Can't or Won't?

#2 - Aug. 1, 2014, 4:10 p.m.

stale.9785:

I encountered a wonderfully odd thing with the gemstore, wherein I was buying Black Lion keys, and received a character expansion slot instead.

Now, having already contacted support, and gotten their response that they will not be removing the character slot and refunding the gems, I’m wondering if it’s that they can’t refund gems, or they won’t.

The answer to this particular question will be the difference between me ever supporting the game again, or not.

I’m finding this particularly amusing, since my gem purchase and attempt to buy keys was my first burst of supporting the company after an extended period of refusing to give them money since they hadn’t done anything I viewed as deserving of it. My reward? Receiving an item I had not intended to purchase, and being told it’s my problem.

Later all,

Stale

First, thank you for buying gems to support the game. We really appreciate it.

I’m sorry that you didn’t get what you intended to buy. I have already started checking to make sure, but as far as I know — and I usually hear of issues pretty quickly — there isn’t a bug that gives someone the wrong BLTC product. Again, I’m sorry for what happened, but I believe this issue arose through simple human error on your part (no offense intended!)

The reason we cannot undo this transaction is that, quite frankly, we do not have the tools to make changes to the core account and its upgrades. Replacing or refunding the wrong item is a different process than removing an upgrade. (If we can’t process an item request it would be for a different reason.) So the request was declined because we cannot reverse the acquisition in a way that’s fair and equitable for the player but that has no potential for negative impact on the game economy.

Clearly, replacing gems while allowing the upgrades to remain in place is not a prudent policy, as it would encourage a lot of abuse. And that’s where the “game economy” comment came in. If we refund for upgrades and allow the retention of the upgrade, we’re inviting people to try to “eat their cake” (get a refund) “and have it too” (keep the upgrade).

I am very sure your request is legitimate, and I hope none of this is off-putting to you. I’m just trying to offer a truthful explanation about why we cannot issue refunds for account upgrades.

Edit: Confirmed — there is no bug.

#13 - Aug. 1, 2014, 5:53 p.m.

stale — I feel bad, and sorry that we can’t completely address this to your satisfaction.

As I said, I have a question out asking if we might have a bug. If I learn more I will update this thread or contact you. You remind me of the process, and it seems odd that those actions could happen with a single click. In fact, they can’t. But people get distracted, things can stall momentarily in the process… there are a lot of ways something odd can happen. I can’t explain it, but I’m trying to figure out what took place.

I appreciate that you understand how a refund isn’t possible. Being able to offer such a remove upgrade/refund gems service is something we’d all really like to do and I’m hopeful that someday we will be able to do that. Right now, I want to again say we all appreciate your support and your understanding, and are sorry we can’t help further.

#14 - Aug. 1, 2014, 8:32 p.m.

Just to round this out for completeness and to avoid leaving a misimpression about this matter: I just reviewed your ticket and note that you updated to say you made the purchase from your “recent purchases” column and realized you’d erred in the purchase. This is confirmed by our game logs.

So this was a case of mistaken purchase and there is no bug in this case.