Deceptive store practices, Turbine?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I swear I must be squelched everywhere or everyone really ignores all my posts!

OP, you are correct - and here is my thread on it from Monday: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=200650

Robi - it has happened, with HUGE bags in particular. I know because I went to buy after having bought one about a week ago for 595. I notced they were "on sale" at 25% for 521. Huh? They had a marked normal price of 695. I come on the forums start my thread and even sent a PM to Quartermaster [edit: no he never did respond].

Then TODAY, at noon, I logon after the update, and low and behold HUGE bags are back to 595.

The problem is that without a formal mechanism to track pricing [edit: for players] - it is easy (and no doubt tempting) for Turbine to play games with the prices. As for them being digital bits - I still think they could be subject to the very laws that prevent retailers from doing the same manipulation. I actually think it is worth considering a class action lawsuit if Turbine keeps this up.

I can only guess they are at least lying low for now to see how closely players monitor the prices. I have tried to keep them up-to-date on my spreadsheet but it takes time and I haven't been as diligent as I might like - especially when I would rather play.

That price change would be a violation of civil and/or criminal business law in most parts of north america. Turbine needs to have a chat with their lawyers who can explain that to them so they stop the dishonest practices.

[Robi3.0]

I swear I must be squelched everywhere or everyone really ignores all my posts!

OP, you are correct - and here is my thread on it from Monday: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=200650

Robi - it has happened, with HUGE bags in particular. I know because I went to buy after having bought one about a week ago for 595. I notced they were "on sale" at 25% for 521. Huh? They had a marked normal price of 695. I come on the forums start my thread and even sent a PM to Quartermaster [edit: no he never did respond].

Then TODAY, at noon, I logon after the update, and low and behold HUGE bags are back to 595.

The problem is that without a formal mechanism to track pricing [edit: for players] - it is easy (and no doubt tempting) for Turbine to play games with the prices. As for them being digital bits - I still think they could be subject to the very laws that prevent retailers from doing the same manipulation. I actually think it is worth considering a class action lawsuit if Turbine keeps this up.

I can only guess they are at least lying low for now to see how closely players monitor the prices. I have tried to keep them up-to-date on my spreadsheet but it takes time and I haven't been as diligent as I might like - especially when I would rather play.

First When I posted that I had no clue that the OP was taking about Huge bags. Sorry I missed that. I bought a bag for 595 and noticed a few day later that the price was higher then that. I figured I got one on sale and didn't notice "yeah me". I didn't stop to do the math, and didn't think anything of it.

To play devil advocate Stores are allowed to change their prices, and even thought the price was raised and then discounted the sale price was still below the original price so technically it was still "on sale".

Also I would have to imagine the price drop of the bags today had more to do with the fact that the bags were nerfed then the sale's end.

I will concede however that we need to be our own consumer watch dogs. If these kind of things become common practice. We will need to keep an eye out for for it. I doubt we will have any legal recourse unless it becomes insanely bad, but that doesn't mean we are powerless. Turbine needs us more then we need them, remember that Turbine /shakefist.

[Mockduck]

That price change would be a violation of civil and/or criminal business law in most parts of north america. Turbine needs to have a chat with their lawyers who can explain that to them so they stop the dishonest practices.

However, as far as I know there is almost no consumer law in the U.S. dealing with online game transactions through microprocessing stores like the DDO Store. If Turbine did alter pricing up-discount-back down on Turbine Points, that might be one thing, but altering in-game items likely puts it out of the U.S. court system. I'm sure there's fine print saying that in-game items have no real value.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I don't have too much to say about this thread, but I don't think a lawsuit would get anyone anywhere. My guess is that there's fine print somewhere when you buy Turbine Points that the real-life money is being exchanged for Turbine Points, not in-game products. And I bet there's fine print somewhere enabling Turbine to alter the ratio of its points and the cost of products at any time. So, when you buy or acquire points, you agree to said changes.

It's bad form to do pricing like this without notice, but certainly not lawsuit-worthy.

Changing the pricing is fine... deceptive pricing is not.

So if the price is 400, goes on sale @ 25% off for 300, and after the sale a new price is set at 350 they are fine.

