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thekurse's avatar
thekurse
5 years ago

Cannot Link my Xbox Tag to EA Account that had a previously linked Xbox Tag

Hey all.  Recently was excited that EA Play was included with Xbox Gamepass PC.  Excitement quickly turned to frustration when I realized that I cannot link my current Xbox Tag / Account with my EA account because my EA account was already linked 10 years ago to an Xbox Tag that I no longer use.  Unlinked that old Xbox Tag and attempted to link my current one only to see an error stating that you can have ONE Xbox Account linked for the LIFETIME of your EA account.  It was a pretty big WTF moment for me.  

My EA account is 13 years old and I have a decent amount of purchases on it (was an avid Battlefield player, my fiancé loves the Sims, I've enjoyed some of the latest Star Wars offerings as well as the occasional sports game).  I understand that this restriction is in place for security reasons, but the inability to EVER change the linked account for the lifetime of the EA account for ANY reason is insane.

I went to EA support and waited a half hour for a chat agent to show up to hopefully help me remove the flag on my account and get set up with my "new" (i.e. 5 year old) Xbox account.  Their response? The chat reiterated the policy then told me "You may try to link your new Gamertag with an another EA Account as there is no way to link it with the same EA Account." which is basically "Create a burner EA account so you can use EA Play".  What good can this honestly do?  If I do this it makes it so I will never spend a dime on DLC for any game in EA Play as I do not want to have to worry about security on yet another account (I already have to keep an eye on: EA, Ubisoft, Steam, EGS, Xbox, GOG, and Blizzard... now I add a SECOND EA account to that... no way).  It also makes it so if I ever cancel EA Play I won't be able to carry over my progress to games that I may end up wanting to buy after my membership ends therefore... I won't buy games on the burner account.

This kind of policy makes me never want to spend another cent on an EA product. Googling this issue turns up stuff from as far back as 2016 so I'm not too hopeful this will ever change and that the "feedback" will always go to their "teams" (aka the recycle bin).  

If anyone has been able to find an agent somewhere in the labyrinth of EA support that is actually willing and able to help them with this... please let me know. 

Chat transcript for those that are curious (I didn't want to put the chat agent on blast or anything so I just replaced their name): 

( 31m 39s ) Agent: Thank you for contacting EA HELP, my name is Agent, may I start with your first name please?
( 31m 49s ) Visitor: Hi Agent, my name is ____
( 32m 2s ) Agent: Hello ____, hope you are doing good. How may I help you today ?
( 33m 23s ) Visitor: I am attempting to link my Xbox Gamepass PC account to my EA account to activate EA Play. Unfortunately when I first attempted to link them, my EA account was linked to an old Xbox account that I no longer have access to. I unlinked the Xbox account and attempted to link to my new account and it is telling me I can only have one Xbox account linked in my EA account's lifetime.
( 33m 51s ) Agent: I see, thank you for confirming the issue.
( 34m 2s ) Agent: I will share the correct details about this issue.
( 34m 41s ) Agent: I would like to let you know that a player can link only one console ID (One Gamertag in Xbox console) on an EA account.
( 35m 9s ) Agent: If they unlink a Gamertag and try to link the another Gamertag on the same EA Account, it will not work.
( 36m 44s ) Visitor: I understand that but I do not have access to my old Xbox account. There is no way to link my new Xbox account to my EA account at all?
( 37m 36s ) Agent: You may try to link your new Gamertag with an another EA Account as there is no way to link it with the same EA Account.
( 38m 4s ) Agent: Thanks for understanding.
( 38m 5s ) Visitor: Even though all of my Origin purchases are on my current EA account? That seems like an incredibly restrictive policy.
( 39m 38s ) Visitor: That also really incentivizes me to no longer purchase anything through EA's storefront if I'm going to have to juggle multiple EA accounts.
( 40m 16s ) Agent: I can understand but unfortunately there is no option to link the another Gamertag on the same EA Account but if you want, I can take this as a feedback and share it with my team.
( 41m 28s ) Visitor: Feel free. I will also be sure to share this with my connected social platforms. This policy is not well communicated and honestly if there is no way to fix this for people like me with legitimate use cases it seems like EA's apps should be avoided.
( 42m 26s ) Agent: I totally understand your point and be assured, I will share your feedback from my end.
( 42m 27s ) Agent: Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.
( 42m 39s ) Visitor: Nope that was all. Have a good day.
pc

5 Replies

  • ashtonx's avatar
    ashtonx
    5 years ago

    same issue... i long abandoned my old xbox account since i simply couldn't remember which account was which and i wanted an email from outlook..
    I haven't been using it since x360 period and honestly no longer care about it.. and now this ..

    wtf ea ?

  • LoadingMex's avatar
    LoadingMex
    5 years ago

    "An EA Account can only be linked to one Xbox account in its lifetime."

    I tried my best to fix this as well but I am gonna delete my 7+ year old account now with decent amount of games bought because i'm unable to link it to my current Xbox Game Pass account. True pathetic sadness. I understand i could just make a new account and keep the old one but im gonna permanently boycott EA  in total and only use it through other services as Xbox. I will never invest into any EA account.

