Guild Wars 2

I’m currently putting a good deal of hard-earned, sweat n’ blood-workin’, juicy cash on the side so that I may purchase a significant amount of gems when I’m ready, and of course, spend that buying a multitude of wacky, and interesting items whenever the time comes.

Now, the reason why I’m not purchasing them as I go is because I’m a bit afraid. What, you might ask? Well, call me paranoid, but what sort of safety measures are there when it comes to issues with our gem count? If I purchase a certain amount today, will they always stay safe and sound in my wallet? Is there some sort of time limit to spend gems? Furthermore, what if, for whatever reason, I were to log in one day and realize they were gone due to some server data issue or bugs or whatever? Would presenting the purchase receipt and order info we usually get through our e-mail be enough? Whatever amount I currently have, will it stay put until I spend it?

Furthermore, what about a similar scenario but with items or gold instead? If there were any issues with the servers/game whatsoever, and players lost items and gold as a result, does ANet guarantee that they’d refund our stuff back?

I’ve never heard of this happening before, thankfully, but I’m pretty sure people logging in only to realize that their legendary weapons, ascended armor pieces, or other valuable stuff was gone is not a pleasant situation at all.

Have any of you ever had any similar issues happen? If ANet realizes that it was a mistake on their part or something an error/bug caused, would they give you your stuff back? Just what kind of “buyer’s protection” policies are in place?

I’ve never known gems to disappear from the wallet, but maybe someone else can vouch for ANet’s refund policies.

Everything that you do in the game is logged, gems won’t disappear, even if they were to (they won’t) they have records and can refund you, this game has one of the most relaxed refund guidelines I’ve seen, even for in-game items.

Thuggernaut.1250:

I’ve never known gems to disappear from the wallet, but maybe someone else can vouch for ANet’s refund policies.

Yeah, me neither, it’s just that the amount I want to purchase is anything but small, and I’ll be buying more, but only several months from now, so I’m wondering if the amount I may or may not purchase today is going to stay put. I’m not saying I won’t spend them for a whole year, but you get the gist of it. I’m gonna be saving for quite a few months, so that’s why I’m worried.

The CS Team is pretty good about replacing lost items (especially cash-purchased items)…even when it is not their fault.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

What you might encounter, though, is a limit on how many Gems you can purchase at a time. I believe there is a monthly limit (though you may be able to get the restriction lifted through a support ticket on a per purchase basis).

Good luck.

I have over 5000 gem in my account for over year now and no problem. Only problem I can see if account get hack and thief use the gem to buy gold then send to some other account. If account hack then arena net roll back account and gem should be return to before hack. Use authenticator and that should save you from account hack.

I have literally bought tens of thousands of gems over the last 38 months. They are always there when I need them.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

The CS Team is pretty good about replacing lost items (especially cash-purchased items)…even when it is not their fault.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

What you might encounter, though, is a limit on how many Gems you can purchase at a time. I believe there is a monthly limit (though you may be able to get the restriction lifted through a support ticket on a per purchase basis).

Good luck.

Oh, really? What’s the monthly limit?

Oh, and btw, what about fees? Will there be subtractions from the amount if I don’t use my gems? Like, some sort of fee for simply having them for a while? Gosh, I know this sounds ridiculous xD but I don’t know much, so bear with me here.

I don’t know what the limit is. $300? Maybe more, maybe less?

There are no attrition fees. Once you purchase something, it is yours.

Good luck.

When you buy gems, they’re yours. You won’t lose them if you don’t use them, and they’ll stay in your account until you spend them. You won’t lose them due to server errors, but even if that somehow did happen, they have a record of what you’ve bought/spent. The end.

Seriously you got nothing to worry about.

My suggestion? Buy gems now and hold on to them for whenever you are ready to spend them. If you are planning on buying gems, and a lot, and you have the money now, go ahead and start stocking up. It’s what I do. I buy gems whenever I have the cash to spend on them, and just let them sit there (forever it seems).

I’ve had gems on my account for almost a year now and nothing has happened to them.

The reason why I say get them now, is so you have them if something comes out. Like a time limit item or something, that you can only get within that day or week. It’s best to have the gems when you need them instead of not having them when something you want comes out.

Most of what you’re asking is covered in the Terms of Service, but what the hell – I’m feeling charitable so I’ll give you the Clif Notes version:

• Refunds are generally related to something screwing up badly for a prolonged period on ANet’s end.

• Once you give them money for gems, it’s safe to say you’re not getting that money back.

• Since microtrans-related game concepts tend to receive high amounts of attention and monitoring, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever suffer from a glitch or bug that causes you to lose these gems.

The tl;dr? Your fears are generally unwarranted, but don’t expect a refund if you’re simply dissatisfied with your purchase. These are all things you will learn, however, as you play more MMOs with cash shops. -Sid

ArenaNet has a refund policy for Gems. Just as they have for the game, itself.

You can read about it in the Knowledge Base accessed via the ‘Support’ link above/below and ‘Search (Refund)’.

Though, I’m not sure there was a question about refunds………

I’ve been playing since launch and had gems on my account constantly since at least the first month because the number I want to spend never exactly matches the number I have and I’ve never encountered any of the problems you’re worrying about.

There is no expiry date, no ‘tax’ or anything like that. Once you’ve added gems to your account the only ways they’ll be removed are if you spend them or if your account is hacked and the hacker spends them, and if that happens you can get your account ‘reset’ to an earlier state which will get your gems back (and all your items since a hacker will quite likely have sold or deleted everything you have).

The same goes for items you buy. It is possible to delete items from your account, or to delete characters who are holding them and in that case support might not be able to help, but you don’t need to worry about items simply vanishing due to data issues.