Response that I received back:
Hey there -Insert my name-, this is Specialist Game Master -insert GMs Name- and I hope this message finds you well today.
Thank you for contacting us back today regarding the issues here with your professions after the character boost. We understand this is frustration and have an update coming soon that is going to retroactively fix this for the affected players. Thank you for your patience during this time.
To offer a bit more transparency into how these reports are processed, hereâs what our Quality Assurance team does with them upon receiving:
QA team gets bug report and tests to replicate the bug, attempting to pinpoint the source;
When QA team replicates the bug effectively it is sent to the Development team;
Dev team gets report of bug and source then work on resolving the conflict in the code;
Dev sends back to QA to test the fix;
QA weighs the bugâs detrimental effect on the world if fixed or not fixed (for example, will the fix actually cause more problems in game than not being fixed);
QA sends their decision to development;
Development creates a patch or hotfix for the issue and releases to the community;
Players download the hotfix/patch.
I do sincerely appreciate you being with us over the years and that does really mean a lot. If you ever run into anything else at all in the future, donât hesitate to hit us up. We will always do everything in our power to help you out and have your back.
My Response:
âWe understand this is frustration and have an update coming soon that is going to retroactively fix this for the affected players.â
What does this mean exactly? Retroactively fix affected playersâŠwhat is going to happen for those that have been affected?
Thank You.
Hey Beorn, thanks for the shout-out. Receiving an immediate provisional credit is standard, and part of the formal dispute process. AMEX works a bit differently from MC and VISA, but the gist is the same. Yes, theyâve given you a credit. But also yes, Blizzard can respond with evidence of their own. AMEX tends to side with cardholders.
That said, Blizzardâs âblock the affected character/the userâs account until they pay us backâ - which is really poor form (pay us back, geeez, weâre not talking about a false claim of fraud here) - I find it reasonable to also assume that Blizzard doesnât bother spending money (meaning: manpower) responding to disputes at all. Which is an automatic financial win for the disputing customer, but if Blizzard then holds your account hostage for exercising your consumer rights (valid complaints in this particular situation), thenâŠwell, thatâs kind of awful. Thereâs little you can do unless you cave in and pay them back.
Like you, Iâm not looking for a free boost. Iâm looking to get what I paid for, and the fact that this didnât happen in the lazy middle of an expansion but right before a major, highly anticipated launch (the whole REASON I came to Classic!!!), combined with the fact that Blizzard just keeps selling the boosts with no solution in sight, no update, no real blue postâŠthatâs just a terrible experience. And Blizzzard says they do not want players to have a terrible experience. But thatâs what we got.
Once the bug is fixed? Sure thing, Iâll re-pay the funds (hopefully they wonât say, ha ha, now the boost is back to $60, so youâll have to pay that - I bought while it was on sale, one of the reasons for my timing - but I have a horrible suspicion they will do exactly this.) Anyway, the chargebacks hit their rate and let them know they need to work a bit harder on the customer service front. Iâll be happy to have a working character again, and happy to pay for the boost at that time.
Yeah. I am not worried about any potential âban for chargeback nonsense.â why? Well this whol experience has finished souring me on blizzard and so it will be my last hurrah in wow more than likely. So if they ban me, they will be out the 40.00 for the boost, and out a subscriber who has been with the game since its inception. Thatâs more lost revenue. Sounds like heads I win and tails you lose (times two). But anyways, it should be evident I am no bot looking for free stuff. I very clearly requested a chargeback on the 40.00 boost charge, but NOT the 50 (or 60 whatever it was) 3-for-1 server transfer for my alts!
But yeah, your post basically gave me a template to help me say what I wanted/needed to say in a succinct way. I knew the words I wanted to use, but not how to best order them to get my point across as simply as possible!
With so many players having this issue, why isnt there a Blue Post. I personally have kept my original âbugâ ticket open with four response back to all their âcannedâ GM responses. It has been at least 2 update weeks and nothing has changed. I even had written down my prof levels b4 boost and I told them in my tickets and still they dont change it back. Only 3 days till Cata starts you think they will fix it by then? Hell no, they are busy with SOD and MOP extension. No one plays Cata anyway right?!?!
So is blizzard just hoping everyone who bought a boost gives up and quits the game? this is ridiculous no response still and cata launches in 3 days but dont worry you can still buy the boost and brick your other characters before launch.
