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Promotion items for existing subscribers or how we got cheated...
Solude
Member UncommonPosts: 691
I am on a three month cycle for AoC, even got a reduced price. No problem, happy customer, love the game.
The promotional email goes out and I check my account to see if my "reward" has been activated. Its not so I select Upgrade and chose among other upgrades I missed along the way... the three month promotion. Note from three month to three month.
The surprise... instant billing for another three months. Now my three month cycle is a six month cycle. No problem, must be a billing oversight. Billing on the other hand refuses to allow me to return the three month game time that won't start until late Jan 2010. Result, I cancelled my subscription and now get to have a chat with my CC company to reverse the charges. Oh and I'm furious with Funcom.
So what started with me happy and glad to see Funcom doing something similar to Turbine has with LotRO ends with me leaving my number two MMO =(
Comments
I think you got confused about what you get for the amount of time you paid for.
The special was extend by
three months and get access to the beta of the new game coming
six months and you get access to the Helmet that gives 10% exp
year gets you the free expansion.
So you buying 3 months gets you nothing in game atm.. It DID get you access to the beta of the mmo that they have coming... You need to calm down and read what you are buying before you complain about it.
Sorry if the OP was unclear. I thought I wasn't buying anything. I thought I was selecting a promotional item for already being a three month subscriber. What I got was dinged for another three months... today not at the end of my current cycle.
What burns me is people on a yearly sub who selected the one year sub promo got dinged for another year today, not when their one year came up for renewal or simply being rewarded for being on a one year like Turbine did for its clients. Worse case if they were like me, subbed for a year say yesterday and its now a two year sub.
Long story short, this is going to burn a lot of people who thought they were being rewarded only to find out they were being pre billed.
Did I miss something then? My offer says extend your sub and you get these things. Since they prebill for time as it is I only logically assumed that taking advantage of the offer meant I would be charged for the time upfront just like any other time you get billed. It also says on my offer that if had already taken advantage of the new pricing model (after october 6th but before the email) you would still get the things you would be entitiled too. There has also been numerous threads all over their website and I am sure if you looked here on this site as well that all warned people that the charges were all going to occur up front. At the end of the day though what have you lost really? Sure you are out what 40 dollars but you also dont have to pay again for another 3 months of time. You saved money in the end.
FC-Famine is somethimes on this boards.
But try to email funcom again and explain the situation(as your OP was a little unclear:)). They should really do something about the payments since it was a mistake.
They did do something they told me to piss off...
"Good Morning,
No I'm sorry, neither will be refunded. Your purchase of the 3 month upgrade that came with the bonus items and keys etc, was nearly a month after your normal 3 month subscription occurred.
You were credited the appropriate amount of days for both, so your next payment will be due on 04-27-2010.
I hope that clears up the confusion you had.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Lead GM Sojourn
http://anarchy-online.com
http://www.ageofconan.com
http://funcom.com
Funcom Billing and Fraud Support Lead
Just one. Is the cost of the three months going to be refunded?
I was happy to get the items when all I had to do was continue but if what you are saying is that to get the 3 month items I need to buy another 3 months, then I'll opt out.
!@#$
-----Original Message-----
From: Apache [mailto:apache@rt3.funcom.com] On Behalf Of "Funcom Customer Support"@rt3.funcom.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 2:49 PM
To: !@#$
Subject: [Funcom Support #1100176975] Accidental double billing... - support petition
Greetings,
My apologies for any confusion. In order to accept the offer and receive the bonus items, the offer was a "pay now" offer.
If you have any questions please let me know.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Lead GM Sojourn
http://anarchy-online.com
http://www.ageofconan.com
http://funcom.com
Funcom Billing and Fraud Support Lead"
And if you think just sitting on your hands will enable the promotion, check your account page... nothing activated other than an upgrade your account button.
I think the key word was "extend" which mean't a pay up front.
