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Amazon-bought SimCity games are being "returned" without customer request.

SLV

Member
So basically, my Amazon bought copy of Simcity dissapeared today, i did some googling around and this is what i found:

Overclockers

EA Forums

A GAF poster also chimed in:

There were a few posts about it over on Reddit a couple days ago, from what I remember Amazon chat reps told customers that they did not issue the charge backs and that they are working with EA to solve the issue, not sure that's confirmed anywhere tho.


So i had a small talk with a EA rep:

dItCO1L.png


After all this i have contacted Amazon, still waiting on a Reply.

Simcity has been a big clusterfuck all around.

TL.DR. I have not asked for a refund from either Amazon or EA, and i have not received any money from Amazon as a refund, my game just vanished and EA says it is Amazon's fault !

So in the end i got an answer from Amazon, and they are refunding me after all this once i notified them of the situation. no refunding has been done before i contacted them after my game disapeared from origin !
 

Dizzy

Banned
Its a real shame that what seems to be a good game has been destroyed by shitty drm. All because EA decided yo be douchebags. Well done EA.
 

sunnz

Member
Imagine the same server problems with BF4...

Oh god.


I do kinda hope it does happen, simply because then people would actually start to force EA to sort themselves out or even sue them!
 
Their game is so shitty they're just assuming a huge chunk of their audience already returned it. Seems like a smart business move to me.
 
I got a refund for SimCity from Amazon a few days after release, but it continued to be in my games library on Origin. I noticed this morning that EA finally removed it from my purchased library.
 

SLV

Member
Your name is Armands? Never heard that one before!

European ;P Almost like Armando !

You have been saved from Sim Shitty. Be thankful.

;)

yeah well, my buddy will have to struggle on his own while this gets worked out one way or another, although not that the region stuff worked really well last time i played :(

I got a refund for SimCity from Amazon a few days after release, but it continued to be in my games library on Origin. I noticed this morning that EA finally removed it from my purchased library.

yeah but i did not ask for one, so yeah, and i am not the only one with this issue apparently.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Someone's got to try and put together a timeline of all the shit that's happened with this game. This is maybe the most dramatic bungling of a major game ever.
 

Septimius

Junior Member
Here's what I've gathered

Simcityr122 is apparently a key word in this. Some other cases:

Post on Overclocker's Forum:

Well, loaded up the game today only to see an error message stating "To play SimCityR122, you must first activate it on your Origin account". I've been playing the game for days with no issues at all then all of a sudden this.
Contacted Origin and they say the key has been disabled due to a charge-back claim from Amazon. Makes no sense to me as I've never requested a refund. Also there's no money credited to my bank account from Amazon so they're just canceled my key without notice and not given me any refund. Thanks for that.
Waiting to hear back from Amazon. Interested to hear what they have to say.

A German EA-thread describing the problem. Two people have the same problem.

Translation: (provided by google)

So I addressed myself to the store where I herhab the Key and have just received a reply:

Hello, this problem is known to us. No, it is not directly a locked Key. According to EA, the supplier has taken the cash back which is why the Keys logically deleted.


So problem is known and I will get up tomorrow a new key sent.

I can't figure out which store this was.

A french EA thread asking the same. No reply. Translation

hello,

Impossible today to launch the game
When I try to run it, it asks me to activate "SimCityR122"
I re-enters my CD key, and it tells me the code has already been used ...

what to do?
But it was several days without games played auccun problem.

Thank you.

And an English thread asking the same. No reply


Only in one other case has it been verified to be Amazon. Otherwise I haven't been able to figure out which stores are in question. But games are being locked due to charge-backs, and this affects customers that have not had their game charged back



At this point, the most logical seems to be that stores get complains, take the return. EA even said complained returns would be allowed, but they stepped down on the offer shortly after, in some of the earlier juicy drama of this game.

Theory:
The stories returned the copies for their customers. They tried to return them to EA, but EA gave them a "Deal with it" reply. The stores then sold the same keys again. When these keys were re-used, they were locked.

If that is the case, why
1) Does it take so long for these to be blocked?
2) Is this an automatic process due to one key being used on several origin accounts?

