fao goa (subscription)

[Ctuchik]

Good day!

Some players have indeed had their subscriptions switched to automatic renewal although they haven't actually asked for this. This is an error and we've escalated it to involved teams and it's naturally a top priority issue. For now, I'd advise anyone who has received this e-mail to log in at war-europe and make sure that their subscription status is what it should be.

Apologies to those who are affected by this; this is not how we intend to do business and we'll make sure it's rectified as soon as possible. I'll have more info on this tomorrow.


-Magnus

and are "involved teams" the same as the ones that did the DAoC sub pages? this is EXACTLY the same issues we had in DAoC. once is maybe understandable, twice is being incompetent and in need of replacement!

 

[Raven]

Still no news then?

lol

Maybe they need to get the law guy to check out this statement http://www.war-europe.com/#/news/?id_news=en249&lang=en Maybe explain to the rest of the retards at goa that it is illegal.

If you have had your card charged when you have not given your permission then the company is breaking the law, report them to your credit card company and to EA. They cannot "set it to auto renew by default" by law only the customer can choose to do this. It is fraud and they should not be allowed to get away with it.

Oh an "you have the chance to cancel it within the next few days" does not cover it I am afraid.

 

[Kami]

If I were managing these "involved teams" I'd be doing the following:

1. Instructing them to reset all accounts auto-subscription status to OFF.

2. Issuing an apology on both the website and via e-mail whilst taking the opportunity to remind anyone who does want this enabled that they'll have to login to do so and change it themselves.

3. Ensure that this option is never, ever, automatically enabled ever again and will always default to "off" if anything happens to GOA servers.

I've no doubt Magnus spends half his time with his head buried in his hands working at GOA, they don't make his life easy..

 

[Jess]

I have now written a complaint to my bank.

 

[NicGOA]

Hello all,

We posted a clarification on this yesterday.

Our account systems were updated last Friday and the option for an automatic renewal of your subscription was added. This renewal, as indicated in the general subscription conditions, makes it easier to manage your account as you do not need to enter your payment details every month.

By default, this automatic renewal is active on all accounts for which the following payment options are used:
American Express
Mastercard
VISA
Carte Bleue (France)
ELV (Germany)
Laser Card (Republic of Ireland)
Domiciliación bancaria (Spain)


Please note that all players that this change concerns have been notified by email, giving them the opportunity (if necessary) to change their account settings before the due date. Check your junkmail or spam folders on your registered email address if you have not received this notice.

If you do not wish to take advantage of this facility then you should log into the website and change your account settings in the 'my profile' section.

We are aware of the bad memories this raises. I remember them myself from the Dark Age times and wasn't happy with them then or now. But this is not the same situation. Please note that this was a planned update to our subscription pages and no closed accounts were re-opened.

Accounts that had opted out off the Automatic Renewal option already have had this re-enabled, we are aware of that. The email and the news message was meant to make people aware of this so they could again opt out if they desire.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

 

[ford prefect]

Still no news then?

lol

Maybe they need to get the law guy to check out this statement Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning Maybe explain ...... that it is illegal.

It is quite obviously illegal, and changing previously submitted credit card numbers to auto renew hasn't helped either. What I find more shocking is that GoA are continuing to remain silent on this issue. Mythic don't do this, so why are GoA doing it?

I am a big believer that in Customer Support, if you have no news, keep your mouth shut until you do, but with an issue as important as this, I would have thought that it would be classed as an emergancy and staff would be working around the clock to address this problem. I would have thought that a bit part of that is keeping affected subscribers informed. Letting this hang for days on end is a strange way to win back customer support.

Now that many of us have been forced into a situation where we have been forced to report this to our credit card companies, surely GoA are just making more work for themselves? Having now made that complaint, I probably couldn't resubscribe on that card even if I wanted to. That is down purely and simply to the lack of news.

 

[ford prefect]

Hello all,

We posted a clarification on this yesterday.

We are aware of the bad memories this raises. I remember them myself from the Dark Age times and wasn't happy with them then or now. But this is not the same situation. Please note that this was a planned update to our subscription pages and no closed accounts were re-opened.

