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Town has been totally rearranged. All donuts missing, premium items gone

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Replies

  • drosax1
    4860 posts New member
    edited March 2014
    sherryt07 wrote:
    There's got to be a way of letting people know you've been in their town. How about a half turn of the Simpsons House. It's a good way to let someone know they've been a victim without doing any damage.

    This is a good idea for people who are aware of the problem to begin with. Those of us on the forum have become familiar with it, but if I was unaware of the wrong-town glitch, this would totally freak me out. Reminiscent of the Charles Manson Family's activity that they called "creepy crawling" . They'd sneak into a house while a family was sleeping and rearrange some furniture and leave without taking anything. So, id just get a chill seeing my simpson house turned around and have absolutely no idea that it was just a friendly signal to watch out. Maybe I should never have read "Helter Skelter" :(

    Yea it's cause of this issue I've been holding off on buying any donuts because I want to be able to buy some knowing that If something happens ik that I wouldn't lose anything it's not possible now
  • maximbarne126
    3911 posts Member
    edited March 2014
    Sorry to hear, hopefully they can fix it! :-\
  • mr_skeltal_80
    18104 posts Member
    edited March 2014
    Damn, thats harsh. I really hope EA can fix it for you! Good luck, mate!
  • sherryt07
    3273 posts Member
    edited March 2014
    sherryt07 wrote:
    There's got to be a way of letting people know you've been in their town. How about a half turn of the Simpsons House. It's a good way to let someone know they've been a victim without doing any damage.

    This is a good idea for people who are aware of the problem to begin with. Those of us on the forum have become familiar with it, but if I was unaware of the wrong-town glitch, this would totally freak me out. Reminiscent of the Charles Manson Family's activity that they called "creepy crawling" . They'd sneak into a house while a family was sleeping and rearrange some furniture and leave without taking anything. So, id just get a chill seeing my simpson house turned around and have absolutely no idea that it was just a friendly signal to watch out. Maybe I should never have read "Helter Skelter" :(

    But would it freak you out enough to search the internet??
  • wildminion
    552 posts Member
    edited March 2014
    Rotten thing to happen!!

    I hope it gets sorted out for you.
  • americaben201
    5 posts
    edited March 2014
    That is a rotten thing. I've had missing donuts before, lost some money, and I was accidentally signed into another account. If you have a cloud account you could delete your app and then retrieve it again and login in again. That works for me. I'm not sure why that works for me. But it does. I play it on my I iPhone, btw.
  • jill_sargi934
    24 posts
    edited March 2014
    Khodro wrote:
    I'm pretty sure that whenever you get the "this account has been logged in from a different device" it is because of this glitch. It has happened to me several times thankfully nobody touched anything.

    I tried contacting EA telling them about the logged in from a different device error. I told them that i only have one device (my iphone) that can play TSTO and that I've never used any other device before to log in to my account or my origin account.
    The EA customer service just said it was due to bad connection basically but I'm sure the error message comes up whenever a stranger gets access to your account through this glitch.

    I agree. The other day I was playing and it booted me out. Wouldn't let me log back in for a couple of minutes. It's happened at least 3x in last month - thankfully no one did anything bad. I have been logged into two towns but obviously left right away. So frustrating ....

    To the op, sorry some jerk did this.
  • hondab16tune
    223 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    Well, as of right now EA "support" isn't being much help. I have emailed them and thy have gotten back with me, yet they are of no help as after 3 emails, they think that I forgot to log in to access my Springfield. They sent me directions on how to log in to an Apple device running IOS after using an Android device. Here is my correspondence with them WORD FOR WORD.

    March 30th

    Thank you for submitting your inquiry. Case Number 127xxxxx has been created and tied to your question, and a game expert will contact you shortly.

    We sincerely appreciate your patronage and patience, and look forward to getting in touch.

    Regards,

    EA Customer Experience

    My reply from them on April 1st



    Dear EA Customer,




    Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

    I am sorry to know that your town has been rearranged. Don't worry, we are here to help you. Please perform following troubleshooting steps to fix the issue.

