TLDR: Customer Service and Loyalty is equally important as the actual game, to me. Update and Retraction: We have all seen when the media breaks a defamatory story about someone that is overly critical, then it turns out that either they got something wrong, or the story changed a day later and didn't bother to tell the full story. You rarely see a follow up of that story. And if you do, it's 1 sentence on the back page of the newspaper. I hate that. Let it be known that Daybreak Games and the EverQuest staff are doing a great job, even through small mistakes and bumps in the road, they have truly shown they care about their customers, from my perspective. My case was escalated and after some investigation I now have my Peafowl and all is right in the world. Original Story: I know .. I’m small potatoes. I know Daybreak and EQ will live on without me. But this is just so heartbreaking. I have 4 paid accounts at the moment (meaning subscriptions). 6 in total. 4 of them are 18 years old. I have spent THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars over the years on this game. I really want to be a customer. But I also don’t want to feel like I was tricked or scammed, or not important. Here is what happened: At the moment I have 4 PAID accounts. I bought 2 Premium RoR expansions and 1 Friends & Family to give to the last account. That totals 4 PAID expansions. I gave the F&F to the wrong account by mistake. Though, I didn’t consume it yet because this happened BEFORE RoR went live. I then opened a support ticket and told them of my mistake. They obliged and moved the token to the correct account. After RoR went live, I realized I wanted the Celestial mount and merc on all 4 accounts, so I upgraded the Pre-Order F&F standard expansion, to the non pre-order Premium. So at this point I have bought 3 premium expansions and 1 F&F token (which I wasted by upgrading, but that’s ok, I don't care about the money). The driving factor for pre-ordering was to get the Takish'Hiz Peafowl Pet. I was told I had to wait 72 hours to get my Peafowl. When I didn’t get the pet, I opened a support ticket. I explained the situation and they clearly didn’t understand as it was a complicated mess. After a few back-and-forth messages I was essentially told to kick rocks and they were not going to help me. They said it politely but this is what it meant. I’m astounded and shocked by this. In the end, it’s just a simple Peafowl Pet that I didn’t get on one of my 4 accounts. Not that serious of a situation. A real first world problem. But I can’t help feeling like the an unimportant non-valued customer. It’s so disappointing that I’m not just not sure I can support the game anymore. I am one of those nerds that retweets all the EQ stuff on Twitter. I am one those people that defends DBG when people bash them and say they don’t market, and they ruined the game from SOE days. I was a fanboy! I have EQ posters on my wall right now as I type this! Yet, they don’t value me as a customer. As I said, I know .. I’m small potatoes. I know Daybreak and EQ will live on without me. I’m just so heartbroken I don’t know if I can support this franchise anymore. I am not asking for special treatment because of my long term and massive financial investment. I am asking to be treated fairly and not pushed aside because your customer service rep didn’t want to take the time to look up 4 different accounts to see the problem. I don’t want to feel like I am being treated like criminal that was trying to cheat and get a free item, when I clearly paid for it. Please Daybreak, you are better then this. I have 1 last support ticket response I am waiting for. If this is not resolved, I may have all my toons die of a broken heart.
After 13 messages back and forth I was told they would escalate this issue. I hope they do the right thing. I would have bet everything (before today) they would make this right. The EQ staff has always been so great to the community. This is my first negative interaction so I am holding out hope.
Not surprising they would do this over a simple pet. Hope it gets worked out for you but may be best to take your wallet somewhere else that actual cares for their customers (which is rare these days sadly).
You want a preorder benefit, yet you changed your mind after preorder was no longer an option. That's on you, not the CSRs. Caveat emptor! Let the buyer beware. The pet is a nice bonus for preordering. You'll know better next time.
Well seeing the preorder pet was also available on the friends and family tradeable version (once expac is live) then I think Sweety D has a valid claim, yes a mistake was made with the account it was used on but once that was resolved you should still have got the preorder buff. So not buyer beware more like DBG not supplying what they should?
If that's the case, OP should have said, concisely: Dear Support,I purchased X number of Family and Friends copies using my Visa card (or whatever it was) on such-and-such-date. I have confirmed with my bank that the purchase went through on thus-and-such-date. Please note that these dates were prior to the Nov. 30th release date.Because these were preorders, I should have received (list of whatever is missing). I have not received these items, and they are not available in /claim.Please assist me in getting the preorder bonuses I am owed.
