[Resolved] ]Lost 5* Strange, No help in sight.

d90

Recently, I woke up and went to play ddq like I have for the past 1060 days in game. I noticed I had more iso than when I went to sleep. I then checked my roster thoroughly, and found that my level 453 5* Dr strange had been sold from my roster. I did not sell this toon, nor did I want to. 

I created a customer service ticket, and they responded that they would not take action. After at least 3 requests to escalate the issue, I received this response. 

Content removed for being in violation of Rule 7.

When I read this I felt awful. I can't even enumerate the hours and dollars spent. I'm no whale, but I've spent over 700 USD on VIP and Starks. I asked in line rooms and the unanimous advise was "pm brigby". I did this, practically begging for him to advocate for me.

Brigby said this 

Content removed for being in violation of Rule 7.

He's referring to a single green punisher max cover that was restored on Jan 2nd 2017, almost a full year ago. I think that the magnitude of a 16 cover 5* just lost completely trumps a 4* cover of any kind. I'm at a complete loss, and devastated that I'm stuck in this situation. 

I responded asking for him to reconsider, but they are all away from the holidays. I doubt i'll get any response until at least the 2nd or 3rd. 

I decided to share my experience in the hope that, withe enough community support (that's you!) they might take another look. Maybe it's not too late for a Christmas miracle. 

*Private message content removal: fight4thedream

Nick441234

So you've accidentally sold a character before, and gone and done it again. Its hard to be sympathetic if you've been careless twice. 

awarnica

D90:
i saw a great post earlier in the day about the things that are good and not so good about the game. Your situation falls into the ‘CS is inconsistent at best’ scenario. 
Its crazy to think that anyone would sell a 5* for 100k iso and a pve sub worth of HP. Two days of effort with your roster at best. So crazy that you’d think this would be one of the EASY CS emails that they would send throughout the week. 

CS - he isn’t asking for anything that anyone here wouldn’t give him. No one would begrudge him for this and as your email said - he last asked for help a year ago. A YEAR AGO. He has been a dutiful and faithful customer for nearly three years, plays EVERY SINGLE DAY and has had one accident in what - 2 or 3 thousands of hours of play? One stray button press that wasn’t even him?

It is insanity that this is even an issue. But it should surprise no one here, and THATS the issue. 

Awarnica

Steel_Colt

Nick441234 said:

So you've accidentally sold a character before, and gone and done it again. Its hard to be sympathetic if you've been careless twice. 

Extra harsh coming from one Nick to another, but I have to agree... The game doesn't sell a character by itself, so you must have accidentally done it yourself...
Still very painful.

y4747

so easily fixable, and it's not like it gives you any unfair advantage. if they feel like the 100k iso is a huge deal, they can just deduct it. it's not like they can even say "if we give it to you, everyone will want to do it". this is a pretty rare occurrence, thankfully. this isn't even in the category of swapping covers.

seems like a no-brainer, really. i hope they realize that and get it done.

MacEifer

Been on the CS side of things for a while. You have no idea how many broken individuals sell and restore stuff that you would normally consider being absolutely knuckleheaded to let go off. Endgame characters that people built for 3 years including 300 items? Meticulously destroyed, item by item, then deleted. You ask why, they tell you they didn't feel like playing the anymore a week ago. You restore it, tell the person to not do it again, week later character is gone and they're asking for it to be restored again. The company I worked for literally, as in the actual word, literally, literally paid millions in staff wages for all the restorations until a zero tolerance policy was put in place and enforced.
While it may seem draconic, customer support costs money. If they have a zero tolerance or one-time policy, they have it for a reason.

GibbletsGrabber

I feel for your loss, but to be a devils advocate CS must look at it as a move done from within your account. 

How is can that even happen?

Don’t play intoxicated or let your partner play, is the expensive lesson from their perspective.

Your true choice is to discontinue support if you feel game makers. Don’t think any amount of support here will change CS outcome

fmftint

Yet certain players who won't be named can delete their entire roster, post video of deletion, miraculously have entire roster restored a few days later...

