Re: EA account linking to a new Xbox Account

I guess I don't really even understand why "unlinking" is an option if you can't link a new account.  Do people just unlink and never use that service ever again?   It's baffling.

I will definitely let you know if my yelling on social media or here uproots anything.  So far it looks like EA's "official" channels are useless.

It says that you can unlink an account and link a new account, but you won't be able to link another account for 6 months @thekurse.

Are you having trouble linking a new account after you unlinked your account?

I have the same issue. When EA Play was added to the Game Pass on Xbox I installed EA Play on it which must have created a sort of "ghost EA account" and linked to it, I can't even see details of this account in EA Play since it sends me to the Xbox account instead.

When I try to link on my EA Desktop account I get the message that it's already linked. If I remove the link on my Microsoft account, EA Play on Xbox keeps on working, so it seems that only appears when I link it on PC, so removing it from the MS account doesn't work either.

This is a pretty obvious use case and EA will get more and more users with this issue, so they should develop a solution ASAP.

I'm having the same issue as well. The rep I talked to was actually very helpful and was trying to link the correct accounts together after unlinking my other accounts, but it seems like even he was unable to at this point. He told me he was treating it as a bug report for now and I should check back in a week. I'm thankful he was helpful but what a strange headache all of this is. I'm excited to use EA Play with my Xbox Game Pass but it seems like I may never get to use my actual EA account at this point.

@thekurseThe only reason i can see is to unlink and relink to a new EA account. I wish it would have a big warning when saying you could never link another Xbox account. I don't get the point either, i have access to my email and access to all accounts involved, who cares if i link another xbox to an EA account?? just a baffling choice to limit it to 1 account ever.

@EA_Jason I did see one way i could maybe get it linked was to launch an EA game on an xbox console, but i dont own a current gen one. I mean, i have a 360, but not sure any of those EA games servers still work or if i could get it working again. So that probably wouldn't work. 

How was issue not foreseen? You would think this would have come up in the testing stages, but who knows.

@EA_Jason 

I linked Xbox Account #1 to my EA Account 10 years ago.  I no longer access Xbox Account #1, and have used Xbox Account #2 (which has numerous purchases and my Gamepass attached to it) for some time.  When I went to link Xbox Account #2 to my EA account, it told me Xbox Account #1 was already linked.  So I unlinked Xbox Account #1 and attempted to link Xbox Account #2 and it is telling me I may only EVER link Xbox Account #1 to my EA account.  When I went onto chat and asked for the ability to link Xbox Account #2 I was told that it wasn't possible and that my best course of action was to link Xbox Account #2 to a new EA Account (essentially EA Account #2).  What I am saying is that is unacceptable considering all of my Origin purchases and credit card information are on my current EA Account and opening a second one just to utilize my EA Play benefits on Xbox Account #2 is ridiculous. 

So yes.  I am having problems linking Xbox Account #2 to my EA Account because it is telling me that I may ONLY EVER link Xbox Account #1 to it, even though I no longer ever use that Xbox Account and have essentially shut it down.   Nowhere has it said "Wait 6 months" and your chat agent told me the same: that I may only ever link ONE Xbox Account to my EA Account for the LIFETIME of my EA Account.  

EDIT: I've attached an image of the error I get when I attempt to link Xbox Account #2 to my EA Account. 

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@Qrusher14242 wrote:

@thekurseThe only reason i can see is to unlink and relink to a new EA account. I wish it would have a big warning when saying you could never link another Xbox account. I don't get the point either, i have access to my email and access to all accounts involved, who cares if i link another xbox to an EA account?? just a baffling choice to limit it to 1 account ever.

@EA_Jason I did see one way i could maybe get it linked was to launch an EA game on an xbox console, but i dont own a current gen one. I mean, i have a 360, but not sure any of those EA games servers still work or if i could get it working again.

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I agree the whole thing about only ever linking one xbox account over the lifetime of your EA account seems arbitrary.

Forcing people to make a second EA account just to access EA Play content, separate from the EA account that you normally use would certainly serve to inflate the apparent number of users using the service. Im sure this is a metric that someone's performance bonus is tied to, or maybe I'm being a cynic.

I suspect, like you my EA account got linked, probably without much input from me, when I owned an Xbox 360. The only EA title I owned on Xbox was BF4, which I doubt I played more than once or twice, and I certainly don't recall being made aware of a lifetime restriction on account linking back then. 

I have the same error, after unlinking my old, unused xbox account.

@EA_Jason EA's system will not permit you to link an Xbox account to your EA account if there has ever been another Xbox account linked to this account, period it seems. 6 month stand down period or not.

It's very frustrating. 

The whole system is borked.

An old roommate linked his xbox gamertag to my EA account on what I assume was an old Xbox I had so many years ago. EA chat folk who cannot think, just spurt out call scripts, want me to authenticate that account before they will remove it... hello... I don't have access to that account. 

I can verify on Xbox all day long, but they cant remove it.

Now if I do successfully get it removed, I have to wait 6 months to link it... I now either lose all my xbox achievements, purchases just to create a new account. Or, I wait 6 months. This is such a vile garbage system.

I don't think EA's system will let you link your existing EA account to another xbox account whether you wait six months or not.

