I'm going to make this really simple, EA
You have had my money for days. I have not yet been able to even begin a city despite many hours of trying.
So this is really simple. You're going to give me a refund. If you don't give me a refund, you're going to find out what a very determined person with plenty of time on his hands and plenty of means to take action will do when he feels like a corporation has defrauded him and refuses to make it right.
I'll start with my state's Attorney General. I'll then move on to the FTC and lodge an interstate commcrce fraud complaint. I'll of course hit the BBB. Finally I am quite sure given my means and contacts that I can find a lawyer who will bring a complaint that you cannot ignore.
You refused to refund me when you defrauded me by claiming you were selling me one thing (a working product) and delivered a completely non-functional product. You further threatened me that you would ban my entire account which has quite a few games on it, unrelated to this game or this transaction, and threatened to permanently revoke my ability to play those other games which have long since been paid for. I'm fairly certain the extent of your legal right if I ask my bank to do a charge back is to remove my access to what I would then have no longer paid for. Threatening punitive action in order to coerce a consumer to accept a purchase which was made in good faith but which was not delivered upon is, I am quite sure, a violation of several consumer rights laws.
Ball's in your court EA.
@vivalashark wrote:
@darkwyndre wrote:So far the current call had one representative, Allan, threaten me with an account ban if I charged back. His supervisor backpedaled and said that it is one of "four" outcomes (warning, suspesnsion, ban, ???). They keep falling back to the fact that they have the "right" to refuse a refund due to the agreement I made with them; however, they violated the agreement by failing to provide me what I was agreeing to purchase.
Ergo, that agreement cannot be used as a reason to deny me a refund, as far as I can see.
I asked for another supervisor and after quite a lot of back and forth I'm on hold again. 1 hour, 14 minutes and 30 seconds into the phone call and still nothing but threats.
What exactly are they talking about? A complete ban from Origin, or just no access to the current game key you bought? And you can purchase a new one at a later date?
The supervisor, who was a very nice gentleman, said that it's another department that decides what to do in a chargeback case. Obviously the game in question would be removed from the account no matter what. The further action (Ban, warning, suspsension, ???) would be account-wide.
That is all moot; however, since after a lengthy discussion the supervisor agreed to give me a refund. Basically it came down to the fact that their are doing the "no refunds" blanket thing based upon the TOS that you agree to at purchase; however, they have to hold up their end of that agreement in order to enforce it upon the consumer. That provision in the TOS is there to protect them from people buying, say, Mass Effect 3 and completing it in a couple days and then asking for a refund. It's not meant for situations like this one and since they have thus far been unable to hold up their end of the purchase agreement, he eventually agreed to the refund.
Hopefully I won't have made anyone's life too much more difficult by posting that they gave me one. The representative and supervisor I talked to both sounded like they have had very long and trying days, and I imagine most of the customers calling have not been very polite. I did my best to keep an even tone and refrain from any sort of foul language, and afterward I thanked them very much for their help and apologized if I had at any time been rude to them, and wished them a good evening.
Moral of the story is that patience and clearheadedness generally prevail.