But if the price is 350, it is marked up, FOR THE SALE to 400 with a 25% discount to 300, then goes back to 350 after, that's actionable in many areas.

It all comes down to what the consumer protection law is in their home state. I don't have a clue how good or bad it is in that state. A lawsuit probably is not workable, but a complaint to their consumer/business regulator is something that Turbine might be explosed to. Often all that is required there is a consumer complaint and then the regulator goes to work for you.

So if anyone lives in that state... might be time to make a call to your local government office...

[Lorien_the_First_One]

However, as far as I know there is almost no consumer law in the U.S. dealing with online game transactions through microprocessing stores like the DDO Store. If Turbine did alter pricing up-discount-back down on Turbine Points, that might be one thing, but altering in-game items likely puts it out of the U.S. court system. I'm sure there's fine print saying that in-game items have no real value.

The airlines have fine print saying that airmiles have no value, but they have lost lawsuits where courts have determined that they obviously do have value.

Besides, even if you win such a battle, what exactly would that do to Turbine's reputation?

Time for Turbine to step up and act honest in its business practices, there is no reason for this behavior, just hold a 10% off sale if thats all the discount you want to give.

[Hafeal]

Lorien, rep for you - like you need it - but you are exactly right.

And Mockduck, Turbine is very well within the jurisdiction of US Courts. Which district you want to bring suit in and the full nature of the claim would make for strategic choices but while many nuances of internet transactions like this are vague, it is the exact nature of the vagueness that can also work against Turbine (not just for them). And given Turbine's success, I am certain some enterprises attorneys would be willing to gamble on a decent claim.

Changing the pricing is fine... deceptive pricing is not.

So if the price is 400, goes on sale @ 25% off for 300, and after the sale a new price is set at 350 they are fine.

But if the price is 350, it is marked up, FOR THE SALE to 400 with a 25% discount to 300, then goes back to 350 after, that's actionable in many areas.

It all comes down to what the consumer protection law is in their home state. I don't have a clue how good or bad it is in that state. A lawsuit probably is not workable, but a complaint to their consumer/business regulator is something that Turbine might be explosed to. Often all that is required there is a consumer complaint and then the regulator goes to work for you.

So if anyone lives in that state... might be time to make a call to your local government office...

The airlines have fine print saying that airmiles have no value, but they have lost lawsuits where courts have determined that they obviously do have value.

Besides, even if you win such a battle, what exactly would that do to Turbine's reputation?

Time for Turbine to step up and act honest in its business practices, there is no reason for this behavior, just hold a 10% off sale if thats all the discount you want to give.

[Robi3.0]

What would you consider a timely manner? It's now the 17th day I've had access to DDO:EU, and they still owe me 1399 points. Do you think that more than two weeks later is still within a "timely" sort of time frame?

I have no clue I am not a lawyer. What I have gathered from watching Judge Judy, tells me that a company/person/whatever gets time to make things right. I know Judge Judy isn't cool nor can it really be considered a knowledgeable legal authority.

[Kruler]

You are not building any Coin Lord favor ....

[Wyllie]

First let me say this; I would think it shady too if in fact Trubine is manipulating the pricing in a way that could be considerd "bait and switch"...

Which is exactly what I'm saying. The pricing scale isn't actually posted anywhere. There's no notification when prices change anywhere. There's no "log" of what prices were at any given point, other than player memory. Because of this, there is now a situation where it "appears" that things have been handled somewhat fraudulently.

^ Do you walk into a retail store and demand a log or some sort of notice of what prices changed that day? I could have sworn this gallon of milk was $2.98 the other day and now it's $3.28??? I call fraud!

Support Time frames could be from the fact that the server populations have somewhat blossomed while I doubt the support channels have grown as rapidly. Keep in mind that not all reports of time frames are accuate... I've worked in support and know that some people like to exaggerate the facts when it comes to how long they have been waiting and how much their time is worth.

[Kistilan]

Upon reading, I agree this is disturbing business practice.

I certainly don't want a lawsuit against the game I play currently, BUT I think a huge apology is in order for misrepresentation of a sale. If you are only going to give us 13% of a sale, SAY SO (don't make a dishonest statement of 25% and then inflate the price to reduce the discount but make the appearance of 25%).

