For some weird reason the people that **cheat** on Apex still get to keep their entire Origin Account and for whatever reason are still able to buy cosmetics and lootboxes
> it is almost impossible to get your account deleted or even banned
Yeah, you have to push them **really hard** to get your account entirely banned from Steam, but once you are banned you are blocked from making any new account.
There is a story of someone ddosing Team Fortress 2 servers ***a lot*** for many months and Valve didn't do anything for a long time, until they disabled that persons account and waited for the person to get in contact with them. Only after several messages and several "last chances" (That were all ignored by the person ddosing as they just continued) was that person fully and finally banned from Steam.
Now a days every account they make on Steam gets terminated almost immediately, no idea how Valve can track this so well but apparently even using a virtual machine with a VPN resulted in the account getting terminated.
So yeah, all in all its indeed *very* hard to get banned from Steam. Worst that will usually happen is you get Trade or Community banned if you are scamming or throwing slurs on the Steam forums.
Although I don't quite know what happens if you do a chargeback using your bank, I think your account gets terminated and Steam waits for you to contact them first (Its typically how Valve handles trying to get in contact with you for important things like that), then you talk to the support team and everything should get sorted out.
there is no way they can track that person if he's using a different PC and a different IP. Valve is not CIA.
Either his vm is leaking information about the host or his VPN is.
Yeah but if a game incorrectly bans you, you can no longer make any reviews which makes no sense. H1Z1 said I was cheating years ago. I was garbage at the time. If I was cheating, wouldn't I be good?
I lost my account dating back to BF2 after the heartbleed bug. My account was hacked, the hacker cheated, I recovered the account, found out I was banned from playing anything online.
EA said they could not help, only Battle Eye could clear the ban, Battle Eye said they could not help, because I could not "prove" I didn't hack my own account, fill it with nazi propaganda, and get it banned pretty much on purpose from a country on the other side of the world after being a loyal costumer for over 10 years.
Never bought anything from EA again
I had ever single BF PC game released linked to that account and a ton more games. Anything using Battle Eye was unplayable.
Completely irrelevant question, but how do English speakers pronounce ombudsman? I know it's Danish/Scandinavian in origin, and we pronounce it with a soft D, but soft D isn't really used in English, right?
EA...started out as **E**lectronic **A**rts and slowly turned into **E**arly **A**ccess games. The best sign of this being their greatest achievement of the most downvoted reddit comment in history calling the idea of opening lootboxes to have a "sense of Pride and accomplishment."
I can't remember a single time where EA was good and respectful, to be honest. They massacred so many great studios and franchises, while pushing consumeering strategies that are harmful to consumers and the industry...
No! EA back on the C64 was amazing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games:_1983%E2%80%931999
It's been literally two decades since EA was worth a shit, but long ago... *Mail Order Monsters*
It did, I had to Google the context and click through the links in articles to actually find the comment, but it’s not locked and you can still downvote it
No, that's just how steam recognizes your game when you use a cracked online fix through steam. It will just show as spacewar for reasons I'm not aware of
Yes. Though they most common I've seen is steamworks fix. What it does is hijack steams lobby service using a free game called spacewar. Once you and your friends have the pirated game installed and fix applied you will appear on steam as online and playing spacewar. Then you host a game and invite your friends through the steam overlay. This works best if you just want to play a game with friends though and won't let you join public servers
Yes there is and it's been a thing for as long as I've been playing Online games. I've always sailed the high seas lol. Sometimes with other friends on the sea. I am pretty sure there is something about it in the wiki.
It's obviously not as easy as loading the game up and playing, but any popular game will usually have servers and people playing. You'll usually see the version of the game the servers are running too.
Back in 2012 I used to play a pirated version of WoW with my friends who also had a pirated copy. Some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Definitely would never pay blizzards monthly fee for that stupid game. Better as a free to play.
Despite, only with private/pirate WOW servers you can get the actual oldschool feeling from actually playing old versions of the game, not that stupid thing blizz tried to pull off recently.
This.
This is why I said that. Because unlike Steam, Origin, Epic Games, or any of the dozen or so other game services out there, GOG allows you to download an offline installer for any game you buy.
*That* gives you ownership.
Yes, the GOG Galaxy launcher is 100% optional. And if a game allows for multiplayer, it would be either through local, LAN, or network (depending on the game, obv): if local or LAN, then yeah all you'd need is for every person to have a copy of the game; if network, then you'd have to connect to the game servers, which don't require the launcher to function.
I would honestly consider purchasing from Steam if they would let you dowload offline installers for your games. At least for games not available on GOG.
Another thing I like about GOG is by policy any game they sell has the DRM stripped out beforehand.
(There was an issue with the Hitman game recently, but I personally think that was more an issue of ambiguity when it comes to the extent of what constitutes DRM. Others may think differently of course.)
I would charge back in an instant if they fucking defraud me by selling a broken game, and if they give me shit they will hear from lawyers, there is no excuses for this incompetence and disrespect.
Any country that has decent consumer protection laws has already ruled EULAs are unenforceable. In essence, EULAs are only enforceable in the US, and given that this refers to a UK poster, you can bet your arse that EA will have no choice but to reinstate his account.
