What it could take to cancel your account.

[Bradster]

Square Enix finally performed customer service!

My first MMO ever was ffxi, naturally when the new one came out I was excited but it was a flop. Moving forward in the future the “realm reborn” came out basically a remake of the game.

I resubbed and I enjoyed the game. I was really in to it, reached level cap and started working on gear. Played a lot, pretty much every evening. Around November Square was hacked which affected some accounts, I suppose I was one of those.

“for your protection we have locked your account” please reset your password. I reset my password to a new one meeting the requirements and it change successfully but that’s as far as I ever got. Would continue to receive the message both on the website and on the client side. It would also change my Station ID.

Contacted support by phone, after 45mins it would auto disconnect me. Tried that off on on for the next couple weeks, 4 phone calls, 45mins each disconnect.

Tried e-mail, 19 e-mails in all. End result “Please call” content was not read in my e-mail general auto response given after one and half to two week time periods to receive a response. The following 16 e-mails sent after the response was given “call” was never responded too.
Monthly since November I would have to contact my bank for a charge back, since I could not cancel my subscription and could not reach support by phone, nor receive help by any means of communication with the company.

When I finally sent a certified letter with a copy of a prefilled out Court claim form. I finally received a phone call and billing was turned off on my account.

Only took four months, 19 e-mails, 4 phone calls, $10 certified letter, trip to the court house, working with my bank once a month since November and a nice chunk of my time.

If this happens to you, to save you time, this is where you should send it.
Square Enix North America
Square Enix, Inc.
999 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
3rd Floor
El Segundo, CA 90245

[zenga]

What a horror story, thanks for the heads up I was actually looking into that game earlier today. Guess that's a clear no now. Seen the same situation over and over with customer support services: neck deep in work, due to poor recruitment or budget cuts, leading to unhappy/frustrated customers who want to vent their rage @ the poor helpdesk guys who pick up the phone, who get eventually getting enough of being the punchball day in day and leaving only to get replaced by newbies, leading to even poorer customer service.
So many companies with great products eventually fall because they can't handle the CS, something that blizzard has always done pretty well.

[MiRai]

It sounds like you had a terrible experience, but I'll be honest, I cannot recall hearing about any such similar experiences throughout all of my years (10+) of gaming. If there's anything close, it's probably some story related to Electronic Arts in the recent years, but even that would have been something I would have heard through someone I didn't actually know on the internet.

After hearing an experience of one player, I don't think it's enough to swear off a game that actually made quite a turn around and quite a comeback in the world of MMOs. Final Fantasy XIV was such a terrible game when it was first released, SE publicly apologized (I think more than once) and let people play whatever was left of the game for free, for quite some time, while they cleaned house and got a new development team in place.

To those that want to see what this game is about, I, and many others, would still say "go for it" regardless of Bradster's experience. It's a pretty good game and it's even able to be multiboxed, and while I'm not actually playing the game at the moment, I still pay the subscription fee because: 1) I only pay $10/month because I'm special, and 2) you get in-game rewards for having an active subscription.

As for customer support, I've heard of numerous success stories on the FFXIV sub-reddit where people got their account back either by phone or numerous e-mails after they were wrongfully banned, and honestly, I would have tried calling much more than just 4 times since they let you know from the beginning it was the only way to get anything done. Sure, 45 minutes is a long time to wait, but couldn't you have just switched your phone to speaker and let it sit next to you while you do something else? My phone doesn't actually have an external speaker, but I'm still able to hear that I'm on hold if I set the phone down next to me. I guess it all depends on what time you're trying to call as well...

There's no doubt that Blizzard's customer support has been top notch for many of their customers, but I think it's an unfair comparison seeing as Blizzard has had to support millions upon millions of players across the entire globe for almost a decade now, and they've got some practice with how things are handled.

[Lyonheart]

its a shame for you, sorry you went through that!.. I am 4 boxing FFXIV and am loving it. I do not do end game dungeons with my team ( only my solo those ), but I enjoy the game very much. I tried to come back to WoW a few times, but have continued to be drawn to FFXIV. Only other games that get my time atm are BF4 and EQNL Alpha ( < this one is addicting as hell.. think minecraft on steroids )

[Bradster]

Had it not gone on so long and the bad communication I'd most likely still be playing it. I would agree it did make a great turn around from what it once was. In the event someone has account problems and it isn't taken care of. At least you have a guide on the how to now :)