a supervisor in a multiple award winning contact centre, so I know exactly when they are lying to me just to trying to close the chat to improve handling time.
I'm talking to an actual EA rep now, but I really feel that the chat people need to be scrutinized and dealt with. They are an outsourced company in India and clearly have no sense of responsibility or consequences for what they do (or fail to do) and say.
I am able to buy bioware points now, though the bioware social site, but I have issues where points are deducted but no item pack is given. My still outstanding issues such as my problems purchasing in Vietnam is something they have acknowledged isn't correct and needs to be looked into and they will resolve for me then contact me. I'm given a time frame and reference number.
I keep contacting them when the promised time frame expires, or a new issue arises that needs resolution such as another failed bioware points > spectre pack purchase. I don't just randomly contact them after they have given me a KPI and I don't raise the issue again after I'm given a definitive answer, unless I am given 2 different definitive answers (which has happened).
I wait until the timeframe expires then I contact them again. Unfortunately there's a lot of instances and thus a lot of expired time frames, so they are hearing from me alot. The only exception where i create a new case is if I lodge a complaint against an operator for providing false information intentionally. I've had to do that several times.
Mushroomstick, no you silly goose
I started this thread because I'm looking for advice on how I can tackle this outsourced contact centre. They really are atrocious and they have cost me so much time with their incompetence. The threat of a ban which was quickly withdrawn after I questioned it was the last straw.
Obviously talking to EA about it isn't doing anything, so where else can I go? What else can I do?
I will certainly consider next time before buying an EA title, but I don't think that this is enough. Being a large and powerful corporation doesn't give you the right to ignore or threaten paying customers who have experienced a problem with your product. The entire way they operate and indeed the structure of origin is that you are given the "privilege" to play their games, revokable at any time. You don't truly own the game, and this issue of being threatened a ban and thus not able to play the game as a result of problems from their end and subsequent failure to address the problems highlights the one sided-ness of the power balance here. That's not how business-customer relationships should work.
Corporations don't care about ethics, they care about their bottom line.
They region lock digital distribution to keep people from buying from another region to get lower prices and/or earlier release dates. 30 seconds on Google led to a few hundred stories about this happening on Origin with Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3. Steam does this too.
Thanks for the tip about google though. I've heard about that google thing and I'll have to try using it one day...
Esh, no can't buy through Ebay, at least not economically. Items tend not to arrive at all, and if they do, its after several months and with a 50% Government tax.
I eventually solved my problem about how to purchase mass effect 3 by contacting a shop in Singapore, buying the game and then entering the product code which they emailed me so I could download it. I came up with that idea and EA acknowledged that would be fine and would be a way around their system issues. I'm pretty pissed that they didn't think to suggest that to me first or have this listed with their chat staff is a possible solution for customers in areas where EA has system issues.
Of course Bioware points are still an issue and the card still fails to work through Origin. I can only get points through bioware with paypal so good thing they still have their payment portal up.
But back to the topic, I'm really wanting to focus on their customer service, and use of threats to try to get me to shut up about an issue which I had every right to be following up on. Any suggestions for how to really make EA think about this? Just not purchasing from them again is too small, and I'm not someone to roll over and give up like that. I want this corporate monster to realize this thing is unacceptable and has real consequences. I mean... does it? I know most of you are in the states, but what would u do in this situation? would u stop purchasing from them?
Get your credit card company to reverse the charge and buy a different game, and enjoy your EA-free life. If it makes you any happier and you feel that you haven't quite yet wasted enough of your time on trying to buy a video game, write EA a letter telling them what you've done and why.
Hate to break it to you, but absolutely nothing. I mean, if you have a hard time purchasing things from them, how do you expect to do much else from where you are?
Chalk it up to a lesson learned and stop purchasing from them.
You use competing services instead and if enough people feel the same way, they are eventually forced to change or go out of business. I've been seeing a lot of hate for Origin around the interwebs lately, so you just might get your wish on this.