    Ensure you are logged in your Origin account.
    If you have several accounts, ensure you are logged in the correct one.
    If you have changed your Origin ID recently, change it back to the previous Origin ID using the website http://www.origin.com/change-id. This should restore your land back to its original level.

    If the issue persists, please get back to us with the following information.

    1) Your e-mail address:
    2) Origin ID:
    3) Device’s Mayhem ID:
    4) Game version
    5) Device Model
    6) Device OS Version Number
    7) Was the device purchased new or used?
    8) Have you played before on any other device (Android or iOS)
    9) What level was the land before the reset?
    10) Do you use any other email addresses or do you have any other Origin ID?

    To know your Mayhem Id use this link https://help.ea.com/article/where-is-my-mayhem-id


    We look forward to your reply.




    Regards,
    Zishan A.
    EA Customer Experience

    My response same day (edited for security on the Mayhem Id/email)

    Hello, thanks for the response.

    OK, I will try to explain as best as possible. The only device I have played on is my iPhone 4 until after the IOS 7.1 update that wouldn't allow access to the game. I then installed in on my wifes iPad (also running IOS 7.1) and played until the issue was resolved (about 4-5 days). I then deleted it completely off the iPad and played on my phone. I then logged in on Friday March 28th to find that my town had been rearranged and items sold, along with all my donuts, and half of my money. The problem had to have happened between EARLY Thursday March 27th and early morning time (around 4 AM EST) on Friday. If there is ANY way to get the town back to the way it was on Wednesday the 26th it would be GREAT.

    Here is the information requested in the email

    email address: hondab16tune
    Origin ID: hondab16tune
    Devices Mayhem ID:
    Game Version: 4.7.4
    Device Model: Apple iPhone 4
    Device OS version number: 7.1 (11D169)
    Was device purchased new or used: NEW
    Have you played on any other device: Yes, as outlined above but deleted about a week before this happened
    What level was your land before the reset: 38 or 39 (almost positive I was 39, but can't remember)
    Do you use any other email addresses or do you have another Origin ID: NO


    I am not so concerned about really anything other than my buildings, layout of my land, and items. I only had around 14-18 donuts (all got from leveling up) and the money can be earned back pretty easy. I REALLY hope that it all can be returned to normal and I can get my items back. Some of the items I lost are related to the holiday events and can't be bought. As I stated to the best of my knowledge the best and closest reset would be on that Wednesday as I am 99.9% positive that all the stuff happened as I stated earlier. PLEASE HELP!

    My last response from them on the 4th (today)



    Dear EA Customer,




    Thank you for a swift response.

    First of all allow me to apologies for the inconvenience and delay caused during this time. Appreciate that you tried troubleshooting steps with no success. Please be assured your Springfield is not lost and will help you retrieve it, you need not to start afresh. It usually happens when you loose connection with the game server. If your prompted with “Is this your Springfield?” question select “No” and then in the next screen select “New.”

    This will restore your town to your device and allow you to log into your town on your android/iOS device.

    For detailed steps please refer the following link-

    https://help.ea.com/in/article/my-apple-ios-device-shows-a-lower-level-springfield-and-asks-is-this-your-springfield-after-i-played-while-logged-in-on-android-why

    If the issue doesn't fix with the steps above. please uninstall and re-install the app again.

    Thank you again !

    We look forward to hearing from you very soon.

    My response to them today

    You guys are NOT understanding my problem. I didn't lose my springfield, it wasn't reset to new. IT WAS LOGGED INTO BY ANOTHER PLAYER DUE TO THE GLITCH THAT ALLOWS OTHER PLAYERS INTO SPRINGFIELDS THAT ARE NOT THEIRS. My town was rearranged, items sold, my donuts spent, and money spent due to this. I am asking for a RESET to a certain day as that was when my Springfield was safe.

