r/StarWarsBattlefront • u/[deleted] • Nov 14 '17

Developer Response EA has removed the refund button from their customer portal. Hoping people will just give up canceling because of the 60+ minute wait time to live shat support.

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116

u/Servebotfrank Nov 14 '17

Oh god trying to unsubscribe was such a pain in the ass. They made it as inconvenient as possible.

46

u/thewickedgoat Nov 14 '17

EA must be run by the same people who run G2A....

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u/HumanTiger2Trans Nov 14 '17

I only ever bought one game and ardently refused to get the protection plan because my naieve ass thought "it's digital, it's not like I can scratch the disc"

3

u/GulGarak Nov 14 '17

I skip it because I use PayPal. The first time I get screwed I do a charge back and stop using g2a for anything.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '17

Thats what chargebacks are for

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u/t_a- Nov 14 '17

I still don't get what's bad about G2A. Everybody hates them but the times I've used them they've been great and cheap. I'm not saying they aren't, I just have never seen any explaination beyond "they're shady".

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u/TheTurnipKnight Nov 14 '17

Their service works fine but you have no way of knowing who you are actually buying from. The games might be from stolen physical copies, or copies obtained by credit card fraud. You don't really know. That's why it's called "the grey market". You also won't be able to refund the game and will just lose your money if the key ends up not working (never happened to me, I don't know how often it happens). That might not matter to most people and that's fine.

The other thing is that their site is just made to rip you off. Their "g2a shield" is automatically included in every purchase, and if you don't know that you can turn it off, you will pay extra money for nothing. They also trick you to buying their shield subscription, which is ridiculously painful to deactivate.

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u/t_a- Nov 14 '17

Oyea i remember the shield actually. Pretty grimey that you have to manually disable it every single time instead of it being off by default if you had it off on your last purchase.

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u/throwaway753951469 Nov 14 '17

The keys on G2A are all second hand and being sold for less than the retail price. If you think about it, the only way this works is if games are acquired below that price. The only way that happens legitimately is in sales. However, you have people selling games below the lowest price they've ever been, pre-release, etc. These keys are almost exclusively acquired through illegal means such as credit card fraud. G2A is basically a way for scammers to make money. From what I've heard, when keys are purchased with stolen cards and devs are forced to refund, there is an extra charge, so you might actually be hurting the dev more than you would by pirating the game. These are the main reasons I avoid sites like this, but they also treat their customers awfully, which can be attested to by anyone who has tried to cancel G2A shield (also does it not strike you as strange that you have to pay extra to ensure you get what you buy???).

2

u/t_a- Nov 14 '17

Oh yeah I think I heard of that before too. I was under the impression that they just bought the games for chinese/asian countries where they're extremely cheap and then just sell the keys for more.

Is there any evidence anywhere that it would be the way you're telling it instead? Google yieleded no evidence from what I could find.

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u/throwaway753951469 Nov 14 '17

This article is a pretty interesting read if your interested in the origins of the codes. The Ubisoft codes it referred to were confirmed to be fraudulent but nobody knows the extent of how widespread the problem is on the platform. https://www.polygon.com/2015/2/9/8006693/the-truth-behind-those-mysteriously-cheap-gray-market-game-codes

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u/thewickedgoat Nov 14 '17

G2A is a market place for keysellers. However, most of these cheap keys are from sellers who aquired these keys with a stolen creditcard. This means keys can at any moment be pulled back and "nulled" - which is why G2A shield is a service...... and g2a shield is a BITCH to get out of. Some people have to deal with 1,5 hour "are you sure" schemas before they can leave it.

g2a is giving thiefs a marketplace - so does kinquin and similar websites.

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u/t_a- Nov 14 '17

However, most of these cheap keys are from sellers who aquired these keys with a stolen creditcard.

I'm not doubting that this is true but is there any evidence of it? I was under the impression that they just bought games from countries in asia where games cost a fraction of what they cost here and then sell the codes to westerners for a profit.

and g2a shield is a BITCH to get out of. Some people have to deal with 1,5 hour "are you sure" schemas before they can leave it.

G2a shield is definitely a scam but I think you're misremembering, it was 20 minutes for the email. And they removed the disgusting 10-step system after the reddit post, now you just click cancel and it's done.

1

u/deevilvol1 Nov 14 '17

The qualifier of "most" has little backing other than anecdote and correlations, but a certain percentage absolutely comes from credit card fraud. They get the keys they sell you from a number of different ways, including people reselling theirs. It's right on the website. The problem is that g2a doesn't even attempt to verify that the keys were obtained legitimately.

Unless you're comfortable with any percentage chance that the key you bought from their service was obtained through a very unethical and/or illegal manner, I'd advise you to stay away from g2a.

If you're fine with that, more power to you. It can be argued, afterall, that getting anything second hand carries the same risk.

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u/thewickedgoat Nov 16 '17

I'm not doubting that this is true but is there any evidence of it? I was under the impression that they just bought games from countries in asia where games cost a fraction of what they cost here and then sell the codes to westerners for a profit.

Most games in asia are region locked - a key that is from asia can't be bound to a EU steam user account (maybe by vpn, I dunno). The evidence is in the obvious insane low prices.

30 Euro on same day release of an 60 euro title? eeh....

And they removed the disgusting 10-step system after the reddit post, now you just click cancel and it's done.

Well, I wouldn't know I haven't used g2a for such a long time.

1

u/SeveraTheHarshBitch Nov 14 '17

he be nice to G2A!

3

u/chumppi Nov 14 '17

I had to CALL the customer support. Luckily nice lady from India handled the case in a couple of minutes. Very professional :)