Curious on other peoples experience with the refund policies from ActiBlizz.
I purchased Diablo 4 on 02.01.2024, and played about 5 minutes until i realized I was not motivated and didnt really want to play diablo 4. When I went to refund, I was met with a message that a recent penalty was on this account (im toxic), and it was ineligible for a refund. When I got to open a ticket, and talk with a GM, they told me I had passed the two hour gameplay threshold for a refund. However, I only played the game for 5 minutes after purchase. They are retroactively adding my gametime from the free trial of D4 that was this fall or winter 2023, which puts me just over 2 hours, which I think is deceptive and very stranger. I can not find any information about this policy anywhere, and the GM issued to the ticket refuses to engage in any conversation about this.
You can always talk to your credit card company if you are still within your time limit for refund.
Nonsense about toxicity invalidating your refund is just that. I would think they would be quicker to refund toxic people who were within their refund window.
A free trial is also free, and has nothing to do with your purchased copy.
be careful about asking your card or bank to refund you because that causes a dent in your credit score (because its ultimately your own fault and problem) so from a credit issuer, you cause trust issues, and so your credit score goes down a notch
either keep the game and hope it gets fixed someday, or prepare for your score to go down
Completely depends on the credit card company in question, the amount you’re requesting to be charged back, and also if you’ve done chargebacks multiple times within a specific time frame. I’ve done a few chargebacks over the years, I’d say maybe one every 5 to 7 years, usually a small amount, nothing over a grand. Each time it’s the same routine. I’ve yet to have my credit score impacted.
Now if I did this multiple times within the span of a year, I have no doubt my score would be hurting.
Yeah that does not seem right. The GM should have been able to see that, if someone pointed it out to them. I would re-open that ticket, or if you can’t then open a new one and reference the first ticket number. Keep it simple. State your played time was during the free trial, That since your purchase on X date at Y time you played less than Z time. Please refund the purchase.
We’ve posted this policy to make our refund philosophy clear around purchases made from Blizzard on Battle.net. This document is part of our official Terms of Sale.
Our Philosophy
We believe in our mission to create epic entertainment experiences, and we want you to feel confident you’re getting the product and support you expect from Blizzard.
If you change your mind about a recent purchase, or if you haven’t used it, we’ll try to work with you on a refund.
You can request a refund using our support site and selecting the relevant game or order. We can only provide refunds for purchases made on our own platform. This includes purchases made through the Blizzard Shop, the Battle.net App, or within one of our games.
We will typically refund purchases to the method of payment used for the original transaction. In some cases, such as those where the original payment method cannot be refunded, we may provide the refund in the form of Battle.net Balance.
If the automated service doesn’t address your needs, our support team is available to help.
Refund Guidelines
Games and Expansions
We refund paid games or expansions within 14 days of purchase, as long as you haven’t played for more than two hours.
It is partially automated to look for things like purchase date, time played, penalties on the account, refund history, etc. If those are all good, it auto refunds quickly. If there are any flags that need GM review, you need a second ticket which you did. Issue is your account has two flags. One for behavior, and one for game time - BUT the game time one in particular needs closer examination. It may technically be over 2 hours but those two hours were not after purchase.
People get banned then try to refund. People also buy accounts, use them to spam advertise on Blizzard games, cheat, etc - then try to refund. The automated part of the refund system denies those refunds.
A chargeback means the purchase was not approved by the customer, or the product is defective. Neither of which are true in this case. The customer simply changed their mind. Which is fair and a valid refund reason from the vendor. If someone does a chargeback Blizzard can lock the account until the funds are paid back to Blizzard. So they CAN do it, but need to be aware of the consequences of it.
He did not say he was banned. He said he played for 5 minutes and changed his mind. This is a very valid reason for refund.
I understand people using accounts to cheat is one reason why an account would not be refunded.
But everything else he is actually claiming, does not seem like he is being treated fairly under the refund policy, if what he is saying is true. I offered his other option, because if he was a cheater or did something to get banned he would have charged back already. He sounds like someone who does not understand why he is being denied a refund, when he is within the time limit.
I don’t think people should charge back frivolously nor would I ever condone that.
But just because a company has something in their “policy” does not make it legally binding and he can check with the equivalent of his country’s consumer affairs if they can actually deny him a refund. Again based on how much of what he has shared to be true.
The automated system denied him initially for having a penalty on the account. I was explaining why the system does that. In his case, it was not just the penalty, but also the play time. The play time portion though is incorrect (as we all agreed) if it is including free trial time. So he had two reasons for denial, and the GM upheld it on the second - without realizing it was trial time (assuming the OP is truthful).
I have not had coffee yet so maybe I am misreading something, but yeah.
Thank you so much for the reply. I previously reopened the ticket, adding this information to the GM assigned to the case. However they looked at the full gametime on one character on this account, and stated it was “enjoyed” for more than two hours. This is true, but those hours played were in the end of November 2023. I hope they look into it more, but the answers provided by the GM suggested they didnt really look into this further.
Make sure to note in your ticket that this was through the Steam free weekend, as this may be tracked differently then let’s say the open beta’s that were open to the public before launch. Although it’s a pretty shady way to deny a refund because you happened to play it through steam, other then the obvious flagging of your account I mean.
Sorry I started saying last November then decided I did not really know when he tried it. I have my coffee, just too lazy to go edit it, when the point was “he may not be lying”
So free trial or not, you did tested the game for 2hours+ in november and bought it, making you ineligible for refund because you in fact did play 2hours+ yet bought it, cant say you didnt know what you were buying.
It is very strange you are so insistent on being correct, and damn set on this not being an issue with refund policy. During the free trial the game was slightly appealing, and I wanted something to play after the new years, but quickly realized this was not something I wanted to spend time on. Now you are strictly correct I knew what I was buying, but that is besides the point.
If Blizzard decides that game time during a free trial, is added to total game time if you purchase said game after the trial, they should state this in their guidelines. My point it s that this policy is not clear enough.
