EA Ends Phone Support for Ultima Online - Last Straw

[Ancient Sosarian]

As happens routinely since the New Account Management System was forced upon us a couple years ago, I received an Mythic Entertainment email from Bioware Mythic telling me one of my Account Subscriptions was ended due to a declined Credit Card. The card was not declined as confirmed by my financial institution. I tried to reactivate the closed Account using the Bioware | Mythic Account Management web page; ERROR attempting the payment process. Again, nothing new here. This happens to my Accounts routinely and is ONLY EVER corrected over the phone at 866-543-5435. I called that number this morning and spoke with Kyle. Kyle informed me that recent changes by EA had ended ALL phone support for Ultima Online and only email and internet based support now exists for Ultima Online. I asked to speak to a Supervisor and Rich confirmed what I was told by Kyle.

So, the Official word from EA is no more phone support for Ultima Online and its Customers ... EVEN for Billing issues resulting in closed Accounts.

So Merry Christmas from EA folks. If their system screws up and closes your Account ... To BAD! ThEAy just make it EAsier and EAsier to close Accounts and nEAr impossible to keep thEAm open.

 

[DevilsOwn]

and we don't have a 'this sucks' button

it's not just the no support that stinks, will Kyle gonna be out of a job now?

 

[Gameboy]

That is a shame. I've called support a couple times for some issues and they have been very helpful. I'd be cool with it if they offer chat support or something like that though. Lately phone support has been bad. I called Direct TV for phone support and it was a nightmare.

 

[MalagAste]

No it's been this way for about a year now. And YES it sucks... But we are probably too few to make them fix it. Really rather peeves me since I've had situations where my friends have tried to get support but their internet brousers would NOT load the pop up thing to get customer service... and Me being unable to drive to Ohio and look at his screen to figure out just WTF is up with his computer I tried the only option left me..... "I" went to the website lodged my complaint and had them call me at which point I told them that they need to call HIM.... because their service sucked and he couldn't reactivate his account. Took me quite awhile to get this all worked out but they did call him.... only they couldn't understand what he was telling them and they didn't update his CC on his account.... so we were back to square one at which point I said you know what forget it..... just buy a stinking game code and use that. The whole system in my opinion is designed to tick us off and make us WANT to quit.

It's my opinion that corporate EA considers UO to be the ugly stepsister and shoves us under the carpet.... now they may play all nice with the DEV's but when it comes to the actual PLAYERS of UO they haven't got clue one about what we want or need and quite frankly they don't care. We don't make enough money for EA for them to care about us and if they did care about us they would probably micromanage UO into oblivion anyway... They haven't had any clue about UO for years that's been obvious when they forced the team to release High Seas before it was even playable. How EA got to be such a large company when they treat their customers like crap is beyond me. Anytime you call and ask them anything they act like you are trying to steal stuff from them... You are presumed to be a scammer and cheat before you even open your mouth. Whatever happened to your account to get it shut off or need assistance is more than likely due to the fact that YOU did something stupid and now want to cheat them somehow because it CAN'T be anything they might have done.... You had to be cheating and using some 3rd party hack or something... This is how they have always treated UO players. Doubt it will ever change. But like I said UO doesn't make enough money for them to care one way or another about whether or not you get your account up and running. Infact I always think they would prefer you didn't so they can justify closing UO down.

 

[Crysta]

High Seas wasn't playable when it was released? That's news to me.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Kinda makes me wish 100 of us players could all hit the lottery and buy UO back from them :/ I mean heck, they couldn't want THAT much for it with how they treat it as the red headed step child of the family....

 

[cazador]

Very bad Christmas news major companies cut the small guys first ad this is EAs attempt to cut a bit of corners pretty low to treat a community that has forked over millions of dollars in the last 15 years.. Hope everyone takes what we have left and enjoys it.. I wonder if we all petition EA it would do any good..god I wish RG would step up and fork over some of his millions and bring this game back to life..my Christmas wish maybe let's all mass email RG!!

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

you got an alert in your task bar!

 

[Podolak]

Not to say I am happy with every decision EA has made but I have actually had really good luck with the e-mail option. You don't get on the spot help but usually within 24 hours your problem is resolved and by someone who understands what Ultima On-line is.

 

[Mapper]

Not to say I am happy with every decision EA has made but I have actually had really good luck with the e-mail option. You don't get on the spot help but usually within 24 hours your problem is resolved and by someone who understands what Ultima On-line is.

That's been my experience, It was very fast and very helpful. I haven't personally had phone support in the UK for years as I can't afford the international calls.

 

[LordDrago]

Not to say I am happy with every decision EA has made but I have actually had really good luck with the e-mail option. You don't get on the spot help but usually within 24 hours your problem is resolved and by someone who understands what Ultima On-line is.

ditto.

