Why Washington Mutual sucks
I had made a payment for EVE Online and added a Power of 2 account. And like every other day in EVE Online, I get EVEmail, in game gang requests and in chat channel SPAM for people, you know, scumbags, selling in game currency, ISK. And like a few, I petition it. EVE Online allows this crap to go on and bother their paying customers on purpose. Now why would Magnus ( magnus@ccpgames.com ) want to allow ISK macro miners and ISK SPAMers into his game? Does his company make any money from it? No. They use trial accounts.
His company, CCP Games, and the game itself, EVE Online, make nothing off of these macros running on top of his game comapnies efforts. In fact it costs him money. The consume bandwidth, processor time, and use up disk space. In the game, they consume resources other players could use. And when players, you know, paying customers, such as myselft petition these clowns to get them booted off so they can come back in 5 minutes with another trial account, it consumes money by taking time away from support staff to fix the problem.
Now is Ping Pong or Ling Ling sitting at their computer? Why no. They are just macros. The log in over and over and over with bogus account names and farm and SPAM.
Can this be fixed? 100% YES.
Stop the trial accounts - this would be hard on the games revenue stream and would force the macroers to buy the game they work in. Maybe that is to harsh.
Limit the trial accounts - easy to implement, still allows for new customers to try before they buy
Let it continue as is - just ignore the problem, I mean it costs you money and pisses off your paying customers. Thats a great plan. Just like the jews helping Hitler uncover the gays, it will never come back to haunt you later
So how can you limit the trial accounts? Limit them to the test server is the easiest way. They can play the game, farm all they want, chat to people, send EVEMail, and just have a grand old time. If they decide they like the game, have them BUY it, and come over to the production server. But WAAH, I spent all my time on the trial server and that effort is lost. 15 days of training time is not that much, and the devs could let you move your charachter over. Name conflicts? Have test check names the same as production when they start or fix it as they carry over.
Now little Johnny with a trial account is out farming for 15 days straight, sells his ISK for a game time card. The EVE Online and CCP official sanctioned way to buy ISK for cash. You see, CCP is its own ISK seller. Yes, an MMO that lets you buy in game currency for cash. You buy a game time card on the web for cash, and then sell the game time card for ISK. CCP gets the money, and little Johnny gets to keep playing. As a gamer, someone who cannot afford to pay to play the game isn’t really any concern of mine. And as a financial person, having these people in the system does generate cash in a way and keeps the ISK buyers money in CCP’s hands rather then third parties. But again, if you have them buy the game ONCE for the first month you eliminate a ton of macroers. I would take the stance to fight the macroers at the risk of the business growth opportunity.
Try the game for 15 days, if you like it buy it and get 30 days to play. Farm to you hearts content, and sell the ISK for game time codes and play for free from there on out. But if you SPAM, you get banned. Now if you want to come back, you have to BUY another game account for 30 days. SPAM and get banned again. The cycle is much better. I mean, how many credit cards and PayPal accounts are the ISK macro miners and ISK sellers going to have? And do they really want to spend $20 just to macro for a few hours till they get banned? Even if they last a full day, that would generate $7281.75 annual revenue to CCP for these clowns SPAMing. Given the quality and intelligence level of a few of the first tier support staff, that might pay their salary.
Speaking of ice nuts, one of them decided to take my messae - “If you are not going to stop the SPAM, I will just buy from them, take deliver, report them to you so you can ban their accounts, and I will process a charge back on the credit card. They lose the ISK, you know who they are, and I don’t have to pay anything” Ice nuts sends me a reply and a warning that I am a known ISK buyer and will suspend my account.
Good thinking there Kraus, Icenuts, or Ygor. Screw with a paying customer. So after the usual Jim response, of telling the hourly support staff to not screw with me, I sent Magnus an email, and asked for a refund.
A Jim refund is one that Jim knows he will get. And here it is -
Nov 08 Eve Online Slough  $(38.85)ÂÂ
 Nov 08 Eve Online Slough  $(49.95)
Two credit card credits on my account as CCP gets hit with two chargebacks.
You see MMO like to state in their EULA that they do not issue refunds BLAH BLAH BLAH. Yes they do. It is called live by the credit card, die by the credit card. If you take my credit card for a subscription to last X number of days and do not give me X number of days of subscription service, I will hit you for a full and immediate refund. Oh and that also takes up staff time and effort at CCP. Again, it doesn’t pay to support the ISK farmers and macro SPAM ISK sellers.
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WaMu and the Old Bait and Switch!!
A True Story
I was interested in opening a Washington Mutual Online Savings Account with a 4.75 APY after viewing the WaMu website around 11/05/07. To take advantage of their savings account I was first required to open a WaMu checking account at a local branch. After opening my checking account I was told that the Online Savings Account could only be opened online by me.
Later I attempted to open a WaMu Online Savings Account and after several tries I was given this response “Your application has been canceled.” The response finished with “if you wish to apply at a WaMu branch, you can bring in two supporting documents from the list below to start a new application.”
On 11/19/07, I entered the branch where I opened my original checking account with the proper documentation. I met with a WaMu Representative who said she could not help me with opening an account. I then referenced the information giving to me on their website. She took the information to her Supervisor, who said they are permitted from assisting customers with opening an Online Savings Account. The Representative then recommended a “Statement Savings Account” at 0.25 APY or if I wanted the Online Savings Account I would need to contact customer services.
I contacted customer service that evening and was transferred three times. Each time I had to repeat my current situation. Finally I spoke with a representative who assisted me online to verify the information I submitted was correct. As a result we received a response on the final page of the application which stated. “We are unable to complete your application at this time. You may, however, return seven days from now to try again.”
Based on my experience I feel WaMu is drawing many customers to their bank through online advertising of their Online Savings Account. In return customers who become a customer and want to open a WaMu Online Savings Account cannot do so. As a result they are swayed by WaMu Representatives to open a “Statement Savings Account”.