what people getting real refunds are saying...

dleezphone

D3: Do it and we'll remove you!
Customer: Do it then, I got my money, **** you!

Funny how that works

Unknown

Pretty sure the people getting refunds couldn't care less if D3 bans them. We're over this game.

Tannen

"Real refunds"? No, you're committing credit-card fraud. The fact that you feel justified doing it makes it much, much worse, because you'll actively work to convince people that it's okay to do. Momentary anger does not give you the right to defraud others.

You spent your money, you got your hps. That's where the buck stops. Literally. You can't claim that your money was spent on something that changed. You ponied up for hp, D3 gave you hp. You can spend that HP on many items in game. They don't know what you plan on buying with it. If you feel remorse about how you spent those hps, that's still not an excuse to be an ****. Many people have felt buyer's remorse before, and will feel it again in the future. More importantly you cannot use buyer's remorse as an excuse to keep the items that you bought and just reverse the charges on your credit card. That, by definition, is fraud.

The morally bankrupt that get a 'refund' and then continue playing the game deserve to be banned. All of them. No exceptions. If you get a 'refund' via a third party you've pretty much stated that you don't want to work with D3 at all, so don't try to cry foul if they ban you. I wouldn't blink an eye if someone did, eventually, pursue everyone that did it for credit card fraud -- because that's what you're doing, and someone (ironically, it's not D3, because they can probably claim these fraudulent claim-backs on insurance) is actually out of pocket over your reversed charges -- but that will probably end up being whichever company is funding your rage-inspired crimes.

As a side note, I must admit that I find it interesting that most people on the forums will exclaim loudly that people shouldn't cheat on the game, but are more than willing to tell them how to steal money in real life. Why not just post how to get infinite hp on the forums? Doing that'll get you sand-boxed as well, but no-one will claim that you have the moral high ground. As a side note, that infinite-hp-post will also be removed by the forum mods, because leaving it up would implicitly tell new forum-goers that they don't mind if you do it.

In summary: stop exclaiming that you're getting "real refunds". You're not. You're fraudulently obtaining money from someone (an insurance company, somewhere, hates you, I have no doubt) with false claims and should potentially face criminal charges.

Cheers.

Unknown

I remember reading about this five years ago and companies used to trust people and give refunds but then people just took advantage of it. That said, part of the problem is that whoever implements the virtual currency doesn't do a good job of record keeping. I remember one time I was buying some online currency from SOE and their website was unresponsive so I did the very smart thing of refreshing the page five times and immediately my credit card company called because they think there was a fraud. Now since the site was so broken I never got anything of course I told them to chargeback the money because I got nothing out of it, but what if I did? The credit card company certainly didn't care whether I got anything or not out of those 5 transactions. So SOE can rollback my account, but what if it's too much work? What if I then took some of that currency and bought some gamble pack and got some OMG rare out of it? What if the game in particular doesn't even allow things to be rolled back? Or what if SOE banned me for charging back my credit card when they delivered absolutely nothing? I don't support people commiting the equivalent of fraud but it's a legitmate issue and there should be a system in place to address it. The original version of this 'fraud' would be 'my friend/son/whatever started buying stuff like crazy while I was away', and remember, this can be true! So there should be a way to gracefully deal with situations like this without either treating everyone like a liar or losing a lot of money. I like the proposal of having a money back guaranteed akin to real life, e.g. within 30 days or whatever after the time of purchase no question asked and too bad after that, but I'm not sure if most games even have a system to handle this kind of request even if they wanted to.

Vankysher

Tannen wrote:

You spent your money, you got your hps.

Digital currency for IAP is a tool in order to psychologically influence a customer from disassociating the "true cost" of their IAP.

While I don't think there is much existing case law (and I'm being lazy about doing a web search at the moment), the mere fact that you're "purchasing" a virtual currency makes it a legally tricky thing for them to make the argument that HP is the product/service being offered since the in-game economy revolves around HP and ISO which are all tied to the characters for customers to collect for use in-game. I would think companies engaged in this business model are very reluctant to want to have this tested in court.

ronin_san

Tokens in an arcade, man. There's no asking for a manager here.

snlf25

Who's gonna go after the people who lawfully request refunds and then are given them by Apple or Google? A request is made, due to customer dissatisfaction that they receive a refund. The entity holding the purse strings then CHOOSES to refund the money or not. Nobody here is claiming their kid did it or any such ****. So the idea that they are committing fraud is laughable. No attorney would touch it and even if they did it would get laughed out of court.

