Name Changes

Ding

I've recently had my name changed on me because somebody found it offensive. My IGN for over 9 months was MyDingaling, and to my knowledge, did not contravene any of the rules with regards to offensive names. One could argue that it is slang for male genitalia, and I can accept why in this circumstance my name could be considered offensive to some prude out there. Whatever, I can accept that. So my name was changed without the possibility of defending my name choice to MyBellring.

Now I like having a name that I find humorous, and MyBellring doesn't fit the bill. So since my name was changed without my direction I put in for a name change that I wanted, and so KittenSmasher was born. Alas, KittenSmasher had a short life, and was also altered by CS without my direction because it was also considered offensive. Not sure if CS are hardcore PETA members or if they are drawing tangents with extremely vague sexual meanings. In the case of the first I would hope that CS respects my right not to join PETA. If the second is true, then I would expect that any references to tiny kitty across the forum be removed, since those would obviously be references to overly tight female genitalia. So since my name was changed without my direction (AGAIN) I put in for a name change that I wanted (AGAIN).

No explanation of why either name was considered offensive has been given, despite my repeated requests for one.

Now I was going to leave this between Customer Service and myself until I received a response today that said that going forward they would not be able to offer me the service of name changes in the future. Helloooooo! I don't want any name changes. Leave my name as is. Stop changing my name and then acting like it is a service that I want.

whitecat31

I have to say, that is a well written and honest response. It is even good nature and had a good sense of humor and logic. I doubt you will get a response from customer service here, and since your complaint has a high validity, I will give you a long response based on experience that I hope helps you.
I have worked for various gaming companies, and it is very rare that a customer service representative will check names to find something offensive. They usually, have higher priorities to deal with. They won't tell you this though, because they don't want to destroy an illusion of an all seeing all powerful customer service patrol.
Chances are, somebody is reporting your name(s), and the customer service rep is responding by just changing your name and not contacting you.
Customer service tends to go with the theory that, an actual complainer might leave the game unless they are appeased. As opposed to a person they deemed having an offensive name, that they name changed. The offensive name maker is not complaining at the time, and chances are, from the customer service point of view, you are possibly a trouble maker. If you do complain, they are happy to reject you quickly, and this helps with their response times (more on this later).
They also don't contact you, because that takes time, and they want to move on to the next complaint as soon as possible while resolving a customers complaint as quickly as possible as well.
Most customer service systems are measured by how quickly complaints are resolved, and not the quality of the customer service. Basically, they care more about quantity, than quality. It is the nature of the business, because quality cost more. They want to resolve things as fast and as quick as possible in a cookie cutter fashion. In an 8 hour day, they want somebody to respond to at least 200 complaints a day. This is roughly 2. 4 minutes per complaint. You can use that to your advantage.

Another thing is customer service is not going to tell you who found your various names offensive.
Most gaming companies will protect the rights of the complainer to complain with out being harassed in response.

There are work arounds to the issue of volume customer service response teams. From managements point of view the customer service person they hired has the flaw of being a human (and is not a logical cookie cutter) and there is more than one of them(normally). Often, a customer service representative will respond differently, to a gray area situation. There will be a lack of consistency. Use that to your advantage. So that is why you should keep bouncing back the help ticket. Although, some smart customer service systems, will assign help tickets, to specific customer service reps, that is usually reserved for higher quality customer service systems, and it slows down response times.
Some customer service reps take notes on a specific help ticket, and some do not.
Many do not read the notes written by other customer service members. That takes time, and is quality customer service.
So even though a customer service rep might write a note, saying you won't or will be granted something, chances are it is not 100% set in stone.
Since sometimes notes are specific to a particular help request ticket. You can just open another ticket, with the same request.
Rarely, are notes written to a customers account. Even rarer, are the notes in that account reread by another member of customer service.
Use that to your advantage.

You can always try to request to escalate the issue, sometimes customer services have higher ups, that you can try to request to contact via escalation. Usually, you have to do that on the same help ticket. Keep requesting, until they give in. If there is a rating system, mark it as unsatisfactory as possible, until you get what you want. You can even say in the body of your message, that if your issue is not escalated, you will give the most negative feedback as possible. Some places care about the feedback of their customer service, and some do not. Assume they do.
Also some places have a policy about lying about the escalation, or they have other HIGHER escalation targets. Keep requesting, even if you are told an issue is resolved.
Sometimes customer service will close a ticket and not respond to you, about a ticket being closed. If a ticket, is not resolved within a week, there is a very good chance, that has happened. Open another ticket with the same complaint/requests.


The end goal of customer service is to serve the customers. Sometimes that will get lost in the metrics of customer services. It should NEVER be an "us versus them" mentality. That is just one of the flaws of volume/metrics based customer service. You as a customer should not have to suffer those flaws.

I hope this helps.

Ding

Thank you very much for your feedback. And you were right about me not really expecting any sort of response from CS. TBH, the thing that has bothered me most about this "ordeal" was their statement that they would not be able to offer me this service anymore. While I do enjoy the names that I select, I actually like the mental exercise of creating new ones, and think that most reasonable people will get a laugh when they see that myDingaling attacked them. I honestly believe that an individual is attempting to harass me by reporting my names. Either that, or they enjoy my creativity and intentionally give me more chances to exercise it.

Ding

simonsez

All it takes is one person to make a frivolous complaint about whatever, and igns get changed, alliance names get changed, posts get deleted and warnings issued... it'd be awesome if took more than just ONE person with an axe to grind to make customer service and the devs leap into action.

Chuck Berry had a song in the 70s called My Ding-a-ling... it was on AM radio constantly... every kid in America must've heard it. And yet society didn't crumble... there wasn't rioting in the streets. People just chuckled and went about their day.

Ding

CS should know that I came across dogslaya today. If KittenSmasher offended somebody's animal rights sensitivities, well, dogslaya.

DeNappa

I don't have any useful input here, except to say that I can not fathom why those names would be offensive. IMO, people who reported you should get a life. Really. And CS should have denied the complainer's report with a canned 'does not violate any rules' response.

mpqr7

I always liked the name MyDingaling (we are Facebook Friends). I'm sad to see it go.

FaustianDeal

Spider-Peen was one of those names that I was always amazed someone was able to keep. ISO8YourMom was also a name that I was amazed I kept seeing in my Qs.

Would it be bad form to partially co-opt this thread to be a graveyard for IGNs that were possibly to funny to last?

Ding

FaustianDeal wrote:

Spider-Peen was one of those names that I was always amazed someone was able to keep. ISO8YourMom was also a name that I was amazed I kept seeing in my Qs.

Would it be bad form to partially co-opt this thread to be a graveyard for IGNs that were possibly to funny to last?

I wouldn't be the least bit offended. In fact, I'll start us off.

My favorite of all time

Butseks

FaustianDeal

I think I just saw: HaryParateste this week.
Not sure how that one slid past the censors and yours got picked up.