Epic Fail

[Spotty]

Source: https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/19182-video-game-company-epic-games-has-f-rating-with-bbb?bbbid=0593

Source: https://www.bbb.org/us/nc/cary/profile/video-game-dealers/epic-games-inc-0593-90001957/overview-of-bbb-ratings

Source: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/01/fortnite-maker-gets-f-in-customer-service-from-bbb/

 

Fortnite company Epic Games has received 279 complaints made to the BBB, 271 in the last year alone, of which 247 of those complaints went unanswered by the company. This has lead to the company receiving an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

Quote

The gaming company behind such popular titles as Fortnite and Infinity Blade has an “F” rating with Better Business Bureau due to unanswered customer complaints. BBB serving Eastern North Carolina (BBB) is warning consumers about Epic Games of Cary, NC, which has 279 BBB complaints on file in the past three years with 271 of those complaints filed in the last year alone. Of the 279 total complaints, 247 of those have gone unanswered.
...
A majority of complaints submitted to BBB against Epic Games deal with customer service and refund or exchange issues.
...
BBB has attempted to contact Epic Games on numerous occasions, but the company has failed to respond.

^{https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/19182-video-game-company-epic-games-has-f-rating-with-bbb?bbbid=0593}

 

Quote

Epic Games, Inc.

• 279 complaints filed against business
• Failure to respond to 247 complaints filed against business.
• Business has failed to resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints.
• One complaint filed against business that was not resolved.

^{https://www.bbb.org/us/nc/cary/profile/video-game-dealers/epic-games-inc-0593-90001957/overview-of-bbb-ratings}

 

Quote

Many of the complaints on Epic’s BBB page center around unauthorised credit card charges and account hacking—issues Kotaku reported on early last year.

At the time, Epic told Kotaku that it was “aware of instances where users’ accounts have been compromised using well-known hacking techniques” and was “working to resolve these issues directly with those players affected,” but the issue appears to have persisted, given that many of these complaints occurred in the past few months.

Other complaints center around a lack of refunds and what people believe to be unjust bans and suspensions. “Epic Games ripped off my 12 year old,” reads a complaint from December 2018. “His account was banned because someone hacked into it and they did nothing to help, support, or resolve.”

^{https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/01/fortnite-maker-gets-f-in-customer-service-from-bbb/}

 

It seems as if most of the complaints are related to unauthorised credit card charges and account bans and suspensions, as well as hacked & stolen accounts. My guess is there has been a lot of children using their parents credit card without their parents permission to purchase in game cosmetic items through micro-transactions. This business model of micro-transactions has helped the creators of the "Free" game make billions of dollars.
I imagine that there will also be a lot of complaints from cheaters that have been banned/suspended from the game, something that Fortnite is known for punishing rather severely even known to use hardware ID bans to prevent any new accounts registered on that PC from playing the game.

While there are likely some genuine issues customers need resolved, most of those situations can be better dealt with or prevented by PARENTING YOUR CHILDREN and not giving them access to your credit card in the first place. Your kid racked up a $200 of charges on your credit card by buying Fortnite skins? Sell their xbox/iPhone/Laptop/etc to pay for it. Your kid got banned from playing Fortnite for cheating? Good. Now they will learn that cheating has consequences and hopefully won't cheat in other games.

 

Epic Games has issued a statement in response to the BBBs rating decision, stating that Epic Games is not affiliated with the BBB and does not process any complaints through the BBB and any complaints about the company must be made directly to the company's customer support. Epic Games has transferred the outstanding complaints filed to the BBB to their own customer support portal.

Quote

An Epic spokesperson told Kotaku that the company actually has addressed complaints on its BBB page—just via its own channels. “Epic Games is not affiliated with the Better Business Bureau and has redirected all player submitted complaints from the BBB to our Player Support staff,” the spokesperson said, offering a link to Epic’s customer service site.

However this is a concern to me as typically people only go to services such as the BBB when they are unable to resolve the issue directly with the company and have exhausted all of their options when dealing direct with the company. As someone who has personally had issues with companies in the past and has gone to the ACCC & Fair Trading (Australian equivalents of BBB) to resolve the issue after the company either would not respond or was outright breaching Australian consumer laws, I find it very difficult to imagine that it would be good for consumers having the company have the final say when it comes to resolving customer complaints. In my experience these third parties acting as a mediator between the company and customer can be very effective in resolving issues that would otherwise go unresolved if the customer dealt direct with the company.

It's also worth noting that competing digital store platform Steam also has an F rating from the BBB and has had the rating for several years - mostly related to its failure to provide refunds for faulty games in the past.

[givingtnt]

CaN yoU gIvE yOuR posT a MeaNiN gFulL TItlE

Wait..

nvm....

 

 

[Spotty]

Admit it, ya'll came here because you thought that was a clickbait title?

[ZacoAttaco]

Don't want to stereotype here, but maybe a lot of their complaints were just from children who didn't really have valid reasons. I'd hate to work for Epic Games support, whiny 12 years old wanting to git gud at the Fortnite and complaining about taking Ls. And you're right, probably a lot of parents whose children have racked up massive bills on their Mastercards wanting refunds, that's always a grey area too. It comes with the territory is suppose, but yeah Epic Games support staff need to step it up.