If D3 doesn't want to get debited out of existence, (hold onto your hats, this is going to sound crazy) maybe they should stop pissing off customers. You give bad service bad things happen. The Customer is the arbiter of quality of service. And no, you do not spend money to acquire iso or HP, which then denies you protection. As iso and hp are the currencies of the game you are not BUYING anything - you are converting currency. Which many people feel they were defrauded out of through bait and switch tactics. And even if D3 had a leg to stand on just how much money do you think it would cost to try to serve individual lawsuits on every customer who requested and received (legally) a refund? Total non-starter. Their only recourse is to ban accounts which none of these folks seem to care about. Passionate people who used to love this game and express that with their wallets.

And in my opinion, the fact that they left previous versions of product on sale that they KNOW they have scheduled to be changed can be argued as a bait n switch, especially with the lousy procedure they have of deciding, scheduling, having an hp sale, waiting a week or two while fat stacks roll in, announcing here that changes are coming, waiting a couple more weeks before making an in game announcement while people ignorant of the coming changes keep buying product they don't know is about to be devalued, then announcing in game when it's too late for so many people who had purchased a product in good faith believing it would have a certain value to them. It's like buying a Rolls and taking it home, then in the dead of the night the dealer tows it away and leaves a Gremlin in your driveway for the "fun" and "balance" of your driving experience. You can see why some people might be upset.

wirius

Tannen wrote:

"Real refunds"? No, you're committing credit-card fraud. The fact that you feel justified doing it makes it much, much worse, because you'll actively work to convince people that it's okay to do. Momentary anger does not give you the right to defraud others.

You spent your money, you got your hps. That's where the buck stops. Literally. You can't claim that your money was spent on something that changed. You ponied up for hp, D3 gave you hp. You can spend that HP on many items in game. They don't know what you plan on buying with it. If you feel remorse about how you spent those hps, that's still not an excuse to be an ****. Many people have felt buyer's remorse before, and will feel it again in the future. More importantly you cannot use buyer's remorse as an excuse to keep the items that you bought and just reverse the charges on your credit card. That, by definition, is fraud.

The morally bankrupt that get a 'refund' and then continue playing the game deserve to be banned. All of them. No exceptions. If you get a 'refund' via a third party you've pretty much stated that you don't want to work with D3 at all, so don't try to cry foul if they ban you. I wouldn't blink an eye if someone did, eventually, pursue everyone that did it for credit card fraud -- because that's what you're doing, and someone (ironically, it's not D3, because they can probably claim these fraudulent claim-backs on insurance) is actually out of pocket over your reversed charges -- but that will probably end up being whichever company is funding your rage-inspired crimes.

As a side note, I must admit that I find it interesting that most people on the forums will exclaim loudly that people shouldn't cheat on the game, but are more than willing to tell them how to steal money in real life. Why not just post how to get infinite hp on the forums? Doing that'll get you sand-boxed as well, but no-one will claim that you have the moral high ground. As a side note, that infinite-hp-post will also be removed by the forum mods, because leaving it up would implicitly tell new forum-goers that they don't mind if you do it.

In summary: stop exclaiming that you're getting "real refunds". You're not. You're fraudulently obtaining money from someone (an insurance company, somewhere, hates you, I have no doubt) with false claims and should potentially face criminal charges.

Cheers.

Some adult sane sense. You get all of my upvotes.

GothicKratos

snlf25 wrote:

Nobody here is claiming their kid did it or any such tinykitty. So the idea that they are committing fraud is laughable. No attorney would touch it and even if they did it would get laughed out of court.

If anything is laughable, it's your logic. You're committing fraud. Point blank. It's like arguing that piracy isn't theft. It is and you know it is, but you'd never admit it out loud because that would make you "a bad person". You are absolutely breaking the law, not only by committing fraud against them, but by accusing them of fraud when no such act happened.

Here's how it goes; you buy /x/ Hero Points for /y/ real money currency, you get /x/ Hero Points, then you proceed to make a choice over several available options on which to spend your Hero Points on. Something changes, as it inevitably does, you decide it's your time of the month, and you make an exclamatory remark. It doesn't matter if you bought the Hero Points with the intent to get an X-Force cover. You didn't pay for an X-Force cover. It's like going into an arcade, buying tokens, spending them, and then complaining to the manager that you didn't like the outcome of your spending so you demand a refund!

