Square Enix should be ashamed of their customer service and lack of transparency

[YojimboM]

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:

____________________________________________________________
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.
_____________________________________________________________

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.

[Myrhn]

Is brand new, what else you expect?

[YojimboM]

Is brand new, what else you expect?

Do 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.

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.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Considering this is the first post on the official forums, at least in general discussion, it must not be very widespread.

[Lexia]

Seems like you kept asking the rep the same question expecting a different answer.

[YojimboM]

Considering this is the first post on the official forums, at least in general discussion, it must not be very widespread.

Not 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.

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.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Not 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.

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.

It looks like they said they were looking into it. That part was pretty clear.

[Lyshell]

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.

[Fyce]

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.

[Unsung_Wanderer]

I'm so sorry this happened to you I hope you can get it sorted :/