Guild Wars 2

[Incident: 121102-001421]
[RECEIVED]
Hello,
Thanks for contacting us. We were able to confirm the purchase, that is not an issue. Unfortunately, we are currently unable to restore any items that are destroyed in-game. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience this causes you. Hopefully at some point in the future, this may be a courtesy we may be able to provide. Thanks again for contacting us! If you have any other questions or concerns about this or any other issues, please let us know.
Best Regards,

[GM name edited out at request]
[Support team name edited out at request]

[MY RESPONSE]
Dear ArenaNet [shall I edit this name out too?],
Is this response implying that I was the one who destroyed the items? Because I did not even receiving the 6 parts constituting the Witches Outfit. I fail to see how this is my fault. I have paid 10.00USD and I’m left with nothing and ArenaNet[maybe this?] is not going to do anything about it? I hope you are not serious about this being a final response to this issue.
I fail to see how I can ‘accidentally’ destroy 6 items part of a gem store set. It would have to be very deliberate, going through my inventory and deleting everything, despite the 6 inevitable dialogue box that would show up asking whether I truly want to delete the item. Even assuming I did delete it intentionally, what is the benefit? I would be deleting my own hard earned money.
I hope someone will look into this more deeply than offering me this highly unsatisfactory outcome. You have done well with the game, I hope you will not cause this customer to lose confidence in you.
I expect a proper response.
Regards,
==
Are you people implicitly shifting the blame to the customer? Items “destroyed in-game or vendored”. You have got to be kidding me. How do you purposely go in game and delete all 6 parts of a Witches Outfit? You are not even offering a refund? This is REAL money we are dealing with and you treat it like a couple of coupons? Given, I could have bought it with gold but even you can verify I made the purchase through PayPal. If this is the final outcome I have to say I am extremely displeased with ArenaNet’s service and I will make sure that other people know of this issue elsewhere so they don’t have to go through the same trouble! I am utterly disgusted.

==============
EDIT – I went and bought another set, first with a free 0-gem Devil Horn item, and then the 700-gem Witches Outfit.

From collection via mail, to equipping as town clothes, the whole process was unfamiliar to me. The first time I never got to click on the outfit set to “use” and unwrap. I never got to equip each item individually.

So ArenaNet, you need to admit have a bug that shows up every now and then, and I hope you fix it for your (and our) benefit. Blowing off thousands of players by categorising them under “accidental deletions” is as unwise as using the basis of “few and far between” as a premise for ignorance and decreased customer service priority. The ones who did accidentally delete may continue to play because they know they are at fault, but those who genuinely lost their items may cease to continue playing as a customer. I had to pay 20.00USD altogether for a bug that you did not fix, and also refused to reimburse.

I am looking for more support on this issue. So far it has been a bad experience, with support not even endeavouring to offer me a refund or new set. I had no chance to equip the items and to be honest I would not bother posting here if I had deleted it myself. I have heard from members that you need to unwrap the sole item from the mail into however many items constitutes the full set. I didn’t have a chance to do that.

I have posted the incident number – this is not a me-rage post, I am explicitly requesting further attention to this incident.

Sorry you have accidently lost, deleted, or not received your items but unfortunately you have no real basis for a real money refund based on that issue since you did not spend real money for your items,. You spent real money to purchase gems and the gems were all delivered as agreed.

Was there no delete item confirmation that popped up for your items? I always receive an annoying pop-up every time I try to salvage a green or blue item that I need to confirm.

You are assuming I even pulled the item out of the inventory to delete it. I would have gotten the notification if I did that. I did not see anything.

I can argue that the gems were used for the sole purpose of purchasing the set, but the set is not in my possession in no fault of my own. The gems were delivered as agreed but I can also argue that the store has deducted my gems unreasonably because items have failed to deliver.

You could argue that shockpoint, but again, the only recompense that you would be even remotely be allowed, would be a gem restoration. Even then, it is very doubtful it would be restored as the GM’s dont have the system in place yet to authorise this.

As for items failed to deliver, you’re wrong. The items, in your own words, were delivered to your inventory. They vanished to due a suspected bug.

Renegadeimp.8439:

You could argue that shockpoint, but again, the only recompense that you would be even remotely be allowed, would be a gem restoration. Even then, it is very doubtful it would be restored as the GM’s dont have the system in place yet to authorise this.

