Another EA horror story.

[Baldr]

So, a couple months ago I saw a link on Mojang advertising Minecraft gear on the EA game "Battlefield Heroes" the game looked fun and as a free to play game, I thought I would pay to get some good starting gear and the minecraft stuff, maybe help Mojang. So I spent $20 on the game before I even downloaded it.

So I download the game but when I tried to login. I got "error 1001 unable to connect". After spending a couple days do everything it says to help solve this problem on the website and then contacting EA support and running every diagnostic tool in their arsenal, I still was not able to connect to the game. Finally I asked for a refund. They kept telling me it is not "their policy to give refunds." Again went through the trouble shooting steps to try and connect to the game with support and nothing worked. Again I asked for a refund, another refusal. Finally I threaten them I would call my bank and dispute the charge.

They finally caved in and gave me a refund. THEN THEY BANNED MY ORIGIN ACCOUNT.

 

[Kordie]

Wow, that seems kinda harsh... Did they give any reason for banning the account? Also, did you have other games registered to it?

 

[Baldr]

I did not really find out they had banned my origin account until today when I tried to register for Ultima Forever and said to contact customer support. I asked the customer support person why it was banned and this is what it read on her screen: "Fraud refund Battlefield Heroes" She did escalate the support ticket so I can talk to someone who knows more about bans.

I only had Battlefield 2 on my origin account, and I'm not itching to play that anytime soon, so it is no big loss, but still, I think that is pretty slime-y.

 

[Esotera]

Put it on reddit, report them to every watchdog there is, and generally continue to cause a shitstorm. If you keep consistently wasting a lot of their resources, then they will probably reinstate your account, and if they don't then at least you have the satisfaction of costing them a lot of money and hassle. Win win.

 

[ResonanceSD]

I find it impossible to sympathise with you because you gave money to EA. Some may call that a petty reason, I call it entirely justified. Complain on reddit or something, but even that website is saturated with "EA are dicks" stories.

 

[yuval152]

Put it on reddit, report them to every watchdog there is, and generally continue to cause a shitstorm. If you keep consistently wasting a lot of their resources, then they will probably reinstate your account, and if they don't then at least you have the satisfaction of costing them a lot of money and hassle. Win win.

yeah,pretty much putting it on reddit will cause them to lose some customers.

 

[Phasmal]

They're arseholes.
And fibbing arseholes. My boyfriend got a refund for Battlefield 3 twice from EA.
(First time it didn't work, second time it worked then broke again).

 

[idarkphoenixi]

-snap-

Put it on reddit, report them to every watchdog there is, and generally continue to cause a shitstorm. If you keep consistently wasting a lot of their resources, then they will probably reinstate your account, and if they don't then at least you have the satisfaction of costing them a lot of money and hassle. Win win.

Yep, that's what I'd do. Just cause as big a fuss as you can over it. Even if they don't give the account back it might at least waste some of their time and resources.

A little more bad EA press is always welcome to gamers. It's unlikely but maybe one day they'll realise that treating customers like mindless drones is a bad thing.

 

[Doopliss64]

Okay, I'm ready. I've got the pitchforks, anybody have any torches?

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I asked the customer support person why it was banned and this is what it read on her screen: "Fraud refund Battlefield Heroes"

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

........Ok, that is BS of the highest order. The game didn't work for you at all, they refused to refund you your game that clearly didn't work, and when you threatened to get your bank to refund it FOR you....They ban you for "fraudulent refund"?!

...........Hate for EA +1.

 

[malestrithe]

I find it impossible to sympathise with you because you gave money to EA. Some may call that a petty reason, I call it entirely justified. Complain on reddit or something, but even that website is saturated with "EA are dicks" stories.

Wow, your hatred of EA runs so deep that you don's see victims anymore. All you are are "willing participants."

 

[ResonanceSD]

I find it impossible to sympathise with you because you gave money to EA. Some may call that a petty reason, I call it entirely justified. Complain on reddit or something, but even that website is saturated with "EA are dicks" stories.

Wow, your hatred of EA runs so deep that you don's see victims anymore. All you are are "willing participants."

i've read enough stories of "EA botched this" "EA buggered that" and "EA took my money and delivered a poor product" to be

a) desensitized
b) blame people for continually displaying a shit sense of pattern recognition
c) quite satisfied in being a consumer with a brain rather than relying on a corporation which would rather satisfy shareholders than customers.

d) all of the above.

