I've been playing this game since ARR first released, back in 2.1, and have been loyally giving Square my money for not only subs but name changes, character transfers, optional items, retainers, bonding ceremonies, even Fanfest, for years at this point.
With that in mind, I am entirely appalled at the complete failure in transparency and breakdown in customer service I have experienced over the past three days.
On 6/25/17, I submitted an application for a free character transfer off of Balmung to Omega for an alt character. After waiting 14 hours, I received an email stating that my transfer had failed. Upon trying to log into any of my characters, I consistently received the Error 3084 state that I still had a character transfer underway and that it could "take several minutes" to complete (14 hours later), despite already getting notification that the transfer was failed and I could supposedly log into the game again.
This issue has prevented me from connecting to the Primal or Aether data centers at all since the transfer was initiated, regardless of the fact that the Primal DC wasn't even involved in the process. I also have characters missing on my Mog Station page character list.
The character being transferred is entirely gone at this point. It no longer shows up on the Lodestone or in my Mog Station character list, and I cannot connect to the Aether DC in order to see if it's still there.
So, by still allowing transfers to go on when they apparently were AWARE OF A SERIOUS ISSUE occurring with them, I have lost over 3 days of play time on top of what appears to be having a character just deleted at random.
There was no announcement on the Lodestone, no announcement anywhere in regards to transfers failing and that some people are unable to play the game or having characters come up missing randomly.
According to the rep I spoke to in livechat:
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Agent 19:35：Unfortunately the error you are experiencing is a brand new error that has come up with Stormblood recently. There isn't a fix yet, and we ask that you wait patiently for us to fix this issue.
Agent 19:35：But it is currently being looked into and people are experiencing it.
Agent 19:36：Is there anything else that I can do for you today?
Customer 19:36：Is there no more information besides that? Has anyone had this fixed before? I was able to connect to the Chaos data center somehow and log in there but not Primal or Aether.
Agent 19:36：No it's brand new as I said.
Agent 19:36：And there isn't anymore information as it's brand new.
Agent 19:37：If you wish to assist with this, you can by posting about it on our official forums on the lodestone
Customer 19:37：Do they have any plans on actually announcing or acknowledging this issue publicly or giving compensation for people put out of play time?
Agent 19:37：I do not know anything, as this is brand new. I'm just informing you as of right now that it's being looked into.
Customer 19:38：I have been locked out of entirely unrelated characters on data centers I wasn't even transferring from, and then I got access back to one data center that was showing the error, so I am sure something is being done
Agent 19:38：Yes, I do understand however there isn't anything more I can do regarding this issue
Customer 19:38：although it's clear you can't provide me any information yourself. Is there no way to be escalated to somewhere else?
Agent 19:39：Yes, on the forums as I've said
Agent 19:39：On the lodestone.
Customer 19:39：I already did post there, multiple times
Agent 19:39：Then please wait patiently.
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There is no form of escalation of customer service to inform people of their issues or even let you know that they're being looked at in particular.
I've submitted ticket after ticket and gotten ran through the wringer over the past three days over this, only to hear that someone couldn't help me or that there is no one higher up to talk to, or to post it on the forums or submit a ticket to a GM.
I'd also like to point that this particular agent closed the chat on me after this ridiculous "we don't know anything" line of crap they ran. I asked if they could escalate me to someone who did know something and they direct me to the forums? That isn't customer service, that is NEGLIGENCE. That is not caring about your customers.
There is seriously something wrong with your customer service, Square Enix. People deserve compensation and people deserve to know what is going with their account.
Frankly, I've had enough of this at this point, because since when is "customer service" self service where the only way to get a response is to make multiple phone calls, submit multiple tickets, and try to squeeze clueless reps for information to even get a piece of the picture? This is a triple A game developer with millions of dollars in revenue that can actually afford to help their customers and at the very least have the courtesy to inform them when something is going wrong, especially when it involves hundreds of dollars of the customer's money, years of their time, and potentially the place where they share most of their friendships being tied up.
This is a SERIOUS issue. ADDRESS it, Squenix!
Finally, I was told to make a post on the forums about it, so that is what I am doing. I already posted a bug report that is stagnating in the bug report forum. I already sent four tickets in by email. I already sent a bug report in game to the GMs (which has not been responded to). I already called the phone CS line twice, waiting over 4 hours each time to get in, to be told there was nothing they could do and no one I could speak to higher up. I already spoke to livechat three times, being told entirely different things each time. This has been my last resort, since the only other solution for exposure with this issue I can think of is to simply let other people know what is happening to others' accounts right now and what could potentially happen to their characters if they try to transfer.
