Guild Wars 2

I created a support ticket yesterday about bank tab refunds.

I have been told that, despite the item being buyable from the gem shop, yet UNUSABLE and NON-Tradeable. . . I cannot have a refund on this.

I bought this item from the store due to its wording. It said

“Bank Tab Expansion
Adds an extra bank tab for your account.
Each account can purchase up to 7 additional tabs including any previously purchased in game.

Consumable
Account bound"

To me, someone who had never noticed/seen this gem-shop item in the gem shop when I first bought bank space back in December. . . this meant I could get MORE bank space via the gem shop. I was pretty excited to see it and I bought it right away. I thought that “in game” referred to “at the bank” as opposed to “in the gem shop window”.

Now I am stuck with an item I cant use or trade. And support tickets are telling me no refunds.

I am really upset by this. These gems were a gift for my birthday and I would like to not have them wasted. Wether the mistake was mine or the poor wording or both is not part of the issue.

The issue is the apparent no-refunds policy on unusable items that can STILL BE PURCHASED despite being unusable. The item itself makes a check to see if you can use it, I do not see why the same variant of coding can’t be applied to the gem store when making a purchase. This is a poor display of the product to the customer and shoddy interface, and it is CLEARLY being used to gouge customers out of their well-earned time-based gold or work-based real money.

Is this REALLY the stance Guild Wars 2 is taking on this? If so, I am shocked. This doesn’t even really seem legal. I have my proof of purchase, I can provide screenshots of the item not being usable, I can even supply the code of the gem card I got the gems from, but I cannot get a refund.

I am extremely let down by this, and angry even.

Anet, I would like to see this policy of no-refunds for unusable items CHANGED, or the gem store altered. Preferably both. An accidental bag slot can be put on another character. An accidental character slot can be used for an alt. An accidental bank expansion will sit in my bank (which, incidentally, is the very thing I wanted to have more space. irony.) and gather dust until its either usable, tradeable, or I give up and just right click to destroy it.

I would like the item destroyed and my gems refunded. You already HAVE my money from the gem purchase. You get the money either way. I just want something I can use, that’s not so much to ask.

I’m not following. Why is it that you can’t use the item to add another bank tab? Are you already at the maximum number of tabs?

In any case, no, they normally do not give refunds when people buy things they no longer want.

I am at maximum bank tabs. I can’t use the item, I cant trade the item. And apparently I can’t get a refund on the gems even though the purchase was an honest misunderstanding; a mistake.

Ah, yeah they could and should prevent these things by blocking people from buying things they can’t use. Never understood why they allowed this type of thing to happen in the first place. Same thing with gear that can’t be worn…. you can still buy it even though you can’t wear it. Can’t even use the design for transmutation.

However, I doubt they will grant you a refund, unfortunately.

It seems like a really sketchy way to weasel money/time out of players, to be honest. Even lower-scale free to play MMOs have cash shops that prevent you from buying things you cant use. Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be competing with the higher-end MMOs like WOW and this is a blatant disrespect to the players right at interface level. The fact that customer support is trained to say “no refunds, sorry. be more careful next time.” is INCREDIBLY bad taste.

This is like buying tires for you car and having them hand you tiny plastic Lego wheels instead, or buying a DVD or Bluray without anything in the case when you open it. You can’t do anything with it. The false sale should have measures put in place to prevent it from happening, or at LEAST customer support that does what the title IMPLIES.

Refunds on things that haven’t been used (and ESPECIALLY on items that CANT be used) should be a no-brainer. Most retail stores LEGALLY HAVE give you your money back with the proof of purchase, but in this I can’t even get some in-store credit, and that’s ALL I am asking for.

It feels legally wrong. Just because its digital goods, the rules shouldn’t change. I feel entitled to my refund.

If you read through the threads, you will see that Customer Support usually does remedy such ‘mistakes’, where something is unusable. Have you updated your ticket from the initial response so that the automated reply is bypassed? You might do a bit of research before ranting, next time.

Good luck. =)

The replies I am getting do not seem at all automated as they are all addressing what I am saying.

Is this “Barracuda” only an automated reply bot? After so many back and forths, I would think I would have bypassed any bots by now.

If what Inculpatus cedo is true, to get past an automated bot, go with that. I’ve seen several people make this same kitten mistake (no change to prevent it by ArenaNet though) but they’ve all been refunded their gems.

A sudden change in policy to not offer refunds for this particular ongoing issue should not be the case. They could save themselves some tickets and complaints if they resolved this debacle already.

Ah well, then, you must be one of the unfortunate ones, as others have been helped. Sorry to hear you weren’t. =)

Hopefully a GM here on the forums will be able to escalate it or something. I don’t want to open another ticket, and honestly I don’t want to be wasting more employee’s time. But it feels unfair to not get a refund when others have. I would at LEAST like to know what makes my case so different that it doesn’t deserve a refund, as I was told that in MY specific case (compared to others I was able to dig up and link to) did not grant me eligible for a refund.

