Origin Permaban for Nothing!

Solaris

Solaris

Solaris

Associate
Joined
31 Oct 2006
Posts
2,004
Ok so I've been banned from Origin for a Month now and I thought I'd share my story with you folk and see what you think?

I started using Origin when BF3 came out, and recently purchased Mass Effect 3. I decided I want the DLC so I went to shell out even more money to buy Bioware points paying with paypal. Origin crashed during the purchase... Typical...

I checked my Bank Balance, Paypal, E-mail... No sign that the transaction had gone through so I went through and bought it again and got two sets of points and charged twice.

I decided to write to Origin support and ask for my money back, they sent me the automated response:

"I like to inform you that, it is not possible to refund you the transactions for the biioware points, if you have any other query please let me know."

So I decided to push a bit harder, ask for a manager to look into it, asked paypal's opinion in a support case, quoted the appropriate laws, all the usual stuff when you're trying to get a refund in a situation like this. Needless to say, they didn't want to budge, paypal didn't care, and I gave up pretty easily (It was only £6.19, hardly the end of the world).

Actually, in total I only asked twice, in the same support thread.

So a day later I go to log into Origin to play Mass Effect, DLC installed...

"Sorry this account is invalid. Please try again or review the account details".

Strange, I can't play the game at all now because it can't verify the DLC, so I contact customer support again.

YOU: For over 24 hours now, when I start mass effect, an error comes up saying "Sorry. This account is invalid. Please try again or review the account details." When I get to the menu I cannot enter multiplayer as it returns the same error message. If I try and resume single player a message appears saying "The selected game cannot be loaded. The following downloadable content is missing: From Ashes" Even though I have purchased, and downloaded the DLC and have been playing it fine up until now. I have tried repairing the install but that did not help.

ADVISOR: Hello Stephen,
Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.
I understand that you are not able to play the game with your account "***" and getting "Sorry. This account is invalid. Please try again or review the account details" error.
I checked your account and found that your account has been banned by EA Fraud Management for charge back in Mass Effect 3 Points.
If you have any further questions or concerns please reply to this email or browse our extensive knowledge base online at http://help.ea.com.

YOU: Yes I had a dispute with EA because I was double charged for Bioware points. This dispute was case number *****. It has since been closed by both Paypal and EA. How do I get the account unbanned?

ADVISOR: Hello Stephen,
Thank you for getting back to us.
Recently, during an investigation of your account, it was determined that you are in violation of our Terms of Service. The specific violation is abuse of the support systems in an effort to obtain free codes.
Please be advised, contacting our support staff under false pretenses or to "phish" for free game content and other items is abuse of the support system and will not be condoned by any player.
Please understand, we make great efforts to provide the best level of support possible to all of our customers. However, the contact history for your account shows a large amount of contacts in an ongoing effort to gather free items from EA.
This message is a warning, as these actions will no longer be tolerated and further attempts to gather free items from the EA support staff or its affiliates can result in immediate, permanent termination of your account, personas, and any other information tied to the EA account registered to , as well as, any connected accounts found.
We ask that you understand and respect all statutes within the Terms of Service, as they still contractually apply to you as per the original agreement, especially the sections regarding Termination of EA Services and Accounts in Section 8 & Rules of Conduct in Section 10.
You can reference the Terms of Service at any time via the link at the bottom of every EA.com page or through the following direct URL: http://www.ea.com/global/legal/tos.jsp
If there is anything else we can help you with please let us know.

YOU: How on earth was I phishing for free codes? I requested a refund but I also wanted the Bioware points removed from my account! This would have left me with nothing free at all?? A 'large amount'... ummm two...

ADVISOR: Hello Stephen,
Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts again.
We want to get you an effective resolution so that going to escalate this issue to higher department. Our senior team is well equipped to handle such issues and I’m confident we’ll solve the issue and suggest alternatives.
Due to a back log of contacts, the current estimated time for response is 1 – 2 weeks.

-----

So 1-2 weeks passed, with no response. I sent another message chasing them.

I then looked back another 2 weeks later and the case had been closed.

I got in contact with their support over live chat and vented, and now they are looking into this again.

So the question is... How does a single person like me fight EA on a matter like this? And where do you think I stand legally?
 
I think that this should happen to even more people who use origin tbh.

Just so that then the word of mouth would be strong enough to stop people from using it and buying EA games.
 
Similarly I had my maple story account banned for opening a paypal dispute over buying cash store points that couldnt be spent on anything useful (pay by debit / credit card or paypal, and get inferior 'Nexon credit' instead of 'nexon cash').

I complained I had paid for the cash store credit and couldnt spend it on anything ... bam, account banned.

Cancel dispute, over a month wasted E mailing, account restored. These game companies are pure evil when it comes to banning people for complaining about purchases.
 
Steam and origin are the same - raise a dispute with paypal, paypal pulls back the money, steam/origin reckon youre ******** them, account banned.

The only thing you can do is keep plugging away at the 'it was all a mistake' line, keep pleading for reinstatement or tell them to go **** themselves. It just isnt worth paying extra for legal and im sure theyre well covered with the TOS.