  • Sir_Slim_4708's avatar
    Sir_Slim_4708
    5 years ago

    So I can't link it...all bc my old account on xbox is locked out and I can't provide them w enough info to let me into it.i mean I've had my account count since the start of xbox the original...this is  tap just like I'm having the same problem on xbox...I dont have that email anymore....this is crap...I lost 46000 gamer points bc of it...so now it's going go be the same here too...all my purchases....one thing is that wasn't the way I understood it...why can't we on here signed in OUR Account move it to a new gamertag on xbox...great I'm gonna go through the same on playstation too I bet...bc my info I hadvwdots down is gone bc ppl suck....in general bc of sticky finger * I now lose everthing...I love madden...been playing it since 95...im done w ea crap...this was the answer I was looking for answers all my quesrion...Good post thanks

  • Whagust's avatar
    Whagust
    5 years ago

    I got it to work!

    I had 2 Xbox accounts linked to my ea account. As many have written an old Xbox360 account and a newer one to the same email. Here's the chat:

    John (2021-04-06 08:59:01): Thank you for contacting EA HELP, my name is John, may I start with your first name please?
    (2021-04-06 08:59:43): Hi, My name is ------.
    John (2021-04-06 08:59:53): Nice to meet you, -------.
    John (2021-04-06 09:00:09): I can see that you have contacted us for the Xbox game pass. Could you tell me more about it?
    (2021-04-06 09:02:13): I contacted you a few weeks ago with a problem with account linking from xbox gamepass to EA play. where it says that I allready have a gametag linked. You told me then that it was a problem that was known and you were going to fix it, but nothing has changed what I can see. I have been to my account settings and linked accounts on the EA site and I do have 2 accounts to xbox. But surely you could delete 1 of them so I can play your games?
    John (2021-04-06 09:03:54): Yes. Let me look in the EA account and I will surely help you to un-link one Gamertag for accessing the EA play via Game pass. No worries.
    John (2021-04-06 09:03:57): May I ask few questions in order to locate your account?
    (2021-04-06 09:04:20): sure
    John (2021-04-06 09:04:41): Can you please share the registered email address and Gamertag with me?
    (2021-04-06 09:05:34): ********@*******.com - ********
    (2021-04-06 09:06:10): connected accounts are Xbox------ & XXXXXXX + Steam - *******
    (2021-04-06 09:06:43): Im playing exclusivly on Xbox- ------ so I would like to unlink XXXXXX
    John (2021-04-06 09:06:54): Which Gamertag you wish to remove?
    (2021-04-06 09:06:58): XXXXXX
    John (2021-04-06 09:08:11): Please read the disclaimer carefully and accept.
    John (2021-04-06 09:08:15): When we unlink a platform account from your account, you will be able to link that platform account to another EA Account, but your in-game progress will not transfer over. That means you’ll lose access to all entitlements, games, memberships or subscriptions, and in-game purchases that are associated with that platform account. You will also permanently lose all game progress. If we unlink a platform account you use to play FIFA, and that platform account is still set as active in the Web or Companion App, you will lose access to those apps entirely on your account. If we unlink a platform account you use to play Apex Legends, you may have issues with Battle Pass leveling, item unlocks, and other errors.

    Once you unlink a platform account from your EA Account and link it to another, you won’t be able to unlink it again for six months. You also will not be able to link it to an EA Account that has already had the same type of account linked to it before, even if there isn’t one currently linked. That means if you’ve had an Xbox account linked to your EA Account in the past, you can’t link a different Xbox account to it in the future.

    Can you confirm that you would still like to have the platform account unlinked from your EA Account?
    (2021-04-06 09:09:06): Yes i would like that
    John (2021-04-06 09:09:20): Thanks. Would you mind holding for a couple of minutes while I fetch some relevant information?
    (2021-04-06 09:09:28): yep
    John (2021-04-06 09:12:37): Thanks for the wait. By the way how are you and how is your day going?
    (2021-04-06 09:13:23): Its good ^^ woke up about an hour ago, gonna get me some breakfast soon
    John (2021-04-06 09:14:25): It is done.
    John (2021-04-06 09:14:43): You can also unlink platform account using this EA Help article.

    https://help.ea.com/in/help/account/unlink-gaming-accounts-from-ea-account/
    John (2021-04-06 09:17:05): Glad to help you out. Is there anything else I may assist you with today?
    (2021-04-06 09:17:16): YES IT WORKS! Thank you very much
    (2021-04-06 09:18:16): no ty that did the trick
    John (2021-04-06 09:18:20): You are most welcome. Glad to help you out. Is there anything else I may assist you with today?

    After this conversation my old user was gone from EA, and I restarted Xbox & Ea desktop and it worked! THey can actually help :D

  • thekurse's avatar
    thekurse
    5 years ago

    Yeah except that's a different issue.  You were one of the lucky ones that somehow got two Xbox accounts attached to one EA account.  If you had one Xbox account attached and wanted to detach it, then attach a new one, you are SOL.   Their official position thus far has been: "This is our policy, we've sent your concerns to wherever, you can always create a new EA account and attach it but you will not have access all of your purchased games, progress, and friends list.  Good luck sucker". 

    So I'm glad they were able to help you with two Xbox accounts being linked at the same time, but with my (and many others') problem of wanting to link a new Xbox account after unlinking an old unused one there is no actual solution.  

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