[PlayStation 2]

Definitive proof that Team Fortress 2 > Fortnite

Actually, now that I think about, Valve's BBB rating used to be pretty bad.

[ZacoAttaco]

Oh and @Spotty ...you totally baited me haha.

[ZacoAttaco]

Just now, handymanshandle said:

Definitive proof that Team Fortress 2 > Fortnite 

Actually, now that I think about, Valve's BBB rating used to be pretty bad. 

Only you would turn a discussion on Fortnite into a TF 2 discussion

Well their support was infamous and nearly non-existant, circa 2015 is when they put an added emphasis on customer support with their refund policy which is still in place today.

[Spotty]

16 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

And you're right, probably a lot of parents whose children have racked up massive bills on their Mastercards wanting refunds, that's always a grey area too.

Read a few articles about it, one of them used a complaint where a parent thought they were giving the game one-time access to their credit card to purchase an item for their kid in game, however over the next week the kid racked up $140 of charges. Didn't want to quote a dozen different articles in my post so I trimmed it out but here it is from the Washington Post article...

Quote

“Epic Games is swindling parents with unauthorized game purchases, tricking young consumers & using shady practices for billing,” one person wrote on the BBB’s website. “I authorized a 1-time Epic Games purchase for my 11 yr-old son, only to discover EG did NOT erase my credit card info, & thus my son has been making unauthorized purchases, racking up $140 in less than 8 days after the initial authorized purchase.

^{https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/10/fortnite-maker-epic-games-earns-f-rating-better-business-bureau/?utm_term=.5e222f8ede5a}

 

Never purchased anything from Epic Games or in Fortnite, so I'm not sure if when purchasing items with a credit card if it states that it is a "one off" purchase that will not store credit card details or what the process is, but really at the end of the day that person needs to teach their children about being responsible with money and teach them to understand that hitting the "Buy" button in a game actually does cost real money. I think due to the nature of the way the payment is made it can be difficult for children to understand and keep track of their purchases when there is no physical exchange of money for the goods. They hit the buy button, they get the item, and they don't realise that it has cost them [or their parents] any money. This is why these parents need to sell their xbox or whatever to pay for the charges in order to teach the kids the value of money.

[ZacoAttaco]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

Never purchased anything from Epic Games or in Fortnite, so I'm not sure if when purchasing items with a credit card if it states that it is a "one off" purchase that will not store credit card details or what the process is, but really at the end of the day that person needs to teach their children about being responsible with money and teach them to understand that hitting the "Buy" button in a game actually does cost real money. I think due to the nature of the way the payment is made it can be difficult for children to understand and keep track of their purchases when there is no physical exchange of money for the goods. They hit the buy button, they get the item, and they don't realise that it has cost them [or their parents] any money. This is why these parents need to sell their xbox or whatever to pay for the chargers in order to teach the kids the value of money. 

Interesting, yeah, parents should be able to trust the "one off" feature but at the same time, children should be instructed and trained not to just click random buttons and keep buying things. A lot of the time just better parenting should stop these situations and if they're too young to realize what they're doing then they probably shouldn't be playing a Mature rated game in the first place. Yeah, you nailed it.

[williamcll]

What about the fornite dances sue?

[Spotty]

12 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Interesting, yeah, parents should be able to trust the "one off" feature but at the same time, children should be instructed and trained not to just click random buttons and keep buying things. A lot of the time just better parenting should stop these situations and if they're too young to realize what they're doing then they probably shouldn't be playing a Mature rated game in the first place. Yeah, you nailed it.

I really think that parents should just look in to visa debit cards for children when they get to the age where they are asking for online purchases like this. Kids won't be able to spend any more than they have, and parents could transfer funds in to the card of whatever the allowance is they set for purchases like this. "If you mow the lawns I'll transfer $5 in to your visa debit card" sort of deal. It will allow the children to purchase things online with their own money, without needing the parent to provide their children with access to their credit card, and still allow the parent to monitor the childrens spending through internet banking.

 

3 minutes ago, williamcll said:

What about the fornite dances sue?

Plot Twist: 200 of those complaints to the BBB are from Alfonso Ribeiro complaining about Fortnite copying his dance

[ZacoAttaco]

5 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I really think that parents should just look in to visa debit cards for children when they get to the age where they are asking for online purchases like this. Kids won't be able to spend any more than they have, and parents could transfer funds in to the card of whatever the allowance is they set for purchases like this. "If you mow the lawns I'll transfer $5 in to your visa debit card" sort of deal. It will allow the children to purchase things online with their own money, without needing the parent to provide their children with access to their credit card, and still allow the parent to monitor the childrens spending through internet banking. 

Interesting premise, although in this case, is still encourages children so spend more money on micro-transactions which I still frown upon. Surely that's already a thing for parents who want to go down that route?

[Bouzoo]

Afaik, BBB ratings are bs. They are a private company  who takes money for better ratings. Comcast has an A rating fyi.