Hmmm the previous post I’ve seen here with the same problem had Gaile Gray saying to contact support. She did not say that they didn’t give refunds in this case.

Post titled: Can I get a refund?
(No link because apparently that’s against forum rules)

Gaile Gray
ArenaNet Support Liaison
As stated, you should contact Support by filing a ticket through the “Ask a Question” tab on that linked page and they will try to assist you.
Gaile Gray
Support Liaison

Edit: since you were specifically told no, I suggest you put your ticket number in this post. Also, don’t open a new ticket. Just update the old one as needed. Multiple tickets are a no no.

Saw this post on reddit and came to give my support as well! Hopefully someone at anet sees this. It’s shady and unethical, the GM obviously cares more about getting his way and being right, rather than helping you. There is no reason they can not prevent this from happening in game either.

Gaile might I suggest your development team take the time by adding code that prevents this from even being possible to begin with.

I have seen just through your posts on related areas that you seem to go way above and beyond in helping forum goers after the support tickets, etc and that is great, because overall it seems that ArenaNet is not in the market of intentionally taking people for mistakes due to what the game code may allow when it shouldn’t.

To those this may happen to I also would just like to say that just as with any company an employee may not always make the best choices that would reflect their employer (intentional or not), and being human even the best employee is subject to making mistakes or wrong decisions while trying to follow their best interpretation of policy while trying to perform their job as instructed.

It doesn’t excuse things fully, because it does seem that there may be some lack of cross communication within ArenaNet’s own inner structures that could be dealt with as well by making sure for example all of their CS staff is aware that in a case that an item such as the bank tabs has this issue and the customer is at max it would be allowable to be considered an exception to the rules, etc.

People also have to remember that past paying whatever tax one may on obtaining a virtual currency the currency itself and what it may obtain is just really not regulated by any means for a consumers protection.

In many ways its still to new and laws/regulations have not yet caught up to it, but that’s why its even more important that companies who really are honest and trustworthy do the right thing for many reasons including preventing over regulation creeping in by laws of any various country they may do business in.

Again, while its always unpleasant to see someone have a bad time with this, so far ArenaNet has overall been pretty good about being reasonable in the end (despite whatever mix up CS may have at the start).

However, again it would go so much farther to make sure things like this was not even possible to begin with by game code. More so when so many players have come to GW2 from so many other MMO’s where this was already the norm and they would not think to even know that this games system would allow it.

Gaile Gray.6028:

Your ideas also would be a welcome addition to the Suggestions Forum, which is read daily by many members of the dev team.

I’m glad that the developers are reading our suggestions, but are the designers? Do the developers have the necessary sway to get our ideas implemented?

I just got up and back from my duties for today and checked my email. My gems have indeed been refunded.

Thank you kindly for resolving this. It really did seem quite sketchy that others have received a refund on this and I was not.

I really do hope that measures ARE put in place for Gem store items like this. They shouldn’t be purchasable if they cant be used, or they should not appear in the store at all for those that can’t get use out of them.

Gaile Gray.6028:

We don’t have bots answering tickets. Well, ok, yeah we do. The first response you get often is from an auto-responder bot, but it’s clearly marked as an automatic response, so that should be clear to everyone. From then on, the responses come from agents. That’s not to say that human beings do not make mistakes, but the tickets are being assessed by people, not machines.

Thank you for submitting this information for review by Guild Wars 2 Forum Members. While members work hard to read all posts submitted to the Guild Wars 2 Forum please keep in mind that members will be reading them in the order that they are received. If you do not receive a response within 72 hours of the time of your post please visit the Guild Wars 2 Account Support Forum. Gaile Gray may be available to assist you with any issues you may have regarding your post.

Sincerely,
Bob Smith
Guild Wars 2 Forum Member Representative

Thanks Gaile.

Gaile Gray.6028:

That is good feedback, Michael, and I will try to share it with the team. Your ideas also would be a welcome addition to the Suggestions Forum, which is read daily by many members of the dev team.

In the meantime, I can confirm that Latromi’s gems have been refunded.

I would go so far as to see if it’s possible to remove the current item in the gem store, and instead post a link to the bank window and explain how to buy new bank tabs there.

Or maybe just make the button in the gem store work exactly like the button on the bank, and no longer give the item.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Gaile Gray.6028:

Your ideas also would be a welcome addition to the Suggestions Forum, which is read daily by many members of the dev team.

I’m glad that the developers are reading our suggestions, but are the designers? Do the developers have the necessary sway to get our ideas implemented?

“Dev” – as an MMO term – generally anyone who works ON the game. As Gaile says, this includes designers. On this forum, anyone from Anet not a customer service rep/community manager, basically.