Terribly disappointed with customer service.
by AbC2711a1527598Original Post
So, I have an issue with this game right now. I have been playing for maybe 6 months, lvl 43, 630k population. Approximately 6 weeks ago, I redesigned my city with 2 rivers that flow into one. It's sweet, but there was an issue with services crossing the bridges while I was offline. My city stays at 100%. I check it all of the time and play many hours a day. I have spent easily over $1,000 on this game. I know. It's my guilty pleasure. I love this game.
I contacted the help center a week ago, at first they told me that it was a bug in the game, and that I should draw roads on land on the side of the bridges, or store my bridges until they had a fix. They also stated that it should not affect my tax amount in anyway. Hahaha. It was really bad. Sometime I would come back to my city and it was 8% happiness. 8%!! I would have 10-15 abandoned buildings. Everyone of my residents was salty as hell. This person, tarun, and I went back and forth. Tarun kept telling me I would have to be patient, even after I pointed out that abandoned buildings means less population and less taxes. A few days went by, I sent a few pictures to tarun showing tarun the population drop. I also stated that I was not changing my city, they needed to fix the issue immediately as it was costing me coins. Tarun asked me to be patient, and told me as a "goodwill gesture" "some golden keys" we're added to my city. I check my messages, and sure enough there were keys in there, 2 of them. 2???? Are you kidding me?
Now im mad, I start digging into how many coins I was actually losing because of this issue. When my city is at 100% happiness, my tax income is 19,818 in 24 hours. At 83%, it drops down to 13,808. At 8% happiness, which happened a lot over the entirety of this issue, I collect 988 coins in a 24 hour hour period. That's a difference of 18,830 simoleans. Over the period of a week, that's 131,810 simoleans. Over a six week period, the time since I rearranged my city, it's a total of 790,860 simoleans. You. Would need 10,800 of their virtual dollars (the green cash) to buy those simoleans.
At this point, I'm pretty furious, and insulted by tarun. Tarun just gave me 2 golden keys, and told me to change my city or be patient. Also was told it wasn't costing me tax income, a flat out lie. I sent a few pictures, along with a demand I thought was fair for having to deal with this issue. One of the demands I could live without as its a tall order, but the other 2 are fair. I received no response to those emails, but tarun did email me the day after the the keys to tell me they fixed the issue. I just need to download the update. That was it. "It's fixed, thanks". I sent a few emails to tarun, asking why tarun lied and why I my demands were being ignored. The next day, I received an email from tarun. This was comical. Here is text from the email............
"Hello again Mayor, When service warnings and complaints appear, tap your service menu to see if demand is outstripping capacity. Do you have more residences than your current service buildings can handle, and your demand/capacity scales have tipped into the red? Is an unhappy residence outside the green protection area of your existing service buildings?
To keep your citizens happy, safe and well in your growing city, build more services to increase overall capacity or move your existing service buildings to ensure you have the best area coverage plan possible.
**But what if your capacity and coverage is fine, but your citizens keep complaining?**
An incomplete road network is the number one cause of service complaints. Both service AND residential buildings must be perfectly connected to each other by road, as the road network provides the access for emergency vehicles and the route for piped services to travel beneath.
Remember - if a car couldn't drive from the front door of your service building to the front door of your residential building, then no services will be able to reach that building either.
Make sure you haven't accidentally stranded your buildings and citizens by tracing your roads with your finger and making sure there are no loops or unexpected dead-ends where the asphalt is not a smooth, continuous line. Check each intersection and junction to make sure they're not accidentally blocked by sidewalks. Draw any extra road necessary to make your roadways complete, and your service troubles will be over! Your citizens will happily move back into abandoned buildings by themselves as long as services are provided for them."
tarun also stated that tarun sent me another "goodwill gesture". I check, it's 100 cash. I have sent more emails since, but I have not received a response. 100 cash buys around 6000 simoleans. That's not even close to the amount I lost. I'm not saying I was stripped of all 800,000 simoleans, but I did lose a significant amount over that period of time.
No no one at simcity will respond. Tarun is a ghost. I feel so insulted by tarun. My sims' happiness went down because of an incomplete road yes, but it was your glitch, not my mistake. I built a beautiful city and was punished because of it, and when I complained, I was insulted and treated like a four year old. My demands were not out of this world for what I have spent on this game. I have not gone back to check that amount, as I don't really want to know. I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 2,000 to be honest. It's usually $5-$50 at least 4 days a week. What can I say, I love this game. The issue is fixed, I will say that. But I'm at the point where I do not want to play. I have a little over the last few days since tarun has emailed me, but I have not spent money. I took my card off of iTunes so it couldn't charge it for my last purchase. And so I can't spend anymore. I don't really feel like playing anymore.
My my demands were pretty straightforward, I wanted a vault of cash (8500), 1000 platinum keys, and I wanted to be a beta tester, or to have access to new stuff or all buildings type of thing. I understand the beat tester is a tall order, but I am 31 years old, I have noticed a ton of issues with this game, things that could be done differently, things that would better gameplay and make EA more money. The other two demands are totally doable. It's tarun pushing a few buttons and a few key strokes. I do not feel like spending anymore cash on this game. Not until they make it right. I actually think the cash demand is low, it's 2000 short of replacing the hypothetical amount that I could have lost.
Hopefully this his gets someone's attention, I am tired of being ignored. Make this right, or I may be done with all EA games. I made a few statements of action to tarun, and I'm not opposed to following through. I just want to be made whole. I've spent a ton of money, it's people like me that make this game money.