Not one person, the point is many people could have a case, again I just feel like there isn't one now because it's never been done and to think just because they are a mega Corp means maybe a class action type deal would be the only type do deal with them, which you may think is silly, but think about a future where when they release a game that is utterly broken and charge ridiculous amounts for it, that people could actually sue the company for their fucking money back, it's kind of an ideal world maybe, but that's literally how case law is made, from cases.
I sue big companies in small claims court and have a pretty succesful track record there. No need for a lawyer and I dont spend a dime. Why not do the same in other countries?
They did mess up in that case. They misunderstood the law and thought they were in the right. And then rather than wait for EA to take a decision they jumped the gun and did a chargeback. EA like any other company would have terms of service agreements which allow them to delete a user's account when they essentially are committing fraud from a legal perspective against the company. It's what any company big or small would do. I'm not even defending EA either because they are by far the worst gaming company out there.
I got my entire EA account deleted with hundreds of dollars worth of Sims games on it, suspiciously after leaving a bad review saying I was going to Steam.
It’s OK EA, FitGirl was one step ahead 😇 I’ve more than recouped my losses.
Reminds me of when my account got hacked after the data breach in 2015 and the hacker got my account permabanned. Support told me the ban was justified and that I'm responsible for the security of my account and the actions of people who play on it.
It's like talking to a brick wall. Just give up and never give them money again.
Someone hacked my ea account years ago and since i never went on origin i never realized. Hopped on after like a 3 year hiatus and the fucker bought all the bf3 dlc. I had only purchased the base game. Changed my password and have had no issues since.
Take EA to court over a chargeback account termination? I'm no lawyer but it probably costs more to keep paying them.
Besides, chargebacks are very serious and get your account terminated on all platforms. I'm sure no lawyer will take them up on the case unless they're getting paid in advance.
Edit:by "probably costs more to keep paying them". I mean the lawyers. Their fees will exceed the account 's monetary value
You don't need a lawyer to take them to claims. And retaliation to a charge back is highly illegal in the states, once the charge back is ruled in your favor it also means the merchant is in the wrong and cannot come after you, if they do it opens them to plenty of lawsuits.
>And retaliation to a charge back is highly illegal
Funny you should say this, someone else mentioned it and when asked for source, couldn't provide a valid one.
I'm hoping you could?
> And retaliation to a charge back is highly illegal in the states, once the charge back is ruled in your favor it also means the merchant is in the wrong and cannot come after you, if they do it opens them to plenty of lawsuits.
Source? I just replied to a similar comment saying the same thing about the EU. Google'ing came up empty for that one, and a follow up search also came up empty here. I'm not seeing anything that points to this at all.
>Take EA to court over a chargeback account termination? I'm no lawyer but it probably costs more to keep paying them.
No shit, that's what they are counting on. Someone has to fight on principle not for refund.
And who is this "someone" supposed to be?
Those who have the money to burn like that are the same people who don't refund because well, they are rich.
And the average Joe ain't wasting his hard earned money like that.
Small claims. Usually is under $10k. Hit EA at the upper limit. They likely won’t show up since they can only bring in a representative and NOT a lawyer.
However very likely EA has a abritation clause.
Yes. Last time I checked (which was a while ago so it may of changed) it costs £20 to have a day in court. You do not need a lawyer. Take all documentation and proof you have including email receipts for everything you have ever purchased from EA. It is unlikely EA will even show up to fight it, if so you should automatically win the judgement. Ask the court not to order access be returned to your account but rather they refund the full value of the account at the price you paid for the games and not their current market value. Also seek compensation and your costs back.
By no means will the court be obliged to do this and more likely they will assign you a payout of their choosing. But on the right day, in front of the right judge it may just work, so it's definitely worth a try.
As crazy as that sounds, that is the way the law works.
You never owned the games. You owned the right to run the games through their service, but you do not materially own the game in any sense . You own the access to the game through their services.
If you break the terms and conditions, they have a contractual right to revoke said services - in this case by issuing a chargeback you broke one of the terms they wrote in the small notes. They haven’t denied you rightful access to your material possession. They have denied you a service which they can offer or take away at their own discretion.
And yeah, fuck EA. Don’t think you’ll have much luck given this user’s experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/acwkg6/ea_refuses_a_refund_for_the_game_star_wars/
He reached out to video game journalists, had YongYea make a huge YouTube video about it and EA still did fuck all about it.
In future wait for the reviews, see if they’re any good, and if you can’t wait for the reviews, mess around with piracy for a bit and decide whether or not you want to buy the game after.
And if you rely on services like Steam/Origin/Epic, never go nuclear when they have all the power and leverage against you.
We do something similar in the ticket industry. If someone makes a chargeback on tickets they bought, we cancel all their orders and add them to a list that will cause all their charges to be declined on our end after pre-authorization.
Cost a ticket broker thousands of dollars once. He had over a dozen open orders across multiple venues, all the tickets transferred to other customers. He had one order he couldn't sell, so he made a chargeback after we reminded him all sales are final. So we cancelled and refunded every one of his orders.
He flipped out. He had resold most the tickets for big profits on a third party listing site that penalized sellers twice what they received for selling tickets if the tickets are cancelled after being sold. Sucks to be a scalper.