You're absolutely correct. My problem I guess is that I didn't realise it at the time and when I asked to withdraw from the offer... it was refused. If I was partially into my sub time I could understand but it won't start for months. Legally by consumer laws here in Canada its a no contest, a request for refund prior to receiving product or service is a consumer's right. Clearly I'm not going to get lawyers involved over $35 but thats not the point.
Really all Funcom had to do was cancel the offer on my account and I would have been happy. Instead they lose another customer essentially for life, who vents on forums and with his MMO buddies about how Funcom just had to do what I asked and everyone wins. I get back to leveling my DT, keeppressuring my buddies to drop EQ2 for AoC and look forward to 1.06 to land just in time for me to explore the end game. Sigh.
Ah well guess I won't have to split my time between AoC and LotRO after all =(
Well, I don`t know what you thought, but I understood the offer as if you buy months right now(!) you get rewards, not another cycle after you have ended the current one. But I guess you misunderstood the offer FC promoted.
You know, if you were unsure you should have asked either support or forums (here or official)
Too bad it ends this way.
it does not matter what he should have done. The point is that he has payed for something that he will not start using for some months.
In most countries, you have 7 days to cancel your purchase even if you have started using it. If I were you, I would at least make an official claim somewhere (not sure how it works in Canada). No need to get lawyers involved etc of course lol
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
You mean, I can subscribe to any MMO out there and before seven days have lapsed I am still legally allowed to cancel my sub and be refunded?
I don't think it works that way. The cool down period of seven days for purchases does not apply to a game you have already tried and played. We get free trials just for that reason, to try before buying.
That said, in the case of the OP, where the player noticed immediately that he had resub by mistake, the FunCom GM should have acknowledged that it was indeed a mistake and refund it. It doesn't pay to follow blindly the rules, and in this case FunCom is losing a customer because of it, even if the fault was the player's for not understanding the terms of the offer.
Also, being polite when asking for a refund ... or when filing any complain, usually goes a long way towards achieving the desired effect.
Jm2€c
Played: UO, SWG, TR, WoW, AoC, EvE
Playing:
Interested in: JGE, LotR, TSW
Chewed out by a no star, hard to take it personally QQ
Let me give you some examples of some good service in an MMO.
Last month when I felt like an EQ nostalgia tour, I activated my box code under the wrong SOE account, ugh. When I contacted support they happily moved the code to my other account. Sadly SOE was also having an issue billing international CCs US$ so they activated the play time on the account without CC information while they worked it out.
That's good service. Punishing customers because they didn't translate the short text is not.
Unrelated to MMOs but some stores are also great. Home Depot for instance isn't always the lowest priced but their policies are great. I once bought a vacuum there despite it not being the model I wanted, used it and when storing it noticed the cord retractor snapped off. Boxed it up, brought it in for a refund, no problems. That's right, refund not exchange on a used item. Home Depot isn't stupid they know over a lifetime I have spent thousands there and will return to spend thousands more.
Find it a little silly that players, fanboys or not, would accept this result. Could just be the arses though who like to poke others but if it happened to them would nerdrage.
I was cheated with the new LOTR promotion - I signed up for 3 months (after not playing for months). I checked by CC statement afterwards and noticed two other charges - one for the Mirkwood expansion and one for an adventure pack. WHAT???!!! I just wanted the playing time. I am sure it was in the fine print somewhere - but this is shady at best. I should not have to read the fine print to avoid paying and extra $40 on a subscription renewal. I tried to fight the charges with Turbine, they said "thank you for playing LOTRO, but we cant help you. Never again Turbine, never again.
A poor economy does not give you liberty to shove hidden charges into subscriptions.
Yeeeaaah.. Good luck with that one
I did something like this way back with Anarchy Online (another Funcom game). When you would sign up for a froob account (free to play the game, but you needed to subscribe to use the expansion pack stuff) there was an optional credit card information section when signing up for the account. It clearly stated optional. Well, I put in the information anyway, because I figured that if I was going to subscribe later, it would be nice to not ask the wife (the only one with a credit card at the time) to give me the number over the phone or something if she was not home.
