Disappointed by lousy service, you could be next. Beware.

[ShepardG]

Cause they use IP Ranges, not MAC.

In this "laptop scenario" the individual never changed his IP or his IP range. It was the same network, as he had been playing on, in his previous laptop. New laptop comes in the mail, he installs XIV, logs in, doesn't use token, and gets the "account verification e-mail".
So if it's not reporting his MAC on login, it's reporting his computers IP? From his router? However his router hasnt dropped the IP from his ISP... So SE is having him verify his account from a new computer on the same local network?

But again, the major focus of this thread topic is ignored, to accuse folks of their own mistakes. SE's NA customer service is sub par, and it had been for a long time. I'm not saying its the people answering the phones either. Its the command and control at the top. It's a Japanese game, with Japanese accounts (aka, your account might be NA or EU but a Japanese company owns it). This causes all technical/support/account issues to be sent to Japan, creating a horrible overhead, increased resolution period, and overall unhappy players.
You personally may have never had to deal with them but from the folks who have, they'll agree that it's beneath what a million dollar company should be providing for its consumers.
give up some of the command and controll to a NA service center and an EU service center. It would ease the burden greatly, on not only the account technicians but the playerbase as well.

[Skies]

In this "laptop scenario" the individual never changed his IP or his IP range. It was the same network, as he had been playing on, in his previous laptop. New laptop comes in the mail, he installs XIV, logs in, doesn't use token, and gets the "account verification e-mail".
So if it's not reporting his MAC on login, it's reporting his computers IP? From his router? However his router hasnt dropped the IP from his ISP... So SE is having him verify his account from a new computer on the same local network

Over here it's standard issue for people to be assigned dynamic IPs, I do know that for whatever goddamn reason my previous ISP was very fond of using a rather large range of IPs, and it'd reassing a different one every time you reconnected, or every 8 hours.
Playing on the same machine, during a rather stormy night, I had to reconnect 5 times. And I got an account verification e-mail.

How come that without even turning off my computer my MAC address changed?

[Deatheye]

In this "laptop scenario" the individual never changed his IP or his IP range. It was the same network, as he had been playing on, in his previous laptop. New laptop comes in the mail, he installs XIV, logs in, doesn't use token, and gets the "account verification e-mail".
So if it's not reporting his MAC on login, it's reporting his computers IP? From his router? However his router hasnt dropped the IP from his ISP... So SE is having him verify his account from a new computer on the same local network?

But again, the major focus of this thread topic is ignored, to accuse folks of their own mistakes. SE's NA customer service is sub par, and it had been for a long time. I'm not saying its the people answering the phones either. Its the command and control at the top. It's a Japanese game, with Japanese accounts (aka, your account might be NA or EU but a Japanese company owns it). This causes all technical/support/account issues to be sent to Japan, creating a horrible overhead, increased resolution period, and overall unhappy players.
You personally may have never had to deal with them but from the folks who have, they'll agree that it's beneath what a million dollar company should be providing for its consumers.
give up some of the command and controll to a NA service center and an EU service center. It would ease the burden greatly, on not only the account technicians but the playerbase as well.

Interesting. Sure the router didn't change the IP at the same time? Going by your description I assume the router has NAT and the Laptop was using an internal IP.
Using a MAC adress for authentication is normaly only used for software that costs much more. ANd in my opinion something really stupid. I get anyed over this everytime I change a malfunctioning NIC on a system and afterwards I get calls about sofware not working anymore.
Thought that they use MAC is impossible cause I changed my NIC. But I forgott I'm ussing the RSA Token which means I'm not getting that security "feature" anyway.

SE customer support crappy? Sure nothing to argue there.
I remember an other game (another company) where they had a statment on there support site telling people that get a certain bug to report it so they could analyse the problem. I went ahead and collected information with special IT support sofware to get as much information as possible to help them, then the support suggested to reinstall the game etc. I did all the stupid stuff for days, till I nearly screamed at them telling them what the problem is and that it's useless what they suggest. After contacting there internal superior they agreed and closed the case...
I hate support in generell. Most of the time those people just neet to be able to read questions from a screen, click yes or no depending on the answer of the customer and then the system shows them the next question they need to ask the customer. I rarly met any support where people actually had more skills then reading. Sometimes even 3th lvl support gives me the feeling of growing brain cancer.
On the other hand also know it from the perspective of the supporter. You actually never know who that person is thats asking for your support. They could be IT profesionel and know what there are doing or they could be someone that's not even able to press the power button on the PC. And yes such people really exist.

So I never really got the feeling that customer support in any company is usefull for me...