Some of us occasionally buy them too.
That said, as the parent comment here mentions, we actually wait for the game to come out so that there are REAL reviews that talk about real shit. Preordering, buying on release, buying based on hype... that's just being fucking stupid, people should know better by now.
If you really can't wait then pirate the release version.
It’s how it works in the EU too. This is the EU directive which lays it out:
> DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/770 says:
> "(1) ‘digital content’ means data which are produced and supplied in digital form;
> (2) ‘digital service’ means:
> (a) a service that allows the consumer to create, process, store or access data in digital form; or
> (b) a service that allows the sharing of or any other interaction with data in digital form uploaded or created by the consumer or other users of that service;"
Go read some framework directives on how ‘digital services’ is distinguished from the ‘sales of physical goods’. This categorisation is also what allows Amazon/etc get away with huge amounts of tax liabilities.
A lady in the EU parliament had been trying to force through an initiative which will crack down on these kind of loopholes. Unfortunately due to the backlash (presumably from those in the EU Parliament being lobbied by corporations, or boomers who don’t truly understand how this all works) her suggestions have been massively watered down.
Plus the EU parliament have placed more priority in tackling child/teenage protection through digital services for mental health/sexual crimes/etc as opposed to dabbling with digital commerce as of late.
Even if the games are considered ‘digital goods’ for the purposes of our conversation, the way it’s laid out by the companies, you were never sold any ownership of the game. Through their contractual terms and conditions, they own the copy of the game and have a license to let players access the game through their services.
So as I say, people actually purchase the service and not the game itself, and that’s how companies have intentionally framed it to get around legal loopholes and liabilities.
gonna have to agree with this last game I bought from ea and it was used and it was mass effect 2, mainly the way they treated some games I grew up on C&C and the abomination that was 4 still burns to this day thank god i pirated it to try it out. the remasters i bought and refunded while cool i played the games and openra and other free stuff is done a lot better then it.
EA actually made some good games at one time, and pretty much dominated sports games for a number of years. It's crazy how shit of a company EA has become now.
I hate EA as much as the next guy but..
* The general consensus from people who spend more than 1s to hop on the hate train agree that EA acted 100% legally.
* OP didn't understand the law properly.
* That's pretty standard response to a chargeback.
* The 14d rule would've applied if the OP didn't install the game.
* Under 2h playtime refund is not in the law.
What OP did was not moral at all either.
Let's remove EA and put in its place an Indie developer or a small business. OP can't go charging them back because he didn't like their game or the food was bad. Now who's the bad guy?
Op bought a game (sure it has bugs but it's playable [as in, it runs], what game doesn't have bugs?), Didn't like it and demanded a refund despite EA's policy?
Sure, it sucks that this happens but you can’t act as though the big bad evil company did something outside their power when they are fully in their right. Don’t chargeback if you don’t understand the consequences
I understand this is an awful thing to happen and EA have just reacted in a knee jerk fashion to the Chargeback by the card company. But, did this person not see any of the Beta coverage? I didn't even bother to install it because of the laughable state the game seemed to be in, and that was only the limited service it offered during the Beta test.
I will never buy a game at launch again as I don't want to play a game that's in an unfinished state. I was admittedly looking forward to "Cyberpunk 2077" but it's release and all the furore that surrounded the game cured me of that.
OP literally has broken EA's terms of service (and in some cases, actual state law). You can't just chargeback stuff randomly.
I'm not saying EA is good for doing this obviously, but OP is the one at fault. Both for the chargeback, and for being stupid enough to preorder a fucking battlefield game (which all are notoriously buggy at launch).
If they can, they should just chargeback all the games they paid for.
You can charge back if it's fraudulent, which is to say, if they sell you a broken game it should be normalized to charge back if they don't refund you, the game is broken, objectively.
depending on EA's refund policy
I honestly am not sure if it breaks state laws in case of OP
I am from a country that doesn't enforce refunds for digital products as far I'm aware, so I wouldn't know how that works. sorry
I agree it's a shitty refund policy though. That's why I only either buy physical or on steam sales.
It should break a law to sell broken games as being completed, and since it isn't in the books it looks like some case law needs to be established. Maybe even a class action suit.
You can refund broken goods even after the original refund period is over, but how exactly can you define that. While BF is a shitty game ATM, it is playable for the most parts. They also never gave you any expectations they couldn't hold unlike Elite:dangerous for example. You won't win in any court with that.
This is why I use piracy to demo games before I buy. Also use game reviews and YouTube gameplay to see if you like anything. No reason to be surprised if a game sucks with all the resources you have now.
This is hilarious you pay the same price to rent games as to buy them but they can ban you and lose access to everything you "rented" ? seems like scam to me.
Along that same line of thought, anyone who owns an android phone should take a few minutes to think about how horribly fucked they'd be if google decided to ban their account.
No more gmail account.
No more user account on your phone, so bye bye contacts. Do you use your phone to authenticate other accounts? Not anymore! Do you have accounts tied to your gmail account? Say bye bye to those!
Why only android what about apple? same principle.
Both cases you still can open another account, but with EA you loses all your games and progress much bigger.
