"High level" support was supposed to contact me, but this morning I get an e-mail saying my case is closed, along with an Origin 15% off code that expires in a month. (whoopty-fuckin-do)
Confused, I get a hold of EA Support on the phone. The lady on the line looks over my file and says that there is a known issue with Need For Speed Hot Pursuit PS3 codes, and puts me on hold while she figures out what she can do.
As a result of my conversation with her, I learn that EA's tech support structure is that any lower-level inquiries are outsourced. That outsourced tech support group is split into two tiers - low support (people like her who answer the phone and give canned responses and can't even send emails) and high support (people who have a little more leeway in what they can do and - gasp- can send emails). However, because all of these people aren't actually EA employees they don't know that much and can't do anything outside of their authorized routines. Hence, when the online code generator spits out codes that don't work, as is the case here, there isn't anything they can do.
Anyway, after speaking with her manager, she said that she would escalate the issue further to EA themselves...which will take 3-5 business days so I should expect EA themselves to contact me, instead of a tech support contractor. Amused, I ask her why she doesn't transfer me or give me their number so I can call them myself. She laughs nervously and says she doesn't have their number and that I'll just have to wait. Wonderful.
I kept her on the phone a while longer (but not nearly as long as she kept me on hold) asking me why these other tech support phone operators wasted my time with codes that they already knew wouldn't work, why they would apologize by sending me an Origin code like they expected me to reward EA by buying a second game even though I was still having unsolved problems with my first game, why EA has all these roadblocks to contacting them directly, etc.
Anyway, 3-5 business days means they should get back to me by Tuesday at the latest. I'll update from then.