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Yesterday I decided to re-sub one of my AO accounts, I have 2 accounts with expansions and 3 free accounts registered to my email address.
I couldnt remember all my logins so I requested account info and received an email listing all the account names.
So far so good.
next I logged into each account on the account management page to verify they were all still ok
No problems there either.
Having ascertained which account i wanted to resub to I tried to log back into account management and recieved an error saying the pw or account namewas incorrect. Tried a few more times, knew it was ok as I had logged into it 5 minutes prior to this.
No joy.
Spoke to live suport who said I had incurred a 24 hour lockout because of too many access attempts and I would need to try again in 24 hours.
27 hours later and im back in chat support, my 24 hours is now 7 days !
And theres apparently nothing whatsoever that can be done about this.
How on earth can this be the case ?
I cant even log into the forums to ask in the support forum.
Below is the chat log from today.
Hello my account is locked out and I need help with that pls |
05:48:53 PM GMT |
|
Me: |
The account name -is xxxx and it should have all expanisons registerd to it, I wish to reactivate my sub |
05:52:58 PM GMT |
Drew has entered the chat. |
05:54:19 PM GMT |
|
Drew: |
hello |
05:55:03 PM GMT |
Me: |
Hi there |
05:55:08 PM GMT |
Drew: |
you first need to create a payment method and link it with your account |
05:55:19 PM GMT |
Drew: |
then, you reactivate the subscription |
05:55:29 PM GMT |
Me: |
I cant log into my account |
05:55:31 PM GMT |
Drew: |
have you tried resetting the password? |
05:55:52 PM GMT |
Me: |
yes i spoke to somone yesterday, they said i had a 24 hour lock due to loggin into it too many times or something |
05:56:25 PM GMT |
Drew: |
oh ok |
05:56:32 PM GMT |
Me: |
that was 27 hours ago though |
05:56:36 PM GMT |
Drew: |
do you wish to use the same payment method you were using earlier? |
05:56:51 PM GMT |
Me: |
probably not, the card is likely expired |
05:57:06 PM GMT |
Me: |
actually it might not, can u see when last payment was ? |
05:57:42 PM GMT |
Drew: |
it was in march 2009 using a visa card |
05:58:02 PM GMT |
Me: |
my current card started on 04/09 |
05:58:09 PM GMT |
Me: |
lol |
05:58:14 PM GMT |
Me: |
1 month too late |
05:58:20 PM GMT |
Drew: |
unfortunately, I can't reactivate the account without a valid payment method on it |
05:58:54 PM GMT |
Me: |
u cant activate it so i can log into the account on the website ? |
05:59:18 PM GMT |
Drew: |
If the lockout still persists after 24 hours, it has been extened to 7 days. we have no way of removing the lockout |
05:59:25 PM GMT |
Me: |
then i can add the card |
05:59:28 PM GMT |
Me: |
7 days ! thats a bit extreme |
05:59:53 PM GMT |
Drew: |
I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but there's really no way for us to remove the lockout. You will need to wait 7 days without trying to log in so the lockout can expire |
06:00:40 PM GMT |
Me: |
surely someone can remove it ? |
06:01:02 PM GMT |
Drew: |
we cannot, I apologize |
06:01:19 PM GMT |
Me: |
noone, anywhere in your organization could remove it ? |
06:01:36 PM GMT |
Drew: |
I'm afraid not |
06:01:56 PM GMT |
Me: |
You have to be kidding, thats ridiculous |
06:02:12 PM GMT |
Drew: |
once again I apologize, but in this case the only thing that can be done is to wait for the lockout to expire |
06:04:02 PM GMT |
Me: |
Im truly amazed lol, nobody codes things to be that restrictive. Oh well guess I wont be playing again after all |
06:05:08 PM GMT |
Drew: |
Please let us know if you have any further issues after the lockout has expired. Thank you for using live chat and have a nice day. |
06:06:37 PM GMT |
Drew has closed the chat session. If you still need help, please don't hesitate to contact us again. |
Comments
Wow, that's got to be one of the most asinine things I've ever heard. How could there not be any way to remove something like that? Why in the hell would that kind of restriction be implemented in the first place, without any control to take it off prior to the full 7 days? I'm perplexed.
Funcom is a strange company...