The whole process is ambiguous and poorly worded in my opinion. 

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@tmase83 wrote:

I don't think EA's system will let you link your existing EA account to another xbox account whether you wait six months or not.

The whole process is ambiguous and poorly worded in my opinion. 

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Also I think @tmase83  mentioned this earlier, but I also don't recall 10-11 years ago when I was linking this thing on my 360 to play Bad Company (or BC2... or BF3... or BF4... or whatever flagship game that I bought that launched this link process) anything saying "THIS IS PERMANENT!  YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO UNLINK THIS.  EVER." 

Then again that was 10-11 years ago so... yeah.  

The whole situation is very customer unfriendly.  Which I guess isn't incredibly surprising coming from EA, but I sure did hope they might reach out to help customers that have stuck with them for many years. Or even just prove me wrong by doing anything at all other than just use canned responses and wash their hands of it and say "So sorry, can't do a thing!  Guess that's just how it has to be.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ " 

The thing is that this issue is more likely to effect long term customers predominantly. Especially those with substantial existing paid product libraries. If you had less skin in the game, then you'd be less likely to pursue this, as you'd have less to lose if you decide to cut your losses and just sign up a new EA account. 

I remember thinking way back when Origin launched that one day this would all cause headaches. 

The silence from EA official channels is not what I'd expect from a company of this size. Even something along the lines of "We are looking into this, we'll get back to you" or "We have no plans to help you" then I guess we can decide whether to keep giving them our business. 

I never fully bought into the EA hate that goes around but I'm beginning to see how people get frustrated. 

In my experience the best avenues for getting a company the size and "You're a small customer so I don't care" of EA is to tweet, forum post, Reddit, etc until someone in the company says "Hey there's some negative attention uh... we should do something".    I agree, this is definitely only affecting customers that have existed for some time and have an "investment" in their digital libraries.  But you would think they would be trying to take care of those customers the most.  Sucks we have to experience "EA ignores its customers" firsthand, but I'm willing to give them a day or two to respond before I go into the gaming communities I frequent and lay this whole ordeal out before them.  

Well I joined twitter solely to try to get some sort of reasoning and explanation

https://twitter.com/Tim20802273/status/1373422065710100480

Feel free to retweet - is that how this works!

I also have to switch between accounts if I want to play certain games. Next to that, I have quite some progress in games like Battlefield V and other titles that are now lost, so I have to start over on this Ghost EA account, which means I probably won't play them. It's a shameful policy, and I would like to know why one can only link an EA account to an Xbox account once in a lifetime.
This makes zero sense.

Still crickets from the support staff. Come on EA, I know you’re out there. @EA_Jason has cut and run but I do see @EA_Darko answering stuff, so I know you guys are online. 

Any of you folks able to offer help to us longtime customers? 

Hey @thekurse, if you need to unlink your account and do not have access to the EA account that your Gamertag is linked to then you need to speak with our live support.

If they are unable to assist you then there is nothing that we can do on AHQ to change this.

You can contact our live support at help.ea.com.  

To  speak with a chat or phone adviser:

Click on your product Origin

Then select 'PC

Manage my Account'

Can't log in

Finally, you can choose to begin a chat or request a call back.

Darko

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@EA_Darko wrote:

Hey @thekurse, if you need to unlink your account and do not have access to the EA account that your Gamertag is linked to then you need to speak with our live support.

If they are unable to assist you then there is nothing that we can do on AHQ to change this.

You can contact our live support at help.ea.com.  

To  speak with a chat or phone adviser:

Click on your product Origin

Then select 'PC

Manage my Account'

Can't log in

Finally, you can choose to begin a chat or request a call back.

 

Darko

 

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@EA_Darko 
Did you even read this thread? I have access to my EA account. I am attempting to link a new Xbox account to it and unable to. Chat wasn’t able to help, and now you’re telling us this official channel also is unable/unwilling to help. There are multiple people in this thread who are customers of 10+ years with the same problem and you’re telling all of us we are SOL. Now THAT is some stellar customer support. 

Hey @thekurse, sorry to say but we are unable to assist with account-based issues on AHQ.

If our live support team is unable to assist you then there is nothing that we can do on AHQ to change this.

Darko 

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@menarche wrote:
@EA_DarkoDo you think perhaps, you could provide us with a higher level of support? Is there only one tier of support at EA? Or, do you have...idk engineers/management that might need to get involved?

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This is a great question. I have developed a decent amount large enterprise application solutions over the years and I know that once those things launch, there are always tiers of support over the initial customer interaction team. 

@menarche Once i have an hour+ to burn my next course of action will be to get back online with a new chat agent and if they give me the run around turn on Karen mode and ask for their supervisor. 

@thekurse I don't recommend it. I have been in chat with 3 folks. Their Chat support seems to be outsourced, and they adhere to a strict no escalation policy. I have had two different chat folks just close conversation when asked to speak to a supervisor. They always say the typical non answers "As a gamer, we feel your pain.....", "We have passed your feedback up...", and sometimes despite literally telling them that you know the script they are about to try to run through will not work...they run through it anyway. Origin support was great about a decade ago when I had issues, but now it is clearly garbage.