Your argument of "it'd never make it to court" is because of how much of a slippery slope it is (because it's digital currency). It has nothing to do with the moral ambiguity of what you're doing - everything to do with resources and time versus outcome and worth.

You're basically complaining because you bought a Transformer toy and after a few months of play it doesn't quite work the same way it used to. It being a "digital good" doesn't exempt it from wear and tear (granted it is not the same kind of wear and tear) or devaluation over time (because all goods fluctuate in price over time).

Personally, I don't care if you want to break the law. You do you boo boo, but I do care that you're flamboyantly trying to hide the fact that you're breaking the law, and furthermore persuading others that they are in fact not breaking the law. If you wanna pirate the newest episode of Game of Thrones, go for it. Yeah, you probably won't get caught, and yeah, even if you do, you'll probably just get a C&D notice, but there's real danger of being persecuted for it if someone decides they want to make an example out of you. Same goes here. You can commit fraud, and yeah, you probably won't get anything at all - to be honest, they probably won't even ban you - but that chance is there.

Furthermore, the argument that "oh well, they gave us our refunds, so we much be right" is absolute horse tinykitty. They'd give you a refund if you sneezed on your screen. It's in their best interest to just throw you the refund and punish the company than to do any real research and find out if something is actually going wrong. See YouTube and DMCA Takedowns. Except, in this case, it's the end-users dogging the system for their benefit...simply because they can.

snlf25

GothicKratos wrote:

snlf25 wrote:

Nobody here is claiming their kid did it or any such tinykitty. So the idea that they are committing fraud is laughable. No attorney would touch it and even if they did it would get laughed out of court.

If anything is laughable, it's your logic. You're committing fraud. Point blank. It's like arguing that piracy isn't theft. It is and you know it is, but you'd never admit it out loud because that would make you "a bad person". You are absolutely breaking the law, not only by committing fraud against them, but by accusing them of fraud when no such act happened.

Here's how it goes; you buy /x/ Hero Points for /y/ real money currency, you get /x/ Hero Points, then you proceed to make a choice over several available options on which to spend your Hero Points on. Something changes, as it inevitably does, you decide it's your time of the month, and you make an exclamatory remark. It doesn't matter if you bought the Hero Points with the intent to get an X-Force cover. You didn't pay for an X-Force cover. It's like going into an arcade, buying tokens, spending them, and then complaining to the manager that you didn't like the outcome of your spending so you demand a refund!

Your argument of "it'd never make it to court" is because of how much of a slippery slope it is (because it's digital currency). It has nothing to do with the moral ambiguity of what you're doing - everything to do with resources and time versus outcome and worth.

You're basically complaining because you bought a Transformer toy and after a few months of play it doesn't quite work the same way it used to. It being a "digital good" doesn't exempt it from wear and tear (granted it is not the same kind of wear and tear) or devaluation over time (because all goods fluctuate in price over time).

Personally, I don't care if you want to break the law. You do you boo boo, but I do care that you're flamboyantly trying to hide the fact that you're breaking the law, and furthermore persuading others that they are in fact not breaking the law. If you wanna pirate the newest episode of Game of Thrones, go for it. Yeah, you probably won't get caught, and yeah, even if you do, you'll probably just get a C&D notice, but there's real danger of being persecuted for it if someone decides they want to make an example out of you. Same goes here. You can commit fraud, and yeah, you probably won't get anything at all - to be honest, they probably won't even ban you - but that chance is there.

Furthermore, the argument that "oh well, they gave us our refunds, so we much be right" is absolute horse tinykitty. They'd give you a refund if you sneezed on your screen. It's in their best interest to just throw you the refund and punish the company than to do any real research and find out if something is actually going wrong. See YouTube and DMCA Takedowns. Except, in this case, it's the end-users dogging the system for their benefit...simply because they can.

I have NOT made any requests for refunds NOR am I going to so stop with the "what you are doing" stuff. I'm arguing that I understand where they are coming from and that they are not committing fraud. Am I upset about some of the changes? Absolutely. I can only hope they reverse them. When you ASK a company for a refund and you don't lie about your circumstances that is not fraud when you receive a refund. Also, buying a cover is not buying an outcome like dropping quarters in a machine, it is buying a product with real currency by proxy. As far as my argument goes, you think it's okay to leave a product on sale under existing parameters when you have scheduled huge fundamental changes to its value is ok? If you don't think that's a little fraudulent to let that happen for weeks before you make an in-game announcement? You don't think the ethical thing to do would be to immediately remove it from the market once a change has been decided upon until such time as the change has been made? We will have to agree to disagree on that. Thank you also for implying me be a pirate, ARRR! Ye'll be happy to know me copies of Game of Thrones be legally purchased through VUDU with legal tender ye landlubber, and also that those scallywags at HBO have not made any edits to the content after I made me purchase. Yo ho an a bottle of rum.

atomzed

snlf25 wrote:

As far as my argument goes, you think it's okay to leave a product on sale under existing parameters when you have scheduled huge fundamental changes to its value is ok?... We will have to agree to disagree on that.