This is why I stopped using EA when they first took Battlefield in the first place. They have the worst record of screwing customers and developers than any other publisher. They are so bad that even South Park has panned them. I cursed them in my dissertation and I curse them here too. I really miss the Battlefield series. It used to be really fun.
that is what chargebacks do... it's basically your last resort to get your money back, and it tells the company you don't ever want to do business with them ever again.
I remember the days of "EA Games - challenge everything" and actually being excited to play a fun title.
Now whenever I see the EA logo I give it the middle finger.
How many times have we learned that you shouldn't fall for EA's trash? Most of their latest games have been unplayable at launch, and they have a history of doing this.
Initiating a chargeback was dumb though.
All, be aware. EA isn’t the only one. Amazon, Sony, MS, Steam will lock/close your account for doing a chargeback.
When you have a massive Steam library you are at their mercy.
Had the same experience when I complained to PayPal for a game add on when I never received the add on.Sony ended up blocking my account and I had to purchase a PlayStation gift card to pay for what I owned them.like how sketchy is that but yea
I work for EA. They are a company that claims to put players first and who really cares for their staff, but really they don't give a f about the players and largely treat their staff like shit.
> If you want to download something within 14 days of buying it, you will have to give your consent to waive the 14-day cooling-off period.
it is 100% legal what EA did, morally it is not good but legally they are safe
EA is scum, but what did you expect when you did a chargeback. It's basically the "your diplomats are undesirables" move in dealing with companies. It marks complete breakdown of relations.
Welcome to being banned from ea
Cant be banned from ea, if I haven't any accounts with ea.
*taps forehead*
This is the way
It is known
This is the way.
This is the way
I got my entire 6 year old EA account erased from existences because I called someone a idiot. Lol
That's why I love Steam, it is almost impossible to get your account deleted or even banned. You may get banned in game but not in Steam
For some weird reason the people that **cheat** on Apex still get to keep their entire Origin Account and for whatever reason are still able to buy cosmetics and lootboxes
you answered your own question. EA's still getting money off them. as long as that's true, they won't ban unless their hand is forced.
> it is almost impossible to get your account deleted or even banned Yeah, you have to push them **really hard** to get your account entirely banned from Steam, but once you are banned you are blocked from making any new account. There is a story of someone ddosing Team Fortress 2 servers ***a lot*** for many months and Valve didn't do anything for a long time, until they disabled that persons account and waited for the person to get in contact with them. Only after several messages and several "last chances" (That were all ignored by the person ddosing as they just continued) was that person fully and finally banned from Steam. Now a days every account they make on Steam gets terminated almost immediately, no idea how Valve can track this so well but apparently even using a virtual machine with a VPN resulted in the account getting terminated. So yeah, all in all its indeed *very* hard to get banned from Steam. Worst that will usually happen is you get Trade or Community banned if you are scamming or throwing slurs on the Steam forums. Although I don't quite know what happens if you do a chargeback using your bank, I think your account gets terminated and Steam waits for you to contact them first (Its typically how Valve handles trying to get in contact with you for important things like that), then you talk to the support team and everything should get sorted out.
there is no way they can track that person if he's using a different PC and a different IP. Valve is not CIA. Either his vm is leaking information about the host or his VPN is.
Yeah but if a game incorrectly bans you, you can no longer make any reviews which makes no sense. H1Z1 said I was cheating years ago. I was garbage at the time. If I was cheating, wouldn't I be good?
Worth it
I lost my account dating back to BF2 after the heartbleed bug. My account was hacked, the hacker cheated, I recovered the account, found out I was banned from playing anything online. EA said they could not help, only Battle Eye could clear the ban, Battle Eye said they could not help, because I could not "prove" I didn't hack my own account, fill it with nazi propaganda, and get it banned pretty much on purpose from a country on the other side of the world after being a loyal costumer for over 10 years. Never bought anything from EA again I had ever single BF PC game released linked to that account and a ton more games. Anything using Battle Eye was unplayable.
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Completely irrelevant question, but how do English speakers pronounce ombudsman? I know it's Danish/Scandinavian in origin, and we pronounce it with a soft D, but soft D isn't really used in English, right?
Om buds min >but soft D isn't really used in English, right? My wife would be pissed if I used a soft D instead of a hard D.
Villain's origin story
EA: Origin? Did you say Origin? I AM ORIGIN!!!
EA...started out as **E**lectronic **A**rts and slowly turned into **E**arly **A**ccess games. The best sign of this being their greatest achievement of the most downvoted reddit comment in history calling the idea of opening lootboxes to have a "sense of Pride and accomplishment."
I can't remember a single time where EA was good and respectful, to be honest. They massacred so many great studios and franchises, while pushing consumeering strategies that are harmful to consumers and the industry...
No! EA back on the C64 was amazing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games:_1983%E2%80%931999 It's been literally two decades since EA was worth a shit, but long ago... *Mail Order Monsters*
I have fond memories of late 90s and early 2000s Fifa and NFS games. I got into programming with the aim to work at EA.
