ECA Discussion Thread - WARNING: Some CAGs Who Cancelled Are Being Auto-Renewed

[quote name='The Mana Knight']I registered the same time, and that's all I currently see. I just turned auto renew off, but can't seem to cancel online.[/QUOTE]

You have to go through the steps a couple times. Eventually, you will see the option to cancel (after skipping their partner company screens a couple times), and you'll get an e-mail verification of the cancellation.
 
[quote name='confoosious']I'd like to make a suggestion to the rest of the community that we ignore any future posts like this.

Please don't feed the trolls. This was already hashed out in the previous ECA thread. Over and Over.

I'm talking to people like arcane,strell, and chakan and the dude with the Hal/2001 sig pic (name slips me). We already made our points in the last thread. No need to give these trolls any satisfaction.

Please.[/QUOTE]
You know what? You're probably right. It's just so hard to walk away from intentional ignorance.

Thanks. I'll rein myself in from now on.
 
I signed up for two reasons. The discount from amazon, which I never actually used because I didn't have any games i wanted to purchase before they yanked the deal, and because I thought the group was going to represent gamers, finally, against abusive publisher policy and drm schemes. The ECA's response to Ubisoft's stance was pathetic, weak and pretty much invalidates them as a voice for anyone as if their last fiasco with membership renewals wasn't bad enough. This two locations to, steps 1 and... 4 i think, is extremely sleazy. I look forward to doign a chargeback if they try to renew me.
 
You guys are great. Thanks for letting someone have an opinion.

I'm about as much of a troll as Santa. I just call em like I see em. And I certainly haven't read all of the negative threads/posts on this matter. There's only so much negativity I care to read through. And I didn't lump everybody anywhere, I said "some". If that's not you then it's not you, but some did do this for self gain. I can have my opinion too, whether each individual likes it or not. I could give a shit.

Oh and for the fun of it, I just checked them out at the BBB. "A-"
I understand why people who are being auto-renewed are pissed. Give me some credit.
 
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[quote name='triforcer']can't log in, it says my screen name is blocked/not activated so i'm hoping my canceling worked even though i didn't get an email. anyone have their screen name blocked yet still got billed?[/QUOTE]Just went through the cancel steps and am seeing the same thing.
 
I swear this has to be the most pointless organization ever, I cannot even believe people are defending it when their is no proof of them ever actually doing anything for their causes. I've been getting their DAILY newsletter for the last few weeks nows, I started getting an odd one about 2 months ago then it increased to everyday. I cancelled online and cannot log into the site. Lets see what happens.
 
I have not tried to cancel mine, I didnt use an amazon code, and joined in September... I am hoping its all taken care of by then and I can cleanly cancel.
 
[quote name='doodofdoods']I can't login, it says my screen name's been blocked or isnt activated. Am I in the clear?[/QUOTE]
Watch your credit card bill on the month you would have renewed to be sure.

Any idea if lilboo and the others who were charged can still log into their ECA accounts? Maybe I missed a post.
 
[quote name='doodofdoods']I can't login, it says my screen name's been blocked or isnt activated. Am I in the clear?[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, no one really knows right now. A lot of us are in this same boat, where we were told our memberships were dead and our credit information wiped. But we can go there and see that the database has knowledge of accounts we used to have.

This is pretty worrisome, actually, given what is going on right now. I'd rather "Strell" not show up there at all, and actually suggest I sign up with it again, since that would imply that my membership had all traces removed.
 
And the ECA fisaco rears its ugly head again.

Used a dummy CC number, so I'm not going to bother canceling. They can try to charge it all they want. :D
 
[quote name='triforcer']can't log in, it says my screen name is blocked/not activated so i'm hoping my canceling worked even though i didn't get an email. anyone have their screen name blocked yet still got billed?[/QUOTE]

That's the same for me. I guess I'll have to wait it out till the month I signed up. Even though I got in on it when it was free, I did try to sign up previously but they never sent me the link to purchase a membership. I actually signed up with my Real CC info when it was free and got my friend to do it too just because it seem like a good group. I would've been willing to stick with them even if they pulled the codes if they were actually doing something. Damn, I thought I was done with them.
 