 

[Obsidian]

I had to change the email address for my Master EA Account. The email support method worked quickly and efficiently. I found it far easier than waiting on hold on a phone line waiting for a customer support agent.

 

[Promathia]

Why is this news? Its been like this for over a year

 

[Lord Frodo]

Why is this news? Its been like this for over a year

Because maybe not everybody knows this as in the OP. Was there something posted on UO about this that everybody missed?

 

[Mr. Smither1]

I have had no problem getting phone support in the last year I sometimes had to call 2 or 3 times to get someone who could help. You must have been calling a different phone number than I was.

 

[Lady Storm]

May I offer a bit of advice?
I just had to clear up a CC mess created by turning on alot of accounts did months ago. Seems EA/Mythic systems red flagged my CC's all of them on many of my accounts and then double backed to my bank card putting it on the banks suspecious activity alert system..... I thought I had cleared it up... but found out i had only cleaned up a 1/2. Thank goodness I keep spredsheets and my fingers on my billing. Turns out if you activate more then one account in any one go your card gets flagged... or if you try the system more then 3 times if you errored you get locked out and get the dreded error page and sends you back to the start...
This time I found out some juicy info from our friends at the EA #.
Officially they do not have at their disposal the tool to access our accounts.
This was done to stop "fishing expaditions" for hackers who were quite handy at it.
Honestly in a way its our fault...
We yelled so loud we got the action we asked for. Its stopped the call center from accessing our account info so the snippets of info the fishers were getting per call stoped dead in its tracks. (each call didnt go to the same call center person sooooo they were able in a few calls to get enough info to peice together many accounts info to get passwords changed or e mailed directly to them.) To quote Martha Stewart It was a good thing.

Ok enough chatter of that.. on to the real info to help you out.
On the origin web page open a claim... keep that claim # handy and use the contact us and as in a post a few up hit hte call me option.
First: BE POLITE!!!! when you get the call. (honey gets you places)

Second : Ask for a supervisor only if the CS cant lift the hold, dont belittle the CS worker you get if he gets a tad fussy. He/She will tell you they dont deal with UO. Stay calm. Politely ask for the supervisor.

Third: Once you have the suprvisor, explain that your account to Origin (I stress this strongly SAY: Origin not UO) will not take your credit card. You get error messages. If your savy in patience and stay cool they will look into this. And if your very good at explaining in clean english they "can send you to the next teir to talk to a Origin expert.
Whats happened is your card is suspended from the system and you need it "Whited" this lifts all holds on the card.

Explain exactly, no bad language, dont get upset, keep your cool. No matter if you go through the web page or call CS at he 800 # Do as above.

I understand your upset and wish to blow off at the person you feel has made you angry. But dont. If you have trouble keeping calm perhaps a mate or parent could assist you in the call. Keeping your head is the best weapon you got in this.
I agree with all the postes here I dislike this billing system for multi reasons... But we have no choice.. Our best option is perhaps talking to Mesanna about getting a few changes done. Not only with UO billing but the Origin store as well. One of the biggest reasons a CC gets red flagged is multi uses on the site. With only being able to buy 1 item at a time many of us have opted to buy many times in one sitting..... there is the rub. I dont know about you but when I shop I dont buy my grocerys 1 item at a time.... Origin needs to adapt that we do need that option. It would stop alot of hell on us.
Keep smiling kiddos

 

[Lady Storm]

When I had trouble a few months back I had to go buy time cards from the Origin store... I got 3 of them bought before I got a message there was trouble with the CC.... Lets just say I was not happy when I got a notification from my bank 20 minutes later that my card was frozen for suspicious use!
EA did it!
I went in circles with EA trying to clear it up I ended up with my bank and EA talking to eachother ... but it looks like it didnt all get cleared up for all of my accounts and CC's This time I went about it differently and had them clean up the cards then the accounts they were stuck from. It worked! They will White the cc's. Which means clear off the holds on all the cards you use.
They will want the last 4 of them to be sure they have them all. After that you should be fine.
Till you forget and charge too many at once...

Like I said we all need to sit down with Mesanna and talk rationaly about the billing system and the Origin store.
There needs to be a better way to get what we want and not make too much trouble for ether side.
Origin store : need to be able to purchase in 1 go round what is wanted and get 1 charge to the CC.
Billing needs a bit more info and the same thing as the Origin Store with multi account billing.

