E.A Support - Yet even more incompetence (Banned Account)

Soldato
Joined
31 May 2005
Posts
15,640
Location
Nottingham
Oh dear, how incompetent is this company.

My Tigerwoods online account has been permanently banned.

The reason?....

I tried to purchase a monthly membership via Paypal.

I completed the transaction to discover the amount deducted from my Paypal account was not that which I authorised when making the payment through the Paypal screen.

I contacted E.A support who told me:

I have checked your purchase and found that this order is yet to be completed successfully. Further I would request you to wait for next 24-48 hours to let the order to be completed. Once it get processed, you may contact us back regarding this issue.

I personally thought this was unfair, they would have received the money instantly, so why should I wait 48 hours to then have to contact them again.

So, I filed a Paypal dispute.

Within less than 20 hours, E.A had responded to my dispute and agreed to refund me. They could have disputed this if they wanted but they chose to refund me.

Great I thought, I try becoming a member again to discover my account is "inactive" and to contact support.

I contact support and am told:

I have been assigned to your issue and would be happy to assist you in this matter. As a gamer myself, I understand how frustrating this can be.

Notes : 2011-04-16 12:10:29.0Account Status Update Account has been banned for fraudulent activity in POGO - Fraud Management

FRAUD, POGO?

I reply back with:

I am confused.
How did I commit fraud?
What has happened?
Many Thanks.

They reply with:

EA "Support" said:
Thank you for your reply. As I do not have any further information on this please note that this action cannot be overturned.

So, they think I have reported myself to Paypal for fraud and have banned me for doing so?

They issued the Paypal refund and I detailed in the dispute what had happened and I wanted to become a paying member once this was sorted.

They choose to give ME a refund then BAN myself for fraud?

It was not even a chargeback which I could possibly understand a ban for but a Paypal dispute which they agree to?

Seriously, they are beyond incompetent.

I have replied AGAIN asking them if they actually read any of the information I send them and why they insist on banning accounts for spurious reasons as of late.

I do not have much confidence, the replys they give can barely pass as readable english.

For a company of their size, they should be ashamed of their incompetence.

Obviously, customer service a crazy.

I will email their billing department on the Paypal dispute, maybe they are not customer facing but would be interesting to hear what they have to say too.

I am totally ****** off though as I have spent hours on the game since closed beta and stats have stayed persistent although when I try to give them money, it all goes wrong and they end up with an unhappy customer. Should have carried on playing for free :(

Feel free to post this where ever you think it will get the most attention, they receive soo much bad publicity over banned accounts yet still refuse to acknowledge they have a problem.
 
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Am on the phone to E.A via their corporate office in California.

They have mentioned giving me free membership, am trying to see if they can unlock my old account.

Will post back when I have more.

EDIT:

Nope, looks like the guy cant help after all... after ½ hour on the phone.

Round we go again :)

EDIT 2:

They did give me a free membership code which was nice but I am still without my account.

They have escalated to tier 3 although it is tier 3 whose incompetency caused this in the first place.

They admitted it has been a problem on their behalf but they do not have the power to unblock user accounts.

He advised to await 72 hours for a callback and if that does not materialise then to make more noise.

We shall see.
 
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they asked you to let them investigate it

No, they said to callback in 48 hours has the payment had not been cleared.

The money had left my Paypal account and Paypal confirmed it had been sent to them.

Plus, by getting the transaction cancelled early, it means Paypal do not raise the direct debit from my bank :)
 
I am gobsmacked.

Just had an email from an E.A Staffer offering their assistance after they tracked down the post on the RPS forum. Seems like they signed up just to PM me too.

I have responded.

Will keep you posted.
 
When I raised the dispute, I detailed ALL the information and the reason. It was not a complaint.

Someone at E.A authorised the refund on the basis of the information I gave them. They knew it was not fraudulant activity, all they had to do was read the dispute.

"I am requesting a refund owing to case number xxxxxx-xxxxxx"

Not

"My account was hacked, I did not authorise this purchase".
 
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WOW.

Just received an email from E.A

They have appologised for the lack of communication and frustration and given me 4 months free membership.

Overall, I am happy at the outcome.

And Kudos to the E.A rep for their pro-activeness in contacting me.

To whomever you are at E.A, thank you.

Drunkenmaster, when you raise a Paypal dispute, Paypal alone do not make the decision, at first it goes through mediation.

You put your point to the seller and the seller give their side of the story to Paypal. In this instance, E.A agreed to the refund, no questions asked.
 
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I agree with you VeNT.

This all started because I had no faith in their internal processes so when I followed them, I got nowhere untill I shouted from the top of a tree so to speak.

Credit where it is due though, when they did get it right, they were very prompt and very helpfull.
 
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