[quote name='Strell']Oh this is stupid. He's failed to provide us a way to cancel THREE TIMES now. First with broken website, second with a lame "we're not responsible/don't know anything out how our stuff works" excuse, and NOW with people being charged AGAIN despite being told that their memberships were dead and their financial information erased.[/QUOTE]


No, you got your panties in a knot about a renewal that was 9-12 months in the future and expected an instant solution. If the result was a mess then you share the blame. The current problems are all coming from the past panic and not from any current flaw in the site.
 
tanumanasi_en_meditacion_loto_padmasana.jpg
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']No, you got your panties in a knot about a renewal that was 9-12 months in the future and expected an instant solution. If the result was a mess then you share the blame. The current problems are all coming from the past panic and not from any current flaw in the site.[/QUOTE]

This makes zero sense.
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']No, you got your panties in a knot about a renewal that was 9-12 months in the future and expected an instant solution. If the result was a mess then you share the blame. The current problems are all coming from the past panic and not from any current flaw in the site.[/QUOTE]

So ECA's lack of professionalism is partially the fault of the userbase? Rrrrright. :roll:
 
The one good thing out of all of this is that we all learned a lesson to use the "generate one time use cc# option'" that a lot of banks have these days.
 
I just got a 19.99$ charge from them. I used the mass letter to cancel back in December. I get the account is not active or blocked message when I try to log into the website.
 
[quote name='confoosious']The one good thing out of all of this is that we all learned a lesson to use the "generate one time use cc# option'" that a lot of banks have these days.[/QUOTE]

That's a good idea...

Another: CALL YOUR CC COMPANY AND TELL THEM TO ISSUE A STOP PAYMENT!

All you have to do is tell your CC company that you were fraudulently charged this renewal fee for a service you didn't sign up for, and they'll credit you back. Then ECA will have to deal with a much larger fish - the CC company.
 
[quote name='shimrion']I just got a 19.99$ charge from them. I used the mass letter to cancel back in December. I get the account is not active or blocked message when I try to log into the website.[/QUOTE]

Man that sucks.

I'm gonna take a couple of screenshots of my account for the credit card company.
 
This discount BS is irrelevant at this point.
The fact is people canceled a subscription for which they are still being charged.
If you stick with that fact, you ECA apologists will realize what is going on is not right.
If you can't understand this than you should create your own thread and have a lovefest for the ECA there.
 
i canceled autorenew but i did not cancel my membership. i think it would be better to see if they renew me when i have it off with my membership still active. don't wanna get locked out of the site if they charge me.
 
[quote name='shimrion']I just got a 19.99$ charge from them. I used the mass letter to cancel back in December. I get the account is not active or blocked message when I try to log into the website.[/QUOTE]This is not good at all and confirms my worst fears.
 
Well I can't log in, so that's good... and while it isn't good that everyone is getting charged again, at least they have a fancy new site intro.
Edit: Just saw shimrion's post.
...
fuck.
 
oh i missed the important step where i could cancel my membership instead of just turning off auto renew. Duh.

Will be cancelling right now. Do not want my membership padding their numbers.
 
If it helps alleviate any worries, I was up for renewal on March 28, 2010 (but I also did the mass letter cancellation). I used a credit card that wasn't temporary (which I should have in retrospect, but I figured I'd be a member for a long time even if the discounts disappeared); however, I have not been renewed or charged as of yet.

If I get a charge, I will update, but at the moment, there is nothing (my account also is listed as deactivated/blocked and I got the cancellation e-mail from Hal Halpin everyone's quoting).
 
[quote name='chakan']zakai, in addition to the mass letter, did you ALSO go online and cancel when it became available?[/QUOTE]
Nope. I only did the letter and waited for e-mail confirmation of cancellation.

Though, I was expecting a written letter back, but that never happened.
 
[quote name='chakan']zakai, in addition to the mass letter, did you ALSO go online and cancel when it became available?[/QUOTE]
Once the mass letter got processed, I wasn't even able to log into the account online to attempt to cancel.
 
[quote name='Strell']Oh.

My.

God.

You people are straight ridumbulous. Let's say you bought a game from Best Buy. You decide you don't want it. You return it unopened and with receipt. All is good, until a few months later, they bill you a pro-rated amount depending on how long you had it. You ask them what their malfunction is. "Well, see, if it was in your house, then we know you clearly were getting entertainment value out of it. You could have used it as a hat, or perhaps a tiny table."

[/QUOTE]

Except your example is all wrong. Change the store to a Mom and Pop outfit with two employees. Now have 1000 people in a mob outside the store at opening time all wanting to return stuff and constantly abusing the employees. Then you blame them because they made a mistake on a small percentage of the returns?

I have no reason to defend ECA, I experienced the same situation as everyone else. But getting upset about a $20 charge when you have 9 months to cancel it, and could get the charge removed with a single phone call to your credit card company. That's pretty weak.
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']Except your example is all wrong. Change the store to a Mom and Pop outfit with two employees. Now have 1000 people in a mob outside the store at opening time all wanting to return stuff and constantly abusing the employees. Then you blame them because they made a mistake on a small percentage of the returns?

I have no reason to defend ECA, I experienced the same situation as everyone else. But getting upset about a $20 charge when you have 9 months to cancel it, and could get the charge removed with a single phone call to your credit card company. That's pretty weak.[/QUOTE]

But the people getting charged did cancel. They canceled MONTHS ago.
 
