EA Not Banning Consumers Wanting Refunds for SimCity

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mazty

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Not according to the customer trade act in the UK - in fact saying you aren't allowed a refund is illegal if I read the law correctly.
 
How sad is it that the news is EA is NOT banning people for asking for a refund? Like we should just expect abuse from them and it's shocking they are only screwing you over instead completely banning you...
 

irish_adam

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[citation][nom]just-saying[/nom]Mazty, that law also only covers physical tangible goods. Digital Downloads are not physical goods.[/citation]

Isnt it goods and services?
 

bllue

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Seems to depend how you treat the customer service rep (who have nothing to do with whether the servers work or not). Saw screenshots of people who badmouthed and they didn't get a refund while people who were nice about it got it, especially if they called instead of using chat. That was a few days ago so idk if it's the same now.
 

QEFX

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And I remember when EA produced good games and tried to support the community.
It's a shame that with Y2K EA became a company you want to avoid.

 

bigdragon

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Amazon is issuing refunds because they care about catering to their customers now and in the future. EA is so insanely greedy they'd rather take the shortsighted path of hoarding what they can while they still have customers. It is trivial to revoke a digital license key. EA hasn't learned a thing over the years. Their talk of improving their customer focus after being crowned Worst Company in America 2012 was clearly a bunch of BS. I expect them to win again this year quite easily.

To anyone still buying EA games get yourself some help. You are in an abusive relationship. Break the cycle.
 
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EA, just refund the guy and other disgruntle customers. Its not like you deserve it.
 

tomfreak

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rule number one for buying the games these days

1. Never pre-order a game unless it has a working demo that is PART of the game.

When do people actually learn. They should blame themselves for putting money on something they didnt know.
 

Benihana

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Glad I stopped buying EA games years ago. But every now and then, my memory starts to fail me and I get the urge to buy an EA game. It's good to have news like this to help jog my memory. :)
 

tmk221

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[citation][nom]mazty[/nom]Not according to the customer trade act in the UK - in fact saying you aren't allowed a refund is illegal if I read the law correctly.[/citation]

Same here in Poland, you have unconditional right to return your purchase in 7 days, and 14 days if you bought it online.

BTW, banning all EA cd-keys just for complaining about one of their games is really f-ed up. That is one big PR fail.
 

iamtheking123

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I would have just done a chargeback and called it a day. They wouldn't ban you for doing it because they know that's begging for a lawsuit and Visa/Mastercard wouldn't take kindly to one of their merchants dishing up retaliation in response to a chargeback.
 

abbadon_34

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If they are so confident in their DRM then they shouldn't care about refunding digital downloads, since their DRM prevents their use, right? I could understand when buying physical copies, when you could install the game and return it, and still play it. But that was a long time ago...
 

joafu

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[citation][nom]iamtheking123[/nom]I would have just done a chargeback and called it a day. They wouldn't ban you for doing it because they know that's begging for a lawsuit and Visa/Mastercard wouldn't take kindly to one of their merchants dishing up retaliation in response to a chargeback.[/citation]

The chargeback is what threatens the ban and why this ban dispute came up. Any disputed purchase from your credit company with your account is part of the Origin contract to make the whole account void. A chargeback means either the card was stolen or the services weren't rendered- too many failure to service and the company in question could suffer from loss of business integrity with the credit company (which EA totally should, but besides the point). If it was your only game with Origin, nothing of value is lost with a chargeback; if you have a few other games on there, you're put between a rock (losing your library) and a hard place (continuing to deal with the brilliant EA).

EA is massively shooting themselves in the foot further by not just refunding, and I'm surprised more companies aren't decrying the loss of integrity to the industry as a whole because of this. Informed gamers know to stay away from EA, but someone like my father would swear off all gaming for being too complicated, ie loss of sales for other companies as well. I find it frustrating that so many numbers are drummed up over profit lost to pirating when an even bigger share lies with profit loss due do to horrible service.
 
Anyone doing a chargeback should have there entire account banned with out question. As for a refund on a digital download absolutely not. No one should ever get a refund non a digital download period the end.
 
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if you download the game you can copy the game download folder and run the game not using origin on another pc my mate has done this with bf2. so that's why they probs don't refund the digital copy.

edit

I don't know if this can be done with SimCity but I seen him do it with bf2 so if ya know what ya doing then maybe the same can be done with SimCity or all digi download games from them ?

I sure he done it this way.

1. bought game disk first then installed.
2. at some point he formatted his whole system because of problems then reinstalled all software
3. instead of installing game from disk he installed origin and downloaded game from them
4. once downloaded he copied the folders to an external harddisk ,then installed the game through origin as normal (for the pc that downloaded it)
5. the folders he copied to the external hard disk he put onto another pc without origin installed
6. he then installed the game through clicking the setup exe in one of the folders

what I know is this guy is no expert and had the idea so tried and it worked
 

cyphacipher

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[citation][nom]bigdragon[/nom]Amazon is issuing refunds because they care about catering to their customers now and in the future. EA is so insanely greedy they'd rather take the shortsighted path of hoarding what they can while they still have customers. It is trivial to revoke a digital license key. EA hasn't learned a thing over the years. Their talk of improving their customer focus after being crowned Worst Company in America 2012 was clearly a bunch of BS. I expect them to win again this year quite easily.To anyone still buying EA games get yourself some help. You are in an abusive relationship. Break the cycle.[/citation]

Omg, I tried to +1 you twice just for the abusive relationship part! lmao
 

Christopher1

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[citation][nom]The_Trutherizer[/nom]Would love to know what a court of law will have to say about that.[/citation]

Quite a bit, considering that judges have said numerous times that ToS's do NOT overrule protections written into law.
It's past time that the lawmakers put the hammer down and passed a 'digital is the same as physical' law that outlines that with either, you can get a refund if the service changes in a material way. Sure, it can be pro-rated (no full refund after a year or two) but it should still exist.
 
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