Obvious question then, Why do it in that case?

Why why my auto re-new reactivated twice on two accounts after I had disabled it the first time?

Why do this when Mythic are not doing so?

Are you aware (As a company) of the legal implications of doing this?

 

[Raven]

Accounts that had opted out off the Automatic Renewal option already have had this re-enabled, we are aware of that. The email and the news message was meant to make people aware of this so they could again opt out if they desire.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Where credit card payments are concerned it should be Opt-in, not Opt-out. Regardless of what any terms and conditions may say. No contract can force either party into breaking the law, which is why in these situations the CoC or any other "agree box ticking exercise" is largely a waste of everyone's time. People gave you their CC details to make ONE payment for a months subscription, there was nothing to tell them their card would be re-charged in a month to buy another months service. therefore you cannot assume that that is what they want.

If you reverse any illegal credit card charges then maybe you will get out of this mess, the way you are heading you will be in a far bigger mess soon enough.

Once again GOA seem to be going out of their way to cock up, it really is amazing how utterly useless they are.

 

[GReaper]

Accounts that had opted out off the Automatic Renewal option already have had this re-enabled, we are aware of that. The email and the news message was meant to make people aware of this so they could again opt out if they desire.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

So in other words instead of fixing the problem by manually deactivating the auto renewal on accounts which originally had it disabled, GOA believes a mass email is sufficient?

The right thing to do would be disable auto renew on all accounts given this mistake. Let players decide if they want to continue subscribing instead of assuming that everyone will be happy with auto renewal. Yes it may be slightly annoying for any players who genuinely opted for auto renewal, but it's far better than having furious customers who have been opted back into something they didn't choose in the first place.

This is typical GOA arrogance, instead of doing the right thing you decide to further piss off your customers.

 

[ford prefect]

Sadly, it has become quite apparent that nothing is going to be done about this and no answers are going to be given. It's a shame really. I wanted to give GoA the benefit of the doubt for war, hoping, naively I suppose, that lessons would have been learned. It seems that customer concerns still don't have the priority they deserve.

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

So in other words instead of fixing the problem by manually deactivating the auto renewal on accounts which originally had it disabled, GOA believes a mass email is sufficient?

The right thing to do would be disable auto renew on all accounts given this mistake. Let players decide if they want to continue subscribing instead of assuming that everyone will be happy with auto renewal. Yes it may be slightly annoying for any players who genuinely opted for auto renewal, but it's far better than having furious customers who have been opted back into something they didn't choose in the first place.

This is typical GOA arrogance, instead of doing the right thing you decide to further piss off your customers.

Agreed GReaper - erring once is human. Erring repeatedly, time after time, one mistake after another is either incompetence or negligence.

Either way GoA are eroding any goodwill amongst the playerbase, piece by piece - as they did with DAoC.

GoA:Exactly how many customers will you lose through silly cock-ups? The answer is up to you.

 

[Dervish]

So NicGOA, basically what you are saying is "GOA deliberatley and knowingly activated automatic renewals on credit card accounts where the account owners had clearly not chosen to do so themselves".

So my question is this: Regardless of anything "agreed" to in EULA's or Terms and Conditions or similar does GOA consider the above statement to be good business practice?

I don't even see that it is legal.

 

[Naffets]

We are aware of the bad memories this raises. I remember them myself from the Dark Age times and wasn't happy with them then or now. But this is not the same situation. Please note that this was a planned update to our subscription pages and no closed accounts were re-opened..

Really?...

Good day!

Some players have indeed had their subscriptions switched to automatic renewal although they haven't actually asked for this. This is an error and we've escalated it to involved teams and it's naturally a top priority issue. For now, I'd advise anyone who has received this e-mail to log in at war-europe and make sure that their subscription status is what it should be.

Apologies to those who are affected by this; this is not how we intend to do business and we'll make sure it's rectified as soon as possible. I'll have more info on this tomorrow.


