What's your worst gaming company support experience?

[Anomnomnomaly]

Love em or hate em... When it comes to games companies, some can be good, some can be bad and some can be plain EAvil.

 

But what happens when you actually 'need' support... who are the good, who are the bad and who are the worst?

 

 

My contender today is Ubisoft, who have basically stolen my money and refuse to give me the product I purchased unless I give up my consumer rights and bow down to their threats.

 

It started a few weeks ago, I purchased a game that was on sale... Payment went through using the same method I'd used to purchase many other games with them (paypal), money comes directly out of my account as it's linked to my card. Now every time I've bought a game from them (or from anyone else using the exact same payment method over the last 15yrs or so) the game has immediately been available to download and install.

 

Except this time it's not. I give it a few hrs, still not there... Contact support and chat with some random drone in a 3rd world country... Get asked to wait 24hrs for it to process.

 

Wait the 24hrs... still no game, money paid out showing on my bank statement.

 

Contact them again... ask me to wait... I say no, you've taken the money please supply me the product I've paid for.

 

Get told they need to escalate it... ask how long that will take... no idea, could be a week or two... Not acceptable in my book. So I ask for a refund. They claim they can't give refunds and it needs to be escalated and I might get my money back in a week or two.

 

F that I think... ask them to escalate as a complaint... they refuse. I ask for the contact details for their complaints dept... they refuse to give me them (now this is a legal requirement in the UK under our consumer laws). I tell them that they have 24hrs and if the refund hasn't been done I would go through paypal and file a dispute and/or do a chargeback on my card.

 

They ignore the support ticket for two weeks, in that time not only have I raised a dispute, but ubisoft have ignored it so I escalate it to a claim and paypal set a date of 30th to allow them time to respond (they can't be bothered).

 

After 2 weeks, random 3rd world support guy (it's a different one each time) replies to the ticket and blathers on about how they can't escalate it unless I remove the chargeback (at this time it's a paypal dispute that they can respond to not a chargeback with my card/bank). Now for those of you who use/know paypal... if you cancel a dispute, it cannot be reinstated.

 

So I refuse and once again ask for it to be escalated to a complaint... they refuse... they then start threatening my account if I don't remove the chargeback and point blank refuse to do anything until I do. threatening to remove my access to my account and so forth.

 

I point that under UK law they are not only required to have a complaints process, they are required to inform customers of that process and how to go about it. Once again they refuse to escalate it.

 

So I then ask for the contact details for their data controller... because under UK law you can also do what's called a subject access request. This is done by a companies data controller and must be completed within a certain amount of time.

 

Failure to adhere to these laws can result in companies being fined.

 

Once again they refuse to give me those details... at this point they are in breach of two laws in the UK. By now they are actively engaging in what's known as 'customer baiting'

 

 

So after about 30 back and forths of me asking for information they are required to give me... I decided to take a more aggressive stance.

 

I've printed out the entire lack of 'support' thread and got the name and address of the UK offices managing Director... and a complaint and a copy of all of their crap is on it's way to him.

 

 

Instead of actually dealing with an issue, the idiots buried their heads int he sand and pretended they couldn't do anything, they breached uk consumer laws in the process and have effectively stolen from me.... Not sure if that's actually theft or just fraud. by threatening me with retaliation over my account and telling me that unless I give up my consumer rights before they will 'potentially' help... they've potentially committed an act of extortion.

 

What's the end story...

1: I'll get my money back

2: Ubisoft lose that sale

3: Ubisoft spend more money paying for staff to respond 'computer says no' to me than the game cost in the first place

4: Ubisoft lose my custom forever, and if you think I'm joking... I've boycotted EA for more than a decade. So they lose even more money through future sales.

5: I'll also be making a complaint to the relevant authorities about their refusal to supply me with legally required information. I don't know the exact amount, but Ubisooft get charged a fee by the ICO (used to be around £500) to investigate a complaint like this.

 

Hopefully, some one will learn and useless staff will get 'educated' to be more respectful and to be aware of consumer laws if they are dealing with people from other countries.

 

 

My complaint to the MD also requires them to supply me the data controller information... and I will do an SAO which will get me a copy of every single piece of information they have about me... including staff comments on this ticket that I cannot see.

