Bought Donuts using iTunes Gift Card...but received no Donuts?

Ah, I see. I'm sure my issue is caused by the gift cards not being enough to cover the tax. I'm mad at myself for not thinking of that and using smaller donut increments so it'd be covered. I'll just pick up a $5 or $10 gift card tomorrow to fix the issue. Course, there may be a delay on them refunding the donuts. I'll get it figured out.

Just call iTunes go to apple.com and go to support and setup iTunes call center they call you as soon as you put your number in and they will explain and help you out

Oh I've surely been charged. Entered the codes from the back of the two iTunes gift cards at around 4:30pm or 5:00pm today, and my iTunes balance was exactly $50. I bought the 900 Donuts in game about 15 minutes later. My iTunes account didn't reflect the purchase for a couple hours, but eventually showed it as $0.01 (reflecting the $49.99 being charged). However, I still only have 2 Donuts in my account (from missions). So I have no donuts, but they've charged my $49.99. As said, I'm sure tomorrow or the next day i get the $49.99 refunded and an explanation of insufficient funds for the purchase since the $50 wasn't enough to cover the extra few bucks in tax. Just a stupid oversight on my part making a very simple thing entirely overcomplicated.

So after emailing and setting up a live callback from iTunes support I've made a bit of headway. Received this email reciept for the purchase (edited out my personal info):

USA Order ID: ******
Receipt Date: 03/19/13
Order Total: $49.99
Billed To: Store Credit

Item Seller Type Unit Price

The Simpsons™: Tapped Out, Store Full of 900 Donuts
Report a Problem ELECTRONIC ARTS In-App Purchase $49.99

Subtotal: $49.99
Tax: $0.00

Order Total: $49.99


Notice the tax is 0.00, related to, as Dromstul mentioned, FL not charging tax on iTunes downloads. Also received this letter from iTunes support further clarifying it:


Dear David,

Thank you for contacting iTunes Store Customer Support. My name is Melanie and it is my pleasure to assist you today. I hope all is well.

I see that your concern is about paying for the tax that should be included for your purchase of "The Simpsons™: Tapped Out". I can certainly appreciate your need to get this resolved. Let me help you out with this matter.

David, after checking, it appears that your purchase for "Store Full of 900 Donuts" was successful and luckily, it does not include any tax which means your credit $50 is enough to fund the purchase. You can confirm this by checking your Purchase history.

To review your iTunes Store account's purchase history, please follow the steps in this article:

iTunes Store & Mac App Store: Seeing your purchase history and order numbers
http://support.apple.com/****

I hope that this email proves to be helpful. Feel free to let me know if you have further concerns regarding this request. Thank you for being a valued iTunes customer.

Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Melanie
iTunes Store Customer Support



So the issue wasn't with the $50 not being enough for tax, the issue seems to just be a screw-up on behalf of either EA not adding the donuts (still not there as of this morning) or iTunes not forwarding the purchase info correctly or however it works.

I also set up a callback from iTunes support for about an hour from now, so I'll hopefully get it handled by then. I'll update when I have more info.

I live in FL, and as you know now, there is no tax on in-app purchases. Whenever I make donut purchases using iTunes credit, I receive the donuts instantaneously. EA is definitely the one at fault here.

You can take one of two routes:

1) Contact iTunes again and clarify that you didn't receive what you paid for. Obtain a refund, and try the purchase again if you feel comfortable doing so.

2) Contact EA and make them aware of the situation. Hopefully, they'll credit you the donuts (allow time for their response). If they don't, revert to option 1.

Thanks for the suggestions.

How can EA not add the donuts to my account? I paid for them, they owe me 900 donuts, how can they legally NOT set my account right? And iTunes is pretty good in the customer service dept, so if EA isn't willing to rectify the problem I'll be sure to have iTunes reverse the charge.

Any suggestions for contacting EA support for mobile or specifically this game?

Holy crap this is annoying. So I've finally gotten ahold of a living person at EA. What a nightmare. EA Mobile has no customer support number to call (lame), so I tried emailing them through the Help website. However, there's either a serious problem with the EA Help site or a miscommunication between my iPhone and their site. I log in to my Origin account, choose the game and platform and problem I'm having, and of course it tries to direct you to FAQ pages related to your problem (though one doesn't exist for this as it's something someone in EA billing would have to rectify). But the problem is I'm not actually able to Email EA Mobile support, at least not through my iPhone (don't have PC or Internet landline at home, use my iPhone for everything web related). How strange is it that a customer support website for mobile games doesn't support contacting them through email using that mobile phone? So frustrating.

So, I finally just called EA at several numbers I found online, though not related to EA Mobile unfortunately. After waiting an hour on hold before talking to someone, I was finally connected. I explained my problem and the woman (who was very helpful and courteous) explained there wasn't much she could do since she's not an employee of EA Mobile and then I asked if there was any way for her to open a ticket for me covering this problem (since their site wouldn't let me do it on my iOS browser). She said it's generally againt their policy but after checking with her supervisor she was able to do it. She opened a ticket for me and sent it to EA mobile's support, and said I should hear back from them within 3-5 days at most.

While the customer support specialist I spoke to at EA was great, overall this has been a complete nightmare. EA's customer support is absolutely atrocious based on their website not only not working properly, but doing everything in it's power to actually preent you from talking to a living person who can actually solve the problem as opposed to generic, unspecific, and completely unhelpful FAQ pages. Then when you're actually able to find a phone number to their customer support, there isn't one for EA Mobile. Love how EA's approach seems to be to keep the stockholders happy by keeping profits up, but crap all over their customers by making their customer service site a glorified FAQ page. Absolutely ridiculous.

I'm not the type of person to expect stuff for free, but after this debacle I want some free donuts. It's one thing to make a mistake as a company, it's another thing entirely to make it as hard as possible for your customers to contact you directly and try to get the issue resolved. I've spent at least 6 of the past 24 hours writing emails to iTunes, EA (unsuccessfully since their site is crap), and waiting on hold for an hour with EA support and another hour waiting to see if the issue could be resolved. It's my day off but not how I wanted to spend it. Do I have a good case for a charitable donut donation from EA?