Well, the very next day, my wife was VERY upset that some company in Oslo named Funcom had charged money on her card. I e-mailed support, and was told that on the side bar (away from the form, much out of your "normal reading area", over where you normally see ads and stuff) there was a quick blurb stating that IF you put in the optional credit card info, it would be billed, and you would be upgraded to a subscriber. Needless to say, I was not happy. Well... I WAS happy after a few weeks, as I liked the game, and liked the expansion content. But still, it rubbed me the wrong way.
These are all well known tricks in the industry to make poor and dying games more money. Both LOTRO and AOC are going the extra mile atm to offer something - then adding conditions in small letters that take every right away from the buyer to reclaim his money when he finds out he has been cheated on.
Thats just how it goes. Best way to tackle this is to phone your bank and withdraw the payment. Then just make sure you never buy sub for this game again and maybe ... some day it means that companies will stop cheating money out of custimors this way... just maybe...
this thread is funny.
people admitting not reading the terms and blaming the companies for not taking responsibility for their mistakes.
yep, continue with the stories, i enjoy them like the tube video with woman drivers.
I need more vespene gas.
Hey now... I didn't blame them at all. I thought it was a shady way of getting extra subs with the "optional CC" section, but once I wrote support, and they explained it, I was just pissed in general. I still went on to play AO for a good 5-6 months.
You mean, I can subscribe to any MMO out there and before seven days have lapsed I am still legally allowed to cancel my sub and be refunded?
I don't think it works that way. The cool down period of seven days for purchases does not apply to a game you have already tried and played. We get free trials just for that reason, to try before buying.
That said, in the case of the OP, where the player noticed immediately that he had resub by mistake, the FunCom GM should have acknowledged that it was indeed a mistake and refund it. It doesn't pay to follow blindly the rules, and in this case FunCom is losing a customer because of it, even if the fault was the player's for not understanding the terms of the offer.
Also, being polite when asking for a refund ... or when filing any complain, usually goes a long way towards achieving the desired effect.
Jm2€c
This is true for the U.K and was put into place thanks to harmonising laws in the European Union (so it is true for all European Union countries).
Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000
The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 were brought in on the 31st October 2000 to implement the EC Distance Selling Directive in the UK.
The Regulations cover sales made at a distance between businesses and consumers, such as the following:
# Mail order, catalogue shopping
# Internet sales
# Digital TV sales
# Phone
# Fax
Right to Cancel - "Cooling Off Period"
The main part of the Regulations is the right for the customer to change their mind and cancel an order, (and any credit agreement taken out as part of the order). This is known as a "Cooling Off Period". If you wish to cancel within the 7 working days you must inform the business in writing.
Goods
The 7 working days runs from the day after you receive the goods.
Services
The 7 working days runs from the day after you agreed to proceed with the contract.
Obviously, you can also cancel an order before you actually receive your goods.
www.compactlaw.co.uk/free_legal_articles/distance_selling_regs_2000.html
Now, although it could be up to debate that, in the case of a MMORPG subscription which starts in 3 months but for which you have received the key codes etc to allow you to (when that time comes) benefit from the subscription, you actually have literarly "received the goods" or not, even though you are not benefitting from them is besides the point ^^
BECAUSE YOU HAVE 7 DAYS TO CANCEL THE CONTRACT.
This is in Europe, the "land of the free"
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Yeeeaaah.. Good luck with that one
It should work out just fine if it was a credit card and not a debitcard. You can't legally or ethically refuse to refund a pre-billing on a customer for services or goods not rendered if they don't want it to be that way. It would be different if they had already delivered service or goods but pre-billing is simply fraud if you are refusing goods or services.
Suppose they billed everybody who ever had a subscription to AOC after automatically enrolling everybody who had an account at one time in a free trial. Bottom line, the terms were not clear for the customer, they contacted customer service, the story doesn't end with any companies customer service department when there are laws governing sales of goods and services, this isn't the Congo all sales are not final when paid via Visa or Mastercard.