 

So for the sake of trying to keep £26 of my money and not give me what I've paid for, for refusing to even attempt to resolve it and resorting to pathetic threats and extortion... it's going to cost them... I dunno 20x as much? (assuming they get charged £500 by the ICO, and a more than a few hours of various staffs time, and the data controller has to go through and print of a copy of every single screen related to my account... which may (or may not) be automated or may have to be done by hand)

 

 

Idiocy never comes cheap.

 

 

Now some of you... may think this is a bit petty, but the problem is that when you allow them to get away with it... they think it's acceptable to continue doing it to begin with. But attempting to screw customers, actually violating consumer laws is pathetic and they deserve to have that cost them something.

 

Also.. if they do decide to retaliate and remove access to my account... It's grounds for taking further legal action against them, which can be done through the UK small claims courts for less than £40 and which i could claim back the cost of everything I've purchased from them... So they can choose to try and defend against it at their expense, or not bother and I'll get a summary judgement and costs awarded... and from the date it's awarded I can start adding interest (8%pa) until they pay up... and if they refuse to pay up, I can send the bailiffs in to collect it... and that adds a lot of costs onto it again.

 

Big thanks to the consumer action groups here in the UK who've been advising me on the laws, and have offered to help with filling out and filing paper work for any claims.

 

 

But let's hope... that eventually, they do the right thing and take responsibility for their failures, and deal with the incompetence and ignorance of their staff.

 

 

Because if you want to create piracy... this is a perfect example of how to go about it.

 

[Boinbo]

I mean, I dont have a bad experience, but good job for standing up for yourself, as most people I know wouldn't do that, not even me.

[Princess Luna]

LimeWire.

[Automobili3XF]

To this day i can only remember one issue that i had with Ubisoft and Driver: San Francisco back in 2011.

The game had an online mode locked away behind a pass code that generaly came on a card inside the box, like most Ubisoft games back then.

I open the box and there's nothing but the game and a card advertising some other Ubisoft games, but no online code.

I contacted them about it and they're like "oh, we're sorry you didn't get a code in the box, we can sell you another one for US$20", i was livid, i just played the offline mode and sold the game as soon as i was done with it.

Turns out i wasn't the only one with this issue, as a few months later Ubisoft had to unlock the online code for everybody that had the game.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/driver-san-francisco-online-pass-now-free/1100-6332863/

[Anomnomnomaly]

1 minute ago, 1984_C10 said:

To this day i can only remember one issue that i had with Ubisoft and Driver: San Francisco back in 2011.

The game had an online mode locked away behind a pass code that generaly came on a card inside the box, like most Ubisoft games back then.

I open the box and there's nothing but the game and a card advertising some other Ubisoft games, but no online code.

I contacted them about it and they're like "oh, we're sorry you didn't get a code in the box, we can sell you another one for US$20", i was livid, i just played the offline mode and sold the game as soon as i was done with it.

Turns out i wasn't the only one with this issue, as a few months later Ubisoft had to unlock the online code for everybody that had the game.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/driver-san-francisco-online-pass-now-free/1100-6332863/

Now that would have been grounds for returning the game in the UK, the game was 'not as advertised' and as such entitles you to return for a replacement or full refund.  If they failed to refund/replace you would have had grounds to invoke the sale and supply of goods act and if you bought online... the distance selling regulations... and if they still tried to refuse, you've got grounds for a chargeback on your card and then it's down to them to arrange to have the item sent back to them.

[Automobili3XF]

1 minute ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Now that would have been grounds for returning the game in the UK, the game was 'not as advertised' and as such entitles you to return for a replacement or full refund.  If they failed to refund/replace you would have had grounds to invoke the sale and supply of goods act and if you bought online... the distance selling regulations... and if they still tried to refuse, you've got grounds for a chargeback on your card and then it's down to them to arrange to have the item sent back to them.

We do have something similar here in Brazil, if in a week or less you're not satisfied with the product you got you can return it to the store free of cost.

In a way i was satisfied with the product, the core game was damn good and i had played it for more than a week before i tried to activate the online mode, otherwise i probably would've returned it.

[Acid Panda]

to every British person who uses the internet.

 

BT.

 

am i right?