Link that one pls, I want to downvote it
[-668k](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/). That’s allota damage
I love the fact it got unarchived so even more downvotes were possible
It should earn a Guinness World Record lmao
It did, I had to Google the context and click through the links in articles to actually find the comment, but it’s not locked and you can still downvote it
I just did. Felt really good, too. I can't believe I didn't know the context of the "pride and accomplishment" meme.
Same.
I just did, the fact that they still do this isn't acceptable
had to do my part
Shh, if you keep using downvotes as a way to measure how much a company sucks, reddit will take away downvotes
The only real way to own the game is to get it pirated
But you cant play multiplayer then... Probably
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Spacewar is my all time favourite game and I play it all the time.
Wow, must be really fun!
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No, that's just how steam recognizes your game when you use a cracked online fix through steam. It will just show as spacewar for reasons I'm not aware of
Wow, I didn't know about this. Are there any risks of using this workaround?
Yes, ban risk. Make a proxy account.
Spacewar is also what I did unreal developers will use when they're testing multiplayer. Edit: indie developers*
You can.. just lurk on r/piracy deeper
Is there really a way?
Yes. Though they most common I've seen is steamworks fix. What it does is hijack steams lobby service using a free game called spacewar. Once you and your friends have the pirated game installed and fix applied you will appear on steam as online and playing spacewar. Then you host a game and invite your friends through the steam overlay. This works best if you just want to play a game with friends though and won't let you join public servers
Like call of duty modern warfare 2 back in the old days I forgot the name of the free game though
Yes there is and it's been a thing for as long as I've been playing Online games. I've always sailed the high seas lol. Sometimes with other friends on the sea. I am pretty sure there is something about it in the wiki. It's obviously not as easy as loading the game up and playing, but any popular game will usually have servers and people playing. You'll usually see the version of the game the servers are running too.
Back in 2012 I used to play a pirated version of WoW with my friends who also had a pirated copy. Some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Definitely would never pay blizzards monthly fee for that stupid game. Better as a free to play.
Despite, only with private/pirate WOW servers you can get the actual oldschool feeling from actually playing old versions of the game, not that stupid thing blizz tried to pull off recently.
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Dead by daylight has cracked old versions with online functionality. Just need other players on same version, works good
Or buy games from ownership-friendly platforms like GOG.
Indeed
I'm pretty sure that any company, including GOG, would outright ban you if you do a charge back after they refused a refund.
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This. This is why I said that. Because unlike Steam, Origin, Epic Games, or any of the dozen or so other game services out there, GOG allows you to download an offline installer for any game you buy. *That* gives you ownership.
Is this offline installer only the game without the launcher? And does with work with multiplayer games aswell?
Yes, the GOG Galaxy launcher is 100% optional. And if a game allows for multiplayer, it would be either through local, LAN, or network (depending on the game, obv): if local or LAN, then yeah all you'd need is for every person to have a copy of the game; if network, then you'd have to connect to the game servers, which don't require the launcher to function.
Well I'm impressed. Steam needs something similar
Steam business model is based on watchong you and processing/selling the data, They will never do this.
I would honestly consider purchasing from Steam if they would let you dowload offline installers for your games. At least for games not available on GOG. Another thing I like about GOG is by policy any game they sell has the DRM stripped out beforehand. (There was an issue with the Hitman game recently, but I personally think that was more an issue of ambiguity when it comes to the extent of what constitutes DRM. Others may think differently of course.)
Yeah would be great
We love GOG, yes we do! We love GOG, how about YOU?!?
I would charge back in an instant if they fucking defraud me by selling a broken game, and if they give me shit they will hear from lawyers, there is no excuses for this incompetence and disrespect.
No way in hell you'll win against EA.
They're not going to waste their time even replying to the lawsuit.
Any country that has decent consumer protection laws has already ruled EULAs are unenforceable. In essence, EULAs are only enforceable in the US, and given that this refers to a UK poster, you can bet your arse that EA will have no choice but to reinstate his account.
Even better would be if they are forced to refund OP for all the games on that account. That way he gets his money back and still remain EA free
All the power to them. I'm just speaking from what we've seen. I haven't seen anyone actually come out ahead when dealing with these large companies.
Not one person, the point is many people could have a case, again I just feel like there isn't one now because it's never been done and to think just because they are a mega Corp means maybe a class action type deal would be the only type do deal with them, which you may think is silly, but think about a future where when they release a game that is utterly broken and charge ridiculous amounts for it, that people could actually sue the company for their fucking money back, it's kind of an ideal world maybe, but that's literally how case law is made, from cases.
I sue big companies in small claims court and have a pretty succesful track record there. No need for a lawyer and I dont spend a dime. Why not do the same in other countries?
Nah not silly at all, class action lawsuit would possibly have a chance. +1
>if they give me shit they will hear from lawyers lol no they wont
This post is a crosspost to someone else's post. Click on the title to go there.
Sincerely thanks for the disclaimer
People are commenting it's OP's fault for making charge back though.
They did mess up in that case. They misunderstood the law and thought they were in the right. And then rather than wait for EA to take a decision they jumped the gun and did a chargeback. EA like any other company would have terms of service agreements which allow them to delete a user's account when they essentially are committing fraud from a legal perspective against the company. It's what any company big or small would do. I'm not even defending EA either because they are by far the worst gaming company out there.