I'm not sure if "Fraud" is the term, but "Service Misrepresentation" is actionable. Many claims are made "to provide a certain perspective" and often these claims become actionable lawsuits by consumers. For instance, there is an electrical unit that claims upon insertion to an electrical outlet to lessen the power consumed by said outlet connections, which in turn would lessen the amount of electricity used by the house and generate lower consumption bills. It was found (and obvious to anyone with basic electric circuit understanding) that this was 100% false and misrepresented. The cost was $200 for a piece of equipment that did nothing and is now a class action suit.

Now, the TP is not being misrepresented -- we get TP for X dollars. That's established and legitimate. The claims of sale prices, however, is false representation, and therefore consumers are not receiving the exact benefits they believe they are purchasing.

It may be a video game, but it's thousands of people being led astray by manipulation of numbers. That is wrong.

EDIT: Huge Bags are at the proper price now. Maybe this was an honest mistake. Maybe.

[smatt]

I have to wonder how a lawsuit alleging fraud brought by a large portion of your active customer base would affect your current litigation with Atari. I'd imagine it would give them some circumstantial evidence to back up their claim that you have shady business practices...

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh wait LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

And a little more LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

I don't think there's anyting deceptive about the pricing at all... Maybe some mistakes/typos.... But a lawsuit???? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

As for allt he otehr unquotted stuff in your post... Ya Turbine SUCKS at making things clear, at ever perfroming any task in a clear and concise manner in fact. They almost never ever fixing anything in a timely manner that really makes sense to 99.9% of the people out there, or in fact is truly important to the players rahter than themselves. Bor representing a good portion of .1% BTW.... And to be honest their customer service in all regards is about as bad, and laxidasical as it could get most of the time.......

But oh well, still a pretty cool game...........

[Ulurjah]

smatt ... the whooshing sound you heard as you read my post was the point going over your head. I'm not threatening a lawsuit here. I'm attempting to get through to Turbine that right now is not the time to walk in the grey (maybe it's right, maybe it's not) areas. Right now is a really good time for them to adopt some "best practices" and walk the "straight and narrow" for awhile.

Keep in mind that not all reports of time frames are accuate... I've worked in support and know that some people like to exaggerate the facts when it comes to how long they have been waiting and how much their time is worth.

This is true. But it's not too much to ask for same day service. I'm on my 17th day without having received at the very least the 999 points. It's possible I did get the 400 vet points (but if I did, I didn't get some of my server first bonus points on Thelanis, so either way I'm missing some of what's owed). I'm not exaggerating the timeframe here. It's been 17 days now since DDO:EU went live ... and the 999 points still aren't in my account.

[rolfharris]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh wait LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

And a little more LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

I don't think there's anyting deceptive about the pricing at all... Maybe some mistakes/typos.... But a lawsuit???? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

As for allt he otehr unquotted stuff in your post... Ya Turbine SUCKS at making things clear, at ever perfroming any task in a clear and concise manner in fact. They almost never ever fixing anything in a timely manner that really makes sense to 99.9% of the people out there, or in fact is truly important to the players rahter than themselves. Bor representing a good portion of .1% BTW.... And to be honest their customer service in all regards is about as bad, and laxidasical as it could get most of the time.......

But oh well, still a pretty cool game...........

[Ulurjah]

Applied to your signature :-)

[Wyllie]

It's been 17 days now since DDO:EU went live ... and the 999 points still aren't in my account.

Umm well Battlefield Heroes and EA/DICE has Turbine beat...

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Sent: Wed 9/16/09 1:26 PM
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Hello wyllie, [bulk of email here]...

Customer Relations Petition history: On 06-16-2009 you asked BFHeroes support [Issue Here]...
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Note when I made the petition and when I got the email about the petition...

[noneill]

FYI, I just went on the DDO store and huge collectible bags were 446 points. Listed as 595 regular price, 25% off sale for a sale price of 446.


One thing I noticed is the account history for DDO points only shows purchases when you use points, it doesn't show when you get points. Now I haven't actually bought points yet but it does not show a starting balance or any of the points coming in for being a long time player or show the points that I bought in beta or show the 500 points I should have gotten on 9/9 (my billing is the 9th but I am on the six month deal). When the game went live, I added all the points up and I did get everything I bought in beta and the favor points and all but the 7/31 999 vip longtime player points.
I had about 7000 and I spent a lot buying bags, quivers, loot potions etc so I kind of lost track and I am not sure if I ever got the 999 and then my 500 on my billing date but I don't think I did.