Quote

The Better Business Bureau, one of the country's best known consumer watchdog groups, is being accused by business owners of running a "pay for play" scheme in which A plus ratings are awarded to those who pay membership fees, and F ratings used to punish those who don't.

To prove the point, a group of Los Angeles business owners paid $425 to the Better Business Bureau and were able to obtain an A minus grade for a non-existent company called Hamas, named after the Middle Eastern terror group.

 

EDIT: Seems that Comcast dropped in ratings to B. A was before, B is now.

[Shimejii]

Epic Games has some of THE WORST customer service i have seen for dealing with issues. Their dev team is so bad at fixing bugs and hiring more staff to test things before patches. They remind me of the Ark Dev team, utter pieces of shit and they deserve to fail and flop after their attempts at making the game workable. I feel as if the Epic staff is lazy, and dont really care that there are quite a few game breaking bugs, even on major releases and before Tournaments. But since they are raking in money they think they are doing a great job.

[Syntaxvgm]

1 hour ago, Shimejii said:

Epic Games has some of THE WORST customer service i have seen for dealing with issues. 

As apposed to Steam customer support which by comparison has been long known to be is fast and pro-consumer. 

[DrDerp]

3 hours ago, Shimejii said:

Epic Games has some of THE WORST customer service i have seen for dealing with issues. Their dev team is so bad at fixing bugs and hiring more staff to test things before patches. They remind me of the Ark Dev team, utter pieces of shit and they deserve to fail and flop after their attempts at making the game workable. I feel as if the Epic staff is lazy, and dont really care that there are quite a few game breaking bugs, even on major releases and before Tournaments. But since they are raking in money they think they are doing a great job.

Well I’m sure they’re probably working hard on fixing bugs but when they’re being continually pushed to update constantly, they will of course have stumbles. It’s not like they can hire 1000’s of people for betas, while they could have people sign up for them then they’d just receive more complaints and be more rushed.

[Doobeedoo]

Whatever, I just want to see them get back to developing UT already. 

[Shreyas1]

I don't think they have the necessary amount of people for how popular fortnite became?

[PocketNerd]

You know it's bad when even CBC reports on it. 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bbb-epic-games-complaints-1.4972500

[Brooksie359]

13 hours ago, Spotty said:

Read a few articles about it, one of them used a complaint where a parent thought they were giving the game one-time access to their credit card to purchase an item for their kid in game, however over the next week the kid racked up $140 of charges. Didn't want to quote a dozen different articles in my post so I trimmed it out but here it is from the Washington Post article...

^{https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/10/fortnite-maker-epic-games-earns-f-rating-better-business-bureau/?utm_term=.5e222f8ede5a}

 

Never purchased anything from Epic Games or in Fortnite, so I'm not sure if when purchasing items with a credit card if it states that it is a "one off" purchase that will not store credit card details or what the process is, but really at the end of the day that person needs to teach their children about being responsible with money and teach them to understand that hitting the "Buy" button in a game actually does cost real money. I think due to the nature of the way the payment is made it can be difficult for children to understand and keep track of their purchases when there is no physical exchange of money for the goods. They hit the buy button, they get the item, and they don't realise that it has cost them [or their parents] any money. This is why these parents need to sell their xbox or whatever to pay for the charges in order to teach the kids the value of money.

I would simply take away their ability to play footnote for a month. If they like the game enough to want to buy in game items then they would be pretty sad about not being able to play it. It will make them think twice about buying things in game without asking knowing that they won't be able to play the game if they do. 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

5 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I would simply take away their ability to play footnote for a month. If they like the game enough to want to buy in game items then they would be pretty sad about not being able to play it. It will make them think twice about buying things in game without asking knowing that they won't be able to play the game if they do. 

That seems... overly punitive. Especially if the kids are under 10 or so and don't really understand money

[Crunchy Dragon]

Quote

“Epic Games is swindling parents with unauthorized game purchases, tricking young consumers & using shady practices for billing,” one person wrote on the BBB’s website. “I authorized a 1-time Epic Games purchase for my 11 yr-old son, only to discover EG did NOT erase my credit card info, & thus my son has been making unauthorized purchases, racking up $140 in less than 8 days after the initial authorized purchase.

There's an option at checkout to use it as a one-time purchase, same as Steam. Did they check that box or not?

 

I don't see this being an Epic Games problem, personally. I would personally pin this one on the parents and the kid.

[Brooksie359]

6 minutes ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

That seems... overly punitive. Especially if the kids are under 10 or so and don't really understand money

It is supposed to suck. The point is to make them understand that there are consequences for doing and what they can do to avoid it in the future. 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, Brooksie359 said:

It is supposed to suck. The point is to make them understand that there are consequences for doing and what they can do to avoid it in the future. 

I get that but I would teach them about how money works first and then if they keep doing it you take away the pc/shut down the internet/whatever

[Brooksie359]

2 minutes ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

I get that but I would teach them about how money works first and then if they keep doing it you take away the pc/shut down the internet/whatever

Yeah by 10 that already would have been done.