The reason why this isnât priority for them is because fixing it doesnât bring them more income. The broken boosts were already paid for, that being said because it is pretty common knowledge that a fresh character works they are probably making more income by people rolling fresh characters and boosting those instead of waiting for the fix. I myself have 2 characters affected because I took a break during wrath and wanted to boost some of my alts up for professions. Out of the 2 affected by this one of them is what I planned to main in cata (mage) I considered boosting a fresh mage just to fix this⊠I didnât because it seems very wasteful but think of how many people who did because they donât have the patience to wait for the fix.
They are for sure losing money on this. The people buying boosts are the same ones buying tokens, xfers, other boosts. Everyone that is impacted is less likely to spend money in the future.
As has been said elsewhere in this thread: if your outrage is for real (and Iâm not calling into question the validity of it because I am pissed as well!), then you need to hit them where it hurts: in the wallet. None of you will get a refund from blizzard. You need to fight the charge with whichever company/method of payment you used. None of us will get the time back that we lost with this ONGOING bug. But disputing the charge WILL make blizzard take notice.
And donât believe all the boogeyman tales about how disputing a charge will get your account banned. Yeah, maybe if you are a bot or acting like a bot, disputing charges left and right, thatâs certainly going to get you account flagged. Otherwise, we all have rights as consumers. We were sold a broken product, then told there wasnât a problem, then told there was a problem but no timeline on a fix, then denied refunds, and then subjected to watching said company continue to sell the broken product, thereby accumulating more and more bricked characters who file more and more reports which just backlog their already stressed and poorly managed system further. Iâm not asking for anyone to feel sorry for Blizzard. Hell no. But this bug is NOT getting fixed anytime soon âą, if the last two weeks is any evidence. So dispute the charge, get your money back. It wonât unbrick your progressions, but if there is some small measure of vengeance you are looking for, if you want your pound of flesh from blizzard, then spend the 5-10 minutes asking your payment method of choice for a refund instead.
I now consider myself lucky that I spent the time and effort to level my main the old fashioned way. So at least my main character isnât bricked.
If you get the money from the boost refunded, your character will get locked in the character selection screen until you apply another boost to the character. This happened to me, but Iâm just leaving it locked at this point. The purpose for my boost was professions and I ended up leveling my other toon with the professions I wanted on the boosted character. F*** Blizzard, greedy dog company
Yeah, thatâs what I pretty much determined would happen. Sadly, Iâll leave it, and continue complaining. Itâs dead wrong to hold a character hostage on the premise that you owe Blizzard money because you disputed a service that was - by Blizzardâs own admission (ânot working as intendedâ) - BROKEN. They admit itâs broken. Thatâs tantamount to saying, âWe can sell you garbage and once we have your money, youâre out of luck, because we can do whatever we want and if you donât pay us weâll just deny you service even though we definitely sold you something broken.â
At any rate, itâs not a big deal to me. As Iâve said, Iâm happy to pay for the boost when it is working as intended. If Blizzard wants $60 instead of the sale rate I paid, Iâm not likely to bother - hell if Iâm going to let them profit further from this mess. But Iâd consider repaying the original amount if they ever fix the issue.
Weird. As of last night my character was still working as intended. Maybe some lag time on the refund to character lock anyways? Also itâs comical because locking the character at this point is basically the same as having the wheels stolen from your car, and then having your parents take your keys to punish you. It wasnât like most of us were going to play the bricked characters anyways. Lock away, I guess. Blizzard doesnât get their money, and we are barred from logging into a character we couldnât play anyways.
Again, heads we win (a Pyrrhic victory), tails they lose.
Card issuers donât immediately yank funds back from the business - I mean, they start that process, but it takes time. You see the credit on your account because AMEX fronted that to you (for now.) Yes, theyâll be yanking funds from Blizzard through their payment processor, but the actual chargeback wonât hit Blizzard for a few days yet.
As you used AMEX, it also depends on what type of dispute they filed - AMEX works a bit differently from MC and VISA, and if they filed an initial retrieval request, that means theyâre not going to yank funds from Blizzard YET - they will only do so if Blizzard doesnât respond to the request or responds and AMEX sides with you, their cardholder. Then theyâll escalate to a financial chargeback, where funds actually move.