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06-28-2017, 10:24 AMYojimboMSquare Enix should be ashamed of their customer service and lack of transparency
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06-28-2017, 10:32 AMMyrhn
Is brand new, what else you expect?
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06-28-2017, 10:34 AMYojimboMDo you know what happens when a company becomes aware of a fatal flaw in a product? They put out a recall notice immediately. They do not allow people to continue on and potentially do something harmful to their products/possessions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrhn
Squenix should have shut down transfers entirely until this was addressed instead of letting a "brand new issue" start deleting characters. Or at least put out an official announcement stating that there are serious issues with their character transfer service.
I've already heard of one other person who has been trying to get a transfer to happen for a week because their Mog Station account refuses to let them access the page, telling them it's "under maintenance" every single time, despite being able to access it on other accounts. There are many people having problems but Squenix is still not speaking about it. -
06-28-2017, 10:37 AMValkyrie_Lenneth
Considering this is the first post on the official forums, at least in general discussion, it must not be very widespread.
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06-28-2017, 10:43 AMLexia
Seems like you kept asking the rep the same question expecting a different answer.
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06-28-2017, 10:46 AMYojimboMNot the first. I did some searching and I found three other people dealing with the same issue posting in other sections of the forum, with no official acknowledgement. I also know of one other person who is unable to even use the transfer service right now on their account, despite it working fine for every other account.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth
However, I'm actually vocal enough to make a post in general discussions now that I've had to wait over 72 hours with no clear answer or confirmation on anything being done or if I can even get my character back. -
06-28-2017, 10:47 AMValkyrie_LennethIt looks like they said they were looking into it. That part was pretty clear.Quote:
Originally Posted by YojimboM
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06-28-2017, 10:47 AMLyshell
I think they meant the bug forums. Not here. Also what do you expect a call center agent to do? They are just answering you honestly and you DEMAND to know more. If it is a new bug that is going on what do you want more of? I get that you are upset but you need to not take it out on others that are just the messenger. Someone will be more willing to help you if you are reasonable.
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06-28-2017, 10:47 AMFyce
This has nothing to do with transparency or the quality from the customer service. The guy told you everything he knew and there's nothing else to say. It's probably a rare bug that doesn't require shutting everything down for it, and they are already working on fixing it.
You have all the rights to be upset, but blaming the CS or saying that there's a lack of transparency when the CS dude tells you to do a public forum post about it is a bit silly. -
06-28-2017, 10:48 AMUnsung_Wanderer
I'm so sorry this happened to you I hope you can get it sorted :/
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06-28-2017, 10:51 AMKinkoz
Sounds like you're wanting instant satisfaction for a problem that's just barely popped up and requires further investigation. These things take time. Besides that, would you really be any happier if they made an announcement about it? Because it would probably amount to little else than a description of the problem currently happening as well as a vague addressing of the issue by way of the "we're looking into it" answer that customer support has already given you.
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06-28-2017, 10:55 AMYojimboMThis has been going on for over 72 hours at this point. And there are other people out there experiencing the same thing right now, for multiple days at a time, without any sort of update on the status of their situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fyce
The issue is that there is no meaningful level of escalation or confirmation that an issue is being reviewed by someone or a process to receive non-canned or regurgitated copy/paste information like every other triple A game developer has.
I've dealt with EA, Blizzard, Trion, Turbine, and various other companies' CS teams and they ALL had processes for tracking issues and keeping things up to date. Squenix's policy is "lol something's wrong". -
06-28-2017, 10:57 AMYojimboMAlready tried bug forums. No reaction, not even moved to accepted bugs. I'm pretty sure someone having a character seemingly deleted would fall pretty high under their list of priorities, but apparently not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyshell
As for the rest, I have been reasonable for the past three days straight and have asked multiple times to be escalated to speak with a manager and have never received it because there is no process for it. Every single other large company has an escalation process that I have ever dealt with. -
06-28-2017, 11:00 AMYojimboM"Character transfers can potentially disable your access to characters across multiple data centers indefinitely" would have gone a long ways towards me not filing for one and getting into this mess in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kinkoz
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06-28-2017, 11:07 AMWellFooledIf the log posted is accurate, the OP never took anything out on the messenger and was never unreasonable in that entire conversation. Ive worked in customer service many times before (never again!) and the OP looked downright calm compared to most people who are filing a complaint or having a problem that's being dealt with by customer service.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyshell
Square does have miserable customer service and this is hardly the first case of it. One example from the post is how little the customer service rep does to sympathize with or reassure the OP at all. With every interaction they are nothing but curt and give the impression that they wanted to do anything else but talk to this customer. Even if they could do nothing and had no information to share a simple, "I know how I would feel if I were in your place. We're so sorry this has happened to you. We're making every effort to get you back to Eorzea as soon as possible." would make a world of difference. -
06-28-2017, 11:12 AMFyce"Agent 19:37：I do not know anything, as this is brand new. I'm just informing you as of right now that it's being looked into."Quote:
Originally Posted by YojimboM
Being looked into = the bug is in the hands of the dev team.