*Removed reference to player - Ducky

CharlieCroker

fmftint said:

Yet certain players who won't be named can delete their entire roster, post video of deletion, miraculously have entire roster restored a few days later...

This.  It was surreal being hit by someone who had deleted their whole roster only days earlier.

Their policy on name changes also seems inconsistent, or some would say ridiculous.

*Removed references to players - Ducky

evade420

I fell asleep playing the game once and accidently bought heroic 40 pack. It was the worst 40 pack ever too. had like 4 3*s and no 4*s.
I always put the game down now well before I pass out, selling off one of my preciouses by accident is way too scary

Dragon_Nexus

MacEifer said:

Been on the CS side of things for a while. You have no idea how many broken individuals sell and restore stuff that you would normally consider being absolutely knuckleheaded to let go off. Endgame characters that people built for 3 years including 300 items? Meticulously destroyed, item by item, then deleted. You ask why, they tell you they didn't feel like playing the anymore a week ago. You restore it, tell the person to not do it again, week later character is gone and they're asking for it to be restored again. The company I worked for literally, as in the actual word, literally, literally paid millions in staff wages for all the restorations until a zero tolerance policy was put in place and enforced.
While it may seem draconic, customer support costs money. If they have a zero tolerance or one-time policy, they have it for a reason.

Now, see...that's where the greyness comes into customer service.

There should be a consideration of benefit of the doubt. Mis-clicks happen. Mistakes happen. Your example of someone serially abusing the system is an example of someone who needs to be told No.

If TC is telling the whole truth, this is maybe the second incident in 12-18 months, say. And it's not even the same issue. One was an accidental selling of a cover, the other is the deletion of a 5* character.

There should be some benefit-of-the-doubt applied here. Maybe put a little note on his account to say what has been done and when (like they already do) and just keep an eye on it. I think a "Well we helped you once, we can therefore never help you again" is a little harsh.

Again, I'd understand the problem if this was the 4th time the TC had done this since July or something.

Shintok17

Steel Colt said:

Nick441234 said:

So you've accidentally sold a character before, and gone and done it again. Its hard to be sympathetic if you've been careless twice. 

Extra harsh coming from one Nick to another, but I have to agree... The game doesn't sell a character by itself, so you must have accidentally done it yourself...
Still very painful.

I got to agree with both of you. There is even a second menu after you press to sell that asks you if you are sure and to confirm, so it's really hard to sell a rostered character since you have to press it twice to do it. It does suck though. I would be angry too, but unless someone else was playing on your phone then your just TinnyKittied out. Even then It would be super difficult to prove.

LifeofAgony

Eons back I had 2 pending black suit spidey green in queue while I was waiting to see if I could pull the last blue I needed to champ and apply the covers.  Accidentally rostered one while I was going through other pending rewards.  Wrote CS and got stonewalled.  

The frustration is that people get away with doing a whole let worse intentionally and have it fixed without batting an eye.  Same way many people have gotten 1x exceptions for all kinds of things that many other people can’t.  It’s the nature of CS, especially in this realm.  Name changes still happen even though that was supposedly shut down 2 years ago now.  Just depends on who you are.

Punisher5784

fmftint said:

Yet certain players who won't be named can delete their entire roster, post video of deletion, miraculously have entire roster restored a few days later...

Welllllll he did have evidence that the roster was deleted, not disappeared.

jamesh

Steel Colt said:

Nick441234 said:

So you've accidentally sold a character before, and gone and done it again. Its hard to be sympathetic if you've been careless twice. 

Extra harsh coming from one Nick to another, but I have to agree... The game doesn't sell a character by itself, so you must have accidentally done it yourself...
Still very painful.

They could definitely improve the UI to make it less likely though.  How about not putting the sell button in the same place as  the "scroll left" button on the character info screens?  I'm sure that combined with the way many people grow muscle memory to close dialog boxes as they come up has resulted in many unwanted sales.