[Ulurjah]

FYI, I just went on the DDO store and huge collectible bags were 446 points. Listed as 595 regular price, 25% off sale for a sale price of 446.


One thing I noticed is the account history for DDO points only shows purchases when you use points, it doesn't show when you get points. Now I haven't actually bought points yet but it does not show a starting balance or any of the points coming in for being a long time player or show the points that I bought in beta or show the 500 points I should have gotten on 9/9 (my billing is the 9th but I am on the six month deal). When the game went live, I added all the points up and I did get everything I bought in beta and the favor points and all but the 7/31 999 vip longtime player points.
I had about 7000 and I spent a lot buying bags, quivers, loot potions etc so I kind of lost track and I am not sure if I ever got the 999 and then my 500 on my billing date but I don't think I did.

Well firstly, if you're on the six month plan, then you would get 3000 on your bill date. You will not get any points until your bill date ... you won't get any points until the next time you are billed ... and at that time you will get 3000 ... so however many months you still had already paid for you just got screwed out of points. So if your six month billing cycle began on 31AUG2009 for example (That was my most recent billing date but I'm on a month to month plan), you would have been screwed out of 3000 points over the next six months simply because your bill date was one day before they started counting.

I have to imagine the amount of points lost to people who are partway through a pre-paid six month or 3 month or 12 month block right now and aren't going to get the points for whatever portion of months is left ... it must be a staggering number.

Nice eh?


Also, the bag price changed because they made them bound to a single character. The price would have to come down a significant amount more for me to ever consider them again. I'm glad I purchased one bag each on the two servers I play on before the nerf.

[Kistilan]

FYI, I just went on the DDO store and huge collectible bags were 446 points. Listed as 595 regular price, 25% off sale for a sale price of 446.

So what the heck does THIS mean? I purchased a bag at 25% off of 695 on Tuesday. C'mon Turbine... Fix this.

Thanks for using the DDO Store!
Congratulations! We just added the items/services you ordered to your account!
This email is to confirm your purchase of Items at the DDO Store. Here are the details of your transaction.
Here are the details of your transaction.

Account Name: CS-******
Order Number: 001-693018-12789149
Receipt Date: Sep 14 2009 11:28 PM
Order Total: 521 Points
Summary of Items Purchased:

ITEMPRICEQUANTITYTOTAL PRICEHuge Collectibles Bag521.0 Points1521.0 Points
You can find your items in your character's inventory in game, and your account now has access to any services you purchased.
Check back often as we are adding new items frequently. To access the store, click the DDO Store icon on your toolbar in-game.
If you have any questions, please visit www.DDO.com for answers to Frequently Asked Questions, or additional resources. For questions regarding your DDO account, please sign into http://myaccount.turbine.com.
Thank you for your purchase!
The DDO Store Team

[GreyRogue]

Well firstly, if you're on the six month plan, then you would get 3000 on your bill date. You will not get any points until your bill date ... you won't get any points until the next time you are billed ... and at that time you will get 3000

Pretty sure this isn't true. I'll look for the link and edit it back in if I find it, but I'm pretty sure that Tolero said that on a multi-month plan you get 500 per month, on the "anniversary" of your billing date, not a big chunk on your actual billing date.

EDIT: Here are the Tolero quotes:

In a situation where you are doing a long plan for VIP rather than a single month (like a 3 month, 6 month, etc VIP plan), it still happens month to month. If you were on a 6 month plan, it doesn't make you wait until all the way at the end of your entire 6 month plan to get your VIP monthly stipend points

Remember that the VIP monthly 500 points is based around the anniversary of your billing date, which can vary from person to person

[Mockduck]

Pretty sure this isn't true. I'll look for the link and edit it back in if I find it, but I'm pretty sure that Tolero said that on a multi-month plan you get 500 per month, on the "anniversary" of your billing date, not a big chunk on your actual billing date.

I will be able to answer this one tomorrow at the very least! It's my billing date...