Screw You EA

[duboiszack]

I recently purchased Madden NFL 19 on sale on PSN. When I started the game it told me that in order to access the online features of the game. I haven't signed into my EA account in over a year, but I still remembered the password, so I thought it should be fine. I tried signing in only for it to tell me that the password was wrong. Just in case, I tried all the other passwords I might of used as well, but no luck. The email connected to my EA account was unfortunately an old email that I had created back when I played on 360, but I no longer have access to. Because of this a simple password change doesn't work so I had to contact EA to try to get back into my account. I know it is probably old news, but holy crap I can not believe how frickin useless the EA support team is. I have done live chat with a live representative three times and phone call another time, but they are robots who get paid minimum wage to follow a script and only job is to tell you that you need to fill out the account recovery webpage with the correct information and you will able to get your account back. Well I have filled out the form at least four times with the correct information and I have been turned down every time. The most recent time I even posted multiple photos of all of my transactions and it is still isn't enough. It's my frickin account how else would I have connected my account to it. So basically I have wasted my money on a game that I can't really play now because, they decide they need to lock most of the features if you are unable to sign in. I'm already paying for PlayStation Plus, that should be good enough, or at the very least charge for an online pass since I know how much they like microtransactions. It wouldn't surprise me if they continue to do this for future games which means there is nothing I can do. Since I have had this issue, I have looked at other forums and seen that other people have had the same issue with their account being connected to an old email with no way of recovering it, I'm just late to the party. I have heard all the issues people have had with EA the last few years and until this point they haven't really affected me, but now I can see just how bad they really are. Sorry if this post went a little long, this is just my first post and I felt like ranting. So good job EA, I may have enjoyed some of your games in the past, but you have officially lost another customer. I hope you continue to lose more until you finally decide to fix your obvious issues. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go play some games I actually want to play, from companies who at least try to please their customers.

[Lordguwa]

EA needs a secondary option to recover the account (secret answer is a good way) followed by them sending the password reset to the new address.

[totallycrushed]

Shift + Enter.

[thefourfoldroot]

As someone who no longer plays EA games due to good taste, can I ask a silly question? Can you not create another EA account? I mean, what does the account actually give you apart from the ability to play these games online?

[dottyduke1]

12 minutes ago, thefourfoldroot said:

As someone who no longer plays EA games due to good taste, can I ask a silly question? Can you not create another EA account? I mean, what does the account actually give you apart from the ability to play these games online?

You can. Honestly, in all of the EA games that I've played that have asked to log in, it really does nothing game wise. It's probably more for analysis than anything. Creating a new account shouldn't be a problem.

[thefourfoldroot]

56 minutes ago, dottyduke1 said:

You can. Honestly, in all of the EA games that I've played that have asked to log in, it really does nothing game wise. It's probably more for analysis than anything. Creating a new account shouldn't be a problem.

Oh, right, seems a bit of a misplaced rant then. If it was like the stupid Ubisoft Uplay that carries points or something I might understand 

[Splathew]

Once you link your PS account to your EA account it can't be unlinked. That's the problem... 

[duboiszack]

The main issue is that it the platinum is unobtainable if I have no access to the online features in the game. I lately have been really interested in trophy hunting and I viewed this as an ultra rare platinum that I knew wasn't too difficult to achieve and I could have some fun with, but because of this issue I just wasted money on a game that I not going to play. Luckily I bought it on sale so it wasn't too bad, but I feel really bad for the people who bought this game full price and had the same issue happen to them.

 

[KillerUni12]

16 minutes ago, duboiszack said:

The main issue is that it the platinum is unobtainable if I have no access to the online features in the game. I lately have been really interested in trophy hunting and I viewed this as an ultra rare platinum that I knew wasn't too difficult to achieve and I could have some fun with, but because of this issue I just wasted money on a game that I not going to play. Luckily I bought it on sale so it wasn't too bad, but I feel really bad for the people who bought this game full price and had the same issue happen to them.

 

I might be missing a point here, but why can't you just create a new account and proceed to log-in + use the online features with the new one?

[DarkestBOO]

6 hours ago, Splathew said:

Once you link your PS account to your EA account it can't be unlinked. That's the problem... 

 

[ladynadiad]

Now bear in mind, I hate EA as well and there are plenty of issues with what they are doing here.  The primary being why can't they unlink the account and let you create a new one if it can't be recovered?  That and why require a separate login in the first place?  More accounts just leads to more potential for issues.

 

But I do want to give some stuff from the perspective of the customer service rep.  Now bear in mind, I didn't work for EA, but I worked a very similar job.  Customer service reps aren't given any access to accounts for security reasons and especially aren't given any access to passwords.  Many customers don't realize this, but one technique that thieves use to steal accounts is to contact customer service and to attempt to get customer service reps to leak information from the account.  Because of this, most companies outright block the reps from being able to access accounts until a customer has verified that they are indeed the owner.  You may say it's your account, but they don't know that and of course a thief trying to steal the account will say it's their account too.  Believe me, there are some damn skilled con artists out there who can pitch a great fake sob story to try and get the customer service rep to leak any bit of personal information.  Heard plenty of them in my years as a customer service rep and had to tell them sorry, I can't give them any information.  Customer service reps have to follow security policies that are in place to safeguard the accounts, personal information and the privacy of their customers in general.

 

Now, I will definitely agree that EA is a terrible company, but blaming them because you forgot to update your email address while you could still access the account is not exactly a reason to hate them.  Guess what, Sony or Microsoft will do the same thing.  They have a responsibility to protect accounts from unauthorized access and to protect their customers' personal information that is present on an account.  One of the most important pieces of information is a working means of contact.