[NineEyeRon]

6 minutes ago, Acid Panda said:

to every British person who uses the internet.

 

BT.

 

am i right?

Well they gave me the fastest FTTH for 3 years now for the price of the cheapest, just because they hooked me up 1 month late, and I wasn't even living at the property while it was down!

[AngryBeaver]

My worst experience was a couple of PNY Gpus I had with a "lifetime warranty" one died about 2 years in and I asked for a replacement. They informed me "lifetime warranty" mean't lifetime of the card or as long as it was still in production.

 

I ended up buying a new card and putting the other in a different machine... it died about 4 months later.

 

So to this day I have never purchased another PNY product and I steer anyone I can away from them.

[Ravendarat]

Playstation store, several years ago. I had $300 worth of NBA2K points purchased using my account. I dont own that game, I never purchased any points, at that specific time I actually hadnt even turned on my PS4 in well over a month. I contact their support team and they say I must have. I once again reiterate that I dont even own the game, nor have I ever owned any NBA game and I tell them to reverse the charges. I tell them to look at my account and see I dont even own the game and to use a little bit of logic and realize I wouldnt have bought them. They refuse. I hang up the phone and call my credit card  company and tell them what happened and they simply reversed the payments, I had my money back no problem. Playstation than locks my account out due to the charge back. They say the only way I can get my account unlocked is to repurchase the NBA points. I refuse. I then ask if it would be acceptable to just load the money into my account and use it for other future purchases. They say no. Im beyond pissed by this point, im a mid 30's man that doesnt have time to argue back and forth with retards that cant use a bit of god damn logic. I escalate it up through their customer service department. FINALLY I get an email saying that this one time they will "make an exception to help me out but to not expect it again in the future". I tell them I appreciate the "help" but if my card gets charged again due to an error in their system or a breach in security on their end the had better damn well realize they will be once again fixing it. Right after that I removed all forms of payment from their online stores and have never bought a PS game through their store, and 6 months later sold my PS4 all together.

 

TL/DR recap, fuck Playstation

[Acid Panda]

12 hours ago, NineEyeRon said:

Well they gave me the fastest FTTH for 3 years now for the price of the cheapest, just because they hooked me up 1 month late, and I wasn't even living at the property while it was down!

i live in a house of 4 people all heavy users we have fibre to our village that comes in at 1gb/s but degrades down to 40mb/ps by the time it reaches us. a business called gigaclear were going to put gigabit to the door. but BT drove them out saying that the area was going to get fibre.

 

2 year later we get fibre to the village. not to the door.

[NineEyeRon]

55 minutes ago, Acid Panda said:

i live in a house of 4 people all heavy users we have fibre to our village that comes in at 1gb/s but degrades down to 40mb/ps by the time it reaches us. a business called gigaclear were going to put gigabit to the door. but BT drove them out saying that the area was going to get fibre.

 

2 year later we get fibre to the village. not to the door.

 

Ouch!

 

My 3 year old doesn’t get buffering while listening to baby shark at least.

[DoctorNick]

Blizzard. Battle.net - My account got locked because of suspicious behavior - I got about 1100 emails pr. day saying that for about 1-2 weeks - Tried resetting password to no avail - Contacted support, no answer. Tried again multiple times.. still no answer. In the end I got so tied that I just didn't  cared anymore. Only had Diablo 3 on my account anyway and didn't play it. 

[NineEyeRon]

I’ve been going to great lengths to not buy EA games since TW07 when they took away the course architect program.

 

Up to then I thought EA were brilliant, providing a superb course design tool that was years ahead of its time. 

 

To snatch it away hurt a lot. 

 

I played The original Sims endlessly as a child, EA could do no wrong, so I thought...

 

Since the debacle of their attempts at flight sims following the success of IL2 I also avoid ubisoft as much as possible.

 

Yes I can’t play a huge number of top titles but then again, looking at them, I don’t mind at all...

[Anomnomnomaly]

On 7/1/2019 at 11:34 PM, AngryBeaver said:

My worst experience was a couple of PNY Gpus I had with a "lifetime warranty" one died about 2 years in and I asked for a replacement. They informed me "lifetime warranty" mean't lifetime of the card or as long as it was still in production.