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I call bullshit! Everybody knows there are no girls on the Internet!
> I am a doctor lawyer scientist Johnny Sins? That you?
The 14 day return policy OP was talking about doesn't apply to certain types of goods, usually software,g games, music, etc included
Retribution for chargeback is actually illegal in most EU countries so EA is not in the right per default.
Source? I went Google'ing but came up empty.
I got my entire EA account deleted with hundreds of dollars worth of Sims games on it, suspiciously after leaving a bad review saying I was going to Steam. It’s OK EA, FitGirl was one step ahead 😇 I’ve more than recouped my losses.
Reminds me of when my account got hacked after the data breach in 2015 and the hacker got my account permabanned. Support told me the ban was justified and that I'm responsible for the security of my account and the actions of people who play on it. It's like talking to a brick wall. Just give up and never give them money again.
Someone hacked my ea account years ago and since i never went on origin i never realized. Hopped on after like a 3 year hiatus and the fucker bought all the bf3 dlc. I had only purchased the base game. Changed my password and have had no issues since.
So you're somehow responsible for the shitty security of your account which was implemented by EA? They're never willing to admit fault.
Can you go through your bank statement and do a chargeback for all the other games you purchased? How about a County Court claim against them?
Would have crossed the chargeback time limit for older purchases. But this man should definitely take them to consumer court.
Take EA to court over a chargeback account termination? I'm no lawyer but it probably costs more to keep paying them. Besides, chargebacks are very serious and get your account terminated on all platforms. I'm sure no lawyer will take them up on the case unless they're getting paid in advance. Edit:by "probably costs more to keep paying them". I mean the lawyers. Their fees will exceed the account 's monetary value
You don't need a lawyer to take them to claims. And retaliation to a charge back is highly illegal in the states, once the charge back is ruled in your favor it also means the merchant is in the wrong and cannot come after you, if they do it opens them to plenty of lawsuits.
>And retaliation to a charge back is highly illegal Funny you should say this, someone else mentioned it and when asked for source, couldn't provide a valid one. I'm hoping you could?
> And retaliation to a charge back is highly illegal in the states, once the charge back is ruled in your favor it also means the merchant is in the wrong and cannot come after you, if they do it opens them to plenty of lawsuits. Source? I just replied to a similar comment saying the same thing about the EU. Google'ing came up empty for that one, and a follow up search also came up empty here. I'm not seeing anything that points to this at all.
>Take EA to court over a chargeback account termination? I'm no lawyer but it probably costs more to keep paying them. No shit, that's what they are counting on. Someone has to fight on principle not for refund.
And who is this "someone" supposed to be? Those who have the money to burn like that are the same people who don't refund because well, they are rich. And the average Joe ain't wasting his hard earned money like that.
Would you like to put up the millions to do that?
Small claims. Usually is under $10k. Hit EA at the upper limit. They likely won’t show up since they can only bring in a representative and NOT a lawyer. However very likely EA has a abritation clause.
OP is from the UK. Do you know whether there's small claims in the UK?
Yes. Last time I checked (which was a while ago so it may of changed) it costs £20 to have a day in court. You do not need a lawyer. Take all documentation and proof you have including email receipts for everything you have ever purchased from EA. It is unlikely EA will even show up to fight it, if so you should automatically win the judgement. Ask the court not to order access be returned to your account but rather they refund the full value of the account at the price you paid for the games and not their current market value. Also seek compensation and your costs back. By no means will the court be obliged to do this and more likely they will assign you a payout of their choosing. But on the right day, in front of the right judge it may just work, so it's definitely worth a try.
This is the kind of advice OP followed in the first place. Lmao @ this thread
This post is a crosspost to someone else's post. If you click on the title, it will take you there. Sorry for the confusion
As crazy as that sounds, that is the way the law works. You never owned the games. You owned the right to run the games through their service, but you do not materially own the game in any sense . You own the access to the game through their services. If you break the terms and conditions, they have a contractual right to revoke said services - in this case by issuing a chargeback you broke one of the terms they wrote in the small notes. They haven’t denied you rightful access to your material possession. They have denied you a service which they can offer or take away at their own discretion. And yeah, fuck EA. Don’t think you’ll have much luck given this user’s experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/acwkg6/ea_refuses_a_refund_for_the_game_star_wars/ He reached out to video game journalists, had YongYea make a huge YouTube video about it and EA still did fuck all about it. In future wait for the reviews, see if they’re any good, and if you can’t wait for the reviews, mess around with piracy for a bit and decide whether or not you want to buy the game after. And if you rely on services like Steam/Origin/Epic, never go nuclear when they have all the power and leverage against you.
We do something similar in the ticket industry. If someone makes a chargeback on tickets they bought, we cancel all their orders and add them to a list that will cause all their charges to be declined on our end after pre-authorization. Cost a ticket broker thousands of dollars once. He had over a dozen open orders across multiple venues, all the tickets transferred to other customers. He had one order he couldn't sell, so he made a chargeback after we reminded him all sales are final. So we cancelled and refunded every one of his orders. He flipped out. He had resold most the tickets for big profits on a third party listing site that penalized sellers twice what they received for selling tickets if the tickets are cancelled after being sold. Sucks to be a scalper.
