Can't cancel your account? Bring in legislation.

[Xalioniaf]

Alex Edwards played Final Fantasy Online for a few months, then grew tired of the game, which lets you go on monster-battling quests and build up your ranking. His parents Frank and Cinda, who were paying the $13 a month subscription, tried to cancel the account online. But Final Fantasy didn't offer Cinda a way to do that online, and didn't offer her a contact phone number, either. The Edwards finally found the number via their credit card statement -- but when they called, they spent an hour and 45 minutes on hold before someone answered the phone.
Most folks would grind their teeth into pulp after the experience, vow never to let their kid sign up for another MMO -- Massively Multiplayer Online -- game, and leave it at that. But unfortunately for Square Enix, who makes Final Fantasy, Frank Edwards is an alderman in Springfield, Illinois and a good friend of his local State Rep. Raymond Poe. So this week Illinois has passed a law that requires all game sites to let subscribers cancel online. Here's the relevant passage from HB4178:

Translated out of legalese, this makes plenty of sense to us. The Internet is littered with stories of people struggling against horrible cancellation policies (remember this AOL phone call?). We'd prefer to see companies offering basic courtesies like this without the prompting of lawmakers. But if that's what it takes, we're happy to let the Edwards vent their frustration via legislation.

From http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/...ion-policy-baffles-lawmakers-leads-to-new-law and http://kotaku.com/5032004/illinois-law-spurred-by-final-fantasy-xi-cancellation-issues
FFXI is illegal in Illinois. lol

 

[Skaw]

Who knows, maybe more legislation like this will force them to drop ShitOnline.

 

[Lanien]

But .. you can cancel the account online.

 

[Princemercury]

But Final Fantasy didn't offer Cinda a way to do that online, and didn't offer her a contact phone number, either.

False and false, this thread is useless, end of story.

 

[Skaw]

To be fair, unless you're familiar with navigating PlayOnline, it's unnecessarily tedious. It isn't as cut and dry as people posting comments on that article make it out to be. There is no immediate "cancel account" button - it's buried under atleast 2 different menus. And it's called "Cancel Content IDs." So unless you know what a Content ID is, you're not going to realize that it's what you're looking for. People are failing reading comprehension. The mother was cancelling the account, not the son who was the one playing the game. So she isn't going to be familiar with Square-Enix's backwards labels. The entire system is a steaming pile of brown matter. From the log in process, to content IDs, to the billing cycle. It's a giant programmed shrine to needing to do too much to do something incredibly simple.

I agree with the bill for the sole purpose that any service should have a clearly labeled, easily accessed cancellation process. If you honestly believe that PlayOnline fits that description, you're a moron.

 

[Khajit]

So basically being able to read to learn where said "cancel" button is is too hard skaw?
In order to make a mule they had to have been to that menu at least once and i'm not sure but they might have neeed to use it when they created the original characters in the frist place.
Why was calling a GM and asking how to do so a problem?

 

[Misi]

There are a few MMOs that don't let you cancel your subscription via online. But POL is not one of them. It has crappy navigation, yes but that story above just seems like parents who don't know how to use the internet. Within 3 clicks on the POL website I was able to find the support phone number. playonline > english > tech support phone number is in bold on that page.

I tried the disney Pirates of the Caribbean Online a few months ago, they pretty much made it so you can't do anything cool unless you pay them five dollars for the first month. everything in game was locked, making it useless to play. Then it would go to 10 a month if you decide to stay after your first month. Nowhere did they state that they would auto bill you monthly after that upgrade. Nor did they say that once you upgraded that you could not downgrade your account to free account. (makes sense but was not stated)

When I saw that I was auto billed for something I didn't want, I had to search all over the official site (looks like it has a WoW like layout so I figured, oh canceling online wont be bad.. till I get to the canceling page where it says "you can only cancel by calling a representative" What a pain in the ass. So I called. customer service was not bad at all, I was refunded my $10, and also suggested to the rep if she was taking suggestions that being able to activate and reactivate payed accounts online would probably boost how many players they would get, its pretty annoying otherwise. They most likely did it that way to force a survey on you when you go to cancel.

 

[Fellina]

It's hard to tell from how the article is worded, but I'm thinking that the problem here is that the kid was the only one who had access to the POL login, or possibly even lost the login (hey, he's 13, what do you want?). So the parents, who were actually paying for the account, had no way to get onto POL and cancel said account.

I can actually see a situation where the kid plays for a few weeks, decides he doesn't like it, and just forgets about it. Then his parents see the credit card bill come in with all the prorated billing on it after the 30-day trial is up and are all "WTF why are we still paying for a game you don't play". Also you're all running on the assumption that the parents are the ones who set up the account, and that's likely not the case, they could just have easily let the kid set it up and just handed over the credit card number. Imagine what it must be like trying to cancel FFXI if you've never even been onto POL before, and have never navigated their labyrinthine menus, or worse yet have no POL login. And then when you do finally find the number to give them a call you're treated to good old fashioned SE customer service.

