Watch out! Sony Customer service in action!

Eatbugs · September 28, 2004, 08:46:55 PM

Soo - a bunch of people in my guild preordered Omens and had it charged to their credit cards. (Personally, I bought it in a box.) Charge showed up on their cards, they got confirmation emails, all that stuff.

Starting last night, several of them had Omens removed from their accounts and were reduced to level 65, after spending the last week or so grinding levels. When they called customer service they received no explanation, they just had omens turned back on for their accounts. They're still level 65, (some of them had reached 70, all of them had put in many, many hours getting to at least 68) and there has been no time frame given for fixing that. It could be a week or two.

Now, mistakes happen - but this happened with LoY. It also happened with LDoN. Just how stupid do you have to be to make the same "{bunny} you, valued customer" mistake three times in a row? What are preorder periods FOR, if it's not for clearing up billing issues? How much attention exactly do they think customers are going to pay to the work they're putting in repairing things in the game when the billing department is busy {bunnying} everyone over?

I'm allergic to stupidity. Anyone got a good treatment for the hives I've got right now? :P

Cyphen Wilder · September 28, 2004, 09:12:20 PM

Quit, no more stupidity. You can send me your login and password and I will deal with the stupidity for you....lol. But really, we al know that new expansions get a little buggy when first going live. All in all, this expansion has by far been the smoothest that I have seen. Remember what happened to people during Luclin? Even GoD, LoY, LDoN had more problems if I remember correctly. I don't remember any problems I had frm Kunark or Velious. But in general, not a huge amount of bugs on release of OoW it seems so far. May be a pain for right now, but I am sure they are gona fix it.

Eatbugs · September 28, 2004, 09:19:52 PM

Whether it will be fixed (I'm sure it will be, eventually) isn't the issue. The issue is that they've done this in three out of the last four expansions - even my dog learns faster than that.

Cyphen Wilder · September 28, 2004, 09:35:15 PM

We are not talking about a simple thing here. And even if it is the same problem happening with each expansion, we don't know if it is the same thing that is causing it. It could be something that is only fixable on live servers, or something that only happens when a certain thing happens when it goes live. I have not been able to even get on since last Thursday due to RL stuff, but even though I ordered with my CC, if I don't have OoW, I will just petition, CS email, and then play the game until they fix it.

Eatbugs · September 28, 2004, 09:53:38 PM

Well, that's an explanation I certainly accept for in-game issues - there's just no way to test software the way 500,000 people can. However, this appears not to be a software issue. (it certainly wasn't the last two times) This is a very simple issue - they should be verifying who bought the expansion and who didn't at the time they send the confirmation email. Certainly they should be verifying it before they take action on your account...

It's not complex at all.

Murkk Dakruul · September 29, 2004, 05:59:35 AM

Are people still suprised and outraged when SOE does something like this?. I suggest quitting and never playing another sony game as long as you live. Like me.

This won't happen in WoW. Blizzard is the second coming of christ. That is all!.

Cyphen Wilder · September 29, 2004, 12:35:24 PM

Well what I have read on other posts, shows that the issue arises with those that pre-order with a CC that has an expiration date before shipping date. So if this is the case, then we are looking at maybe the credit card company denying payment on shipping date due to expired billing info so blame the credit company and then the people that have expired billing info....LOL.

JillieMT · September 29, 2004, 01:04:28 PM

Quote from: Murkk DakruulAre people still suprised and outraged when SOE does something like this?. I suggest quitting and never playing another sony game as long as you live. Like me.

This won't happen in WoW. Blizzard is the second coming of christ. That is all!.

Careful with that Murkk... Blizzard is completely unproven with this type of customer service. While WoW will most likely be a decent game, we have yet to see what the CS will be like.

Hrann · September 29, 2004, 01:45:18 PM

It's ridiculous that they just automatically turn off tons of accounts like this automatically. At least an email stating you need to give them updated credit card info is in order.

Rhaynne · September 29, 2004, 03:19:48 PM

QuoteWell what I have read on other posts, shows that the issue arises with those that pre-order with a CC that has an expiration date before shipping date. So if this is the case, then we are looking at maybe the credit card company denying payment on shipping date due to expired billing info so blame the credit company and then the people that have expired billing info....LOL.

That makes sense, actually, considering the charge itself wasn't applied on my card until the day of release.

Eatbugs · September 29, 2004, 03:27:10 PM

It makes some sense in those cases (although it reminds me of a former landlord of mine who used to save my rent checks for several months before cashing them) - but while that was apparently true of a couple of people in my guild, most of them didn't have that problem.

Meemae · September 29, 2004, 03:54:07 PM

With Blizzards past record of customer support I would not hold my breath at them being any better then SOE is, all they care about is the money and they have proven it in the past as have most every gameing company.

Lorathir · September 29, 2004, 05:26:55 PM

Quote from: MeemaeWith Blizzards past record of customer support I would not hold my breath at them being any better then SOE is, all they care about is the money and they have proven it in the past as have most every gameing company.

Odd, I've heard they have a superb record of CS? Not experienced it myself though, just what I've been told *shrug*

Though I'll agree with you, gaming companies like all businesses are are there to make money first and foremost, whether its SOE, Blizz, Square-Enix, Microsoft etc. They produce all these exciting games - but they're only exciting to make you part with your cash - not to gain your admiration or respect. If they thought they could get away with "Horace Goes Skiing Online" they'd do it.

Lithale · September 29, 2004, 07:50:05 PM

Ashlane said that people who were dropped from OoW because of lack of payment (expired cards) did receive an email sent to the address registered with SoE before they were dropped. I would bet that they did not have a current email address registered.

-Lith

Cyphen Wilder · September 29, 2004, 08:18:05 PM

Another good point Lithale. It isn't like SOE doesn't mention a ton of times to make sure your email is updated. If after everything passes with this along with credit card expiration on billing, I am gonna laugh my butt off. Everyone ranting and raving that SOE sucks at releasing an expansion where this bug exists when it actually is their fault for not keeping updated billing info and updated email info. :D