Customer Service Survey -please read-

[Lampoon]

SE's stand for the last 4 years has been; "This is our game we're letting you play it, so we will dictate HOW you will play." Now their tune is changing and I hope it is for the better, but a bit too late. Majority of veteran players are too jaded and cynical about anything SE does or will do in the future.

Question I have; what are the main causes of accounts being hacked?

[Lexa]

I filled one out, and can always hope something will be done, but honestly - I'm not holding my breath. SE's customer support and GMs have always been a joke, and while I of course hope things will improve - if I didn't, I wouldn't have bothered to fill out the survey - there's really no point in me getting my hopes too high up. I'm waiting to be positively surprised, because I have no belief in their ability to straighten things out.

[Rammses]

OHGDI. I read "1000 characters" as "1000 words" and wrote 783 words.

I guess I can send my essay via another form on the website, but who knows if they read that.

[rath]

My comment/suggestion:
I think customer support for people that have had their accounts compromised is very very very poor. These people pay for a service , and when someone steals the results of that service from them, they should not be required to produce current credit card information. That information is always changed by the person that stole the account, how could they possibly know it?

I think current credit card information should be required in order to change to another credit card. This will prevent someone from hacking a playonline password and changing the credit card information (thus locking the owner out). This will also help prevent the sale of accounts by some players. Most will be unwilling to give out their credit card information in order to sell their account.

[Caudle]

Your customer service for compromised accounts is the equivalent of telling a rape victim they asked for it, and your lack of addressing the problem has only lost you money, trust and respect from your customer base. After all your effort in fighting RMT it is amazing that an attack directly aimed at your customers has escaped being addressed for this long. I can only hope that you add an extra layer of security in the future; I know that if this where to ever happen to me you could kiss my 3 monthly fee's and any future business goodbye.

Yeah..... that whole wording your point respectfully and such is out the window here...

Unfortunately, you've got some valid points that will just be lost because of your poor choice of words throughout the response. I may be wrong, but if we want SE to make a sincere attempt at listening to our idea's, and maybe even doing something to improve the system, we need to make a sincere attempt when completing this survey without attacking them while doing so.

[Davricle]

There is a way to submit a complaint or suggestion to SE with more space if you do some digging around the Service and Support sections on the site.

[*Shinzon*]

Not really that important but heres what I filed.

Simply put the GM system is inefficient to deal with the player base. GMs who are currently employed often times do not understand game mechanics which makes solving problems nearly impossible. The system to report problems or issues to GMs is too vague to have a problem dealt with clearly. There needs to be specified divisions where calls can go to and get immediate responses to deal with situations. Punishment and investigation priorities need to be adjusted and players should be informed of the results of an investigation rather than simply left to wonder about the results.

Bolded what I thought needs to be addressed right now, how can a GM help solve a problem or help administrate one with responses like this at a tiamat camp, http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i9...a373/gm4tw.jpg
Said because a GM didn't understand that Tiamat's AOE would hit everyone in the vicinity. I especially think the punishment section needs to go through that change of letting people know whats done so they can see some sort of result and not just be left hanging 75% of the time.

[Dakana]

GMs don't have enough power to fix game issues when the game mechanics are faulty. For example, during Salvage my LS killed AC with about 10sec left before we were kicked out and did not have time to lot the drops. As such we lost two drops needed to complete Salvage pieces. GMs need to be given more power to restore your items when the game is at fault.
Also in the recent string of hackings my friends have been online and we called GMs to have their accounts suspended to stop the hacker and the GMs refuse to, causing them to lose everything and the GMs refusing to restore their lost items.

SE's response to customer service is very poor. GMs are extremely slow in responding to you to the point where you fail the mission ect by the time the GM gets there, they are unable to help you because they have too many restrictions placed on them, of they can't help fast enough and it causes your character to be completely hacked.
Also SE as a whole favors their Japanese players over other countries. Recently the Japanese market was given the opportunity to get an exclusive in-game item by buying key chains online, an item that was meant to be an item only obtainable by attending a FFXI event. However when the same key chain was offered to the US it did not include the in-game item with the key chain. This is 100% inappropriate behavior towards their customers. I can honestly say I have never been so offended in my entire life as when I saw you were not including the item in the American release like you did in the Japanese release.

Don't forget about SE screwing us with those stupid keychains and moogle hats and generally liking the JP players more in addition to the hacking.

[Lordender]

Like i said in the other thread, I didn't hold back and sugar coat it. I called their gm's useless, their stance on account policy is on a special ed level. I expect a complete rehaul, their customer service is a fucking joke, its the worst i've ever seen by any company in 20 years.

[zoobernut]

This is what i put down for the first important question

Accounts get stolen very often, and it would be easy to prevent by simply requiring information on the person such as account keys, date of birth, address etc. At the moment, it only requires credit card verification, however this is useless as the first thing an account thief will do is change the credit card after stealing the account. Please, make it require more information. It is easy to say that a person should simply keep his account details to himself, but it is common practice to share details with close friends, and this will NEVER change, no matter how often you ask people not to do so.

I am not sure if this has been mentioned before but why do we not have a guest log in feature where we can let people log into our accounts but none of the info can be changed. Yes they could still steal your stuff on the character but at least they could not steal the character itself. (This would be a solution to people sharing info with ls friends not from getting hacked by GS)

[Rammses]

It seems like the other email forms in the service and support section have hidden character limits as well How fucking useless.

[ronin sparthos]

bah double post - delete this :3

[ronin sparthos]

Question I have; what are the main causes of accounts being hacked?

The Main Cause is the unexpected backlash of the STF banning RMT accounts and cracking down on RMT activity. Chalk it up to a robber holding a hostage after being foiled, the RMT wont just give up and go home and the STF wont stop banning so they need to take some hostages. (Players that SE basically denies any rights to anyways.)