Thanks for your responses guys, but to be honest I'm a little bit disappointed that you allow corporations to roll all over you like this. Having complacent attitudes is exactly what allows the big companies to act like assholes.
The money aspect means nothing. I have a lot of it. Its about demonstrating that these kind of practices shouldn't stand. The rules have to be different when you have a monopoly as the normal concepts about competition dont apply. There's nobody else I can buy these games from, so I'm forced to buy through EA/origin. That doesn't give them a license to do anything they want though or treat their customers like sheep.
But I guess if I'm getting these kinds of responses on Penny Arcade of all places, then I should have another think about whether anything will ever be done by the larger public about this kind of thing.
Thanks again.
What? You want to show them whose boss by... giving them more money? I don't even... what?
No, we realize that in certain situations, it's goosey to keep giving them money when you KNOW that you're having issues with the product being delivered/utilized in a certain region. This is you doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result and then getting upset when they can't deliver/are tired of you harassing them over something that is of your origin (no pun intended).
We're not your personal army and we're not going to rise up for you and show EA what's what. This is a situation of your own creation.
Really?!? Actually, companies act like assholes because they can do whatever they want to do. And if they choose to act like an asshole, that's their decision. And if they act like assholes and then someone continues to give them money afterwards, you're the silly goose who is allowing them to roll over you and treat you like sheep.
Again, they're a company that can do whatever they please...if you don't like it, don't give them money. If you've giving them money and you want to try to get it back, either call your credit card company and reverse the charges because goods were not delivered, or call customer service on the telephone and talk to someone.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
The issue was that the OP didn't want to purchase/ship physical discs and a digital purchase was not cooperating, crappy customer service, etc. and so forth. (As far as I can tell, disc copies of the game in question are region free while digital distros have some inconvenient region restrictions.)
You give money to the company again after they do not fix it after numerous problems and repeated hounding: Bad on you.
It's not right for EA to give you shitty service, but to continue to patronize a company that is giving you unreliable service is rather a terrible idea.
It's pretty clear that EA's chat support for Origin is terrible, and they need to (a) hire people who aren't idiots and (b) change whatever internal rules they have that clearly provide more of an incentive to close tickets than to actually solve problems. But no, they don't owe Valve any kind of right to distribute BF3 through Steam any more than Valve owes them the right to distribute DOTA 2 through Origin. They merely owe their customers good service.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
Anyway, that's just the technical issue. I'm posting here because of the chat team threatening a ban.
It's a dangerous precedent and was completely unwarranted in this situation. I'm talking to their head office now, and they agree with me on this, yet nothing will be done.
I'm surprised to see that you all feel its ok for a game developer to revoke your rights to play your legitimately purchased games because you are following up on their untimely and incompetent dealing on a technical issue after the promised time frame has expired.
If you buy a car then call the car a lemon, is it ok for the dealer to come and take your car away?
There's nothing we can do for you and there's nothing you can do at this point other than stop giving them money. Maybe if you weren't in a country where dealing with this is prohibitively taxing you might have something to go on, but as it is, chalk it up to a lesson learned. Again, we're not your personal army.
Did somebody say that? Because I don't think anybody said that. I think several people are basically saying that as long as EA's chat reps (not even the rest of EA, apparently) seem to think it's okay to threaten people that way, aside from directly complaining to EA like you did (good!), there's nothing you (or we) can really do about it aside from withholding our money until they change their behavior. Let your money continue to speak for you now that you've let them know about your problem. I know that you can't legally get certain games unless you buy them through EA, and that sucks. But I think we can agree that what sucks most is that there are people still employed at EA that think treating their customers this way is okay, and we shouldn't support that by paying the company money. I don't understand your argument that not paying them and not having the game is letting them roll over you, because at least you're keeping them from getting money from you, whereas continuing to pay them for games when you know you're getting shitty service every time you do it is more like letting them roll over you.