    This is a KNOWN ISSUE and is posted about many times on the EA Forums, and there is even a sticky about it

    http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9958313.page


    They know about this issue, and I have been affected by ANOTHER PLAYER gaining access to MY springfield, and instead of them leaving/logging out, they spent MY money, donuts, and sold my premium items, etc. I need my Springfield reset to Wednesday March 26th so everything that the not so nice player sold/re-arranged is undone. I have spent a fair amount of REAL money on my town for donuts, and this NEEDS TO BE FIXED.



    So as you can see it's like talking to a brick wall it seems. I am now on a live chat, and they also seem to have zero clue as to what is wrong. If something cannot be done, or this doesn't get fixed I don't know what to do. I just know that I am VERY aggravated and disgusted.



    Regards,
    Rahul K.
    EA Customer Experience
  • hondab16tune
    223 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    My chat transcript from a few minutes ago

    info: Your approximate wait time is 1 minute.
    info: Your approximate wait time is 1 minute.
    info: Your approximate wait time is 1 minute.
    info: Your approximate wait time is 1 minute.
    info: You are now ready to chat with Hemank.
    Hemank: Thanks for contacting EA Customer Experience, my name is Hemank. How may I assist you today?
    you: Hello
    you: Sorry
    you: My town was gotten into by another person that sold my items, used my donuts, and spent my money
    you: Hello?
    Hemank: Sorry for the late reply I'm having latency here in my end.
    Hemank: Hi
    you: I fell victim to the glitch that allowed other players to access other players lands.
    Hemank: I apologize for the inconvenience caused. I'll do my best to address your concern.
    you: All I need is a "reset" of to what my town was before. I had a TON of holiday/premium items that you cannot get back that were sold by this intruder.
    Hemank: It seems you have already contacted us via Email regarding the same issue and you were replied to that also.
    you: The reply thinks that I "lost" my springfield. They were not understanding of my problem. The email states that I need to re-login to acces my springfield.
    you: My springfield is STILL THERE, and I can access it. The problem is that the glitch that allowed players to get into other players springfield let someone OTHER THAN ME into my springfield and THE OTHER PERSON spent MY money, MY donuts, and sold MY buildings.
    Hemank: May I know the amount of money and donuts which were sold from your account?
    you: I don't know the EXACT amount. I had over 2,300,000 money and between 14-20 donuts. The main issue is the buildings and premium items that were SOLD. There were quite a few and the premium items cost donuts, which in turn costed REAL MONEY. I'm not concerned about the money or extra donuts I had, I just want my premium/holiday items back and my Springfield returned to how it was BEFORE the glitch which EA hasn't fixed allowed this.
    Hemank: Would you mind if I place your chat on hold for couple of minutes to look into the issue and get this resolved?
    you: Look, All I need is a town reset to what the town was on Wednesday March 26th.
    you: Not a problem
    Hemank: I'm afraid; it's taking longer than expected, may I continue to put your chat on hold for few more minutes as I am getting this case consulted with the specialist,
    you: not a problem
    Hemank: Please provide me the items name that is missing?
    you: I can't remember them all. I do know that my Tire Fire is missing, and a few Holiday/special event items are as well. I had so much stuff, being as I have been playing from the beginning, I don't 100% know what is gone.
    Hemank: Then it would be difficult to resolve this, whatever you are able to recall please tell me the same.
    you: Is there any way just to set the town back to a previous day?
    Hemank: Your case is being investigated by the specialist and they need the information relating it.
    Hemank: No it is not possible to revert back, but please wait let us try to resolve this whatever possible,
    Hemank: May I know when this incident took place?
    you: It was between Wednesday March 26th and Friday march 28th. Right before I found out how to contact you guys
    Hemank: I am sorry that is taking time, as your account is being investigated to look for the resolution.
    Hemank: I am sorry but we won't be able to track the list of missing items
    you: That's fine. Just want to get it taken care of.
    you: I do know that the Tire Fire, and Piece of crap car are missing. Other than that I really don't.
    Hemank: I am escalating this case to the Specialist they would revert back to your email.
    you: If I could just get those items back it would be GREATLY apprecited. Like I said, the money and other stuff aren't a concern to me.
    Hemank: I have mentioned all the details regarding the issue, I hope your issue would get resolved.
    you: What is the next step?
    Hemank: They will contact you via email, and would get this resolved.
  • Kozzi59
    1393 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    What an absolute nightmare! I dont understand how someone could do that to your town either, but then I dont understand why f-wits do a lot of things. Maybe their mummies didnt cuddle them enough ...

