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Banned for Refund (Hear me out)
Mange1
Member UncommonPosts: 266
Greetings MMORPG,
This is post is brought to you by funcom on what I feel like are more reasonable grounds than the recent post, but I may be bias. I'd played Age of Conan for years, dishing out HUNDREDS(http://i48.tinypic.com/51an0x.pn) of dollars to their company and that's not including another 10 dollar funcom point charge above the chargeback and the purchase of the game its self. At the beggining of 2012 I was charged for a recurring 6 month charge that I had no idea was recurring because the promotion for the price, in the form of a Advertisement banner, did not mention it was recurring. Obviously it was listed in my payment history which I had no reason to check at the time and perhaps I overlooked it. Ok fine, that's my fault, I sent in a petition for a refund as I had no intention for paying for or even playing the game for another 6 months due to finally being burnt out. It was free to play at that point anyways and I had everything I needed to enjoy it free if I chose. What appears to be a 2 week period occured without my having any idea of the charge until I was informed by my credit card company. I immediately sent in a petition for a refund on which was the 24th for me, but was apparently the 25th in greece or wherever the hell they are. This was the response I eventually received.
Sent:Wed 1/25/12 10:41 PM
"Greetings,
Thank you for contacting Funcom Customer Support.
I apologize for the inconvenience but I am unable to process a refund
for you due to the payment having been processed for over two weeks.
Again I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you, if you have
any further questions regarding this matter please feel free to contact
us again. Thank you and have a great day!
"
So they hit me with what appears to be an automated response, but once again my credit card company informed me that they could and would fight the payment so that's exactly what I did. I had no intention for paying 62 dollars for something I was not going to use and DID NOT use. The game was lucky to have 30 max level players on a server. I didn't want to play because I didn't feel like playing the game but I chose not to login at all out of a show of good faith that I had no intention of ripping them off for additional playtime or anything along those lines.
Here I am a year later being convinced by a friend to play the game again or let him use my account, I log in to find I am banned. Now the thing is I am back to pay them another 20 dollars in order to transfer my server because my server is completely dead so I contact customer support, remind them of what occured and how I felt I wasn't late on the petition and if so it was only by a day and was basically told to **** off until I payed them the 62 dollars I had disputed and gotten absolutely zero use out of.
I know the typical troll response will be "omg stfu noob its your fault you were late, you should've checked around your account to make sure it wasn't recurring im glad they banned you, etc" but the biggest issue here is after ALL that I've put into the game and their company financially they would really just cold shoulder me the way they did. I know if I sold someone a product and was capable of verifying that they didn't touch it for 2 weeks, and they asked for a refund after being a customer for over 3 years I sure as hell would give them that refund. I've been gaming for 14 years and after buying so many MMOs and multiplayer games, right now with Funcom is where I feel most mistreated and ripped off. They've already been known to make poor business decisions.
Comments
Not saying it is fair in your particular situation but it is not just Funcom.
Gamers have been abusing chargebacks for years - dont like your game - get a chargeback - and companies have to react to this. You cannot really blame companies for having an account ban policy for chargebacks. Just unfortunate in your case that you have been affected by a policy aimed mainly at other people.
^ The truth.
Chargeback is abused way to much. I myself was scammed once after selling an account and it took me 3 months to prove my case to paypal. I won only because i had saved my emaisl verifying my transaction. People are shady, fact. CS was just doing there job. You should have just left that 62 to burn but I mean sometimes ya gotta pay bills so i feel ya.
Hero Evermore
Guild Master of Dragonspine since 1982.
Playing Path of Exile and deeply in love with it.
You used charback option which is pretty much burning all bridges. No company will like it, no company will let you keep your account after move like that. Trying doing chargeback on Steam, you will get your account banned instantly and loose all the games you bought. Simple as that.
What you could have done, is trying to contact some other rep, try to go to forums with that, use the live chat, anything but chargeback.
Well, from Funcom's point of view, I honestly have to say I'd have done the same thing. Basically, from their POV, you resubbed for 6 months, had access to full subscriber status and benefits for at least 2 weeks or more (regardless of whether you actually logged in or not during that time), then charged back the whole amount, including the time you had used already... personally I'd also ban your account if I was them. For all they know you might have resubbed on purpose (I know you didn't, they can't be sure of that) play a bit (or realize you had no time to play) and decided to get your money back after having sub access for a while, as others have pointed out, lots of people have abused the chargeback ability and they can't know whether it's your case or not. Maybe you could have made a follow up contact with support, asking for a refund of the time left in your sub minus the already elapsed time (or maybe minus one month) or something like that.
I guess your only choice by now is to mark it as a live and learn situation, and I know it's not what you want to hear, but to keep a better tab on your credit card expenses. My bank (this is in Venezuela, though) has an optional service that sends me an SMS anytime a charge is done on any of my debit or credit cards, so I always know when something is charged at least the very day it's charged (sometimes is an hour or two late on credit cards), maybe you could check with your bank if they have a simmilar service.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
im not really a huge funcom supporter but basically your blaming a company for your own mistake. unless this is your first mmo which you say it isnt, then anyone knows anytime you subscribe to a mmo that sub auto renews unless you cancel it. whether they tell you this or not, it has been that way since ultima online days. so you subbed to a game, didnt pay attention to cancel it, let it renew and wait two weeks and then do a chargeback on your card, which should be an abuse because this was not a fraudelent charge, it was charge that you authorized in the payment preceding the disputed payment. im sure it was on there somewhere, you just forgot to look for it in your excitement. yet you blame funcom for this. go try it with blizzard, or basically any other company, same thing will happen and no they wont renew your account at this point because you have shown to be a unreliable customer that pays for something, uses some of the time and forces the company to pay you back.
this probably sounds harsh but that is the way it is, dont blame the company for this when it is the same policy every single online retailer in the world has.
