LOTRO ripoff
by
Published on 19th December 2011 02:18 PM
I got ripped by Turbine who runs LOTRO so I figured everyone should know just to be warned.
Let me outline. June 2010 I bought a "Lifetime" subscription for LOTRO. I believed that, given their offer that I would not have to pay subs again, only for expansion packs, it seemed like a good deal. It also took away the WoW like subs pressure, you know, you feel obliged to play for a certain number of hours per month so that you are getting your monies worth. Early 2011 work pressure mounted and I had to curtail my gaming activities in order to keep my life in order. Now here comes the good part. The family goes to visit relatives and I am alone at home for three weeks this December. I decide to revive my LOTRO life. I get the client from Wawa and attempt to login. No luck. I go to the Codemasters account page and I can login there with my details, strange I cannot login to the game. I open a ticket with Turbine Support. Now, I keep an email addy solely for gaming and spammy type stuff that I dont check on sometimes for months at a time. Since I opened the ticket I go there to have a look and in amongst all the spam I come across several emails from Codemasters informing me that Turbine is taking over the running of LOTRO and my account would have to be migrated before the 9th of November. Damn its the 12th of December, so I missed their deadline.
Here then follows the email back and forth between Turbine and myself.
Originally Posted by
Turbine support
Greetings player,
Thank you for contacting Turbine Customer Support.
This automated email has been sent to let you know that we have received your support request and to also forward some relevant information based on the support request details you selected:
We no longer have any ability to assist with any European accounts that have not already been migrated. We have no access to the data, characters or previous payment information. We apologize, but we are no longer able to assist you with any part of the transition process.
If you believe that the account has already been migrated and need additional assistance, please reply to this email with as much of the following information as you have:
- Username that you use to log into the game
- First and last name on the account
- Last 4 digits of the credit card on file
- Name of the credit card holder
- The billing address
- The current email address on file
- Your date of birth
- The product key you used to create the account
- The name of at least one character on the account
- The server the character is on
Once we have received this information, we will be happy to try to assist you.
If you need further assistance or have questions or concerns please reply to this email to update your ticket status.
Special Notes:
If you do not reply at all it is assumed that the issue was resolved and no further action will be taken.
If you received this response in error please reply to this email as soon as possible indicating this.
Lastly, when replying to this email please do not modify or change the "subject" line of the reply message.
Thank you,
The Turbine Customer Support Team
Helpful Links: https://myaccount.turbine.com | http://support.turbine.com
Turbine, powered by our fans.
Two screenshots were attached to this reply, clearly showing the account status as paid and subscription as unlimited.
Originally Posted by
My reply
Hi,
In order to assist you to correctly upgrade my LOTRO account and restore its VIP lifetime subscription I have included screenshots from the Codemasters Accounting page that are still available to me.
- Username that you use to log into the game USERNAME GIVEN
- First and last name on the account My name and Surname
- Last 4 digits of the credit card on file No longer in use
- Name of the credit card holder Given
- The billing address Given
- The current email address on file My gaming email addy
- Your date of birth given
- The product key you used to create the account product code from my box
- The name of at least one character on the account Char
- The server the character is on Snowbourne
Many thanks for your assistance in this regard
ME
Then I got this.
Originally Posted by
Turbine support
Greetings player,
Thank you for your inquiry. We have located your character, and it appears to be on an account which has not been migrated.
We apologize, but we are no longer able to assist you with any part of the migration process. We no longer have any ability to assist with any former European accounts, characters, or information and no longer have access to the non-migrated accounts or previous payment information.
In accordance to EU privacy laws, when Turbine took over operations for LOTRO EU on June 1, 2011, you had to directly choose to share your information with us. In order to access any part of your European account, you had to migrate your LOTRO subscription from Codemasters to the Turbine Global Service. Communication was sent by both Codemasters and, when available to us, Turbine to the email address on your Codemasters account. There were also announcements on both websites and forums. The process was available from 5/31/2011 until 11/9/2011 for all players with LOTRO accounts with Codemasters, and all players were subject to the same limitations and time deadlines. Please note that banned accounts were not eligible for transfer.
Again, we apologize, but we are unable to assist with recovering any characters or subscriptions on any accounts that were not migrated.
If you have any questions about your Turbine account, or if you would like a key to add a new Turbine LOTRO subscription to your existing username, please respond to this email and we are happy to assist.
Thank you
Turbine Customer Support Team
Turbine, powered by our fans.
To which I sent this
Originally Posted by
My reply
Hi,
Thank you for answering my enquiry. Unfortunately I did not see any of your emails since I did not access this gmail account which is used exclusively for gaming related email. This past year has been challenging for my business and I had to concentrate on overcoming those challenges. I did not play games and I did not access this email account. Fortunately I have overcome the challenges that faced me and I now find myself in a position that I would like to continue playing LOTRO with my friends in Bearers of Light on the Shadowbourne server. While I do apologise for not meeting your deadline regarding the character migration I do have very real reasons why I was not aware of this process.
I am not worried about the character themselves and it will not worry me to start again, however your apparent unwillingness to honor the obligations regarding my lifetime subscription is very concerning. I can access the COG accounting system still and I can see that the account is showing as a VIP account. (I have included the screenshots that I took again) I cannot see any reason why you should not action this same VIP status on the TURBINE account that I have created. (Acc name) The information is available, you have not gone out of business and I am here communicating to you so the privacy laws are of no matter.
Please can you assist me in this, I and my friends would very much appreciate it.
Regards
Here is where it gets interesting.
Originally Posted by
Turbine support
Greetings player,
Thank you for your response. As mentioned in the previous email, we do longer have access to any information about your account or the access that it received. While you are still able to see information on your Codemasters account, we cannot access that information as the migration process has ended.
Again, we do apologize but we cannot assist you with this issue.
Please note that any further responses regarding the migration process or your Codemasters account will not receive a response.
Thank You,
Turbine Customer Support
Turbine, powered by our fans.
So I sent them this.
Originally Posted by
My reply
Hi Turbine Customer Support,
You may choose not to reply to this email. However, I do not accept your excuse that you cannot access my account details. The logo for Turbine appears on the box that I purchased and the copyright use of LOTRO is by Turbine. That Codemasters held the account is not material. I have provided screenshots clearly showing the status of the account that anyone who can read will be able to see that the account is VIP and subcription status is unlimited. You can also see the $150.00 payment made on 21/06/10. What you are doing amounts to theft. You sold me a lifetime subscription and now by "migrating" my account you are attempting to sidestep your obligations in this regard. Now you hope that by ignoring me this will go away.
I am not in the habit of threatening people so please do not see this as a threat, see it as a consequence. I will be making this correspondence with yourselves public on several gaming forums of which I am a member. I feel obliged to alert other gamers not to fall for your "lifetime" subscription offers. I am a reasonable person and I feel that I have given you every opportunity to correct the situation. I believe that given the information available to you, you are able but unwilling to do the right thing and honour your commitments.
It is a competitive environment out there and I find it amazing that you feel that you are in a position to throw away members of the community playing LOTRO. By way of contrast I happened to have an issue with my WoW account which I havent played for 2 years (I was playing LOTRO and not playing at all while I sorted my life out). Apparently my WoW account was hacked and an attempt was made to use it for gold selling. Blizzard banned the account. I wrote to them explaining the situation and in 24 hours they replied to me apologising for the inconvenience and reinstating the account.
Anyway I will go and play WoW, GW2 when it comes out, Star Wars:The Old Republic.
You folks keep right on cruising, I dont expect it will be for long with your attitude.
Regards
So thats the LOTRO saga.
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