The Spirit Realm

Just thought I'd vent on here seeing I cant seem to get anywhere with the wankers at SOE.

I have been trying to get my toon which I inherited from a guildee (I originally offered to keep the account active as he was scared he'd lose his character but now he no longer has any interest in playing) in the US which was originally on Tribunal transferred to Bertox which is where the bulk of my friends play these days and the auto-transfer service wont work. So I have been going back and forth with the Online Chat Reps (one tard in particular) via Support and even though I am providing all relevant details including the secret question and answer they are still refusing to do it as they want the last 4 digits of the original credit card used way back in 2004 which is absolutely ridiculous. Never mind the fact I have been happily paying the subs and using the account for the last 7 mths.

I have been playing off an on since late 1999 (mostly on with a 2yr break to have a baby). From a business perspective you would think their support staff would be tasked with retaining as much business as possible as long as all security checks which I have provided were done. Its got me to the point where I am thinking who is the customer me or them ? They not only derive income from my monthly subs but also the character transfer yet make it near impossible for someone to get one through. If you denied all people with multiple accounts that werent in their own name they would effectively lose a good 30% of their user base at a guess considering alot of people box friends characters that no longer play. If they were so against the practice of people playing only the accounts listed in their own name why then do they offer a character transfer from one account to another account ?

Im sick to death of the way SOE treat their customers so have killed off my account, they are truly retarded. Any wonder blizzard is steamrolling them with WoW with Sony's lack of customer focus.

I had the same problem some time back, I gave up too and just dropped the other acct. And you are right about them not caring. WoW , and Warhammer and others are cleaning Sonys clock. Hell they do not even advertise. Every gaming commercial you see is WoW or Warhammer or one of the others, but never EQ. If I had the money, I would drop EQ and I am working on 10 years playing, and go to another game. People talk about how they care and all it is ,, is talk.

It's not your account or your character. For all sony know you are some thief stealing the character/account.
What part of that is hard to understand?

I have thought of transferring one of my characters on my original account to one of my others, namely my bard, so I could box the bard with the cleric or shaman and my ranger main. Even though I created the account, have owned the account for 10 years, never let anyone else have the account, I cannot do the transfer.

That is due to the insane requirement that I provide the last 4 digits of the original credit card/debit card used to create the account. I used a debit card to create the account and that debit card has been invalid the last 8 years as the bank that issued it is no longer around. It was purchased by another bank which in turn was purchased by another bank and each time I was issued a new debit card with new numbers tied to the new account and the old one was invalidated. I no longer have that card, I no longer have any of the banking information from the original bank with the numbers on it since after 3 years I no longer needed that information for tax purposes I shredded it. I am sure I am not the only one with this issue. Hell, I don't have the same credit cards either as they went through the same process as my debit card, banks that issued the cards were purchased, new accounts thus new cards with new numbers, ect. ect. ect.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand the need for security and identification and support that. But this requirement for a 10 year old game is ludicrous as banks get purchased, account numbers change, people change banks, people change credit card banks ad infinitum. Why must I keep information on a card issued by a bank that hasn't existed for 8 years just on the off chance I want to transfer characters. Hell, 8 years ago I only had the one account and didn't have a desire to create a new account.

Implement a pin approach to security, introduce a 2nd secret question, implement one of a dozen other security features for accounts, something other than this pos requirement they have now.

Never had trouble transferring a character from one account to another as long as I was the ORIGINAL owner of both accounts.

Did NOT need the original credit card info (though they probalby were opened with the same credit card).

Trasnferred a character from a friends account with minor difficulty. After the automatic trasnfer failed, I called tech support. They suggested I do a petition from the account I wanted to do the transfer from (the friends account). I did that and shortly thereafter it appeared on the other account.