SE has a LOT of nerve to do this!Follow

/point /laugh

lol, that sucks, i dunno. im sure you could ask SE and tell them your situation....
or you could solve it be illegal activity

>.> <.<

and what's worse is that the game STILL costs $50!!! so we have to pay $100 to play the stinkin game.
i am gonna write to them when i get home to see what i can do. this is just not right. this is VERY poor customer service and NO other game does this. hell, i still get emails from horizons and SWG asking me to continue playing that game. they don't disable reg codes because i stop playing for a bit.

Not meaning to put an adversarial turn on this, but I'm curious as to what manner of computer problem he had, that was not able to be fixed/resolved in 4 months?

While I understand your frustration, and agree that SE's decision to make the existing Key Codes invalid, forcing users to re-invest in a new copy of the game, I still think that their expectation that any user suffering computer malfunction could get it solved in 3 months is lenient and not inappropriate.


Incidentally, I am also curious:

Since automatic billing is the preferred method of ongoing payment, I assume that he logged into POL to deactivate his account once he realized that it would be a long time before he could play again, so as to prevent recurring charges for a game that he couldn't play.

(I make this assumption because if his computer were totally inoperative, and he could not even access POL to cancel his account, then automatic billing would have continued, regardless of whether he ever logged in or not to play)

Since it is not necessary to cancel your entire POL account, just your Content IDs (which will retain character data for three months), why did he not simply do that?

When it is necessary to extend those three months, you are able to reactivate the Content IDs, and, subsequently, deactivate them again for another three months of holding.

You will be billed for the month during which you reactivated them, but 12 dollars is better than 48 or 72 dollars, to ensure that your character data is maintained for 4-6 months.

I sympathize with you (and your nephew) in this situation, but careful reading and comprehension of the terms of your service (by reading the manual before you begin playing) is the player/user's responsibility.

SE fulfills their end of the responsibility by providing the information, packaged with the game.
They aren't "pulling a stunt" at all. These terms and conditions
existed before your nephew made his account or even bought the game, and the onus is on him and his parents (assuming he is a young lad) to be aware of those conditions.

We can take issue with their practices and policies all we want,
but the fact remains that when we sign up and log in, we are agreeing to the terms they have set down.

It is our responsibility to understand what terms we are agreeing to, and chose from there whether or not we wish to be a part of them.

I grumble a lot (all the time, really) about how my bank charges me $22 every time one of my checks goes through with insufficient funds, and they pay it for me anyway.
I grumble because even if they chose not to pay it for me, if they instead send it back unpaid, they still charge me $22.

I grumble about it feeling unjust and unfair and about being bent over the barrel and paying the bank's operating fees from my very very poor pocketbook, while those with far more money than I, who could afford to do so and never even miss the money, never have this happen to them.

However, it's only "wrong" if they didn't inform me that this was their practice, when I made the account.

As far as they are concerned, if I write a check that bounces, and get charged a fee by the bank, I am making an informed decision and chosing to accept the consequences, whether (in reality) it was actually my choice for it to happen or not.



Edited, Fri Nov 12 17:20:48 2004 by Tenmiles

I already understood that.

One point I tried to observe was the fact that it was unnecessary to deactivate/cancel the POL account, which is what in turn cancels the game registration key codes.

It is possible, in fact it is advised by SE, not to cancel your POL account, but merely to cancel your Content IDs.
Content IDs are what we get billed for; the POL account is free.

In this way, the validity of the registration codes is not affected.

I'm 99% sure that isn't the case, but if it is... damn.

The same thing happened to a friend of mine, it sucks, and he couldn't be bothered to buy the game again. Will your nephew be quiting? If so thats a shame.

Here is the solution to your problem -

Put everything back in the box how it came and take it down to Walmart, tell them it's messed up and you just need to exchange it for a new one. Walmart takes back anything even without a receipt.


Don't worry, this does work because I've had to do it twice. The first time was because I traded some anime to a friend for the game and couldn't get the codes to work no matter what I did and the second time was because I bought a copy for a friend who said she would play it with me but then stopped after only a couple weeks even though she said she was addicted to the game. >_<

Good luck!

I think what I will do is have my nephew do what FeralDragon said
I can't believe I didn't think of this before! lol!

Same thing happened to me. But.. i still play.

I had to quit FFXI for about 3 months. Reformatted my comp and reinstalled ffxi. I tried to redo my registration and it also said that my codes were invalid.

BUT!!! I called support and asked for my POL Account ID. Not your account username but your Account ID. Like ABCD1234, I got that, relogged my account and it worked perfectly. Just call support and ask them for your ID. You will have to give them the name of the account owner and the credit card number that was originally used to pay for that account. They will then give you the ID. DO NOT LOSE THIS ID!

After that, open POL, insert your ID and password. It should work, it did for me.

My Content ID's were gone since it was over 3 months, but no big deal. At least you wont have to buy the game again.

Whether or not it's in the ToS, it still is a pretty disgusting way to treat your customers. To be perfectly honest, I near despise SE after having played FFXI. I had a lot of respect for them before, but after this...egh. Just...egh.

It's one of those things. If a company has "This game will be deactivated in three months, no matter what, and you will have to purchase a new one." in their ToS, it's still disgusting, whether or not you paid attention to it when you bought the game.

A ToS agreement is not a magical responsibility shirker.

I agree.
I never said I felt it was justified, needed, or appropriate.
My point was only that it's a fact.
Like it or not, just or unjust, as long as we want to play their game, we are bound by their rules.

That being the case, even if we vehemently disagree with those rules, it is our responsibility to be aware of and understand them. Ignorance of the rules does not excuse us from them.


On the (hopefully) brighter side, have you and your nephew had a chance to try the other suggestions offered yet?

Okay.. I didn't feel like reading everyone else's post but I'm sure someone else has already said this.

You can suspend your account and keep everything. One of my personal friends has suspended his account and at whatever time he decideds to start playing again (within the 90 days) he will resume paying the monthly fee for the game.

Your friend should have thought about this.. suspended his account for the maximum limit.. paid one months of fees for an extra three months to work on his computer.. then resume the game if it was that big of a deal.

Used copies won't work. I remember the salesman at gamestop told me that they used to sell copies of online games. All they needed to do is call SE and tell them to unconsume the reg codes. Now SE doesn't allow this anymore, so they cannot buy back online games.
So if someone sells you a used copy of FFXI, it should be because you lose the CDs not because you dont have reg codes

This is way off topic (btw i really feel for your nephew) but Slyph I'm from EQOA too! I was on DH for a long time and before that MF. We're you on either of those servers? I love this game though, the maturity level is so much higher I think compared to EQOA. People are very nice also :)