Re: EA account linking to a new Xbox Account

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.

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.

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@menarche wrote:

@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.

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Good to know. Have you tried their phone support yet? Wondering if they are any better (even though they probably use the same company). 

Since this avenue can’t help and their chat support also won’t/can’t, I also tweeted @ EA_Help. I’ve had good luck with Twitter in the past so maybe between @tmase83 and I they respond to something (though I’ve found a lot of larger companies only have Twitter support on the week days). I also DM’d a few folks I know that may be able to help (long shots though).  

https://twitter.com/redbeardmd/status/1373700912229781505?s=21

Remember folks, the squeaky wheel gets the grease so if you have this problem please tweet, retweet, post on Reddit, Facebook, etc this thread as well as the Reddit thread that @tmase83 linked.

The support chat agent told me this forum was the only avenue I could try to get a response from. 

But the forum moderators say they don't deal with account policy. 

So who does deal with account policy?

I'm asking for an explanation about this account linking restriction policy. 

Why can't I link my Xbox Game Pass account to my EA account if there has been another Xbox account linked historically?

Who can we talk to about having this policy reviewed?

Somewhere in EA there will be a policy manual that details all this, and the process that needs to be undertaken. 

Everyone says they can't help, so who can? 

If the support here can't help us, and live support can't help us... who can? This policy may have some meaning (account sharing, selling, I have no idea) but that's not what is happening here. I hope people keep bumping this, because I don't want to manage multiple EA accounts. That's a dumb solution.

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@-6thAD-Bogard wrote:

If the support here can't help us, and live support can't help us... who can? This policy may have some meaning (account sharing, selling, I have no idea) but that's not what is happening here. I hope people keep bumping this, because I don't want to manage multiple EA accounts. That's a dumb solution.

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Having worked with some amazing database administrators I’m very confused at the policy. It basically encourages duplicate user data which makes any good DBA scream in frustration.  There has to be some monetary reason behind it but from someone who has managed / cleaned up user data because of poor business decisions: this policy seems very stupid. 

I have been "Waiting for chat" for 4 hours. No response. 
I have tweeted to @eahelp with my questions for 2 days, no response. 
In this forum I get no response.

Why is this issue not escalated? Can any EA representative let us know what the reasoning is behind this?

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@Scrpzr wrote:

I have been "Waiting for chat" for 4 hours. No response. 
I have tweeted to @eahelp with my questions for 2 days, no response. 
In this forum I get no response.

Why is this issue not escalated? Can any EA representative let us know what the reasoning is behind this?

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At this point I’m wondering if it makes sense to also rope in some Microsoft folks. They do have a business arrangement that I’m guessing involves a whole lot of money. Maybe they can point us to a tier of support above “useless”. 

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@thekurse wrote:

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@Scrpzr wrote:

I have been "Waiting for chat" for 4 hours. No response. 
I have tweeted to @eahelp with my questions for 2 days, no response. 
In this forum I get no response.

Why is this issue not escalated? Can any EA representative let us know what the reasoning is behind this?

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At this point I’m wondering if it makes sense to also rope in some Microsoft folks. They do have a business arrangement that I’m guessing involves a whole lot of money. Maybe they can point us to a tier of support above “useless”. 

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It absolutely does. I don't know if they can help, but they can't hurt.

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@-6thAD-Bogard wrote:

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@thekurse wrote:

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@Scrpzr wrote:

I have been "Waiting for chat" for 4 hours. No response. 
I have tweeted to @eahelp with my questions for 2 days, no response. 
In this forum I get no response.

Why is this issue not escalated? Can any EA representative let us know what the reasoning is behind this?

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At this point I’m wondering if it makes sense to also rope in some Microsoft folks. They do have a business arrangement that I’m guessing involves a whole lot of money. Maybe they can point us to a tier of support above “useless”. 

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It absolutely does. I don't know if they can help, but they can't hurt.

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I’ve DM’d Megan Spurr on Reddit, who is the gamepass evangelist for Microsoft. Here is the text I’ve sent her: 

Hi Megan. First off, I would like to let you know that Gamepass is an amazing deal and that you have been a fantastic evangelist for Microsoft and it’s services. Because of that, I have come to you for help.