As for items failed to deliver, you’re wrong. The items, in your own words, were delivered to your inventory. They vanished to due a suspected bug.

All the more reason for ArenaNet to look into this, no? I fail to see how that affects the need to fix the bug. If they vanished subsequently due to a suspected bug, then where does responsibility lie? The customer who created the entire Guild Wars 2 system? Surely he can decrypt the millions of lines of source code and find why the item vanished!

No, the environment was generated by ArenaNet, and if the gem store purchase was affected by a bug, the bug could have only come from the environment generated by ArenaNet. It’s like saying I bought a bird but the cat on the landlord’s land ate it. So it’s my fault for buying a bird? Or does the landlord have to bear responsibility for this, unless he explicitly stated in the terms of the contract that you buy and raise pets at your own risk?

Following from that, it’s like saying I buy an item from the gem store but it’s at my own risk of it suddenly disappearing from my inventory by an Act of God – whereby the ‘god’ in this game is obviously ArenaNet.

Again, I fail to see how that minor technicality affects the issue – if there is a bug are you saying that it doesn’t need to be fixed? So we can all continue to buy items from the gem store at risk of disappearance?

As for a refund, I am quite happy with a gem refund – it hardly needs to be real money. I entered into the contract quite willingly to purchase gems, and I received the gems. So that’s fine. But I have lost those gems I bought with real money because of a bug that made my purchase disappear. At the moment, with technical support’s reply “it may be a courtesy we may offer in the future” indicates that even if they did eventually get the system in place, they would not bother to solve my problem by giving me an item/gem restoration.

For the record, they are not able to provide item replacements because they are literally not technically able to do that, i.e. spawn items. Their terms do indeed say that they will not refund money/gems due to an ingame bug. It’s blatantly asinine but that’s what it says; that’s what you agreed to.

I don’t think you’ll hear much more than a community coordinator telling you that support already gave you a final response and that’s that (followed by a thread lock). You can either never purchase gems again, stop playing GW2, or attempt a charge back, get banned, and still only have a chance to get your money back. I know that, if you initiate a support request, they’ve been refunding the $60 purchase price if you purchased the game from their site. I don’t know if they stopped doing that yet, though.

G’luck.

Well they could always send me the item again. Not spawn it in my inventory but just send it through the mail. Even if I do not ask for a gem refund due to ingame bug, it doesn’t say that I am not entitled to what I paid for, which is 2 Outfits. Selectively sending me an item through the mail seems reasonable. Given also that its a costume, not anything that affects game balance. I just don’t see why it’s so hard to help a paying customer given what I’m asking for is just a bunch of town clothes.

I have to agree with Shockpoint. If its regular items in game that is destroyed by players or hacked, I can imagine it will take a long while for support to even attempt restore them due to lack of a proper tool.

However, the support already verified the purchase and it will not be too hard to find it in the log that Shockpoint did not destroy the item. Due to it’s related to gem store( which shockpoint paid with real money ) and the items vanished on its own. I would hope ANet would do the proper thing and fully restore the vanished items.

come on guys… ok…., they are not able to duplicate items, but you are going to tell me that if someone lost or delete an item bought with gems (real money), they can not refund even the gems? Or take an item from their own shop and transfer to an account? (after a proper verification).

Technical support is just ignoring me in my ticket correspondence. Wtf.

[Incident: 121102-001421] <———- where is my follow up??

TimeBomb.3427:

For the record, they are not able to provide item replacements because they are literally not technically able to do that, i.e. spawn items. Their terms do indeed say that they will not refund money/gems due to an ingame bug. It’s blatantly asinine but that’s what it says; that’s what you agreed to.

Good to know, (without reading a mile long agreement). I personally won’t buy any gems, Areanet, until you are able to take responsibility when a game bug gobbles up someones HARD EARNED money. Those terms stink of Gold Sellers terms, and I have nothing to do with them either.

I’m noticing quite a few people having issues with the gem shop lately, in particular those who bought the Witch outfit. I recently bought some minis and accidentally bought two witch outfits(don’t ask how, I thought I hit the button the appropriate amount of times but I must have hit it one to many because they charged me for two). I put in a ticket because I want to get a refund on the other extra witch outfit (or get an exchange for the mad king outfit). Not sure if they can do this, but I figured it was worth a shot to try putting in a ticket.