 

I ended up buying a new card and putting the other in a different machine... it died about 4 months later.

 

So to this day I have never purchased another PNY product and I steer anyone I can away from them.

 

When you have issues with something you've purchased that has died within the warranty period... and the company is being deliberately unhelpful or downright refusing to honour the warranty... and if you can't be bothered to deal with them, and take the steps required to deal with trading standards and so forth.

 

It might be easier to purchase another one, and upon receipt of it.. you just happen to realise it's faulty and have to return it for a full refund... Oh dear, what a shame... No... I wouldn't like a replacement, if it arrives broken... I'd have faith that a replacement would be any good. 

 

 

[Anomnomnomaly]

On 7/2/2019 at 1:11 PM, NineEyeRon said:

I’ve been going to great lengths to not buy EA games since TW07 when they took away the course architect program.

 

Up to then I thought EA were brilliant, providing a superb course design tool that was years ahead of its time. 

 

To snatch it away hurt a lot. 

 

I played The original Sims endlessly as a child, EA could do no wrong, so I thought...

 

Since the debacle of their attempts at flight sims following the success of IL2 I also avoid ubisoft as much as possible.

 

Yes I can’t play a huge number of top titles but then again, looking at them, I don’t mind at all...

You can always try out a... erm... 'evaluation' version of the game to see if it's worth getting 

[Anomnomnomaly]

On 7/2/2019 at 11:48 AM, Acid Panda said:

i live in a house of 4 people all heavy users we have fibre to our village that comes in at 1gb/s but degrades down to 40mb/ps by the time it reaches us. a business called gigaclear were going to put gigabit to the door. but BT drove them out saying that the area was going to get fibre.

 

2 year later we get fibre to the village. not to the door.

We got fibre to the cabinet about 4yrs ago, but won't be getting fibre to the home for a few more years. We do have cable in my area, but it's Virgin Media and they're awful... The lines are so oversubscribed that my 100Mbps service was struggling to get 15Mbps for months and was actually grounds for me terminating my service early and getting some of my money refunded.

 

I'm now with a company called Zen and am getting around 60Mbps as the fibre to the cabinet is about 1000 meters away and that last 1000m is copper.

 

Can't wait for FTTH, as my ISP can do a cheaper service without phone for less than I currently pay... and it's 5x faster (300Mbps)

[Anomnomnomaly]

On 7/1/2019 at 10:59 PM, Acid Panda said:

to every British person who uses the internet.

 

BT.

 

am i right?

 

Not been a BT customer in around 10yrs... thankfully they deregulated the system in the UK, so any company can install equipment in the telephone exchanges. They also broke up BT so that Openreach (who build the lines and cables) is separate to BT and they have to charge the same prices for access to lines as everyone else does.

 

It's one of the reasons ISP services in the UK have really dropped in price... but the speeds haven't improved as much as they should because BT kept delaying and holding back the roll out of fibre... Which was part of the reasoning for the company being broken up.

[ZXR]

16 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

 

When you have issues with something you've purchased that has died within the warranty period... and the company is being deliberately unhelpful or downright refusing to honour the warranty... and if you can't be bothered to deal with them, and take the steps required to deal with trading standards and so forth.

 

It might be easier to purchase another one, and upon receipt of it.. you just happen to realise it's faulty and have to return it for a full refund... Oh dear, what a shame... No... I wouldn't like a replacement, if it arrives broken... I'd have faith that a replacement would be any good. 

 

 

Good idea, but im sure they track serial numbers on those kind of products lol.

[AngryBeaver]

4 hours ago, Zeddex said:

Good idea, but im sure they track serial numbers on those kind of products lol.

Not only that, but the card was no longer in production anyways. So wasn't must use in looking for one.

[Anomnomnomaly]

4 hours ago, Zeddex said:

Good idea, but im sure they track serial numbers on those kind of products lol.

 

It depends where you buy stuff from... amazon warehouse deals for example often ship out items that have already been returned once... wouldn't be that surprising if it was 'returned' again for being faulty. 

[Acid Panda]

On 7/3/2019 at 3:08 PM, Anomnomnomaly said:

 

Not been a BT customer in around 10yrs... thankfully they deregulated the system in the UK, so any company can install equipment in the telephone exchanges. They also broke up BT so that Openreach (who build the lines and cables) is separate to BT and they have to charge the same prices for access to lines as everyone else does.

