The Customer Service In This Game Is Awful

[Irian]

Oh it absolutely is. I'll say the SE customer support is infamously bad.

I've heard so many horror stories and personally had so many issues with SE's customer service. They can't do shit and will almost always be utterly useless. Even if you make a loot mistake, they give you one item restore per account that never refreshes as far as I know.

In general don't count on SE to help you out, unless you get hacked or something. Even then I've heard stories about them dragging their feet on player assistance.

[Ifeanychukwu]

This feels like a flame/hate thread against XIV for some reason. Why link to some random forum threads? Are those even your posts? Are you just searching through forums looking for anything that fits your narrative? Spend any amount of time on ANY forum and you'll find plenty of horror stories and QQ posts.

[Justpassing]

This feels like a flame/hate thread against XIV for some reason. Why link to some random forum threads? Are those even your posts? Are you just searching through forums looking for anything that fits your narrative? Spend any amount of time on ANY forum and you'll find plenty of horror stories and QQ posts.

It really isn't; OP just unwittingly commited credit card fraud and he's bewildered about getting banned for it.

[Ifeanychukwu]

It really isn't; OP just unwittingly commited credit card fraud and he's bewildered about getting banned for it.

Oh nice, that's even better

[Mercane]

It's not a ban on refunds it's a ban on chargebacks. If you pay for a product and then keep the product but also go over the sellers head to take back your money you should be 100% prepared to have that company never ever be willing to do business with you again. That's common sense.

you will not be banned for asking for a refund, only for going behind the sellers back and taking a refund.

This is standard practice in literally every MMO.

[Katchii]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...hargeback-bans

Square Enix is infamous for their ruthless bans on refunds.

A charge back isn't remotely even close to the same thing as a refund.

[Byleth]

My experiences with FFXIV customer service have been overwhelmingly positive. They have been swift to resolve my issues, and very respectful.

It sounds like the OP has maybe done something very naughty and gotten punished for it.

[Seranthor]

I've never had anything other than a satisfying experience every time I've had to contact them.

Notice how OP is aggressive and rude to everyone replying? That should tell you all to need to know about his interactions with the CS of any company, right Karen?

It does appear that your observation could be spot on.

[Wrecktangle]

When it comes to customer support that's worse from personal experience, then I'd have to say anything involving EA. I remember Mythic in particular was shady, as was the old Warhammer MMO. Unauthorized charges, tickets that went weeks without being answered, no real live chat that I could find (or it was hidden or not available when couple times I tried them). Then their policy that any response they give will be auto-resolved within 24-48 hours if not responded to. Keeping in mind that they don't respond or likely read for weeks so you never know if there was a response and you have to keep on logging into your account every day to check. They also kept asking question and trying to prolong me getting refunds for unauthorized charges so that I'd just give up after a few months of back and forth and them not responding. I've also had 5+ days for Blizzard to respond to tickets before. But their live chat is okay and I just do that now.

The though examples I've read above seem to be about: Timeframe of active services (hopefully changed by the new initiative), chargebacks and people just not liking the answers they were given. Personally, I don't quantify these as particularly bad compared to the horror stories I've been through and witnessed.

Appreciate the insight.

My 2 experiences with SE:

1) I was temporarily banned from the OF. When I asked for clarification on what rule I broke, because the "provided" reason wasn't clear enough. It took them 9 days to get back to my ticket. This was the ONLY available avenue for this type of inquiry. It took them 9 days to write back "ACT". 3 letters, one word.

To be clear, I was 10 day banned on the OF for mentioning the word ACT, yes it's a 3rd party tool, in a thread discussing third party tools, responding to a post that also used ACT in it. I explained how to track resurrections in it, as the poster I was responding to claimed that ACT doesn't show you context (it does), and doesn't even track things like how many times someone resses someone.

When I reopened the ticket explaining that their response was insufficient and didn't actually answer the question I asked, they finally reached back out 6 days later this time with their reasoning. It wasn't good, but at least they tried. Whatever I was unbanned by this point (10 day) so I really didn't care.

Later on - I was perma banned (which was fair, I broke the rules clearly here and knew it ahead of time even if I think their rules are SUPER hamfisted and oppressive) and they did give me concrete reasoning why I was perma'd.

2) I bought a fantasia, but fucked something up (it's really a pain that you can't see things are clearly in the creator as you can once you're in actual areas). I immediately reached out via chat and after a small wait, I was told "You'll have to buy another one" and then they asked if there was anything else they could help with and I said that's not really a sufficient answer, you really couldn't just reset my character so I could fix the slip up I made? Not only did they ignore my response, they just closed the session...

