ombudsman for american video game industry?

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Hi all, does anyone know if there is an ombudsman for the game industry in america or the UK?

my Girlfriend started playing in feb 2010 and canceled a few months later, then she got charged again by Cryptic a few months after, she then canceled again and after a few Emails with a GM she got a refund.

but now for the 3rd time she has been charged over £30 to her paypal account. she emailed Cryptic about 10 days ago over the matter but they have not been in contact. i was wondering if anyone knows who we contact if Cryptic are not playing ball and carry on taking money without concent. thx

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looking into this a little further i found this: http://ukie.info/ (formerly ELSPA) they are the UK’s leading videogames trade body.

and also http://www.videostandards.org.uk/ who now deal with consumer isses regarding interactive entertainmen as well as video.

guess i will give them a try and see if they cant point me in the right direction if we get no joy with Cryptic in the next few days.

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Not to sound like a disbeliever but...

Paypal accounts are often the first target used by illegal gold sellers to create accounts to spam with. Have you considered that the Paypal account itself has been comprimised?

[Archived Post]

Not to sound like a disbeliever but...

Paypal accounts are often the first target used by illegal gold sellers to create accounts to spam with. Have you considered that the Paypal account itself has been comprimised?

yeah paypal was our first port of call and this payment is the only activity logged, PayPal said that it is a recurring payment and must be canceled at Cryptics end.

never having used any gold sellers there would be no reason for them to have the account details

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A few things to try

1) Follow the suggestions in this (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=3313036&postcount=52) post and log a new ticket requesting an escalation. (this might be especially helpful if you can find the old tickets logged for the same issue - there is obviously an issue that needs attention)

2) If she has availability during their customer services office hours queue up for the live support option so you can discuss the issue there. Again if you cant get a resolution to your liking you can always request an escalation.

3) If all of the above fail PM StormShade but I suspect he gets his inbox flooded. I would attempt the first two before that.

[Archived Post]

Have her go to her account (https://www.startrekonline.com/user) and make sure the subscription says "Canceled".
You should see something like:

Subscriptions
Recurring 1-Month Cancelled
Next Billing Date: n/a
PayPal
Subscribed For: 24.2 days

If it doesn't say "Canceled" beside her subscription (or especially if it says "ACTIVE" instead), then she needs to click the link to change the subscription, then follow the steps until the account says "Canceled".

If it does, then follow the above post for further help.

[Archived Post]

thanks for your help guys, she has allready cancelled the sub 3 times but it keeps coming active again every 3 months.

she has now paid close to £100 for a game she does not play, each time it reactivates she has gone to the account page to recancel it and sent a ticket to confirm the cancellation, each time she has recived email back from Cryptic customer service to confirmation the cancellation. but for some reason they keep reactivating it every 3 months!!! we are now at a loss what to do!

we are in the process of collating all the data from all the emails from Cryptic to send to Storm as we are not willing to just be simply appeased agian by customer service just to have it happen again over and over.

thx:confused:

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I have to ask the obvious here, just to cover the bases. You are not sharing either cryptic or paypal accounts correct? As I said obvious question, but if your sharing an account, that could be where confusion is.

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Has she tried changing her password? Is there a child in the home that could be playing STO behind her back?

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I have to ask the obvious here, just to cover the bases. You are not sharing either cryptic or paypal accounts correct? As I said obvious question, but if your sharing an account, that could be where confusion is.

no we dont share paypal accounts, and i dont pay a sub as i gots the blue name :p

Has she tried changing her password? Is there a child in the home that could be playing STO behind her back?

she logged her toons in last week when she found out about the reactivation and nothing had changed/moved since she last played, the first time it happened she changed her password on STO aswell as paypal. we dont have kids and have never shared account logins even with each other.

this time we have gone to great trouble and cancelled all cards linked to paypal just to stop this from happening :mad:

[Archived Post]

yeah paypal was our first port of call and this payment is the only activity logged, PayPal said that it is a recurring payment and must be canceled at Cryptics end.

never having used any gold sellers there would be no reason for them to have the account details

That very rarely stops them. A gold seller got my WoW account info somehow. Never used one, always manually input my account info.

Anyway, your situation sounds very odd. If her EC isn't going up or down, or if her inventory/mail is the same, then it's either something else, or a very careful gold farmer, which, I'm sorry to say, I find hilarious.

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Cancel the paypal account? This might be extreme but would be the best guarantee I can think of, since the account number cryptic has would no longer be valid, if their system bugged out and tried to charge it, paypal would reject the transaction.

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Glad to say we followed Darkshrike's advice and Cryptic came through for us in the 11th hour and refunded some of the cash. i think we will close that paypal acount now as i dont trust the account not to keep reactivating.

thanks all :)

[Archived Post]

she emailed Cryptic about 10 days ago over the matter
...which may be the main problem here.
Please open a ticket with the Billing Support Team. The first link in my signature will take you to the support pages. Log in as you would on the Cryptic Pages and submit your ticket there.

Billing can only assist if things are actually reaching them.
Also, just to highlight another good post:
Have her go to her account (https://www.startrekonline.com/user) and make sure the subscription says "Canceled".
You should see something like:

Subscriptions
Recurring 1-Month Cancelled
Next Billing Date: n/a
PayPal
Subscribed For: 24.2 days

If it doesn't say "Canceled" beside her subscription (or especially if it says "ACTIVE" instead), then she needs to click the link to change the subscription, then follow the steps until the account says "Canceled".

If it does, then follow the above post for further help.

PMs to the moderators, any form of emails or similar cannot resolve billing issues. :\

[Archived Post]

I believe that there's a way to remove payment options within the account settings. Might be an idea to check and get your paypal info taken off, that way the account can't be charged.

[edit] yup, manage your payment options and you should see the option at the bottom to delete it.