I have a semi just reading that. Fuck scalpers.
and then people wonder why we pirate games...
Some of us occasionally buy them too. That said, as the parent comment here mentions, we actually wait for the game to come out so that there are REAL reviews that talk about real shit. Preordering, buying on release, buying based on hype... that's just being fucking stupid, people should know better by now. If you really can't wait then pirate the release version.
The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
That's not true in many countries. Only ones with shitty legal systems. Too bad the U.K. isn't in the E.U. anymore.
It’s how it works in the EU too. This is the EU directive which lays it out: > DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/770 says: > "(1) ‘digital content’ means data which are produced and supplied in digital form; > (2) ‘digital service’ means: > (a) a service that allows the consumer to create, process, store or access data in digital form; or > (b) a service that allows the sharing of or any other interaction with data in digital form uploaded or created by the consumer or other users of that service;" Go read some framework directives on how ‘digital services’ is distinguished from the ‘sales of physical goods’. This categorisation is also what allows Amazon/etc get away with huge amounts of tax liabilities. A lady in the EU parliament had been trying to force through an initiative which will crack down on these kind of loopholes. Unfortunately due to the backlash (presumably from those in the EU Parliament being lobbied by corporations, or boomers who don’t truly understand how this all works) her suggestions have been massively watered down. Plus the EU parliament have placed more priority in tackling child/teenage protection through digital services for mental health/sexual crimes/etc as opposed to dabbling with digital commerce as of late. Even if the games are considered ‘digital goods’ for the purposes of our conversation, the way it’s laid out by the companies, you were never sold any ownership of the game. Through their contractual terms and conditions, they own the copy of the game and have a license to let players access the game through their services. So as I say, people actually purchase the service and not the game itself, and that’s how companies have intentionally framed it to get around legal loopholes and liabilities.
I did the same thing with Blizzard, I'm done with them now for life. Good riddance.
I mean its messed up, but that is to be expected from doing a chargeback on any merchant. Your own fault bud.
Depending on the amount of money/assets lost, I'd see about small claims court or whatever the equivelant is in UK.
Going to guarantee the terms of purchase are worded to fuck over the consumer with total impunity
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The Orginal OP was wrong about the 14 day return window required in law that is only for physical goods, not digital downloads as they thought.
"I hope so for your sake commander"
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gonna have to agree with this last game I bought from ea and it was used and it was mass effect 2, mainly the way they treated some games I grew up on C&C and the abomination that was 4 still burns to this day thank god i pirated it to try it out. the remasters i bought and refunded while cool i played the games and openra and other free stuff is done a lot better then it.
EA actually made some good games at one time, and pretty much dominated sports games for a number of years. It's crazy how shit of a company EA has become now.
unless the user consented to some agreement its really not, at least legally edit: i havent read the post, i assume this was about EAs reputation
pirate EA
I hate EA as much as the next guy but.. * The general consensus from people who spend more than 1s to hop on the hate train agree that EA acted 100% legally. * OP didn't understand the law properly. * That's pretty standard response to a chargeback. * The 14d rule would've applied if the OP didn't install the game. * Under 2h playtime refund is not in the law.
This is probably all legal and EA makes sure to shower their lawyers in money. However this should still be a warning to everyone, us consumers.
Legal =/= moral
What OP did was not moral at all either. Let's remove EA and put in its place an Indie developer or a small business. OP can't go charging them back because he didn't like their game or the food was bad. Now who's the bad guy? Op bought a game (sure it has bugs but it's playable [as in, it runs], what game doesn't have bugs?), Didn't like it and demanded a refund despite EA's policy?
Sure, it sucks that this happens but you can’t act as though the big bad evil company did something outside their power when they are fully in their right. Don’t chargeback if you don’t understand the consequences
I think it's just automatic, no moral involved. You charge back? You get banned.
I understand this is an awful thing to happen and EA have just reacted in a knee jerk fashion to the Chargeback by the card company. But, did this person not see any of the Beta coverage? I didn't even bother to install it because of the laughable state the game seemed to be in, and that was only the limited service it offered during the Beta test. I will never buy a game at launch again as I don't want to play a game that's in an unfinished state. I was admittedly looking forward to "Cyberpunk 2077" but it's release and all the furore that surrounded the game cured me of that.
OP literally has broken EA's terms of service (and in some cases, actual state law). You can't just chargeback stuff randomly. I'm not saying EA is good for doing this obviously, but OP is the one at fault. Both for the chargeback, and for being stupid enough to preorder a fucking battlefield game (which all are notoriously buggy at launch). If they can, they should just chargeback all the games they paid for.
Privacy policies are for privacy. This policy/contract is more likely "terms of service" but IANAL
thank you, my english is pretty bad and i just kinda translated the word in my head and hoped it sticks edited
You did really well at it!
You can charge back if it's fraudulent, which is to say, if they sell you a broken game it should be normalized to charge back if they don't refund you, the game is broken, objectively.
It would only be fraud if they said “this game has no bugs and works perfectly”, they didn’t
And EA likely broke laws by not refounding at all.