To me, this is the crux of the issue. There are differing expectations of what a customer is getting through the 'purchase'.

On one hand, there are players who feel that they are purchasing a product. Like a toaster, or a tv, or a car. When they purchased it, they are the owner of the product. And they feel that the company came in the middle of the night, and swap their toaster/tv/ car with an inferior good. With such expectations, it is easy to understand why they feel cheated.

On the other hand, there are players who see the purchase as a right of use. Something like a rental service, where you pay a fee to lease a car. The car company may decide to do modifications to the car interior, and a person who lease the car will be unlikely to be offended. These players understand that online games *have* to go through balancing, and such nerf/buff cycles are part and parcel of the game. Hence, while the cover/equipment/ character has been changed, the use of the character has not changed. His 'right of use' did not change, even though the character has changed.

This 'right of use' is an integral part of an online game.

For example, see this section of EULA in Blizzard games:

Blizzard is the owner or licensee of all right, title, and interest in and to the Battle.net Client, Battle.net, the Games, Accounts, and all of the features and components thereof. Battle.net and the Games may contain materials licensed by third-parties to Blizzard, and these third-parties may enforce their ownership rights against you in the event that you violate this Agreement. The following components of Battle.net and/or the Games, are owned or licensed by Blizzard:
- All virtual content appearing within Battle.net or the Games, such as:
- Visual Components: Locations, artwork, structural or landscape designs, animations, and audio-visual effects;
- Narrations: Themes, concepts, stories, and storylines;
- Characters: The names, likenesses, inventories, and catch phrases of Game characters;
- Items: Virtual goods, currency, potions, wearable items, pets, mounts, etc.

The part in bold clearly indicates that Blizzard is the owner of all the items in the game. All online games will contain such a clause, because if they don't, they will not be able to make changes to the game content, once the game is released. Say Blizzard release a OP equipment, and they realised that it makes a certain class OP. For the better of the game, they will definitely need to tweak it. Such a clause protects Blizzard from being sued... because they are the owner of the in-game content.

This is also why, if Blizzard and D3 decides to close the game server, there is no recourse for the player at all. It has happened before in other games, and it will happen again.

Eddiemon

Tannen wrote:

"Real refunds"? No, you're committing credit-card fraud. The fact that you feel justified doing it makes it much, much worse, because you'll actively work to convince people that it's okay to do. Momentary anger does not give you the right to defraud others.

I'd take a different path to the same end. When you buy HP you are paying for the game. I know, people get into their heads that it is 'free' and that there aren't people providing a service or servers involved or IP costs they pay to Marvel.

This thing that 'I was only paying for X cover' and that D3 owe it to you to provide the game for free for the hours/days/months that you have been playing is the ultimate in narcissism. The HP and covers are a way to pay for the game, they are not in and of themselves an asset with fungible value. And you didn't but the covers as a long term investment in your future, you bought them so you could enjoy playing the game. And unless you bought them in the last couple of weeks, you did use them to that end.

Do you do chargebacks for games you buy on Steam when you finished them or no longer enjoy them? Or a book on Amazon once you have read it? Or any form of entertainment now that it is no longer entertaining you? You are paying for entertainment, you got entertainment, you would still get entertainment in the future, it's not like they shut down the game.

But no, the narcissist didn't get everything their own way so fraud is justified. Yes it is too much hassle to take you to court over the amounts involved or get the police involved. But it is still fraud on your behalf. Hey I bought things and used them to beat other people and feed my childish ego

Tannen

snlf25 wrote:

Who's gonna go after the people who lawfully request refunds and then are given them by Apple or Google? A request is made, due to customer dissatisfaction that they receive a refund. The entity holding the purse strings then CHOOSES to refund the money or not. Nobody here is claiming their kid did it or any such tinykitty. So the idea that they are committing fraud is laughable. No attorney would touch it and even if they did it would get laughed out of court.