Problem is I never received any of the items. And then the customer support person said they didn’t have a record of the purchases. I sent them a screen shot showing my recent purchases. Anyway, sometime today ONE witch outfit came in the mail. Still no sign of the minis and no word on what will happen with the extra witch outfit.

I’ve seen several people say they either didn’t get their outfit or they did and it disappeared from their inventory.

I must say Anet REALLY needs to come up with a system for restoring deleted items or deleted characters. I’m kind of shocked they actually launched a game without such things in place. So if your account gets hacked and your level 80 legendary wielding character gets erased, too bad? That really sucks.

xarallei.4279:

I’m noticing quite a few people having issues with the gem shop lately, in particular those who bought the Witch outfit. I recently bought some minis and accidentally bought two witch outfits(don’t ask how, I thought I hit the button the appropriate amount of times but I must have hit it one to many because they charged me for two). I put in a ticket because I want to get a refund on the other extra witch outfit (or get an exchange for the mad king outfit). Not sure if they can do this, but I figured it was worth a shot to try putting in a ticket.

Problem is I never received any of the items. And then the customer support person said they didn’t have a record of the purchases. I sent them a screen shot showing my recent purchases. Anyway, sometime today ONE witch outfit came in the mail. Still no sign of the minis and no word on what will happen with the extra witch outfit.

I’ve seen several people say they either didn’t get their outfit or they did and it disappeared from their inventory.

I must say Anet REALLY needs to come up with a system for restoring deleted items or deleted characters. I’m kind of shocked they actually launched a game without such things in place. So if your account gets hacked and your level 80 legendary wielding character gets erased, too bad? That really sucks.

Man I hope you get that item back. Someone on GuildWars2Guru had the same issue. Apparently he kept getting “we can’t restore and we can’t fix this” for two months before ANet finally gave in and, guess what? Sent him something in the mail.

I will try those screen shots. Maybe these support people don’t even bother verifying and assume we are all guilty of lies until proven innocent.

Thanks for that!

The gem shop is somewhat buggy. For example, I am positive I bought only one devil’s horn, but got two in the mail. It asks you to confirm, so I know that I only bought one. It was a free item so luckily there’s no chance I could have been double charged, but it still could definitely happen to someone with a paid item.

Considering the buginess of the cash shop on top of the unusuality of the gem shop, it’s definitely quite odd that their terms don’t allow you to get refund for anything whatsoever, even an error on their end. …Isn’t that a borderline scam?

Yeah, it’s like it’s thriving on technicalities at the moment, asking the user to suffer all problems caused by bugs despite paying for services/virtual items with real money, until ArenaNet manages to fix it. Then they conveniently forget about your case and you never get your stuff back.

All support has been saying at the moment is “we can’t replace items individually” or “we can’t restore your items or tools”. That’s exactly all they have been saying. It’s almost as if they are trying to draw attention away from the real issue, which is fixing the problem the customer is facing – I’m asking them to fix the problem in a way that lets me get either costume, gem or real money back, but they are purposely focusing on how they can’t restore the costume, instead of offering alternatives that could solve the issue in the different way, like giving me back 700 gems so I can repurchase it through the gem store.

I don’t even know what “restore item” means to them. Probably means they can’t conjure items into your inventory, and not telling you that they can actually send you the same costume in the mail. From the responses I’ve gotten from support it seems like they think I want a rollback or item undeletion, despite me having never even had the chance to click Use, let alone delete, on the Costume pack. I just want my costume back.

Is ArenaNet suffering from zero-subscription so much they can’t afford even to give back a virtual item?

I took those screenshots and sent them in.

The big worry for me about the gem shop terms is that it appears that they’re not claiming they won’t replace due to technical limitations – they’re claiming it is in their legal terms of use/service/whatever that they refuse to refund in any way shape or form if a bug on their end causes issues.

Yes, and I suppose if they did offer non-zero subscription that kind of cheapkitten ‘warranty’ would never exist. You know, I think I’d be quite happy to pay a small amount per month to play this game and have good customer support…rather than 0 dollars and the “KThxBye” attitude Support has been giving me on this issue.

Hi,

Please stay in touch with the support to have this issue resolved.

The thread is now locked, thanks for your contribution.