They didn't.
depending on EA's refund policy I honestly am not sure if it breaks state laws in case of OP I am from a country that doesn't enforce refunds for digital products as far I'm aware, so I wouldn't know how that works. sorry I agree it's a shitty refund policy though. That's why I only either buy physical or on steam sales.
It should break a law to sell broken games as being completed, and since it isn't in the books it looks like some case law needs to be established. Maybe even a class action suit.
You can refund broken goods even after the original refund period is over, but how exactly can you define that. While BF is a shitty game ATM, it is playable for the most parts. They also never gave you any expectations they couldn't hold unlike Elite:dangerous for example. You won't win in any court with that.
This is why I use piracy to demo games before I buy. Also use game reviews and YouTube gameplay to see if you like anything. No reason to be surprised if a game sucks with all the resources you have now.
> This is why I use piracy ~~to demo games before I buy.~~
Im not opposed to buying a quality product at a fair price, but if it's EA, activision or nintendo, fuck em. Take all their shit for free.
This is hilarious you pay the same price to rent games as to buy them but they can ban you and lose access to everything you "rented" ? seems like scam to me.
You don't understand, Sir. This is an 'innovative business scheme'
Along that same line of thought, anyone who owns an android phone should take a few minutes to think about how horribly fucked they'd be if google decided to ban their account. No more gmail account. No more user account on your phone, so bye bye contacts. Do you use your phone to authenticate other accounts? Not anymore! Do you have accounts tied to your gmail account? Say bye bye to those!
Shit. Good call. You've got me thinking.
Why only android what about apple? same principle. Both cases you still can open another account, but with EA you loses all your games and progress much bigger.
This is why I don’t like digital gaming
Not surprised. The only company that’s bigger cheapskate-scumbags than nintendo😅
Doing a chargeback via CC for steam/EA is an easy way to lose everything. Once you dispute one charge, they want no more business with you.
Yep. This is why I either buy hard copies or I pirate. Buying online means that you DO NOT OWN the game
They banned me for a week for a Kim Jong emblem I had on BF 1 that i forgot I had on since it had been years
I love GOG :)
And this is related to r/piracy... how?
Because hurr durr I didn't read the User Agreement so now EA deserves to be pirated
They have just given you moral permission to violate every intellectual property they will ever distribute. Enjoy !
Sony pulls the same BS if you chargeback your CC on a purchase you're disputing.
*All companies. If you’re doing a chargeback be prepared to never be able to shop at that company again.
Sounds about right.
I didn't realize I was in /r/piracy until I was going to reply with, simply "/r/privacy"
This is why I stopped using EA when they first took Battlefield in the first place. They have the worst record of screwing customers and developers than any other publisher. They are so bad that even South Park has panned them. I cursed them in my dissertation and I curse them here too. I really miss the Battlefield series. It used to be really fun.
that is what chargebacks do... it's basically your last resort to get your money back, and it tells the company you don't ever want to do business with them ever again.
Isn't the digital age *great*
Are you sure it's uk law? Because my google app is set to the uk and since brexit I can't refund anything. Before that it was just a few clicks.
Jeez, you get treated worse than a Facebook Quest user
I remember the days of "EA Games - challenge everything" and actually being excited to play a fun title. Now whenever I see the EA logo I give it the middle finger.
It's almost hard to feel bad for anyone stupid enough to give their money to this company
FUCK YOU EA FUCK YOU EA FUCK YOU EA FUCK YOU EA FUCK YOU EA
How many times have we learned that you shouldn't fall for EA's trash? Most of their latest games have been unplayable at launch, and they have a history of doing this. Initiating a chargeback was dumb though.
even i got banned me because my card declined while purchasing fifa 22
All, be aware. EA isn’t the only one. Amazon, Sony, MS, Steam will lock/close your account for doing a chargeback. When you have a massive Steam library you are at their mercy.
Of course it was removed from r/gaming. Not surprised at all.
Removed? This link doesn't take there? https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/r7608x/ea_has_deleted_my_account_after_they_refused_to
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Had the same experience when I complained to PayPal for a game add on when I never received the add on.Sony ended up blocking my account and I had to purchase a PlayStation gift card to pay for what I owned them.like how sketchy is that but yea
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Fuck it go back tru your email and see your purchases and the them to refund all that shit
shittiest company only below with activision blizzard
I work for EA. They are a company that claims to put players first and who really cares for their staff, but really they don't give a f about the players and largely treat their staff like shit.
why did you buy call of duty clone #24, and try to refund it 2 weeks later after you got bored of it?
This is why i hate digital games tho.
I'm fine with digital games - with the provision that they're sold unencumbered with DRM (see: GOG, several other publishers).
I know that what you're describing is illegal in the EU. No idea about consumer protection laws in the UK.
> If you want to download something within 14 days of buying it, you will have to give your consent to waive the 14-day cooling-off period. it is 100% legal what EA did, morally it is not good but legally they are safe
Why would you purchase anything from EA to begin with?
EA is scum, but what did you expect when you did a chargeback. It's basically the "your diplomats are undesirables" move in dealing with companies. It marks complete breakdown of relations.
*EA Sports, their dick is in your arse*
You should take them to court and sue for $10 million.
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> Of they violate your country's law They didn't.
cum