I'm telling you right now, you can dispute this and you should. No company should be allowed to take your money but not in good faith be willing to return it if they can't or wont deliver services or goods to your satisfaction. Once delivered is another story but Funcom can't physically or virtually deliver goods or services months in the future, they know it which is why they are denying you a refund. On the chance you paid via a debit card your options are pretty limited. Credit cards have many more protections against this kind of BS.
no, you can't base the argument on the fact that the goods have not been delivered. If I were a lawyer, I would argue that the goods have been delivered, it's just that he is not benefiting form them yet.
The point to argue, (and I am sure it is similar in the U.S) is that for most transactions, especially over the internet, there is a legal "cool off period" during which the customer has a right to cancel the transaction no matter what the reason.
edit ---> this is an interestign discussion, I'm taking it to the "pub" here in MMORPG.com
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
This is what i'm talking about. You have to read the whole text.
Excluded Services
The Regulations do not apply to the following services:
# Auctions
# Contracts for the sale of land
# Financial services
# Pay phones
# Vending machines
Excluded Goods & Services
Even if the business is not one of the above the right to cancel under the Regulations does not apply to the following goods or services:
Any service provided within the 7 day cooling-off period, once the actual service has commenced. However, before you make the contract you must be informed in writing that you do not have the right to cancel. If you are not informed in writing prior to the contract you will be entitled to use the cooling-off period.
# Any goods made to your personal specifications or personalised for you, for example engraved iPods.
# Good that cannot be returned due to their perishable nature, such as food and flowers.
# Audio or video recordings or software which has had its seal broken and has been opened.
# Magazines, Newspapers or Periodicals.
# Betting, gaming or lottery services.
@ Rallycart, you dont actually have to say "I blame X" to blame someone, posting your "similar" story with the same "shady" company under the thread "...how we got cheated" says it for you.
I need more vespene gas.
Yes getting VISA to withdraw the charges is easy. VISA doesn't care about Funcom. They just send me a paper to sign and its done.
Ugh looks like Turbine is chosing tiny sums of money before customers too =(
I was just stating a similar story. Does posting in a thread mean you automatically take the mindset of the OP? It just reminded me of it, and I decided to post. But, maybe forums are only about flaming, and not story sharing. My bad.
This is what i'm talking about. You have to read the whole text.
Excluded Services
The Regulations do not apply to the following services:
# Auctions
# Contracts for the sale of land
# Financial services
# Pay phones
# Vending machines
Excluded Goods & Services
Even if the business is not one of the above the right to cancel under the Regulations does not apply to the following goods or services:
Any service provided within the 7 day cooling-off period, once the actual service has commenced. However, before you make the contract you must be informed in writing that you do not have the right to cancel. If you are not informed in writing prior to the contract you will be entitled to use the cooling-off period.
# Any goods made to your personal specifications or personalised for you, for example engraved iPods.
# Good that cannot be returned due to their perishable nature, such as food and flowers.
# Audio or video recordings or software which has had its seal broken and has been opened.
# Magazines, Newspapers or Periodicals.
# Betting, gaming or lottery services.
@ Rallycart, you dont actually have to say "I blame X" to blame someone, posting your "similar" story with the same "shady" company under the thread "...how we got cheated" says it for you.
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3221527/thread/259914#3221527
general dicussion here at MMORPG
back on topic, I have two comments :
1. However, before you make the contract you must be informed in writing that you do not have the right to cancel. If you are not informed in writing prior to the contract you will be entitled to use the cooling-off period.
that needs to be looked into IMO
and
2. # Betting, gaming or lottery services. does not include computer games. It means money games. Let me check that out and I'll edit htis post.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
I was just stating a similar story. Does posting in a thread mean you automatically take the mindset of the OP? It just reminded me of it, and I decided to post. But, maybe forums are only about flaming, and not story sharing. My bad.
of course not. are we to not question the motives of posters when we/they are not clear? no need to get flames up, all nice people here.
I need more vespene gas.