 

[SixUnder]

As happens routinely since the New Account Management System was forced upon us a couple years ago, I received an Mythic Entertainment email from Bioware Mythic telling me one of my Account Subscriptions was ended due to a declined Credit Card. The card was not declined as confirmed by my financial institution. I tried to reactivate the closed Account using the Bioware | Mythic Account Management web page; ERROR attempting the payment process. Again, nothing new here. This happens to my Accounts routinely and is ONLY EVER corrected over the phone at 866-543-5435. I called that number this morning and spoke with Kyle. Kyle informed me that recent changes by EA had ended ALL phone support for Ultima Online and only email and internet based support now exists for Ultima Online. I asked to speak to a Supervisor and Rich confirmed what I was told by Kyle.

So, the Official word from EA is no more phone support for Ultima Online and its Customers ... EVEN for Billing issues resulting in closed Accounts.

So Merry Christmas from EA folks. If their system screws up and closes your Account ... To BAD! ThEAy just make it EAsier and EAsier to close Accounts and nEAr impossible to keep thEAm open.

doesn't suprise me, when are they are ever there for support? all we seem to do is pay for no help. least that is the way i see it.

 

[MalagAste]

You know what is REALLY sad? That this sort of thread pops up at LEAST once a month, yet NOTHING changes at EA. Since this new stupid system was put into place I'm going to say that at least 20% of the population has quit in frustration after watching their accounts freeze and not be able to get them reactivated before they lost everything.... or some jerk-off called EA and hijacked their account.

Now we are forced to play games on the website and waste 2 hours jacking around before finally being able to reach a real person to resolve an issue that we honestly shouldn't be having in the first place.

As far as the billing BS goes my bank decided that "Things associated with gaming and accounts is too risking and full of fraud so they aren't going to allow it anymore". That's the BS they told me when I tried to pay for my accounts awhile back..... Kept wondering why I had money in my account but was getting denied on my CC. I was like WTF!?!?! So I called them. You can bet I gave them a BIG piece of my mind..... I told them "Listen here you SOB I been playing and paying for my EA accounts using your stinking card for the last 12 GD years and I'll be damned if you are going to tell me I can't play my Game.... You either let those charges thru or I'm finding me a new bank.".... They called me within a week and apologized telling me that I shouldn't have any more problems. I was like "Best not be because I wasn't kidding about getting a new bank." I did find a way around that though as you can still buy game-time codes which I thought was completely stupid... And that wasn't EA's fault really. I always get billed at least 2x in the month for my EA accounts. But at the time my billing was all dorked up by the whole change system messing up my payment schedule...

But my point is that something needs done to fix customer support. Not sure what it would take though... besides a massive boycott of EA. Honestly they have NEVER cared at all about their players and they have one of the worst reputations of all the gaming companies.


Oh and Tina Small, thank you for posting that. However I'll say this most of those I have tried to talk thru that process can't get logged in there. Some I don't know why don't get the pop up thing to log in, even though they have pop-ups turned off for that site. I tried talking a few folk thru that and most of them can't get past the log in.

 

[Zynia]

and we don't have a 'this sucks' button

it's not just the no support that stinks, will Kyle gonna be out of a job now?

"Kyle" from "Texas" is probably helping the Sims2, blah blah blah, or press 4 for blah blah so I'm sure he won't be out of a job...

I swore at them horribly once because one person kept telling me one thing, and another kept telling me it was wrong or false information. I deal with tele-sales-help-line people everyday with Sprint, if you hang up you'll get another person. Just keep calling in until you get another.

In the past year since I've came back, I've only had one helpful customer service rep over the phone for EA, I wish I had time to talk to him longer, he seemed to actually know what he was doing.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Another account management rant/thread?

EA/Mythic account management has sucked since they switched it over 2 years ago. Get over it!

I have also had falsely declined credit cards and general account management headaches. It sucks but I have always been able to resolve it and keep playing.

No personal offense to the OP here but why do so many people get so uptight and righteous about the non-playing issues of an internet based game?
So many people have this crazy sense of entitlement because they are paying $13 a month. Pretty sure you get everything TOS says you should get for your $13 a month. Dont think TOS promises or guarantees any specific phone support.

It's an ONLINE game folks. It's not 911. It's not your mortgage or utility company.

If the OP is correct I'm thinking that alot of the people that spent time here over the years whining about phone support will be wishing they had that old phone support back now lol. Kinda ironic.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Another account management rant/thread?

EA/Mythic account management has sucked since they switched it over 2 years ago. Get over it!

I have also had falsely declined credit cards and general account management headaches. It sucks but I have always been able to resolve it and keep playing.

No personal offense to the OP here but why do so many people get so uptight and righteous about the non-playing issues of an internet based game?
So many people have this crazy sense of entitlement because they are paying $13 a month. Pretty sure you get everything TOS says you should get for your $13 a month. Dont think TOS promises or guarantees any specific phone support.

It's an ONLINE game folks. It's not 911. It's not your mortgage or utility company.