This is literally exactly what happened. I was very polite and the customer service representative didn’t want to do any investigation. After politely begging and pleading with them they told me they would escalate my issue. I’ve raised a number of problems with support over the years. Many of the problems have been at the fault of DBG, but I’ve always been cordial and understanding so long as they fix the mistake and treat me with respect. Mistakes happen. I’m understanding of that. But what I’m not understanding of is when someone makes me feel like I’m trying to be deceitful and I’m not worth the few minutes it takes to check multiple accounts. As of our last communication I’ve been told to wait a few days. So, we’ll see how it goes. At this point this is less about the pet and more about service and respect.
Also one more note, they don’t deny I paid for it. They just said you didn’t give it to “this” account. Which I did, they just don’t see it. They asked what day and time I gave the 2nd account the pre-order token. And the truth is, I don’t remember. I did the pre-order a month ago. So they know I paid for 5 versions of the game. 4 of which qualify for the pre-order. They just would not take the time to figure out what day I gave the token to the 2nd account. This is important because it qualifies you for the pre-order pet. However, even if I don’t get the pet (which I should). The lack of assistance was astonishing. It took 13 messages back and forth for them to even ask me what day I did this on. This shows the lack of effort from their side. As I’ve said, I love this franchise. I really hope this is a 1 off experience and not the new normal. Consequently I have every retail box the franchise ever made (all expansions). I’ve kept them for years. I just took them out of a box to decorate my office with them. I even bought acrylic clear shelves to place them on. Anyway. That project is on hold until this fiasco is fixed. I’m still holding out hope my relationship with the EQ franchise can continue.
Update and Retraction: We have all seen when the media breaks a defamatory story about someone that is overly critical, then it turns out that either they got something wrong, or the story changed a day later and didn't bother to tell the full story. You rarely see a follow up of that story. And if you do, it's 1 sentence on the back page of the newspaper. I hate that. Let it be known that Daybreak Games and the EverQuest staff are doing a great job, even through small mistakes and bumps in the road, they have truly shown they care about their customers, from my perspective. My case was escalated and after some investigation I now have my Peafowl and all is right in the world. I will add the above message to the first post.
I am glad it worked out for you, I have always been treated well by the support staff, I haven't always got what i wanted but they were always professional and fair. GM Violetann (if they are still there) has to be the best customer support person I have run into with this company and I would go as far as to say is probably the best you will get anywhere. As many things as I see as wrong with the game overall, the support staff is top notch.
Hang it there...without controversy the world would be too boring. ... sorta joking, but sorta not...
I have had the same kind of problem before where you submit your problem and get some form response back. In that case, I just keep submitting the ticket. You eventually get someone who will solve your issue.
When you submit a Support Ticket, the first response you get is an automated notification that your ticket was received. If you didn't get this notification, you need to check your spam folder, and probably need to whitelist the Support email account. Once an actual customer service representative is working on your issue, they will send you actual email with more info in it. If somehow you still aren't getting the email, you go to the link above and you can check the progress there. DO NOT keep submitting new tickets on the same issue. That drives CSRs crazy no matter what industry you are in. And it's reeeeaaaaallly tempting to a CSR to just stick your issue on the bottom of the queue when you do, because for every new ticket on the same issue, they have to waste time that they could have been helping someone in marking things as duplicate and closing them. Instead, just update the original ticket. If the CSR has told you "no" or otherwise provided an unpalatable answer, you can reopen that same ticket and ask for the issue to be escalated to the next tier of support. But use a little common sense (yes, I know, common sense is so rare that it's a frikkin' superpower, but...) when you do this... if they have said there is no way to fix the issue, or that they have a strict policy that forbids their intervention, etc., where there is unlikely to be a change no matter who tells you the answer, just let it drop, for Pete's sake. The only exception would be when real world money is involved, such as "I paid $XXX for Item_YYY and never received it", when any consumer would reasonably expect to either get the item or be refunded. Having done my share of customer support, I can tell you that most CSRs are overworked and way underpaid. Be nice to the front line CSRs, they have rules they have to follow and not generally a lot of latitude to do anything different. In fact, it's best to be nice and polite to all levels of support, because you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Don't be a karen.
@Sigrdrifa Oh, I'm always nice to the workers. I know their hands are often tied. If the extra time is costing the company it's bottom line, then maybe they should stop deflecting, pushing customers to the Faq, and sending form responses. I'm not saying Daybreak does that, but a lot of companies do and it frustrates people to not be able to talk to someone and get the issue solved.