    Not long after I started playing, and before I'd been on the Forums and discovered this was a major issue, I found myself in someone else's town and I freaked and bailed straight away ... it felt really uncomfortable trespassing. If it ever happens again I'll make a note of whose town it is, try to find them on Forums and PM them.

    I really hope you get some satisfaction on this. Just try to take some consolation from knowing that for every tiny-minded little male organ out there, there are many more good people (as evidenced by the sympathetic posts above).
  • drosax1
    4860 posts New member
    edited April 2014
    Kozzi59 wrote:
    What an absolute nightmare! I dont understand how someone could do that to your town either, but then I dont understand why f-wits do a lot of things. Maybe their mummies didnt cuddle them enough ...

    Not long after I started playing, and before I'd been on the Forums and discovered this was a major issue, I found myself in someone else's town and I freaked and bailed straight away ... it felt really uncomfortable trespassing. If it ever happens again I'll make a note of whose town it is, try to find them on Forums and PM them.

    I really hope you get some satisfaction on this. Just try to take some consolation from knowing that for every tiny-minded little male organ out there, there are many more good people (as evidenced by the sympathetic posts above).

    The problem is it'll be your name so you don't know who's town your in
  • juliet603
    17879 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    Wow I was getting frustrated for you just reading all of that! :shock: I can't believe they couldn't grasp what you were trying to say in the emails, how dumb.

    I'm sure they hear about this problem several times a day so I don't see how it's possible that they couldn't understand the problem was someone else logging into your town :evil:
  • Kozzi59
    1393 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    drosax1 wrote:
    The problem is it'll be your name so you don't know who's town your in

    Oh crap! That does complicate things.
  • maxeerg
    1010 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    Hemank: No it is not possible to revert back, but please wait let us try to resolve this whatever possible,

    This is interesting. Customer service, on a different matter, told me that they have backups. Told me that my town would probably have to be reset.
  • HillyBillyOli
    1422 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    Cry baby thread no. 4562718
  • ryanne9481
    9 posts
    edited April 2014
    Cry baby thread no. 4562718

    How could you say that? It's not like this is another thread about wanting updates or too many premiums or anything like that,this was someone who got their actual town and sold their stuff, you would be pissed as hell too. I can't believe you would call someone a cry baby when they are clearly legitimately upset
  • soprano_1980
    155 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    sherryt07 wrote:
    sherryt07 wrote:
    There's got to be a way of letting people know you've been in their town. How about a half turn of the Simpsons House. It's a good way to let someone know they've been a victim without doing any damage.

    This is a good idea for people who are aware of the problem to begin with. Those of us on the forum have become familiar with it, but if I was unaware of the wrong-town glitch, this would totally freak me out. Reminiscent of the Charles Manson Family's activity that they called "creepy crawling" . They'd sneak into a house while a family was sleeping and rearrange some furniture and leave without taking anything. So, id just get a chill seeing my simpson house turned around and have absolutely no idea that it was just a friendly signal to watch out. Maybe I should never have read "Helter Skelter" :(

    I think were all skipping over the important thing, which is that someone just linked this internet game of tappable yellow people to the Manson family
  • wildminion
    552 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    Cry baby thread no. 4562718

    At least we now have a hint what kind of person would find himself in the wrong town and proceed to sell premium items........or maybe this is where some of the EA support personnel are found ??
  • blackgryphon9999
    700 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    The process for contacting EA tech support:

    1. Create an e-mail support ticket. (This takes at least 20 minutes...)
    2. The e-mail initially is not read by a human. An AI looks for keywords and sends a canned response.
    3. The AI did not understand what you were asking. You write back an angry e-mail. This time a person actually reads your e-mail and sends back a canned response.
    4. The human did not understand what you were asking. You send back another angry e-mail. This time, the human actually thinks about the words you have written and gives you another canned response that might be a wee bit useful.
    5. You send yet another angry response because the human is still relatively clueless.
    6. At this point, you're ready to tear your hair out and you sign on to the chat feature. A human chats with you, but doesn't really understand the problem. The human puts you on hold and then "escalates" the problem.
    7. You give up in frustration because no one seems to be able to help.

