Partner unable to access account for 5 days and no word from support

[Wizzit]

Hi, my partner and I just recently resubscribed to FFXI after a year of not playing, we also wanted to give FFXIV which is where the issue started. I reactivated my trial FFXIV account, but when my partner tried, on my computer she was locked out of her SE account due to "Change of network settings". Because of this she was now unable to even log into PlayOnline and play FFXI. She can't remember the email registered to the account and most likely it was one made specifically for this, and it requires an email to be able to change the password to gain access to it, I have no idea why you can't just use the account username and then answer the security questions to change the password SE has made it uneccesarily difficult to just do this if you have forgotten the email address registered. Now we have contacted support last friday evening, and got a reply Sunday, where we went through a form that asked for a photo of her passport. We sent this through the form stating the issue and the new email to be changed to on Monday. We have heard nothing back so yesterday "tuesday" we sent it in again and also a separate support ticket asking why it's taking so long. We are yet to receive anything back from any of her tickets, so shes been locked out of FFXI for 5 days which is absolutely ridiculous and still no word fo what is going on.

Any suggestions or if support agents read these forums please can you look into this. Her SE username is lauralowe31.

[Alhanelem]

Well I know this can happen in FFXIV by logging in on a network that's in a geographically different location as a safeguard against one's account being compromised by a third party.



You're just going to have to wait for the support ticket unfortunately, SE support is experiencing dramatically higher volumes due to the sudden influx of players to FFXIV due to recent events and their support is taking much longer than usual. Sending more tickets to "bump" your issue won't work, so I recommend against doing that.

But yea, you need to make sure you use an email account you will always (or most likely, at least) have access to, do not use thrtowaway emails to sign up for the game because it will make it much harder to come back later.

[Wizzit]

Well its now been a week and she still doesnt have access nor has she gotten another reply since Saturday, I'm sorry but theres no reasonable excuse for this, they are a multi billion dollar company, hire more people if they are short staffed, I can't accept that this is the reason we have not been given service, how can you be locked out of your account and have to wait to speak to them to gain access, this is really bad and I hope she will get the crysta back or game time for the time not able to play, what an absolute joke of a company.

[Alhanelem]

Well its now been a week and she still doesnt have access nor has she gotten another reply since Saturday, I'm sorry but theres no reasonable excuse for this, they are a multi billion dollar company, hire more people if they are short staffed, I can't accept that this is the reason we have not been given service, how can you be locked out of your account and have to wait to speak to them to gain access, this is really bad and I hope she will get the crysta back or game time for the time not able to play, what an absolute joke of a company.

The issues are never as simple as you think they are, the value of a company by itself has little bearing on how many staff you hire, you hire the minimum number of staff required to efficiently operate under normal circumstances. When sudden demand for services occurs, you can't just snap your fingers and add more staff on the spot just because you have a lot of money. Valuation doesn't equal profitability either.

And you also should now that GMs and support staff are often minimum wage jobs or close to it. I work in a grocery store. Our pay rates have increased several dollars an hour over the last year and we still have 2/3 of the staff we need. We WANT to hire more people but people aren't biting. And it's clearly not because of pay, we pay more than most other businesses in the area. Nobody wants to work in customer service, and its in part because you're mostly dealing with angry people (ahem) all day- after all most people don't call into support because they're having no problems and just want to wish someone a happy day.

They probably ARE hiring more people, as at least part of this player influx is here to stay. But it's going to take a while.

All that said: If you don't have access to the email associated with the account, you're going to have a bad time getting back into it. You may be better off starting a new account. But growth is so vastly faster in the game now than it used to be that it will actually take a shockingly short amount of time to make up for the lost progress.

You will need to have other means of providing proof of ownership of the account to get it back without access to the email you signed up with.