People need to stop saying "refund" when they talk about chargeback. You were not banned for a refund. You signed up for a recurring subscription and forgot to turn it off. Regret is a part of all spending, but there are policies and rules that you had already agreed to before signing up. Chargebacks in most companies result in banning or "cash only" status because you're accusing the company if defrauding you or robbing you, which is a serious accusation. If you didn't know it was recurring, then I suggest you read a bit more careful when making future purchases.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
This thread could be locked now. OP made a dumb mistake by doing a chargeback and paid for it.
Life's full of little learning experiences, if you are willing to take them as such.
Of course you can also go to forums and whine about them and learn nothing.
Your choice.
Chargebacks are supposed to be used when you have paid for something you have not received.
Technically what you did there could be classed as fraud, because you got what you paid for.
It sucks you got banned, but honestly keep track of your subs, pretty much EVERY MMO you sub to will default to setting your sub status to recurring unless YOU tell THEM otherwise.
No way. The dead horse has not been sufficiently flogged.
Chargebacks is what customers call this action. Banks term it as a Fraud Affidavit. Any company hit with one has an obligation to submit to the research and if found liable they have an obligation to return your money and should the expense of the processing fees assesed by your card carrier, netowork, and processing companies.
Enough of those actions and the company can lose the aility to process credit cards altogether.
Banning from additional service for this isn't uncommon for virtual transactions.
I wouldn't "feel" too much about it were I you... It is what it is.
So, you clearly violated the TOS which are for any MMO -> NO REFUNDS for started playtime, it does not matter if you play or not, that is a fact.
You released the hounds and made your credit card company charge back the amount?
Well, good decision to ban you for TOS violation and basically stealing money from Funcom.
If I would run an MMO I would have banned you too from the game for acting like this
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
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The Return of ELITE !
As a buisness owner I would want nothing to do with a customer who does chargeback, it is common practice.
Sure they could unban your account, but how would they know that you wouldn't do it again?
hm, now that must be the worst outcome.
if i remember propperly i had some refunds too now and then, i usualy did REPAY them tho again.
maybe that's why i never got a ban for it.
on the other hand, my acc was always suspended in between :P
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Thanks for the input guys that actually read the post. I see a lot of bitter responses but that's to be expected. For those that didn't read I did contact them and they do know my history with the company, I was simply given a firm "No" at the time of the refund request and ignored afterwards. Taking it to their forums would've just got me banned faster as Funcom doesn't let any bad pubilicity slide on their forum. The payment was advertised as a temporary deal which tends to not be recurring in my experience, since it's temporary. I also did not send them the petition on the 25th, it was on the 24th im sure of that because I thought to myself "just in time" but sadly I used their website to send it so it's not in my sent email. They just replied the next day.
But the only dead horse here is Funcom, I'm fine with not having the account at this point. Whoever said they would still deny me if I were there customer... lol glad to hear you're willing to model yourself after a failed company. As far as im concerned they snatched money out my pocket and I did the same, I feel like I have grounds to defend myself so if they wanted a "Fraud" case and were confident im sure they'd have done it.
If a company as large as Funcom sicked it's lawyers on you...you wouldn't be able to do shit. The court system isn't about justice or who is right or wrong..it's about who has more money. Do you have more money then funcom? Regardless they won't it isn't worth it over this small amount of money. Though I will agree with the guy who told you he wouldn't want you as a customer. Funcom didn't steal anything from you..you voulantarily gave them money for a service...they provided the service..then you changed your mind. You claim you didn't know it would be recurring...or more accuratly assumed it wouldn't be. Next time be sure what your spending your money on BEFORE you spend it...nobody here to blame buy yourself.
I've had that happen also, not being able to stop the payment because of a error on their site. Another reason im saying negative things about the company but it has nothing to do with my current situation so didn't bother to mention. They've had some pretty outrageous billing issues in their history including charging multiple times because of server clicking lag and not canceling the repeated charges when asked.
Most the people in this topic saying they wouldn't want someone as a customer because they took back 62 dollars after spending 100s over years probably couldn't sell fresh water in a nuclear apocalypse.
Just to chime in here at a positive experience I had with NCsoft regardiny Aion some time ago. They refunded me a year's worth of game time for basically not realizing my old account was on recurring sub; did not log into that account either and they just put the money back on my card without any problems.
When it came to EA and Mythic when they made a mistake on my payment, they refused to refund it and it was a thing of back and forth for weeks until I just let the three days expire that will forfeit my claim out of disgust.
Here's hoping there are more honest companies in the future for our games. Though this is all just my opinion.
Exactly, they may lose a little bit of money but in the long run you gain customer loyalty, which usually amounts to more money than you're grilling the customer over and good publicity. I have nothing but good things to say about NCSoft also and I'd like to think I would receive more than a automated response after talking to them about a similar situation.
That´s perhaps the third time I read this BS rumor. I know my account and when I change anything I need to click submit or confirm button so the account gets updated, people need to READ what is on the screen.
btw got years on and off FC subs, with CC; without CC, with paypal, CC again, and I never was too stupid to not click "confirm" when I edited my info.
How about next time you DOUBLE CHECK if your account infos updated correctly?
people these days, really..
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
.
.
The Return of ELITE !
You seem to be stupid enough to think Arenanet fails when they probably pulled in more money than Age of Conan's entire lifetime in a 3 month period. Get off FCs nads Funcom sucks and has for a long while now.
I do play GW2, I just have enough self control to not get myself banned over cursing. First time hearing of a perma ban for cussing though, seems like there'd be more to it.
Yeah, they use to even make you enter your recurring charge info for trials, at least DAOC did back in the first free trials.