Dissatisfaction in a product does not mean you are entitled to a refund. Some businesses _choose_ to give full refunds at any complaint and for them it's probably a good business decision, as it ensures that they're always the "good guy". However, from an external point of view the customer is NOT, always, right. Sometimes (more often lately) the customer appears to be an over-grown child with large lungs and an entitlement complex a mile long.

Apple and Google don't have a clue what you're claiming when you ask for money back. You go trying to explain "HP this, ISO that" and they'll turn off. They do, however, have a nifty claim back function that they hope people will use correctly. If you claim that you've bought something and it's been changed, they don't question you about it. You're their customer, and like a good business they're assuming you're right, even when you're not. It's easier for them to simply offer a refund and try to claim it back later on.

Being able to obtain money back from them in no way makes your 'refund' legitimate.

snlf25 wrote:

If D3 doesn't want to get debited out of existence, (hold onto your hats, this is going to sound crazy) maybe they should stop pissing off customers. You give bad service bad things happen. The Customer is the arbiter of quality of service. And no, you do not spend money to acquire iso or HP, which then denies you protection. As iso and hp are the currencies of the game you are not BUYING anything - you are converting currency. Which many people feel they were defrauded out of through bait and switch tactics. And even if D3 had a leg to stand on just how much money do you think it would cost to try to serve individual lawsuits on every customer who requested and received (legally) a refund? Total non-starter. Their only recourse is to ban accounts which none of these folks seem to care about. Passionate people who used to love this game and express that with their wallets.

And this is literally what I meant by my third sentence. You feel justified that what you're doing is "right", because this decision to nerf has 'hurt' you. You're willing to defend it to the death and try to convince others that you're actually in the right instead of taking a good hard look at yourself and realising that you're committing a felony.

Also, as stated, you're not even going to be hitting D3 in the pockets. That claim-back that you're so proud of? The fight that you're trying to win $50 at a time? If it even hits D3, it will be classified as a fraudulent claim and will be passed onto an insurance company. It will be written off as a loss if it's too low. I hope no-one claimed back thousands of dollars, cos that sort of money may be worth going after, from an insurer's point of view -- and they'll be the ones looking to recoup costs, not D3.

Bait and switch? Take a look at the "big" picture. You're pissed that a character in a mobile-phone game was nerfed and you choose to fraudulently claim money back. Try explaining that to an impartial arbiter who probably has no idea what a "meta-game defining" character is, but will almost certainly know what a fraudulent claim is. The simple fact is that the goods that you bought for actual, real money didn't change. If you stated that it did on your 'refund', you committed fraud.

snlf25 wrote:

And in my opinion, the fact that they left previous versions of product on sale that they KNOW they have scheduled to be changed can be argued as a bait n switch, especially with the lousy procedure they have of deciding, scheduling, having an hp sale, waiting a week or two while fat stacks roll in, announcing here that changes are coming, waiting a couple more weeks before making an in game announcement while people ignorant of the coming changes keep buying product they don't know is about to be devalued, then announcing in game when it's too late for so many people who had purchased a product in good faith believing it would have a certain value to them. It's like buying a Rolls and taking it home, then in the dead of the night the dealer tows it away and leaves a Gremlin in your driveway for the "fun" and "balance" of your driving experience. You can see why some people might be upset.

Why does everyone make car metaphors? And it's wrong to boot. It's more like you bought a ticket to swap for a car. You chose to exchange that ticket for a Tesla model S, fully knowing that the motor went faster than it should due to a bug in the program that made it over-draw energy. It was deemed dangerous to other road users, so the manufacturer pushed out a software update that scaled the power consumption back. You still have your Tesla. It's safer now, but you're complaining because you liked using it in the original, dangerous manner. You still have the car. You're still not entitled to a refund. You feel like you are, because gosh darn, you really LIKED being able to use it the way that you used to. At most, you may be entitled to another ticket to swap for a different car -- ASSUMING THAT YOU RETURN THE ORIGINAL CAR.

Characters in games get nerfed all the time. It's a shame that you spent your hard earned hps on one of the characters that got nerfed this month.

And finally, none of the above is an excuse to defraud anyone of money. You spent the money. At the time you purchased those hps, you wanted to spend it. From that time to the time that the nerf was announced, you were probably very happy that you did spend that money. Since the nerf was announced though, your feelings in the matter have changed. Your self-righteous anger does not entitle you to your money back. If you sat down and actually worked it out with D3, they may be nice and offer you a refund/swap. They don't have to though. You can't even claim that they owe you 100% of what you spent back, as due to the OPness of XFW you've probably won more iso/hp than you should have since you bought those covers.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry that your feelings were hurt. I don't think it's an excuse for this type of behaviour, but I know what you're feeling.

