Forum Discussion

makaelawaffle's avatar
makaelawaffle
8 years ago

RANT ABOUT RUDE EA ADVISOR

SO I JUST WANT TO GET MY STORY OUT THERE BECAUSE I AM SO DISUSED WITH EA/ORIGIN I'M THINKING OF SWITCHING TO STEAM

Backstory:

I am a die hard Sims Fan and have been playing for as long as i can remember. The sims 3 is my favorite game of all time and over the past few years i have slowly been collecting all the stuff and expansion packs. I usually buy EP's when there is a sale wherever. I find it either from friends, amazon, origin, steam wherever i can find the cheapest price since EP's are still being sold for full price which is $19.99. I bought an EP from a friend a loooonnngg time ago i used the code and have been playing the pack for almost a year all of a sudden the pack disappeared. Confused i contacted EA who were very nice and told me they would send out paperwork to attempt to fix whatever caused my game to vanish. About a week later i receive an email saying that there's an issue with the game and i need to contact the retailer. I am no longer in contact with the friend i purchased the game from so i figured there has to be another way to get my game back. I didn't download it illegally or anything i bought it fair and square. If my way of getting the game is unauthorized then they should of told me from the start so that i could of contacted the person who sold it to me waiting 6+ months is crazy.

11/11/17 :

On Saturday November 11th I spoke with an advisor who was immediately worse than any advisor that has ever helped me. When i explained him my story he told me i needed proof of having the game or else he couldn't help me. I told him he could look in my game history and see that i had the game because all i have ever had was a code so i have nothing to show. He then looked at my account like he should have done instead of accusing me of being a liar. He then told me that my game had violated some sort of policy because i bought it from a friend. I have never heard of this policy before if i had of known that i was violating a rule when purchasing a game from a friend i would of never done so because i wouldn't want to risk having issues with my game. Shocked i begin to ask the Advisor about the Terms and conditions of my game that i apparently had violated and he responded to me with "do you want your game back or not?" Shocked again i then asked if he was getting an attitude with me to which he responded " now you can only contact the retailer for help is there any other way i can assist you today?" I then decided to disconnect the chat and try to reach out to another advisor. This advisor was nicer than the first one. However they told me there was nothing they could do and didn't even offer an apology for the way the other agent had treated me. Why did the rude advisor say they could get my game back but this one is saying they can't. This makes me think that the rude agent really had some sort of power to stop any advisor from getting my game back. I asked them what they planned to do and his response was essentially nothing. Then they offered to get me to a supervisor which was great at this point i wanted to speak to someone higher up. After waiting for a supervisor for about 15+ minutes the advisor comes back and tells me they cant get one and that either way i would get the same answer. The agent then disconnected the chat.

Conclusion:

I have saved the chat transcripts to both of these advisor interactions (not sure if i am allowed to or should post them here). As of right now i have posted them to my Sims group that contains thousands of EA customers who are just as disgusted as i am. I also plan on posting the chat transcript everywhere possible to make sure people are aware of how EA treats there customers. I cant believe that a company would treat there customers this way and then not even care about making it right. If anything i would love to get people to stop going to EA the only reason i use them is because they are the creator of Sims but at this point i don't care. If i am forced to re-buy the expansion pack for no reason then i will be switching all of my games over to steam. I have been told by a few people that i must of done something to the advisor and honestly i didn't i can prove that in the chat transcripts. I did ask questions and get a little mad initially when he tried to refuse helping me but i never cursed or called him names. Bottom line is a customer should not receive an attitude from customer service and they definitely should not have an advisor refuse to help them out of spite. People in my Sims group have told me that they have had this same advisor that helped me get and attitude with them as well as disconnect the chat so this is something that obviously needs to be addressed.

Side note:

EA if you want to contact me about this feel free because i will be calling/chatting you guys until you make an attempt to make this right. I have honestly been a customer with EA for over 10 years and have never had a problem this bad. I work in customer service so i know that there is a good chance you guys will read this and just write me off as some crazy over dramatic customer. When the reality is I've never been treated this bad by any customer service ever especially when not doing anything to warrant the behavior. Since i work in customer service i also know how a situation should be handled and if this is a company that does not care about something like this then i no longer want to have anything to do with it. All i want is my game back which the rude agent told me he could do before he snapped on me and refused to help. If he lied about being able to get my game back and was rude to top it off then that would be absolutely ridiculous. EA/Origin has Advisors who lie, refuse to get a supervisor, get an attitude and are just flat out rude. What kind of people are they hiring!!? Do they even care about there customers?