-Magnus

That hymn sheet of yours, double check and make sure its the same as Magnus'

Wonder if the US customers get treat in an equal or better manner...hmmm...

edit: I've been a complete bastard in my posts in this thread, I won't apologize, however I promise not to post in this thread again.

 

[Aiteal]

Accounts that had opted out off the Automatic Renewal option already have had this re-enabled, we are aware of that. The email and the news message was meant to make people aware of this so they could again opt out if they desire.

You are aware of it
We are aware of it
Everyone is aware of it

The question is why?
Why was the decision taken to re-enable accounts that were suspended, instead of suspending the accounts of everyone?

One choice would have required those wanting to play to re-confirm that desire, no big deal considering, like me, they would receive an email telling them their account was about to run out.

The choice GoA took however was to ask people who already suspended their accounts to go back and do it again, and if for some reason they didn't know they had to, go chase up the bank/cc provider for their money back which GoA would take without their permission.

I mean, wtf was the noreply.internet@orange-ftgroup.com from address all about? Considering every other communication we have received from GoA was from the no-reply@goa.com address customers would have ensured they added to their safe-senders list so it didn't end up in the spam black hole folder.

Do you realise how shitty, unprofessional and downright dishonest this looks to the people that ultimately keep you in a job?

So why make that decision?

 

[Raven]

Its actually quite frightening. Does Mark Jacobs know or even care?

 

[AngelHeal]

Its actually quite frightening. Does Mark Jacobs know or even care?

ffs mark playing his lvl 79 priest at the lich king! do not disturb! xD

 

[Aiteal]

Its actually quite frightening. Does Mark Jacobs know or even care?

Busy blogging about how he beat up three like gold farmers and then like snogged their girlfriends dude, and like everyone was like whoaaaaa MJ, you are liek da Man, tell us about how you hate gold farmers and stuff, and he was all like, those gold farmers man, I hate them, they just ruin the game

 

[AngelHeal]

Busy blogging about how he beat up three like gold farmers and then like snogged their girlfriends dude, and like everyone was like whoaaaaa MJ, you are liek da Man, tell us about how you hate gold farmers and stuff, and he was all like, those gold farmers man, I hate them, they just ruin the game

makes you wonder though,

gold farmers.... money farmers..

 

[taB]

Just become aware of this as I got a mail saying I had been charged. Fuck-nuts.

 

[taB]

Told me to get fucked...

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting us in relation to your issue.

The subscription automatic renewal function was made active on all accounts on the 14th of November on which date an email was sent to you informing you of this action.

This action was taken to improve our subscription service as you will not have to renew your subscription period manually.
You will now be able to avoid disruption to your game access between subscription periods. While we apologise there may be some confusion around the implementation of this policy this was a necessary action to improve our service to you.

This policy can be found in the 2nd article of our General terms of Subscription which has been included since the release of WAR which states:

Section 2
“For payment through the banking system, your subscription will be renewed automatically starting on the anniversary date of your subscription period for durations identical to the subscription duration that you chose.”

Additional information can be also read here:

Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning
Also we are unfortunately unable to process your refund request as your subscription period has already started.

Section 6
“Each subscription period that has begun will be billed and non-refundable, whether in full or in part. Similarly, failure to use your subscription during a subscription period does not give you the right to any refund.”

In addition to this, the email sent to you informing you of the automatic renewal update was sent in order to give you adequate time in order to cancel your subscription if necessary.

 

[ramathorn]

Told me to get fucked...

I'll be honest, if that had been me, there is a solicitors office on the corner of my street, I would be making a trip there tomorrow followed by a call to my bank. It's not a matter of the small amount of money, but that a company can be such an abolute shower of fuck headed pricks to do this to the people who have just shelled out £30-£60 (or whatever price the CE was) for their product.

No matter what way they try to sugar coat it, the whole thing is fail on an epic scale.

 

[GReaper]

Looks like they've prepared themselves for any angry customers who realised that their money was taken out on accounts which originally didn't have auto renew set.