Cheers.

Unknown

The EULA stuff isn't the law, but they're generally not challenged because it is not in the company's interest to make say, World of Warcraft 2 and then immediately shut the whole game down the next day and run off with all the money. It's probably illegal anyway (Blizzard lost a lawsuit in Korea when DIablo 3 was unplayable due to server congestion and people demanded a refund because they can't play their game at all). Usually when things do close down it's more like 'we're losing money running these servers so sorry we got to make a living here', which is unfortunate but quite reasonable.

At any rate I don't think there's something that says it should be illegal if you bought a Stark Salary and spent 10K on Thor (4*) and X Force only because they're overpowered and you expect a refund. But if you want a refund your character would have to be rolled back to the state before you made your purchases since you almost certainly gained additional stuff from those two characters, and based on the Iron Fist refund thread I don't think D3 even has a capability of rolling your roster to what it was say 30 days ago even if both you and D3 are totally fine with this idea. Of course there should be a reasonable timeframe to make these transactions. The bigger problem facing all online games is that it's simply a mess to try to roll people's data back so it's easier to just say 'no refunds no matter what' (which doesn't always work either) just because the alternative is a lot harder. In real life there's a pretty big infrastructure to account for you returning stuff for refund, and in this case it's because of competition since I don't think there's a law that says you've to offer refunds. This means people should try to support games that do offer some kind of refund, which MPQ does with their new policy that is considerably better than the usual 'we reserve the right to make changes anytime and too bad for you', as in this case you can at least get your money back some of the time (30 days within a new character release). I recall Guild Wars 2 let you refund the whole game within a certain period of time with no question asked but I never heard much more about the game. If this stuff turns out to be a deciding factor then other games will copy it, but I'm guessing right now people don't really pay attention to these things. I sure didn't know about that option until the period to refund the game has expired, and sure the directions are buried in a tiny print somewhere but it's not something you couldn't find with a simple Google search.

snlf25

I've never actually bought a single cover in this game, nor have I ever asked for a refund. The $75-$100 I've spent on the game has gone towards roster spots, which I think I have 54? of, and health packs and shields. I don't buy covers because that isn't how I like to play. It is infinitely more satisfying to win them or pull them from tokens. My X-force has 5 covers, level 111. I might sell him but I doubt it. I'm a completest and the collection aspect really motivates me. Once again, I'm saying that I support the right of people to ask for refunds and I don't believe it to be fraud. My feelings are a bit hurt, but only because I honestly think I see this game dying around me due to too many negative and damaging changes made to the game by the developers. Looking around I don't see many if any satisfied customers.

I've only ever asked for something in a game once. When my kindle crapped out I lost my Plants Vs Zombies game save, I had spent about $5 to get enough gems to unlock the mini games. I asked Amazon to reinstate that and they did.

_RiO_

Vankysher wrote:

Tannen wrote:

You spent your money, you got your hps.

Digital currency for IAP is a tool in order to psychologically influence a customer from disassociating the "true cost" of their IAP.

While I don't think there is much existing case law (and I'm being lazy about doing a web search at the moment), the mere fact that you're "purchasing" a virtual currency makes it a legally tricky thing for them to make the argument that HP is the product/service being offered since the in-game economy revolves around HP and ISO which are all tied to the characters for customers to collect for use in-game. I would think companies engaged in this business model are very reluctant to want to have this tested in court.

I think there was atleast one ruling in Europe regarding virtual currency in an MMO. Virtual currency does not have the legal status of a currency, meaning you miss out on a lot of legal protection that way. However, iirc the ruling instead likened virtual currency to an intermediate payment medium with which to complete the purchase. In other words; the virtual currency itself was seen as part of the purchase chain and therefore neither the conclusion of the customer's purchase, nor the purchased product. This was on a case related to account theft though, by means of which the lost virtual currency could be equated to real-world damages, and not on a case related to compensation for goods or services that underwent a one-sided breaking change.

IANAL, but that means there should already be some (albeit very, very thin) grounds to stand on there...

Unknown

Wow... someone who very vocally bashed ppl for saying D3 was committing "robbery" because it's factually incorrect then claims other ppl are committing "fraud" which is equally incorrect.... that's some interesting double standards.

I will ask this of ppl claiming others getting refunds are "morally wrong".... what is the D3 refunds procedure?

