MMOG customer service is getting better, right? Almost across the board, the experience of getting help inside your favorite gameworld is getting less onerous.

Well …

Herein lies the tale of one man in uniform who just wanted to get his Hero on while he was abroad, and has been given the run around for going on three months. I’ve done what I can to help without going public with this, and it’s gotten him nowhere. Soo … I hope this informs and entertains.

Back in July I got this email from a gent who I’ll call Mil:

Hello,

I am a contractor for the US Military working overseas. I had been a CoH/CoV player for a little over 9 months, when my last contract ended and I had to move. Well, after I moved, I proceeded to try to reactivate my CoH/CoV account and my EQ accounts. Had no problem at all with the EQ accounts, but for some reason, the CoH/CoV account wouldn’t accept my CC info, so I sent in a question to their customer support. I have pasted the support dialog at the end of this email. I really loved the part where they suggested I give my CC info to someone stateside to reactivate my account with.

Customer (Mil)     06/23/2007 08:52 AM
Your system isn’t accepting my credit card to reactivate my primary account, despite the fact that it was successfully billing for my second account until a week or so ago when I cancelled the second account.

Response 06/24/2007 03:16 PM
Hello,

Thank you for providing that information.Our billing system will no longer accept credit card transactions using a credit card that is foreign to the country in which you are currently located. To resolve this issue, you will need to use a credit card issued in the country of your current location.

Customer (Mil)     06/25/2007 04:12 AM
I am a contractor for the United States Army, currently under SOFA status in South Korea. For the past 4 years, I was in Okinawa, Japan as a contractor, under SOFA, for the United States Marine Corps. I *cannot* obtain a credit card issued in whatever country I currently happen to be residing in, as my only legal status in the country is SOFA. I haven’t had any problems using my Visa with anyone except you.

So, basically what you’re telling me is that you do not wish to do business with the DoD, US State Dept, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force personnel that serve their country overseas or any of the Civilian/Contractor personnel that support them?

Response 06/25/2007 09:31 AM
Hello,

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, our billing system can not accept card transactions using a credit card that is foreign to the country in which you are currently located. However, if you have a trusted friend or family member living in the United States it is possible to have them submit the transaction for you, which should resolve the issue.

Please let us know if you have further questions regarding this matter.

As I’m sure you’ll agree, this isn’t really a great resolution to the matter, so I took the issue up with the folks at NCSoft. I passed on the full email, and tried to facilitate a dialogue between the frustrated player and the company. Unfortunately, despite numerous discussions over the last few months … we’re basically still right here three months later.

I’m sure you know the reason why the CS response was as it was - corporate policy and vested interests. The reality of modern MMOGs is that fraud is rife. People buy and sell accounts and in-game currency with stolen credit cards all the time, using it as a way to launder their pilfered credit.

That the company has to protect itself from such swindlers is not a question. The issue is that sweeping policies like this have no room for situations like Mil’s. In talking to Mil since this, he’s moved on to other games, other worlds. Because … can’t really wear the cape if you don’t pay the monthly, right?

I actually spoke face to face with a company representative about this back in August, and despite the impression I received that they really do care about individual customers … they’re being forced to make hard choices.

So where do stories like this leave us? Mil’s gone three months without any heroing, and it doesn’t look like he’ll get his cape back any time soon. Gamers in general are snared and snagged by the spiky annoyances of corporate policies, and even more directly by the farmers,  traders, and RMT specialists that stand in front of our proverbial starports spamming their URLs and ‘deals’ on credits, gold, gil, platinum … if you’re buying (and you are), they’re selling.

While at this point I think myself and Mil don’t hold out hope for his case, mayhap it would be worthwhile for corporate representatives to consider the occasional loophole? We all go to South Korea, or get caught up in a natural disaster, or experience a jarring personal tragedy once or twice in our lives, right?