MacEifer

Dragon_Nexus said:

MacEifer said:

Been on the CS side of things for a while. You have no idea how many broken individuals sell and restore stuff that you would normally consider being absolutely knuckleheaded to let go off. Endgame characters that people built for 3 years including 300 items? Meticulously destroyed, item by item, then deleted. You ask why, they tell you they didn't feel like playing the anymore a week ago. You restore it, tell the person to not do it again, week later character is gone and they're asking for it to be restored again. The company I worked for literally, as in the actual word, literally, literally paid millions in staff wages for all the restorations until a zero tolerance policy was put in place and enforced.
While it may seem draconic, customer support costs money. If they have a zero tolerance or one-time policy, they have it for a reason.

Now, see...that's where the greyness comes into customer service.

There should be a consideration of benefit of the doubt. Mis-clicks happen. Mistakes happen. Your example of someone serially abusing the system is an example of someone who needs to be told No.

If TC is telling the whole truth, this is maybe the second incident in 12-18 months, say. And it's not even the same issue. One was an accidental selling of a cover, the other is the deletion of a 5* character.

There should be some benefit-of-the-doubt applied here. Maybe put a little note on his account to say what has been done and when (like they already do) and just keep an eye on it. I think a "Well we helped you once, we can therefore never help you again" is a little harsh.

Again, I'd understand the problem if this was the 4th time the TC had done this since July or something.

I'll have to take a minute here and tell you something that I was never allowed to say while I was working CS for a game company, because you have to be professional and stuff.

Nobody cares that you made a mistake. Making mistakes is part of playing games. Just because you made a mistake in a management part of a game doesn't mean you didn't make it or that it's somehow different from matching a wrong tile or using the wrong ability and losing your ranking as a result.

Now management mistakes are usually trackable in a system that has a robust logging system, so when a company allows you a takeback in that area, that's just them giving you an opportunity to regret what you've done without outright screwing you for your own butterfingers. 

The difference between players generally comes down to how many mistakes you make. If you take away a player's responsibility for their mistakes, you also take away the responsibility for their successes. If you can correct any bad decision you make to negate the consequences, all of your decisions become as good as you can appeal them to become.

I've sent a ticket before for a cover swap that I wasn't eligible for because I misunderstood the cover swap policy. They told me politely why my request couldn't be granted and that's the end of the story.

I screwed my own account because I overleveled a 5* that's putting me into matchmaking hell. Now I would like to fix that but I'm sure as hell not going to CS for them to waste their time telling me what I already know, which is that my actions are my own and I need to live with them. 
D3 have given you an out by putting in a catastrophe insurance policy, which makes good business sense. You decide what you consider a catastrophe, and then you're on your own.

The most important lesson you can learn is that in customer support for games, saying yes is the easy thing.
Nobody says no to you because they're lazy or don't want to help you. There's usually a button they can press or email template they fill out to get you what you want and it's done in 30 seconds, because these things need to be streamlined. Tools have to be written and configured to do that kind of stuff.

Saying no is the hard bit. When you hear a no, someone is putting in the extra effort to give you the correct answer, because more often than not, there will be pleading. There will be the unfortunate misconception that you entered an open ended conversation where there wasn't one.

Please don't heckle CS with your arguments of grey areas, considerations, well thought out criticisms and the always present benefit of doubt presumption. They have done all they could and by going on about it you're just forcing them to tell you very politely that it was your fault and yours alone. 

Please don't heckle CS. They're providing support for a hobby. They deal with requests that overstate the importance of the subject matter every day. They don't need you to doubt that they did their best on top of that.

That's not to say I wouldn't like D90 to get help. I'd be delighted if he got his strange back. But nobody has any right to make a case he "should". 