 
 
 
pc
technical issues

3 Replies

  • roberta591's avatar
    roberta591
    Hero (Retired)
    8 years ago

    @makaelawaffle  First of all when you purchase most software you do not own the software - what you purchase is a license to use the software. If you read the EULA (end user license agreement)(you know the thing you agreed to the first time you played the game - you know the thing no one reads) you should have read the game/pack licenses is not transferable. If your friend used the code it can not be re used. There is no way to deactivate a code from the EA system. Dealing with over seas call centers can be challenging. Recently Microsoft (Windows operating system) and Apple (OS X operating system) will no no support the DRM the Sims 3 was released with. SecuROM and SafeDisc which were poorly supported. The new DRM developed by EA in 2012 for EA games is Origin. Origin is much like Steam. Once you activate a code to a Steam account you can not "give" that code to someone else. Origin works much like Valve's Steam. I to am also a long time Sims player and I sometimes get (very) frustrated with customer service. Software licensing has been in effect for a long time (like the Windows operating system) but as long as there has been no major loss of revenue no one really did anything. This is very much like when the recording industry was cracking down claiming mp3 ripping was a copyright violation. There was a 12 year old girl sued by the RIAA for music downloading. I can go on and on but piracy is piracy. And if we want to continue to see quality games for our computers users have to contribute in the form of purchasing the license to use the game. I in no way excuse the actions of the CS rep as this is not for me to judge. Please do not post transcripts in these forums as it is against the forum rules. I am opposed to foreign call centers because of the language barrier and frequently the issue can not be resolved. American money is going overseas for the purpose of CS that the reps frequently don't understand the American way of life and this makes resolution difficult. The best one was when the state of California contracted a company to do their customer service AND that company sub contracted an India company to do the cs. this could go on and on but the main issue is your ownership of the code. Maybe there should be a COA (certificate of authenticity) but Microsoft tried this. Right now the code is owned by the person who can prove the code was purchased from an authorized seller. Let me say that SecROM was a rootkit and I rather deal with a Steam like DRM then something that embeds code in my computer.   hth

  • makaelawaffle's avatar
    makaelawaffle
    8 years ago

    Yea i guess i should have read that but i also feel like it should be communicated more thoroughly what things can and cant be done. Either way i would of honestly accepted that there's nothing they can do if 1) the rude advisor hadn't told me that they could recover my game 2)If the advisor had of been pleasant now since ive been put though so much i feel like they should restore my game just for how i was treated. I'm not asking for much!  Also thank you for letting me know that i cant post the transcripts i figured i shouldn't. Glad i didn't.

  • roberta591's avatar
    roberta591
    Hero (Retired)
    8 years ago

    @makaelawaffle  I totally understand you. Right now my mortgage was sold to Ocwen Financial. You have no idea the ignorance in customer service until you talk to these guys. Then after multiple conversations I find out Ocwen could configure my account to route to a state side cs upon contact and when I ask to get transferred to a state side consultant, the ignorant person who is in India (I guess) tries to pretend i don't know what I'm talking about. About once a year I've had to call headquarters to resolve errors they are making. Years ago I had a different mortgage company fail to pay my home owners insurance and let it lapse. I had an escrow account and payment should have been automatic. What if a would have had a loss (a claim)? We are not talking a $20 game pack. A couple of years ago I got a letter from the IRS stating I owed $10000 because of  a mistake my wife made with the taxes. When I finally got in touch with the IRS (that was another issue - you just don't pick up the phone and talk to someone - I can't tell you how much elevator music I listened to) It was a problem that wasn't entered correctly (it wasn't entered at all) on my tax forms (and I don't do my taxes - I have an accountant). I can only wish a have $20 problems. I'm not trying to minimize your issue but I get to a point I have more important things going on to try to figure out a issue that may not be an issue. The problem I see is you can't prove ownership and if the cs rep enabled the pack for you the system would disable your friend's pack. I'm guessing only one person can own the pack and the cs is reluctant to cancel your friends code (that would be their decision). This would be like when I called Microsoft and telling the nice lady that the computer that had the code no longer exists and they enable the code for the new computer. Apparently your friend used the code already. Be aware the TOS (terms of service) do change from time to time and like any license ignorance is no excuse. If you really want to pursue this I recommend file a complaint with the BBB or a nice (very nice) letter to the executive offices of EA. I would explain how you got received the pack (code) and you really didn't realize it was wrong. You might add this wasn't explained to you (it should have been). Don't include the transcripts as that should only be been in the case of legal action and I don't think you want to go there. As you were in the wrong (regardless if you knew it or not) I don't think legal action would go far (and cost a lot) regardless of what was said. Have a drink (or two) and lament that the system bit you again and hey you learned something new today.  take care.

About The Sims 3 Technical Issues

Get help with issues in The Sims 3 from fellow Simmers.83,282 PostsLatest Activity: 59 minutes ago