If the OP is correct I'm thinking that alot of the people that spent time here over the years whining about phone support will be wishing they had that old phone support back now lol. Kinda ironic.

Well when you can't pay your UO sub it becomes a BIG non-playing issue. How are you suppose to play when they wont let you pay and then tell you there is no support for this?

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Well when you can't pay your UO sub it becomes a BIG non-playing issue. How are you suppose to play when they wont let you pay and then tell you there is no support for this?

Sorry bud but from my own personal experience I know that you can always get an account active if you are patient and use your brains.

Too many people come here and flip out before they take the time to figure it out for themselves.

It shouldnt be such a pain in the ass sometimes but it is what it is.

Deal with it or whine

 

[Gameboy]

I know I had trouble at first then one day I logged into my account and there is was. I did call EA but didn't see my account at that time. It was some time later I saw it. Then they had it active for a LONG time, like a promotion or something. It was about a month or so after that I came back.

 

[MalagAste]

Sorry bud but from my own personal experience I know that you can always get an account active if you are patient and use your brains.

Too many people come here and flip out before they take the time to figure it out for themselves.

It shouldnt be such a pain in the ass sometimes but it is what it is.

Deal with it or whine

Here is the rub though..... WE shouldn't Have to! It should NOT be this freaking difficult. OK it's not helping to keep players here nor is it helping to bring players back when it's a nightmare to try to get thru the account management..... What really do you think is the number of folk who have quit or have given up while trying to get an account reactivated??? 200? 2000??? Who's to say.... but I'm pretty sure it might be a fairly large number. Think on that.

And if no one does anything to tell them their system sucks then what good is that doing? Lets face it the system SUCKS. It's extremely user unfriendly... and needs to be fixed.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Sorry bud but from my own personal experience I know that you can always get an account active if you are patient and use your brains.

Too many people come here and flip out before they take the time to figure it out for themselves.

It shouldnt be such a pain in the ass sometimes but it is what it is.

Deal with it or whine

Well if you are such a BIG BRAIN why didn't you give advice and not BS.

 

[Leeda]

May I offer a bit of advice?
I just had to clear up a CC mess created by turning on alot of accounts did months ago. Seems EA/Mythic systems red flagged my CC's all of them on many of my accounts and then double backed to my bank card putting it on the banks suspecious activity alert system..... I thought I had cleared it up... but found out i had only cleaned up a 1/2. Thank goodness I keep spredsheets and my fingers on my billing. Turns out if you activate more then one account in any one go your card gets flagged... or if you try the system more then 3 times if you errored you get locked out and get the dreded error page and sends you back to the start...
This time I found out some juicy info from our friends at the EA #.
Officially they do not have at their disposal the tool to access our accounts.
This was done to stop "fishing expaditions" for hackers who were quite handy at it.
Honestly in a way its our fault...
We yelled so loud we got the action we asked for. Its stopped the call center from accessing our account info so the snippets of info the fishers were getting per call stoped dead in its tracks. (each call didnt go to the same call center person sooooo they were able in a few calls to get enough info to peice together many accounts info to get passwords changed or e mailed directly to them.) To quote Martha Stewart It was a good thing.

Ok enough chatter of that.. on to the real info to help you out.
On the origin web page open a claim... keep that claim # handy and use the contact us and as in a post a few up hit hte call me option.
First: BE POLITE!!!! when you get the call. (honey gets you places)

Second : Ask for a supervisor only if the CS cant lift the hold, dont belittle the CS worker you get if he gets a tad fussy. He/She will tell you they dont deal with UO. Stay calm. Politely ask for the supervisor.

Third: Once you have the suprvisor, explain that your account to Origin (I stress this strongly SAY: Origin not UO) will not take your credit card. You get error messages. If your savy in patience and stay cool they will look into this. And if your very good at explaining in clean english they "can send you to the next teir to talk to a Origin expert.
Whats happened is your card is suspended from the system and you need it "Whited" this lifts all holds on the card.

Explain exactly, no bad language, dont get upset, keep your cool. No matter if you go through the web page or call CS at he 800 # Do as above.

I understand your upset and wish to blow off at the person you feel has made you angry. But dont. If you have trouble keeping calm perhaps a mate or parent could assist you in the call. Keeping your head is the best weapon you got in this.
I agree with all the postes here I dislike this billing system for multi reasons... But we have no choice.. Our best option is perhaps talking to Mesanna about getting a few changes done. Not only with UO billing but the Origin store as well. One of the biggest reasons a CC gets red flagged is multi uses on the site. With only being able to buy 1 item at a time many of us have opted to buy many times in one sitting..... there is the rub. I dont know about you but when I shop I dont buy my grocerys 1 item at a time.... Origin needs to adapt that we do need that option. It would stop alot of hell on us.
Keep smiling kiddos