From now on pay with a credit card! You can get your cash back easier if stuff like this happens.
 
Wow, that sucks. Thats the trouble these days, its like David and Goliath, only we need bigger stones to throw at EA.

The sooner Origin is discontinued, the better. That program needs to burn in hell.

Hail to the Steam king!
 
Best to get in touch with some more knowledgeable EA reps/PRs from other gaming forums or websites.

They should be able to sort you out with your issue.

Seriously though, I've read dozens of these horror stories with Origin already and I always wonder when my time will come.
 
I tweeted their customer support who are apparently actually English.

All of EA support is run out of India, and while I'm far from Racist (I used to work for Tata who are one of the biggest firms in India) I do think that their thinking is far too black and white for a customer support role of this type. They can't judge situations effectively and will bring the ban hammer down so easily without being able to work out how serious the offence is.

It's infuriating.
 
I should add that the handful of times I had to deal with EA directly were all connected to Bioware points. Being charged for them and them not showing on my account, specifically. I was actually left quite impressed with the live chat support and how quickly they fixed things.

My being impressed might have more to do with expecting the absolute worst from them and it being sorted out in minutes/hours, rather than days/weeks or not at all.


Solaris said:
Oh yeah, really miss when you used to be able to just install a computer game from a disk...
Click to expand...

I can't agree with this any harder without soiling myself. Steam, Origin, GFWL, all of it, needs to go away... NOW! At least the DRM side of it, digital distribution has been a great thing for PC gaming, but everything being tied down to accounts that can be closed, lost, etc isn't my idea of ideal.
 
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Solaris said:
I tweeted their customer support who are apparently actually English.

All of EA support is run out of India, and while I'm far from Racist (I used to work for Tata who are one of the biggest firms in India) I do think that their thinking is far too black and white for a customer support role of this type. They can't judge situations effectively and will bring the ban hammer down so easily without being able to work out how serious the offence is.

It's infuriating.
Click to expand...

"I'm not racist but..."

:p
 
I hate the whole idea of EA and their Origin. It ***** itself way too often to be effective and is in Beta for as long as I can remember. They want to have a big brother thing going on with EA affiliates and purchases and it's ****ing disgusting if you ask me, I'm disliking EA more and more as the days go by.

I've heard of loads of people having serious issues with them over money and accounts and recently someone else on here was banned in BF3 for no reason which led to him being banned from all EA games until it's resolved. It's the worst system ever it should go back to the way it was, there was never any of these retarded issues and everyone was happy.

Where do we complain to EA?
 
the key lesson for all is to never EVER use Paypal with the likes of Steam or Origin. Every heart ache story I read on account bans on these, steam or origin forums has the common denominator of Paypal.

Live and Learn
 
Komedy said:
the key lesson for all is to never EVER use Paypal with the likes of Steam or Origin. Every heart ache story I read on account bans on these, steam or origin forums has the common denominator of Paypal.

Live and Learn
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Ive always wondered this and it annoys me cos I like using Paypal as theres no 'card details' being sent sort of speak, its all 'via' Paypal, paypal send the money for me from the details they have and Steam get the money.

Id heard that Paypal has been the problem as something can go wrong where Steam/Origin can end up incurring a charge that they shouldnt be getting and so they automatically block your account and its a right pain (if possible at all) to get it sorted.

I dont exactly know how this can go wrong, but it seems it does and as Komedy said, Paypal seems to be the common factor in each case.
 
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The issue is Paypal disputes. I imagine as in the OPs case he raised a dispute with paypal over the second charge. Paypal dont ask any questions of Origin or Steam etc they just nab the cash straight back. When Steam or Origin see this they assume you are trying to Scam them and close ur account until they get the disputed cash back from Paypal. Raising the Titanic would be simpler, as once you have disputed it and Paypal have reversed the payment your screwed.

Read this routine Steam Response for a flavor..

Thank you for contacting Steam Support. The purchase of **** has been disputed by Paypal. The Paypal account holder will need to close the dispute and have the funds returned to Steam. If the account holder is unable or unwilling to drop the dispute and let the PayPal know that the purchase is valid, and in turn have the funds returned to Steam, we will not be able to reactivate the account. All games on your account are locked to the account and can not be transferred to a different account. A different payment method can not be used for this game; the money must be returned by the PayPal account that made the original purchase. If the dispute is closed and the funds are released back to Steam, the account will be reactivated. However if PayPal closes the dispute by “Reversing the Payment”, meaning they send the funds for the purchase back to you, the Steam account will remain locked and you will lose access to all of the games on the account. There are no options to resolve a dispute once PayPal has closed the case, so we suggest that you contact them immediately. PayPal Help Center https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext Please let us know if you have any further questions. We are not able to do anything further with your account while a PayPal dispute is still pending, please remedy this issue with PayPal before asking for the account to be reactivated.
Click to expand...

Oh and here is the scary part and why I will never use Paypal, it has been known for a dispute to start without the Paypal account users knowledge
 
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Yes paypal can automatically start disputes to test the legitimacy of a seller. Happened to me when selling a CPU on ebay.
 
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