Somewhat an odd story with an even more odd account system. It means you MUST keep yur payment methods up to date or you'll loose your account forever if you don't..?
I LOL'd about Drew's last comment (flowchart probably) after your comment not to play at all. Sad sad sad CS there...
Taking security seriously? Hmm, still quite extreme block on the account... Their system is somewhat weird...
You could enter this contest.
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Yep it's definitly over the top. The same thing happened with me when trying to merge one of my accounts with my master account. First they said it was 24 hours and then after three days of waiting the story changed to 7 days.
I've confirmed I have access now but ive really lost my interest in resubbing to AO.
And yes, they said there is nothing they can do about it in my case as well. Nothing they *want* to do about is likely more accurate.
Playing: varies every day it seems.
Unbelievable! I just posted this about 8 hours ago in another AO forum...
Anarchy Online was/is a great game. AO biggest issue? Funcom!
After interacting with Funcom's "Customer Service" on-and-off for most of a month I've become convinced that you must be brain-dead in order to work there. I download the AO game client about a month ago to see if I could get it to work in Linux. Somehow my tinkering got my IP blocked. "Simple" you say "just call customer service and straighten it out" ... not likely. You see, Funcom has no call in support, so you can forget anything resembling a quick fix or quick support for any of their games. They do have something called Live Chat though! After the fifth time of asking them to help me I threw up my hands in utter surrender. The dizzy chicks that spawn on their Live Chat are very good at telling you "There is nothing I can do" and very bad at actually helping you.
Then comes the mandatory emailing: Let's just say that after four emails to fix the most simple issue my final comment to customer service was "You must be high".
I'll play AO again when they sell it to a company that knows how to treat their customers. By the looks of their long-term stock trend that should be any minute now.
As far as their new game, "The Secret World", forget it. After their wow-clone's epic failure/lies I'd never spend another dime on Funcom.
What you describe in your post and the transcript of your chat is nearly identical to my experience over the month of June. The last guy I chatted to was Drew (LOL)! Near the end of the conversation he starting asking his supervisor if there was something he could do to actually help me...now I know why: He had just gotten done burning you. And, by the way, the supervisor's answer was "no."
They say that all companies have a birth, middle-age, old-age and death. Looks like Funcom is on it's death-bed clutching its chest.
Thanks for your post Lantril. Knowing I wasn't alone made me feel better.
btw Lantril, I put you on my friends list. Send me a note and let me know how you resolve this and if you play again. If you decide to play that game again let me know and I'll go with you.
They can't ban me forever ...can they?
1. accountproblems can not be solved by game masters, thats a fact.
2. ALL account related problems have to be written by email to account@anarchy-online.com
ofcause someone can solve your issues, it may need some days, but it is solveable.
stay on fact, try to give as mutch informations as possible and say clearly what has failed and you get helped for sure.
This game has some scammers lately, trying to get over other peoples accounts and such, so if your story isnt 110% valid, then you may get in trouble.
No reason to doubt your story, they just want to know EXACLY, wasup ^^
In the end, its also for your own savety.
It seems pretty clear that "Drew" didn't understand your problem at all. Let me sum this up, just to make sure I've got it right:
"I can't log in to my account to reactivate my subsciption."
"You can't reactivate until you have a valid payment method entered."
"I can't log in to enter a payment method."
"Too bad for you. Bye!"
Have I pretty much got that?
i can't login to account right now, i think maybe their system is broken again, i tried coming back like 5 months ago and reactivated my 2 full accounts for a month but i had to wait like 3 days to get access to my account page.
It wasn't accepting my passwords like it is at the moment, but months ago i kept trying over and over on both accounts and then tried password reset thinking it was my account getting stolen like my original one had been in 2008.
Anyway i emailed them and the next day was told the system was down that day but since i had done the account recover thing i had to wait a few days for someone to fix my account because of the random code it generates probably..
I think their account page has issues alot. Atleast you didn't have the problem i had a few years ago where they wouldn't accept my credit card and they used to not have paypal as an option so i always had to run out to 7eleven and buy ultimategame cards to pay for the game. game cards fees are lame.
Some people just love the game so much and put up will all funcom's bull or they get lucky and don't have to deal with this stuff so they cant' sympathize and think we are just crybabies.
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