The saga continues!
I opened four tickets before giving up on online tickets.
- Pradeep said EA cannot generate codes and to contact Toys R Us. (this is the worst one here imo, this person straight-up lied to me about code generation)
- Kapil asked me to show proof of purchase even though I had preemptively done so on the first ticket.
- Govind told me to make a new PSN account in the same region on my PS3 and use the code there, then login to my main account and that this was a "sure shot" solution. (It wasn't, and I knew it wouldn't work from the outset, but I did it anyway)
- Finally, on the fourth ticket, Kitu finally gave me an online code. Which didn't work. So I go to bed a little pissed because I had to deal with four people and still don't have a working online pass.
After waking up I decide to try phone support. They get to me real fast (probably the only thing I can compliment them on, but then again it's pretty early in the morning so they must not have that many callers), and a lady named Dawn answers.
I give her my EA account e-mail so she can look at my old tickets to catch up on the situation, and she puts me on hold while she investigates. She puts me back on and asks me to try a new code she reads to me...which doesn't work. She is about to put me on hold again to get a different code but I quickly assert my suspicion that all their online codes are expired and they won't work. She sounds unconvinced and asks to put me on hold while she investigates. When she gets back to me she says that
there's something wrong with their system and that the online codes won't work.
She says to call EA back next week. At this point I tell her that I don't want to play phone tag and waste my time calling EA when EA is the one that should contact me since they'll know when they fix whatever is wrong. She gives me a very reluctant ok, and here we are...
TL;DR EA Online support is shit, and their phone support thinks it's a good idea to have their customers play phone tag. And I confirmed over the phone that the online pass codes for NFS HP are screwed up.