    A large part of this is the result of outsourcing customer support to people with poor English skills and marginal training.
  • hondab16tune
    223 posts Member
    edited April 2014
    OK Guys, here is where it gets good. These are 2 emails I received not too long apart from each other. If you have been following what EA Tech support has said, you will find the second one amusing.

    The first one on April 6th 2014

    Dear EA Customer,




    Thank you for getting back to us with the requested details.

    Lee, It is my pleasure to assist you today with the concern.

    Having reviewed your mail, It seems to me that your account is compromised and your town is rearranged, items sold and your donuts spent as well, and money spent on your Springfield. This is indeed disappointing, but please be assured, we will do our best to get this sorted out for you as soon as possible.

    Lee, since it looks like the account is compromised, we would have to very your account before we could go ahead and investigate your issue, we have allocated a team for verifying the accounts, so it is requested, if you contact this team via live chat, they will verify your account and direct you back to us.

    *Information regarding how to contact Chat Support: is as follows,

    1 Click on the following link https://help.ea.com/contact-us
    2 Make sure you are logged in (top right corner)
    3. Enter the name of your game or product (or "Origin" for account-related issues) and click "Find Solutions"
    4. Select the type of issue and the platform you play on, and click on "Find Solutions".
    5. Now Select topic and fill the box and move to below box and fill,please tell us more about your issue box and next .
    6. Select a contact option. Note that you may get different contact options depending on your country.

    ( **Note: If the Live chat is grayed out, either the chat support is under maintenance or the Live chat room is full, consider trying after sometime in such a case )

    We will wait for the live chat team to direct your request back to us and assist you further.

    Have a nice day !

    Now this is how I contacted them in the first place and they told me to wait for a "specialist". This says to repeat the steps which I had already taken.

    The second one I received today, April 8th, 2014

    My name is Zeanne. I am the Specialist that has the privilege of handling your case now. I noticed that it has been a few days since your case has been escalated and I want to start by apologizing for the amount of time it has taken to get to your issue. I understand that your time is valuable and I want to make this right. Just so you are aware, once I accepted ownership of your case, all of your responses will jump to the front of my personal queue, so the dialogue between us will be much quicker than the amount of time it has taken to get to your case.

    I have reviewed the notes and emails on your account for this issue, and from my understanding you are having an issue with your game having been accessed by an unauthorized user, resulting in money and donuts spent on items and land without your knowledge, as well as things moved around and general chaos caused. I am very sorry that you had to experience this and I will do my best to get things straightened out as quickly and painlessly as possible.

    Moving forward, I would like to offer you the choice of having your game restored back to how it was on the day before the incident, or having the money added back to your account and you continue from this point onward. If you want the restored account, from here I would like your permission to revert to a backup save to get your account to working order. You will lose some progress however it is usually very minimal, and in this case, would get your game set back up to how it was then. If you want the money added, then I would just need you to log out of your account and wait for me to email you that it is done before logging back in.

    Once you give me permission to access your account, I should be able to get you tap happy as soon as your next email. If that works for you, let me know. If you can pinpoint the last date that you were able to successfully log into your account and see it how you had it, that would be immensely helpful.
    Also, please let me know if you have any questions for me. I look forward to your response!




    Regards,
    Zeanne H.
    EA Customer Experience

    Now this is EXTREMELY funny as the first person I talked to said THERE WAS NO WAY TO REVERT A TOWN BACK. If you go back and look at the chat transcript, you can find it.

    This one I emailed the person back giving them the day to which it needed to be reset. Hopefully this will be taken care of.
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