 

[BeerTent]

I find it impossible to sympathise with you because you gave money to EA. Some may call that a petty reason, I call it entirely justified. Complain on reddit or something, but even that website is saturated with "EA are dicks" stories.

No offense, but, yeah... That is pretty fucking petty.

While I admit that downing $20 before you even get into a F2P Game is damn stupid, and it IS their policy to not offer refunds, the CS rep should have gone a little more out of the way to look into correcting the-

Oh my god, I'm giving Customer Support Advice on a gaming forum... I'm a fucking lifer.

 

[Smeggs]

I'm all for costing EA money at every possibly turn.

Do it.

 

[wierdman51]

This entire thread has turned into rage over EA's shit
You people act like EA cares or ever will care. there is no way ANY of us can cause a big enough stink to catch their eyes and cause them to look to the sky piously and beg the forgiveness of their lord for being greedy.
EA is EA, and they will fuck you over until the end. Just like many of the larger big name corporations.
TL;DR i hate EA and the establishment, and bullshit is to be expected on their end.

 

[Tanis]

I remember, back in the day, when EA was called Electronic Arts and it actually MET something.

*sigh*

It's stories like these that make me glad I stick with GOG.

 

[Glassesguy904]

Damn. I used to love EA back before the current console generation. Anyways, it makes sense that they would ban you. From a business standpoint anyways. You gave them money, and they don't want to give it back. Then when you DID get the money, they figured that you would probably be a problem down the road and decided to end you as a customer right then and there. I know there's probably an actual legal reason for this mess with a much more complicated explanation that sounds much less sinister, but it's EA. I can honestly say I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

HARGLE BARGLE WARGLE EA!!!!!!!111!!!!

Agreed - HHAAAARAAAAAGH RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH EAAA!!!!

But seriously, you agreed to whatever you agreed to when you downloaded origin and paid for this. Also, ALWAYS play a F2P game before spending money on it. Always. Even if its just to check that the damn game works for you. That's just common sense.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

I did the math on some of the payment options for one of EA's online games. What I found was a bit... hard to swallow. Some of the payment options pull a little bait-and-switch on you as you click your way through them.

Say, you want to pay forty bucks for forty bucks worth of Smurfberries/Battleforge Points, and then you get only the equivalent of ten bucks transferred to your account. That's a pretty steep hidden surprise markup, maybe in sync with France's new rich guys 75% tax, but totally unacceptable.

I let them - that is 'support' - know. Sure enough, we could mail back and forth a bit without going anywere, then I got invited for a chat session (yay), and the only thing I learned I never really thought about before was this: Judging from the names and the trouble ticket handling processes, I am now pretty sure EA support is based in India.

They have generally no power over anything, and no clue about anything; it's a proper shame. They were nice and friendly and kind but totally and utterly useless. To be honest, it felt like fighting with the limited parser of the very first Infocom or Magnetic Scrolls text adventures. Hell, it felt like Level 9's Gnome Ranger!

In the end, they suggested I post my findings on EA forums, but we all know how that is bound to turn out. So, as I am not inclined to post it to EA forums, people will keep getting ripped off, big time, and EA's communicated position is that it's an issue best discussed with their partners in crime, but they don't seem to respond to any sort of human communication. Maybe I should try smoke signals or death rays from orbit.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

HARGLE BARGLE WARGLE EA!!!!!!!111!!!!

Agreed - HHAAAARAAAAAGH RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH EAAA!!!!

But seriously, you agreed to whatever you agreed to when you downloaded origin and paid for this. Also, ALWAYS play a F2P game before spending money on it. Always. Even if its just to check that the damn game works for you. That's just common sense.

*ahem*

I never agreed to ORIGIN, my EA account got transmogrified into an ORIGIN account when I wasn't looking.

As usual, I had printed out the EULA/EUALA/EXECUTIVE KOALA for the contract I agreed to, and, in short, it says this:

"EA can do anything to my melonfarming sorry ass any way they please. If I don't like it, I should just roll up and die."

And that's that. Not too surprising, but still good to know.