Myself and many other gamers are running into issues linking our current Xbox accounts with our EA accounts. Essentially it boils down to this: we are attempting to link a second Xbox account to an EA account after unlinking a previous Xbox account from EA. EA’s policy is that we may only link one Xbox account to an EA account for its lifetime, which is causing problems for those of us that have had long time EA accounts and may have lost access to our old Xbox accounts. We’ve attempted to contact EA’s support through a variety of means and have been stonewalled at every attempt.

Here is the EA AnswerHQ thread: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Origin-Client-Web-Technical/EA-account-linking-to-a-new-Xbox-Account/m-p/10176120#M109825

Here is the Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/XboxGamePass/comments/m815h4/ea_accounts_can_only_ever_have_one_xbox_account/?sort=new

At this point we’re turning to you to see if there are any other avenues we can pursue that will be able to fix this issue. Many of us are long time gamers with EA and Xbox accounts dating back 10+ years. I know it’s a long shot but I’m asking for some sort of guidance here. Thanks Megan!

Thanks for taking the time to send the message. Hopefully something will come of it.

This is what Microsoft says:

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@Scrpzr wrote:

 

So I need to contact EA customer support to properly unlink my Xbox and EA accounts. So does Microsoft have false information?

Anyone?

 

 

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That's the thing, the unlinking isn't the issue, several people can do that without EA Support assistance. It's the relinking to another Xbox account that is the trouble. I don't think EA Support channels fully comprehend that part of it. 

Thanks @thekurse for pushing this along. You are better connected than me!

I see EAHelp on twitter answering other people's queries but so far I've not had a response. 

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@tmase83 wrote:

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@Scrpzr wrote:

 

So I need to contact EA customer support to properly unlink my Xbox and EA accounts. So does Microsoft have false information?

Anyone?

 

 

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That's the thing, the unlinking isn't the issue, several people can do that without EA Support assistance. It's the relinking to another Xbox account that is the trouble. I don't think EA Support channels fully comprehend that part of it. 

Thanks @thekurse for pushing this along. You are better connected than me!

I see EAHelp on twitter answering other people's queries but so far I've not had a response. 

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I was able to get a response from EAHelp, but the long and short of it is this:

"That restriction is not one I can override, but it's one we're looking into to see if any other options would be possible in the future. For now, you may not be able to link to the same account you prefer. We'll note your feedback and keep investigating any future solutions if possible."

Hopefully if we keep asking for a solution they can find one.

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@-6thAD-Bogard wrote:

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@tmase83 wrote:

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@Scrpzr wrote:

 

So I need to contact EA customer support to properly unlink my Xbox and EA accounts. So does Microsoft have false information?

Anyone?

 

 

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That's the thing, the unlinking isn't the issue, several people can do that without EA Support assistance. It's the relinking to another Xbox account that is the trouble. I don't think EA Support channels fully comprehend that part of it. 

Thanks @thekurse for pushing this along. You are better connected than me!

I see EAHelp on twitter answering other people's queries but so far I've not had a response. 

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I was able to get a response from EAHelp, but the long and short of it is this:

"That restriction is not one I can override, but it's one we're looking into to see if any other options would be possible in the future. For now, you may not be able to link to the same account you prefer. We'll note your feedback and keep investigating any future solutions if possible."

Hopefully if we keep asking for a solution they can find one.

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That sounds like the biggest cop out corporate speak response they could give you. I really really hate it when they say things like “we’ll take your feedback into consideration” and “we’ll investigate future solutions”. I mean, feel free to do that, but to the customers that you are currently leaving high and dry it sounds more like “Stop asking for this basic thing, go away, we don’t care”. 

There has to be someone in the company somewhere that can at least give us a straight answer of why this policy exists in the first place and why they are unwilling to help out their customers with this seemingly simple request.

I mean, is their database schema so convoluted that when you link accounts it creates some sort of wild foreign key constraints that require them to call Raul from a contracting company they haven’t used in years and have him sign in and untangle the data for $200 an hour? 

Or is it just that Dave from accounting was in a meeting 8 years ago and came up with a line graph that said users with multiple accounts spend more money and the board went “wow nice graph Dave, let’s make this policy and go grab a couple of vodka Red Bull’s after”?