 

[Davion]

/fail x infinity on the dumbass that commented about uninstalling FFXI before canceling. That's like giving SE free money.

 

[Olrox]

seriously they need to do that to Xbox Live.. I was on the fucking phone 30 minutes to cancel that bullshit, I was pissed. I can activate my account in 2 minutes to give them money, but to stop giving them my money I have to wait 30? fuck off Microsoft.

 

[Skaw]

So basically being able to read to learn where said "cancel" button is is too hard skaw?
In order to make a mule they had to have been to that menu at least once and i'm not sure but they might have neeed to use it when they created the original characters in the frist place.
Why was calling a GM and asking how to do so a problem?

Oh geez. Because it's not labeled as "Cancel Account." So unless you know what a Content ID is(Those parents probably didn't,) you're fucked.

Can you not read? Or are you simply blind fanboys defending your company and it's backward ways?

Even knowing how to use PlayOnline, it took me 15 minutes to change credit card and billing information because of the tree of menus you have to go through. Thats way too long to do something that simple. Thats signficantly longer than it takes to cancel.

Their service is a toilet, and nobody in their right mind should be defending it.

 

[Spalko]

is 13 year old legal to play FFXI?

 

[Dancingweapon]

is 13 year old legal to play FFXI?

Yes.

 

[Eilistrae]

all the more reason that people who aren't able to have their own bank accounts, shouldn't play FFXI >.>

 

[Isac]

So basically being able to read to learn where said "cancel" button is is too hard skaw?
In order to make a mule they had to have been to that menu at least once and i'm not sure but they might have neeed to use it when they created the original characters in the frist place.
Why was calling a GM and asking how to do so a problem?

1: yes for people who have no real idea about the video game world. You cant let something that seems odvious to you, be your reasoning for justifying it.

2: I highly doubt the PARENTS made the mule or the original chars. I dont think a single person on the game has ever asked their parrents how to make their char. Thats just idiotic. You're thinking of putting in the billing info. But that step and the char steps are not the same.

When shyrra first showed me this game it took my brother and him insisting that we get it to get it. I had never see anything like POL and how stupid and complicated it looked. I thought i could never understand it, and iv been gaming online for most of my life. From an outside perspective, POL is by far the most rediculus complicated system for running a game iv ever seen. It has different words for just about everything.

Though i have to admit, when you do understand how the system works, its a hell of a lot more flexable then a lot of other systems, its just not very new user friendly.

Look at how wow works. You do it all online, accounts, the billing info, all of it right there so you dont even need the game installed to do anything with your account. It has clear cut descriptions of what you want to do and the log in proccess is about 1/4th as long as FFXI and has 1/10th as many steps.

You really cant compare FFXI to other gaming systems and say its easy to understand.

 

[Rayebee]

wow hes 13, not a certified genius, and odds are his parents don't know how the game works. To be honest what if you ps2 breaks HD and all? Is Pol the only place you can cancel your subscription?

 

[Khajit]

If the parents don't have the authority around the house to make their kid cancel the account for them then it's a parenting issue more than anything.
Also. www.playonline.com then click service and support(which is what they wanted so logically click there) Then you see in an EXTRA LARGE font the number to call as well as a chat room to access. Skaw . I'm not a fanboy you idiot. I just don't think retardation is a just cause for what was being done. FFXI actually meets the guidelines in that law so the law designed to make it illegal doesn't even affect it. I'm all for the idea of making it illegal for anyone to charge youo for a service you dont want. However in this instance they're making a scapegoat out of ffxi because some old fart was a complete idiot. I wonder if the politicians tacked on anything to that bill that is completely unrelated to this.

 

[Skaw]

Actually, no. You cannot cancel your IDs from Playonline.com, which is what the law enforces. You can only do it either through the phone(something the law says shouldn't be required to do,) or the PlayOnline app.

 

[Khajit]

So basically what you're saying is that SE representatives cant tell a person how to cancel thier ID when asked? Was it impossible to actually lookup the process in the "help" section?
And since they're on the web site already why is it they couldn't notice the BIG GIANT PHONE NUMBER that they claim didn't exist? You're defending idiocy skaw.
There's even a manual that they could have read but i'm pretty sure that it's unreasonable to expect a person to actually use one of those things.

 

[Skaw]

So basically what you're saying is that SE representatives cant tell a person how to cancel thier ID when asked? Was it impossible to actually lookup the process in the "help" section?

Ok, so you're in the "can't read" crowd. Got ya.