 

It's one of the reasons ISP services in the UK have really dropped in price... but the speeds haven't improved as much as they should because BT kept delaying and holding back the roll out of fibre... Which was part of the reasoning for the company being broken up.

what your saying is true and its a massive boon that has happened.

but since the network is overall good in its coverage not its speed. A lots of ISP use or rent the cable bandwidth from bt so they still have ultimate control over the networks and which companies are allowed to use and where they can use it so they give competition is places like cities there there is capacity but not more rural. 

another gripe is they guarantee speeds to your modem not form the unit itself. i do understand why this is. but you would think they would have a dependency gap to allow for a difference

[Cupar19]

Probably with razer. I love there devices but their software is trash. I cant get synapse to open and have been back and forth waiting for responses with support for almost 3 weeks now and all they have said is 'We are escalating the case' about 4 times and asked me to send them logs 3 times. 

[Anomnomnomaly]

21 hours ago, Acid Panda said:

what your saying is true and its a massive boon that has happened.

but since the network is overall good in its coverage not its speed. A lots of ISP use or rent the cable bandwidth from bt so they still have ultimate control over the networks and which companies are allowed to use and where they can use it so they give competition is places like cities there there is capacity but not more rural. 

another gripe is they guarantee speeds to your modem not form the unit itself. i do understand why this is. but you would think they would have a dependency gap to allow for a difference

I moved from a reasonably large town/city (250,000) to a small town of around 25-30,000 and we do at least have fibre to the cabinets.  My plan is to move somewhere much more rural in the next 10yrs... and I really hope that coverage has greatly improved by then.  I'm not hoping for 300Mbps... but 60-70Mbps would be good enough for what I do... But many of the places I look at now are still at most 10-12Mbps... Which isn't even good enough to stream 4K as your real world speeds would be more like 6-8Mbps.

 

Govt need to do more help subsidise the roll out of full speed broadband to rural areas... Openreach won't do it because it's not profitable and it never will be. So conditions must be applied that state 10-20% of all upgrade work must be done in places with under 10,000 residents or 3000 properties.

[Anomnomnomaly]

Well... this has been ongoing since the 12th June... 4 weeks.

 

Today I finally had a response from a 'team leader' at Ubisoft support who was asked to deal with it by the Director of Ubisoft UK Rob Cooper.

 

What a complete and utter failure this guy is.

 

He ignores 90% of my complaint and instead cherry picks the one tiny little detail he can respond to without admitting any fault or taking any responsibility.  No apology for the obnoxious and obstructing behaviour of staff, no apology for their attempt to demand I give up my consumer rights (he in fact continued to claim that I HAVE to relinquish them before he could help) and still completely ignored the LEGAL requirements companies have to supply me with the requested information... That stuff about the Data Controller... that's a biggie... that can be referred to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) here in the UK and they have the power to investigate and levy hefty fines against companies who refuse to follow those regs.

 

Now I've been spreading this story to anyone and everyone who'll listen.. this post alone has had more than 650 views... multiply that by every forum I'm a member on (it's a lot, tech, game, car, music and so forth.. I'm even a mod on a few and used to run my own car forum).

 

That's thousands of people who now know what they're like... and that's before you get to social media... sure I only have 4800 or so followers and not all of them will read/care about this issue...  but it's still a lot of people.

 

Sure... any publicity is good publicity... but if it costs them a single sale because some one thinks... no, I'm not giving them my money if that's how they behave. they lose more than they gain... If the ICO fine them.. they lose a hell of a lot more... They lost me as a customer for ever now... all because of some 'company policy' that wouldn't hold up in a court of law and the blind, zealous devotion to toeing that line instead of using a couple of brain cells and thinking... maybe.. just maybe... this should be resolved rather than ignored.

 

So... please don't give them your money... The only way to show companies that their contempt for their customers won't stand is by not putting yuor hand in your pocket and giving them your hard earned money... Because if/when something goes wrong... you'd better be sure you know your consumer rights because YOU WILL have to enforce them and they won't lift a finger to resolve it unless you bow down to their will and relinquish those rights