P.S. Even when someone states they have no recollection of doing the thing they want fixed, maintaining security of your account and associated devices is everyone's own resposibility. If someone can access your device without your permission, then their actions are indistinguishable from your own to the people in CS. If your brother likes to play pranks on you or your wife tries to tell you that you spend too much time with "that stupid game", maybe get a passcode on your phone.

d90

Look I get what you're all saying. The "be more careful" lines are all well and good, but I maintain that I didn't sell it. The way the UI is designed, you could put the phone in your pocket and buy stuff just by the phone going around in your pocket. Even if they, with all finality, say no, at least a little more light is shed in this situation. What id like to see, is a better system for selling high level characters. Many games require you to physically type the word delete or sell to do those actions. A 2yo could grab your phone and hose 2-3 years worth of game time. . . A confirm button is not enough for 5*. 

fight4thedream

**Mod Mode: ON**

While I do sympathize with d90's situation, posting private messages either from the forum or emails from CS is a violation of rule 7. Please refrain from doing so in the future. Thank you.

**Mod Mode: OFF**

On a more personal note, I hope you are able to get your 5* Strange back. 

awarnica

Here is the issue though. 

SOMETIMES CS will grant these requests. Swapping ineligible covers. Giving away free 5* covers. Restoring rosters. 

SOMETIMES they will not. 

Its difficult when you read threads describing cheaters and hackers who benefit from CS, who flaunt their swaps and benefits in non-forum (line) arenas, to be an honest player making an honest mistake and not see where you can get a break. The problem here is that CS has a grey area and something that seems like an honest mistake (like this) is denied, while someone swapping dozens of classic covers obtained by maybe nefarious methods is catered towards. 

In real life I’m in a supervisory role in a software company where I review billing to customers and decide what is support (not billed) and what isn’t (and thus is billed). I strive to make the grey areas disappear. 

Matt Murdock

MacEifer said:

Been on the CS side of things for a while. You have no idea how many broken individuals sell and restore stuff that you would normally consider being absolutely knuckleheaded to let go off. Endgame characters that people built for 3 years including 300 items? Meticulously destroyed, item by item, then deleted. You ask why, they tell you they didn't feel like playing the anymore a week ago. You restore it, tell the person to not do it again, week later character is gone and they're asking for it to be restored again. The company I worked for literally, as in the actual word, literally, literally paid millions in staff wages for all the restorations until a zero tolerance policy was put in place and enforced.
While it may seem draconic, customer support costs money. If they have a zero tolerance or one-time policy, they have it for a reason.

Let's assume this is the case for the sake of argument. Lets assume that CS doesnt want to restore his character because this is something that people would abuse in some way. That being the case, wouldnt they want to be sure that he did it purposefully? Losing a 5* character isnt something to be taken lightly. With the amount of effort it takes to champion a 5* in this game, its something they could easily lose customers over.

Say all you want that its his fault, that he should have been more careful, that he shouldnt play while intoxicated (seriously?? You cant enjoy a leisure activity with a beer? Tinykitty off...). But the fact is that i have accidentally bought a 40 pack while sober. I placed my phone face down with the screen on, and in the act of picking it back up i somehow hit purchase and confirmed it. It can happen. Falling asleep while playing is another likely situation which could result in a lost 5*. And the fate of the best characters in the game that take ages to build should not lie behind a couple button presses. I asked CS to restore my HP but they told me that because there is a confirmation button, i had no recourse. I had nightmares about accidentally selling a 5* after that. But after thinking about it i guess i assumed that CS would do the right thing and restore it to me. I am very saddened to learn that that is not the case.

My point is, a simple confirm button isnt enough to establish intent. It isnt enough to protect your account against other people securing your phone, against your will, and deleting your characters. And in rare (but clearly not impossible) circumstances, it isnt enough to prevent an accident. I maintain that selling a 5* specifically needs to be pin protected, and until that is the case it is unfair to hold the customer to their (possibly unintentional) actions. They need a better way to establish that it was done intentionally before they go categorically denying these sorts of claims. To be quite honest, it reflects very poorly on them because it makes them look greedy. Innocent until proven guilty!

jamesh

I've seen various other games that have a "lock" feature on characters: in addition to the regular confirmation dialog, the lock must first be removed from the character before selling it or any other potentially destructive actions.