[quote name='ChimpArmy']Where in my account can you select to cancel? All I see under membership options is the auto-renew feature.

Thanks[/QUOTE]

In Step 5.
 
[quote name='ChimpArmy']Where in my account can you select to cancel? All I see under membership options is the auto-renew feature.

Thanks[/QUOTE]
Click submit to go to the next step/screen.
 
Has anybody submitted this story to Kotaku or The Consumerist yet? Bad PR is probably the worst thing we can do to the ECA right now... at least until the class-action lawsuit begins.
 
[quote name='ohram']But the people getting charged did cancel. They canceled MONTHS ago.[/QUOTE]

You didn't follow the story properly. They cancelled in a mass by sending emails; obviously this will not be 100% reliable, especially when the site owner is getting hundreds of such emails every day for weeks.

Anyone who was patient had the chance to cancel the auto-renew on the web site with no problems. In fact if they hadn't manually cancelled and therefore had their accounts removed the auto-renew would even have been turned off without them doing anything. As I've said before this doesn't make the site owner completely innocent, but he wasn't trying to rip people off. He was just naive and got himself in a mess because he didn't anticipate the extremes that people will go to save money.
 
What's more illegal is that the email I got in DECEMBER states my credit card info has been REMOVED. This REEKS of a class action lawsuit.
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']You didn't follow the story properly. They cancelled in a mass by sending emails; obviously this will not be 100% reliable, especially when the site owner is getting hundreds of such emails every day for weeks.

Anyone who was patient had the chance to cancel the auto-renew on the web site with no problems. In fact if they hadn't manually cancelled and therefore had their accounts removed the auto-renew would even have been turned off without them doing anything. As I've said before this doesn't make the site owner completely innocent, but he wasn't trying to rip people off. He was just naive and got himself in a mess because he didn't anticipate the extremes that people will go to save money.[/QUOTE]
Actually we mailed physical letters about 600 if I remember correctly.
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']You didn't follow the story properly. They cancelled in a mass by sending emails; obviously this will not be 100% reliable, especially when the site owner is getting hundreds of such emails every day for weeks.[/QUOTE]

Um, no, you didn't follow it properly. The ECA refused to accept cancellations through email (or via the website -- that only came after), and said that they would only take them in hard copy through snail mail. So a big group of CAGs got together and sent them a box of cancellation letters. They acknowledged receipt of that box, and processed it slowly over the course of a couple of weeks afterward.

Beyond that, we also all got emails back from them once our requests were processed, saying that our accounts had been canceled, and our billing information deleted, per our requests. If they're still billing people, that means that they outright lied.

Really, there's no way to make them look good in this, so I don't know why you're trying.
 
[quote name='arcane93']
Really, there's no way to make them look good in this, so I don't know why you're trying.[/QUOTE]

Because he's a dumb troll that doesn't even know the whole story.
 
[quote name='blissskr']Actually we mailed physical letters about 600 if I remember correctly.[/QUOTE]

What he said.


[quote name='Confucius'] "If monkey throws crap at you, build walls around him and let him starve." [/QUOTE]


I think Confucius was talking about CAG's ignore feature.
 
[quote name='confoosious']The one good thing out of all of this is that we all learned a lesson to use the "generate one time use cc# option'" that a lot of banks have these days.[/QUOTE]

Please Please DO NOT do this on any major site. This is why we couldn't use PayPal numbers on Amazon for a long time. Part of the deal with many subscriptions is you get a discount on the first year for giving up your CC#. Don't abuse this by trying to get a discount and then give only a one time number; one time numbers have a unique identifier and can be blocked.
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']Except your example is all wrong. Change the store to a Mom and Pop outfit with two employees. Now have 1000 people in a mob outside the store at opening time all wanting to return stuff and constantly abusing the employees. Then you blame them because they made a mistake on a small percentage of the returns?

I have no reason to defend ECA, I experienced the same situation as everyone else. But getting upset about a $20 charge when you have 9 months to cancel it, and could get the charge removed with a single phone call to your credit card company. That's pretty weak.[/QUOTE]
If mom and pop couldn't handle that amount of customers they never should have courted them with free crap in the first place.
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']Please Please DO NOT do this on any major site. This is why we couldn't use PayPal numbers on Amazon for a long time. Part of the deal with many subscriptions is you get a discount on the first year for giving up your CC#. Don't abuse this by trying to get a discount and then give only a one time number; one time numbers have a unique identifier and can be blocked.[/QUOTE]

ummm yeah, i don't really give a shit what you have to say.

I'm gonna use one time use CC#s whenever I feel like it. I'm not using it to scam anyone. I'm using it to protect myself.
 
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