[Wizzit]

We have already sent in a photo of her passport twice, I'm sorry the defence you have given them is just simply not good enough, and since you don't work for them you can't really give an opinion of the internals of the company no offence mate, we both paid for our subscriptions for a year so thats a year of playing to get to where we had been so to say buy the game and resubscribe is not a solution, the solution is for them to update the email they said they would. It's funny that they replied initially in 1 day, but since then 6 days later now not a single response, I find it hard to believe thats down to an influx within a few days sorry but this seems like an administration issue, besides that its not our problem we paid for a service that now have no access to because of a clearly flawed system in place, people forget email addresses, or change them and lose access to previous ones. A simple solution would be to allow you to change your password via your username using security questions, or just dont permanently lock someone out of their account because it incorrectly flagged up, a temp lockout would have saficed, but either we my partner has lost access and because of that I am not playing we play together, so although the monthly subscription isn't alot of money even for 2 accounts, its the principle of the matter, we pay for a service that we can't use, technical support should be part of that service.

[Alhanelem]

We have already sent in a photo of her passport twice, I'm sorry the defence you have given them is just simply not good enough, and since you don't work for them you can't really give an opinion of the internals of the company no offence mate, we both paid for our subscriptions for a year so thats a year of playing to get to where we had been so to say buy the game and resubscribe is not a solution, the solution is for them to update the email they said they would. It's funny that they replied initially in 1 day, but since then 6 days later now not a single response, I find it hard to believe thats down to an influx within a few days sorry but this seems like an administration issue, besides that its not our problem we paid for a service that now have no access to because of a clearly flawed system in place, people forget email addresses, or change them and lose access to previous ones. A simple solution would be to allow you to change your password via your username using security questions, or just dont permanently lock someone out of their account because it incorrectly flagged up, a temp lockout would have saficed, but either we my partner has lost access and because of that I am not playing we play together, so although the monthly subscription isn't alot of money even for 2 accounts, its the principle of the matter, we pay for a service that we can't use, technical support should be part of that service.

I'm sorry you don't think it's good enough, but it's simply the reality of things. Contrary to popular belief, a big valuation doesn't mean you have the universe at your command.

Also, why waste time while the issue is being resolved? You don't have to stay in perfect unison. If you're still interested in playing, do ancillary stuff that isn't important to progress. Do monstrosity or something.

and since you don't work for them you can't really give an opinion of the internals of the company no offence mate,

By your logic, you can't give an opinion either since you also don't work for them, but unfortunately, opinions are like behinds and we all have one. The difference between yours and mine is mine is based on logic and actual insight into the industry. I don't have to work for SE to make these kinds of observations.

The sudden influx of customers to their services, fueled in part by the biggest live streamers switching to Square Enix titles and bringing their massive viewerbases with them, has overwhelmed them and on the FFXIV side, Producer Yoshida has already made apologies for the support issues on their side (and in reality both games are supported by the same support teams, this comes from the GMs themselves so don't say I can't know this).

Whether you want to believe it or think it's good enough, it's true, and it's in fact of all service-related industries in the pandemic era having this problem, especially in the West. It's not just Square Enix, it's far bigger and larger companies as well, as well as small ones.

Stores across my company are at 2/3 of their needed staffing levels or less. McDonalds is so desperate for workers that some franchisees are paying people just to show up for interviews, and the company is looking at automating drive thrus and such to replace the jobs that apparently nobody wants. Amazon is running workers ragged for similar reasons (not that lack of staff is a valid reason to mistreat their own workers and contractors). And all of this is despite significant increases in pay rates.

You want SE to give better service? Apply for a job. 100% chance they are hiring.

Let me be clear, I want your issue to be resolved as much as you do. But the reasoning behind your statements is flawed. Hopefully they get back to you soon, if not, file anotehr ticket and ask for escalation. That usually produces results for me. And to be fair, sometimes being posting here does work. But we're coming into a weekend now, so you're not going to see anything til monday at the earliest.

My issue with your complaint is your argument that "SE has unlimited money, therefore they should be immune to the issues that (in reality) affect companies of all sizes." Does SE need to do better? Yes. Do they need more staff? Yes. Have you been waiting too long? Yes. Is it as simple as throw up an ad and have 100 new support staff in a few days or a week? No, it's not. People have to apply for those jobs, be interviewed, etc.

[Wizzit]

Just an update, this evening (UK TIME) we received an email saying the identification was verified and she has now been able to update her password and gain access to her account, it's been emotional but it's done.

[Alhanelem]

Well at least it really was just being ultra slow and not forgotten/lost/ignored. Glad you got it sorted.