Saturday, August 10, 2013

Zynga's Customer Service

Used to be, once upon a time, that when Zynga somehow messed up and negatively impacted one's game, CS not only would fix it for you without a hassle, but also typically gave some compensation.

Wow, has the pendulum ever swung the other way.

Now, when you have a problem, you only get access to Customer Service if you happen to have done whatever needs doing to trip the switch so that you will have it.

The suggestion is that only paying players have access - but the reality is that many paying players do not.

Now, we're supposed to use spam central and tell our Farmville problems to other players who can't do a blessed thing about them. The only response most posts get there is sorry, can't help you .... and/or hey, log in here and I'll steal your username and password (posts which Zynga mostly ignores and allows to remain now that they have a notice at the top telling all us really stupid people how to use the support site safely... i.e. not to get suckered into such lame spam attempts).

In any case, some of us - me included - do actually continue to have access to Zynga's CS agents. Unfortunately, they don't actually  HAVE any any more. Now what they have are "Player Advocates" - and their role seems to be to piss off players by refusing to fix anything; refuse to refund the FC Zynga developers have, in their infinite stupidity, set the game to steal from players at every turn; and for added measure, call paying customers liars and cheats.

Even going through the BBB doesn't help - they just keep sending emails asking for more information until the BBB process expires and it tells you you just refused "their final offer" and no further action is required. Except, of course, that they don't actually MAKE any offers at all - they just keep asking for the same information you've given them over and over.

Whole thing is a joke.... Zynga is a company that is determined to fail and if you have any stock in them, you REALLY should sell.

There is no hope whatsoever for a company that is willing to lose a long standing loyal paying player by first stealing, then refusing to return 32 FC.  For about $6 - even if I had bought it at full price, which I have not done since they started to steal FC from players every time I blink - they have lost my $10/month subscription plus whatever I would typically spend every time they offer a 40% off sale.... an average of about $50/month.

Wise business decision, eh? 

Sell a product ... then steal it back... and when the customer complains, call her a liar and make her jump through stupid hoops for a couple of weeks then tell her again that she's a liar and a cheat and you're just fine without her business.  

Hell of a business model you've got there, Zynga.

How many feet DO you have to shoot yourself in? Time for a new logo...a millipede, I think.

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