I filled out the survey, i find it funny this magically happens after the recent mass-jacking of accounts and calls to the information center.

Pull no punches, they need to hear how bad the service is so that something changes.... in this century.

Few Questions i found pretty funny on the survey:

Is there a specific problem you would like GM calls to deal with? Please select the answer that best applies.

Consultation or reports of unauthorized access (outside the timeframe the Information Center is open)

The GM's tone, attitude, and way of speaking were appropriate.

lol

The GM seemed sincere in his or her dedication to solving my problem/inquiry.

Dedication? More like how fast they can shove me off the line.

[Popsiclestick]

I'm going to make a survey response after work:

1. Allow users to flag their account's for a 3 day suspension of server moves, AH, and trading of items when credit card information or a password has been changed. This will allow users to give themselves security if they find that they have had information changed out under their noses.

2. Allow a GM to suspend or jail an account for a duration of time if suspicious activity occurs (ie. significant account change, or password change). Hopefully this can immediately halt a user's account for immediate transfer of funds and equipment when comprimised.

3. Institute a new GM group under Special Task force to investigate suspicious account activity on a normal account user. This would allow specific staff or trained staff to identify and deal with user's who have been comprimised.

4. Educate GM's that sometimes a user will not be downloading 3rd party applications and an account-jacking can happen through spyware through advertisements of infected legitimate websites. Even the most perfectly safe user can be susceptible to an infection.

[Paegan]

Question I have; what are the main causes of accounts being hacked?

The Main Cause is the unexpected backlash of the STF banning RMT accounts and cracking down on RMT activity. Chalk it up to a robber holding a hostage after being foiled, the RMT wont just give up and go home and the STF wont stop banning so they need to take some hostages. (Players that SE basically denies any rights to anyways.)[/b]

The main cause is the same as it always has been - people sharing their account info, or having their PC security compromised by malware, usually from third-party programs. It may well be the case that RMT are focusing more on this method now than they have in the past, but trying to blame the STF for people getting hacked is just laughable.

If everyone in the account hacked thread was honest about exactly what they're running on their PCs then I'm pretty sure that we'd find the source of these "hacks" a lot quicker.

[ronin sparthos]

Your ability to see the point is laughable because no where did i say the STF is responsible for the hackings.

What i said was the ACTIONS of the Special Task Force has resulted in RMT resorting to stealing accounts to make up for those losses caused by the mass bannings of RMT toons.

Why would RMT bother with levelling new characters when they can just hijack one with little to no work? SE is giving them no resistance in that course of action to make money, so its a viable and effective method.

The main cause is the same as it always has been - people sharing their account info, or having their PC security compromised by malware, usually from third-party programs.

Because just this week out of all the other weeks dozens of people decide to share account information right? Thats why the items are all over RMT mules being sent to accounts that are aligned with RMT right?

People on 360 have been hacked, care to explain that one as well? Or should we all just exclusively play on PS2?

[Paegan]

The main cause is the same as it always has been - people sharing their account info, or having their PC security compromised by malware, usually from third-party programs.

Because just this week out of all the other weeks dozens of people decide to share account information right? Thats why the items are all over RMT mules being sent to accounts that are aligned with RMT right?

Or maybe just this week the people who have been collecting account info from keyloggers have decided to cash it in?

I know of a few people on my server who have been "hacked" in the past, and they were all either third-party tool users, or shared their account info with the wrong person. When you can show me how people are getting hacked in a different way than what I said, I'll come back and apologize. Until then, Occam's Razor applies.

[ronin sparthos]

Or maybe just this week the people who have been collecting account info from keyloggers have decided to cash it in?

Or maybe that should signal off some bells to SE if people from across multiple servers are being hacked?
Oh wait, they know. Hence the smug little survey coming out just as this is happening.

Either way, it all adds up to SE being lazy about it all and RMT cashing in on this lazyness. Blame keyloggers, blame trojans and malware all you want but the real fault is at SE for being slow as paste to respond to any situation... even if it is player-induced or caused by a freak-breakout of malware.

Its called a 'safety-net' - many credit card companies use it, perhaps SE should too.

There isnt only 2 ways to snag an account, and when SE is smart enough to realize that 50 accounts being swapped from US addresses to adresses in China somewhere that headway will be made.

[Brill Weave]

i'm sure they're more reluctant to sincerely listen to people who talk like calm, well-educated adults

Schwa?

[Mizango]

I'm going to make a survey response after work:

1. Allow users to flag their account's for a 3 day suspension of server moves, AH, and trading of items when credit card information or a password has been changed. This will allow users to give themselves security if they find that they have had information changed out under their noses.

2. Allow a GM to suspend or jail an account for a duration of time if suspicious activity occurs (ie. significant account change, or password change). Hopefully this can immediately halt a user's account for immediate transfer of funds and equipment when comprimised.

3. Institute a new GM group under Special Task force to investigate suspicious account activity on a normal account user. This would allow specific staff or trained staff to identify and deal with user's who have been comprimised.

4. Educate GM's that sometimes a user will not be downloading 3rd party applications and an account-jacking can happen through spyware through advertisements of infected legitimate websites. Even the most perfectly safe user can be susceptible to an infection.

That seems to be the number one topic written about when they ask for your opinion about changes or what they can do to be better at customer service. I did mine around lunch time and addressed these same issues here and there. You know, it's is funny because when I talk to people in LS or friends that play on different servers it seems to always come full circle in regards to SE and the shitty way they handle comprimised accounts.

They pretty much write them off to "lolz stop giving out your info" and tend to leave it at that. I realize that it is indeed a long shot at best, but maybe SE will get the point and make some changes. Like I said, I am not going to hold my breath or anything but hey, it certainly can not hurt.