Billing department out to lunch, for a week

[MrWizard]

so...

I got a friend to get the game and try the trial. He liked it.

xmas gift was to buy the 6 months for 9.99.


So I called and they said I had to buy it first for him and could not give me info on a game card to give him instead. So I bought a new key with my existing account and gave him the key# to use.

When I had talked to the guy at billing he said to call back after getting the key activated since there was nothing he could do til then. Again, I asked about game cards but got no real info. I figured I would be able to deal with it after I got the key.

So, called back and told them the key was active. I asked what to do. I was told I had to use my credit card after signing on to his account and pay for it that way. I did so.


okay...that was a week ago. The phone lines have been on terminal hold since then.

I should have got a referral fee, did not.
I should have got 9.99 special for the 6 months, it did not offer it to me (even though the ad was right above it).
Although a lot of talk about game card, there was no link to buy one for my fried to use. That is annoying.
My credit card is now being auto-paid for the new account and that is ridiculous, it should have been a one time or allowed me to get a game card for him.

I have sent in a billing ticket a week ago about these issues and have followed up every couple days asking what is up. Not one response from them, not one. Not even a 'we'll look at it'. Absolutely nothing.
Calling has brought me to 'too busy now, call back later' or just on hold til I give up.

I did hunt around the billing area and found that when you are paying, on your account and select game card as an option, a link will appear to buy one. But you have to be logged into someone else's account and look for it to even realize it may be there to give them a gift.



I suggest......

Link to your approved game card supplier and actual instructions to use, including getting out of any auto-pay with either the card or turbine.

refer a friend should work whether or not you sent them a mail. If they said 'he sent me' (and especially if 'he' pays for it) it should be credited.

Um, billing should look at the billing tickets that are open after a week and consider them priority if not responded to even once.

If you advertise 9.99 holiday special til jan 31st, you should have that option or correct values on the subscription checkout.

Find a way to give a gift of a timed sub without having to log into their account. Such as 'pay for another user one-time' or something.

anyway....will try calling all day today when possible.
If no answer I will have to do a chargeback since I do not want auto-pay AND my credit card ona friends account. This is annoying.

[Yeti]

A few points.

1) The holiday offer is only available for The Lord of the Rings Online at this time. We have already passed along the feedback that this was very confusing and unfortunately can only offer our apologies at this time.

2) You will not receive a referral credit until your friends has both upgraded their subscription, and made their first monthly payment. The first monthly payment is not taken until after the first 30 free days that come with upgrading your account to a retail account. Therefore, the earliest you could possible get the referral credit would be 40 days after you friend created their account using the referral key.

3) Turbine does not directly sell game cards. This may be why there was some confusion as to how to purchase one. Game cards are sold at many retailers, some online, some brick and mortar, but Turbine does not offer a direct sale. We can definitely take your feedback on this and pass it on to the correct people.

4) We do have a method that allows you to make a one time payment on someone's account. However, that account does have to have a method of payment on the account. You would need to have your friend create the account with their payment information, then call us to make the payment over the phone to apply the time to their account. This is not the ideal situation, but is all we can offer at this time.

Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion that is frustrating you. We do have a back log in response time to Account Management emails at this time as we are still recovering from the holiday season, but we are working as quickly as we can to remedy this situation. If you have any further general questions on how things work, I'll be happy to help, but in order to look at specific account information, you will need to get in touch with the Account Management team, as you have done.

[MrWizard]

thanks for the answer..

1- he only got 14 days for trial (i did not do proper referral i guess
2- i paid for game and 6 months as gift. it is active.
3- my credit card info is still on his account and I would like it off.
4- he does not have a credit card.

calling and tickets have gotten me no where. no response but this one.

[Yeti]

If you'd like to give me your incident number, I'd be happy to check on the status.