I want to give EA the benefit of the doubt, but after all the things that have happened with this game, I wouldn't be surprised if it's another case of them just screwing over their distributors.

EDIT:
There's been talks on reddit that Amazon has said that this is a known problem, and that Amazon does not reuse charge-backed keys, no matter if they've been refunded by EA or not. In that case, it seems that EA targets wrong CD-keys and has done another "whoopsie"
 
This sounds more like an Origin problem than a SS problem. Of course, lol at anyone who buys a digital EA product in this day and age.
 
So after I got my money back and EA removed the game from my library I decided that I'd try the product key again that I bought from Amazon assuming that since I got a refund and Amazon hit Origin with a charge back that they would have invalidated the key. Looks like it still works though. I entered it on Origin and it confirmed it was a SimCity key, but I didn't go as far as redeeming it.
 
What could possibly go wrong next?

This is way past the point of slowing down as you pass a train wreck. More like parking your car and watching buses, planes and satellites plow into the wreckage.
 
Online only DRM -> People can't play the game at launch -> Amazon refunds people because so many got burned by a shitty product.

I'ts not that hard to figure out.

What's happening here is Amazon supposedly doing charge backs, or EA claiming as such but not actually being true, on people that never asked for a refund. It has nothing to do with DRM.
 
Amazon are pretty strict on what they're pushing to their customers, it's clear they don't want to be implicated in any way with EA's fuckery. They really should have notified you of this sort of thing though, even though it was for your benefit really.
 

Apath

Member
What's happening here is Amazon supposedly doing charge backs on people that never asked for a refund. It has nothing to do with DRM.
Do you think this would have ever happened if so many people hadn't ask for refunds in the first place? Seems like an odd coincidence--I really doubt this would have ever happened had people been happy with Sim City.
 

Septimius

Junior Member
Let's all be clear. SLV never requested a charge-back, and never got his money back. His copy has not been charged back.
 

SLV

Member
Amazon are pretty strict on what they're pushing to their customers, it's clear they don't want to be implicated in any way with EA's fuckery. They really should have notified you of this sort of thing though, even though it was for your benefit really.

Heh, still i was not pleasantly surprised as i opened origin up today :/

Let's all be clear. SLV never requested a charge-back, and never got his money back. His copy has not been charged back.

Yeah, this !

Someone needs to work on their grammar.

Noted
 

LuchaShaq

Banned
Amazon are pretty strict on what they're pushing to their customers, it's clear they don't want to be implicated in any way with EA's fuckery. They really should have notified you of this sort of thing though, even though it was for your benefit really.

Yeah Amazon is basically the best customer service in the world and EA is the worst.


Basically Amazon doesn't want to be connected to EA's shitty service.
 

Septimius

Junior Member
There also seems to be rumors that Amazon has said they wouldn't reuse keys, but that it's a known problem that their customers are hit like this.

Maybe the charge-back algorithm with EA's shortest-path cd-key removal algorithm?
 
Do you think this would have ever happened if so many people hadn't ask for refunds in the first place? Seems like an odd coincidence--I really doubt this would have ever happened had people been happy with Sim City.

Regardless it's not up to Amazon/EA to do a refund on your behalf without your permission is it? That's the real issue here.

And this is more than likely a result of so many people asking for refunds in the first place.
Some people are asking for refunds, so lets charge back everyone else's game. How does that make sense?
 
How the fuck....So people are losing their games now, without request? The fuck?

This is easily the most fucked up launch of a game that I've ever seen.
 
And this is more than likely a result of so many people asking for refunds in the first place.
1) Many people ask for refunds.
2) Give refunds to random people who did not ask for them.
3) Do not refund everyone.

How does that make sense? Either refund everyone, or refund people who ask for it. Why refund people at random?

Even if it did make sense, it's not good practice.
 

LuchaShaq

Banned
Regardless it's not up to Amazon/EA to do a refund on your behalf without your permission is it? That's the real issue here.

Since the product is broken at it's core (not even talking server issues) they are likely treating it like a recalled product.


Or EA is just fucking shit up as usual and blaming amazon since they are not playing nice with EA.
 
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