"I made a mistake, refund me you silly willy wonka horse ridding muppet !"

*get ban*

"Worse customer service ever !"

To be fair if your example played out like that it would be terrible customer service. Customer service is about HELPING your customer. They make mistakes. It's a delicate balance to manage the relationship vs. the profit, but as someone who worked as a bank manager throughout college you learn a lot about helping people when they really need it vs. pushing the rulebook down their throat.

Tbh people who do chargebacks should get even more severe punishments that extend into IRL rather than just a video game ban, since the only way you can get it charged back is by lying to your bank/paypal about the situation. If you tell them the truth that it was just your fuck up and you ignored all the reasonable resolutions the company offered then they'd tell you no.

I've had to use chargebacks twice in my life. Neither time was fraudulent. Sometimes a company doesn't offer you a reasonable solution, or even a solution at all.

[Seranthor]

As I see it, if you chose to use a chargeback against a company (for any reason, any reason at all). It is YOU that is telling them in no uncertain terms that you are ending your business relationship with them. As such, you are giving them permission (which they dont really need) to permanently lock, or delete, any accounts you have with them.

Chargebacks aren't a negotiation tool, they are a FUCK YOU, I'm done tool.

[Pozz]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...hargeback-bans

Square Enix is infamous for their ruthless bans on refunds.

Chargebacks are "refunds without the knowledge of the seller and without giving back the product you initially bought" in layman terms it is also called "fraud" wonder why they'd ban for that?

[Historical Tenacity]

Appreciate the insight.

My 2 experiences with SE:

(Snip)

I've had to use chargebacks twice in my life. Neither time was fraudulent. Sometimes a company doesn't offer you a reasonable solution, or even a solution at all.

Those experiences do sound stressful. While they do ultimately fall under the "not liking what you hear = bad customer service" category, it also potentially (some additional information on why it may be more a restriction than a policy will be put in soon) showcases a bad policy that customer service agents have to follow as I'm sure many would like to help if they could. Though at least they explained themselves with the serious ban. The FFXIV team once had an error in their character creator with the start of ARR and caused many people to mess up on their free race change. At first they were told they couldn't do anything, but Yoshi-P intervened and gave everyone that was effected by it a free Fantasia for all of their characters. Even brand new ones that were made afterwards. To this date I still get that on any character I make (in addition to the old veteran award, so each character starts with 2 + 1 if ARR is complete with their new reward system). So maybe targeting specific characters is difficult due to restrictions with the way the shop works and the GM's powers. It wouldn't surprise me as they built on coding that didn't have a great foundation and their network team has been working their behinds off on trying to get Data Centers connected, just like they got servers connected (that is, the ability to visit other data centers).

I'm not familiar with the forums, but I do hear that they're pretty Iron-fist about it -- which in itself may be half the people working on it going on a power trip and half policy as well. Personally I just use reddit, discord or the RP websites to communicate. They are also implementing in-game "Fellowships" which basically have forums that the people you invite into it can read in game. Pretty sure it's all self-moderated unless someone reports something and it truly is something that needs intervention with. Though I'm glad to meet someone that admits they earned a perma-ban if they know they did something wrong. The rules are probably a bit strict in some regards. If it was an instant -- direct -- ban without previous bans, then you might be able to get it unlocked since they have released new regulations regarding ban lengths. They now are only supposed to perma ban for something pretty severe and only offer 3-7-14-30 day bans for warnings before permanent goes into play (unless the first offense is major).

As for chargebacks, there is a way to do it correctly and a way to not. Many treat it as a "no-hassle" refund without knowing the ramifications of such. Though I don't think I need to mention that to you since you worked in a bank, so this is moreso for anyone else reading it. The steps my bank requires me to go through is to reach out to the company and try to work it out earnestly. Even if it takes a couple of attempts. Then document and record the interactions and keep them in the loop. At that point there is probable cause that you aren't just trying to commit credit card fraud -- which most video game companies employ dozens of people to handle alone since the chargebacks and illegally obtained and used information are so expensive to handle. This is why even Blizzard will ban your whole Blizzard account if you do it with them without seeking a resolution. Sometimes it is best to just let it go, as it may also work against your credit score. Personally I've never charged back, but I have gone through the steps that would allow me to do so if I needed. Many times that was enough for them to capitulate and give me my money back. Though often it is a matter of principle.