You say that there's no confirmation of them looking into this issue, when the CS dude already told you that it was. You can call them liars if you want, but don't expect sympathy from anyone here then.
You probably don't know anything about bug fixing. First, they need reports, and then make sure that these reports aren't fake or something in which the user did something wrong. After that, they need to collect as much data as possible and then try to reproduce the bug to see where it's coming from and what caused it. After that, they need to come with a solution to fix it.
This can take some time depending on the bug and how spread it is.
You already told us about a very few number of people experiencing this bug. If it was a very widespread issue, then it'd be top priority and it'd have already blown up by now. But it doesn't appear to be the case.
So, it s*cks, but it seems that you experienced a very rare bug that SE didn't saw forthcoming, and tries to fix it with a priority it deserves.
Obviously, for you, it's the #1 priority. But you have to understand that it might not actually be the case for SE, and that you have a very strong bias on the matter.
Still, that's not a reason to start hating on everything and calling names on things that have absolutly no connection with your actual issue. -
06-28-2017, 11:12 AMKyuuen
It sucks that it's happening, but at the same time bugs/glitches found in programming and coding isn't something that typically gets fixed in a short time.
As to Escalating the issues, to whom? For what manner? If it's a coding and programming problem it's being looked into. There's no one for it to be escalated to.
And this part is just me having a poke, but EA and Blizzard have better CS? lol not from my experiences. Can think of several times that it felt like I was being completely unreasonable before getting an appropriate response. -
06-28-2017, 11:19 AMLind420
Im going through a very similar experience right now, put a transfer in on Thursday. The money was immediately taken out but the transfer failed. No notification email or nothing, still stuck on Balmung. After waiting all weekend to call SE support Monday I was on hold for almost an hour just to be told I needed to contact. GM through the report harassment setting so I did. Got a reply email from a GM today saying to contact support again because they cant do anything. After sitting on the phone for over an hour again today was told AGAIN that they cant do anything for for and it is indeed in fact a GM who needs to help me fix my transfer. I just finished emailing the GM a second time explaining all of this in hopes I can get help.
How can they expect people to leave Balmung like this? Im stuck here because I refuse to pay another $18 I dont have, and I do not want to be here since my best friend started playing and is on the server Im trying to get to. -
06-28-2017, 11:20 AMKinkozWho said it was indefinitely? To repeat, as customer support has already told you, this is a brand new problem that they're looking into. I can understand why you'd be upset, and maybe even impatient, about this issue. I probably would be too if I were in the same boat, but it's not a transparency or customer service problem on Square Enix's part. I'm sure they're doing what they can to fix a problem such as this, but being that it's not a completely widespread and prevalent issue (that we know of as of yet), coupled together with the fact that you've attempted to move a character off of a high-traffic, population-locked server that's probably already receiving a bunch of transfers in the first place and has already been reported as having several stability problems, something going wrong in the transfer process like this is just one of those strange, out-of-left-field problems that have a higher likelihood of happening, which is pretty hard to prepare for as well as to solve right away. You'll likely have your character restored in time in addition to potential compensation for the sudden and unexpected delay.Quote:
Originally Posted by YojimboM
Like the rep told you, please wait patiently. You said you submitted your application on 6/25 and, at least in my neck of the woods, it's still 6/27. It's only been two days. If it takes a full work week or longer, then maybe your grievance would hold a bit more water. -
06-28-2017, 12:11 PMAomine1992
Sorry this happened to you :/ hopefully they fix the issue soon, you shouldn't be locked out of something you pay for.
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06-28-2017, 12:32 PMAlbinosmurfs
Idk much about their customer support I did notice a few things about the OP that bothered me. The first was how rude he was to the customer service guy. And the second thing is why had he dealt with EVERY big gaming companies customer service reps. Kinda seems like he is a professional complainer.