Come on... tell me cause I really want to know because it is ENTIRELY NOT ACCEPTABLE to have a situation where you take someone's money and have no refunds procedure of any kind. In fact, in lots of countries (including mine) it's illegal... so are D3 breaking the law?

No! Why aren't they breaking the law?.... Because your transaction is with Apple/Google/Steam.

Do those companies have a refunds policy?.....Yes because otherwise they would be breaking the law.

Is there anything wrong legally or morally for seeking a refund? NO THERE BLOODY WELL ISN'T. It's a basic consumer right. Apple/Google/Steam (good luck with steam) will decide if THEIR refunds policy which is the ONLY RELEVANT THING applies to the transaction and they will decide if the person who has a contract of sale with them deserves a refund. End of story.

Who's fault is it that the things purchased aren't removed in game? Well that would be the devs for having no procedure in place to do so. The very notion that you can't possibly seek a refund because they have CHOSEN not to put processes in place to remove the items you refund is beyond idiotic... that is ALL on D3 and 100% THEIR FAULT.

You want to limit your own consumer rights feel free, leave everyone else the hell alone though and stop claiming inane rubbish like "credit card fraud" or "fraud" in general. The fact the stuff remains on a person's account is because D3 didn't bother to put a procedure in place to fix it. TOTALLY their fault not the poor consumers you are lambasting for no sensible reason.

EDIT: Oh and on the whole you bought HP and got it so nyaa nyaa.... if that was actually the case then why are google/apple/etc giving refunds? Probably because it's an irrelevant distinction and no-one would believe that the HP itself was the thing the person was paying for but ACTUALLY what you get with it (including a judge (in Europe... in the US maybe not so much cause your consumer protection is terrible)).

EDIT2: Or might be just for customer goodwill OFC.... 8)

_RiO_

atomzed wrote:

For example, see this section of EULA in Blizzard games:

Blizzard is the owner or licensee of all right, title, and interest in and to the Battle.net Client, Battle.net, the Games, Accounts, and all of the features and components thereof. Battle.net and the Games may contain materials licensed by third-parties to Blizzard, and these third-parties may enforce their ownership rights against you in the event that you violate this Agreement. The following components of Battle.net and/or the Games, are owned or licensed by Blizzard:
- All virtual content appearing within Battle.net or the Games, such as:
- Visual Components: Locations, artwork, structural or landscape designs, animations, and audio-visual effects;
- Narrations: Themes, concepts, stories, and storylines;
- Characters: The names, likenesses, inventories, and catch phrases of Game characters;
- Items: Virtual goods, currency, potions, wearable items, pets, mounts, etc.

The part in bold clearly indicates that Blizzard is the owner of all the items in the game.

I missed this before but FYI: that kind of contract term could probably be shredded by 93/13/EEC on the basis that it is an unfair term.

93/13/EEC wrote:

Article 3
1. A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.
2. A term shall always be regarded as not individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term, particularly in the context of a pre-formulated standard contract.

A type of contract term that makes it so that a paid for product legally never becomes yours and can be altered or taken away at the original seller's discretion sounds imbalanced enough to be covered. It just has never come to a court case before. That's because the typical investment anyone puts into a game is low enough that the loss is better treated as a write-off than facing the expenses of going to court. However it's somewhat unavoidable that eventually one company is going to tick off the wrong person; one with deep enough pockets and enough moral outrage...

Unknown

These threads are turning out to be a flammable subject.
And it's a polarising topic on the forum, there's up-voting on both sides of the argument.

So I get you guys want to help us decide whilst bashing out your law-chat and funny car metaphors. What's that Sega game?: !!!OBJECTION!!!
But in terms of this:

GothicKratos wrote:

it's the end-users dogging the system for their benefit...simply because they can.

This was the risk D3 took.

Maybe they will lose a little cash from this in the short-term.
But with their business model & professional financial advisors they must know it is worth it in the long-run.

D3 are in total control here. Masters of their own destiny.

If not - if they're distraught over the player reaction to their own changes - then maybe they're doing it wrong?

If behind the scenes they are really financially hurting AND emotionally upset about the forum rage; then maybe they should:
Read the objections/player suggestions alternative? Change the game in a different way? That won't hurt so much?
Crazy idea - I know, I almost didn't type it out.
It IS their job: to balance their own income.

TL;DR: D3 have it all under control

Tannen

bonfire01 wrote:

I will ask this of ppl claiming others getting refunds are "morally wrong".... what is the D3 refunds procedure?