If you have no intentions of ever playing WAR again, contact your credit card company and complain. The only slight problem with any chargebacks is the terms and conditions for the game have a clause set that you'll have to pay a 5 EUR fee before you're allowed to access your account again.

 

[Raven]

Section 2
“For payment through the banking system, your subscription will be renewed automatically starting on the anniversary date of your subscription period for durations identical to the subscription duration that you chose.”

Errr. That's kind very wrong. Goa, get your law guy to go back to college. No contract can force or allow another party to break the law. The law says that you cannot take payment from someone's credit card without their permission if you do so it is theft.

saying please untick the box that we ticked for you within x amount of days or we nick another tenner off you is just plain illegal unless ofc the customer ticked the auto renew button first...which they didn't.

I ask everyone who they have stolen from to report them to their credit card company as this sort of behaviour cannot be allowed to continue.

Blem um though (goa) they are like children playing at being a game distributor.

 

[Chronictank]

Agreed. I felt the same on reading the email. Now, if the email had given some justification and not left me to think "I bet they're hoping to squeeze a few months from people who don't get around to cancelling it," I mighta felt different. But they didn't bother to do that.

I see this blowing up really badly if website errors ever hinder people trying to cancel auto-renews.

Gonna go read the terms and conditions and work out if they are actual legally sound. One of our statutary rights in the UK is that silence cannot be deemed as acceptance of a contract, and terms and conditions are never able to infringe your statutary rights, whether you click "I agree" or not.

I am pretty certain a EULA is not legally binding, it's a grey area at best due to the one sided nature of them
it is NOT reasonable to take money without your permission, and goes into even murkier water when they trick you into thinking they arent

 

[ford prefect]

Good day!

Some players have indeed had their subscriptions switched to automatic renewal although they haven't actually asked for this. This is an error and we've escalated it to involved teams and it's naturally a top priority issue. For now, I'd advise anyone who has received this e-mail to log in at war-europe and make sure that their subscription status is what it should be.

Apologies to those who are affected by this; this is not how we intend to do business and we'll make sure it's rectified as soon as possible. I'll have more info on this tomorrow.


-Magnus

Strange how it has changed from this to silence isn't it? Seems this is how GoA intend to do business.

 

[krilly]

This is odd.

I has a rolling subscription set up.

And they sent me an email saying my subscription expires in 7 days.

Think they got the logic the wrong way round?

Anyone else chose to auto renew, but then didn't

 

[Mehuge]

The right thing to do would be disable auto renew on all accounts given this mistake. Let players decide if they want to continue subscribing instead of assuming that everyone will be happy with auto renewal. Yes it may be slightly annoying for any players who genuinely opted for auto renewal, but it's far better than having furious customers who have been opted back into something they didn't choose in the first place.

This is typical GOA arrogance, instead of doing the right thing you decide to further piss off your customers.

Totally agree.

It saddens me that GOA have improved very little since DAoC days despite grand promises otherwise.

 

[Tallen]

Errr. That's kind very wrong. Goa, get your law guy to go back to college. No contract can force or allow another party to break the law. The law says that you cannot take payment from someone's credit card without their permission if you do so it is theft.

saying please untick the box that we ticked for you within x amount of days or we nick another tenner off you is just plain illegal unless ofc the customer ticked the auto renew button first...which they didn't.

I ask everyone who they have stolen from to report them to their credit card company as this sort of behaviour cannot be allowed to continue.

Blem um though (goa) they are like children playing at being a game distributor.

Might be time to measure the anger here a bit before the mods decide to lock this up.

Slanderous accusations are not going to solve anything.

 

[Chronictank]

Strange how it has changed from this to silence isn't it? Seems this is how GoA intend to do business.

i really dont envy magnus's job ><
its just one thing after another

 

[taB]

If you have no intentions of ever playing WAR again, contact your credit card company and complain.

That's the issue as I see it. I do want to play again. I enjoy the game and I have friends enjoying the game. I just can't play for a few weeks while I'm working my arse off and so wanted to rest my sub for a bit.

Had no contact as yet to my "this is not an acceptable response to the situation" e-mail.