...

Is there anything wrong legally or morally for seeking a refund? NO THERE BLOODY WELL ISN'T. It's a basic consumer right. Apple/Google/Steam (good luck with steam) will decide if THEIR refunds policy which is the ONLY RELEVANT THING applies to the transaction and they will decide if the person who has a contract of sale with them deserves a refund. End of story.

...

You want to limit your own consumer rights feel free, leave everyone else the hell alone though and stop claiming inane rubbish like "credit card fraud" or "fraud" in general. The fact the stuff remains on a person's account is because D3 didn't bother to put a procedure in place to fix it. TOTALLY their fault not the poor consumers you are lambasting for no sensible reason.

Couple of points...

1 - You realise that you've just justified breaking the law because a company doesn't have a refund policy? This is almost as bad as "This person was in my house, so I shot him dead. Self defence, haha." You're not seeking a refund, you're literally recommending people break a very well defined law. This is 100% illegal. You're not in the right here, as much as you want to believe that you are. A refund is something completely different to what you're recommending.

2 - That old saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right?" it's true. Even if D3're breaking the law by not having a refund policy (and I'm not saying that they are) that absolutely, unequivically DOES NOT give you the right to defraud the company. IF they're breaking the law in your country, take them to court. If you can't be bothered to do that yourself, find a lawyer that will take your case pro-bono and start a class action suit. Don't recommend people break the law just because you're butt-hurt. I guarentee that fraud of pretty much all types are illegal in your country, if you're part of the EU.

3 - I suspect that you need to look up chargeback fraud. Here, I'll provide a handy link that I spent all of 2 seconds finding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargeback_fraud. Also, because I think you're unlikely to click that, here's the jist. Someone purchases online goods and then calls their bank and afterwards and cancels the transaction. The merchant has then lost their product and is also stuck with the 'chargeback' fee. Sound familar? Of particular note is this line -- "One method of combating friendly fraud is to create a feature in the product that checks in with the merchant's database. If a chargeback is issued, the merchant can tell the product to suspend service. This tactic will also work for digital subscription services or any other online product that requires updates or logins. Unfortunately, however, the merchant will usually still be charged a fee for incurring a chargeback, so this is not a complete solution." -- so yes, you are commiting fraud. A well known type of fraud that absolutely should get you banned + criminal charges.

Cheers.

Unknown

Tannen wrote:

"Real refunds"? No, you're committing credit-card fraud. The fact that you feel justified doing it makes it much, much worse, because you'll actively work to convince people that it's okay to do. Momentary anger does not give you the right to defraud others.

You spent your money, you got your hps. That's where the buck stops. Literally. You can't claim that your money was spent on something that changed. You ponied up for hp, D3 gave you hp. You can spend that HP on many items in game. They don't know what you plan on buying with it. If you feel remorse about how you spent those hps, that's still not an excuse to be an ****. Many people have felt buyer's remorse before, and will feel it again in the future. More importantly you cannot use buyer's remorse as an excuse to keep the items that you bought and just reverse the charges on your credit card. That, by definition, is fraud.

The morally bankrupt that get a 'refund' and then continue playing the game deserve to be banned. All of them. No exceptions. If you get a 'refund' via a third party you've pretty much stated that you don't want to work with D3 at all, so don't try to cry foul if they ban you. I wouldn't blink an eye if someone did, eventually, pursue everyone that did it for credit card fraud -- because that's what you're doing, and someone (ironically, it's not D3, because they can probably claim these fraudulent claim-backs on insurance) is actually out of pocket over your reversed charges -- but that will probably end up being whichever company is funding your rage-inspired crimes.

As a side note, I must admit that I find it interesting that most people on the forums will exclaim loudly that people shouldn't cheat on the game, but are more than willing to tell them how to steal money in real life. Why not just post how to get infinite hp on the forums? Doing that'll get you sand-boxed as well, but no-one will claim that you have the moral high ground. As a side note, that infinite-hp-post will also be removed by the forum mods, because leaving it up would implicitly tell new forum-goers that they don't mind if you do it.

In summary: stop exclaiming that you're getting "real refunds". You're not. You're fraudulently obtaining money from someone (an insurance company, somewhere, hates you, I have no doubt) with false claims and should potentially face criminal charges.

Cheers.

LOL, once I read credit card fraud, I didn't bother reading any further. Customers make a request and a service provider provides a refund.

You might not agree with it, but it certainly isn't fraud.