Am I allowed to sell my EA account? [ Edited ]

[Truman69Snake]

To be more specific, am I bound by any EA or Origin license agreement that would prevent me from selling my account?

I'd very much like to know, because a representative from EA just told me that I could.

Exhibit 1

We were discussing EA's DRM that is preventing me from transferring the ownership of my physical copy of The Sims 3. My case was along the lines of asking for permission to sell my physical copy of The Sims 3 Starter pack, noting the problem that my customer would not be able to install the game due to the activation code already being used on my account. I do understand that this type of question has been discussed several times, and that this is EA's answer to DRM. Ahem, in other words, another way to make more money by restricting consumer rights. Generally speaking, the physical copy of The Sims 3 and everything included belongs to the customer, and that customer's property cannot be bound by any license agreement or policy, including the case, artwork insert, CDs, and most importantly, the serial keys for installing the game. But they do so using Origin.

I offered a tiny example portraying the monstrosity of such a practice. Let's say EA now owns AT&T and is using this policy for their service agreements. If I left my phone at another person's house and there was a situation where they needed to call 911 or an ambulance, they would not be able to use my service to call for help. If they did, I could sue this person for doing so, or rather more likely, EAT&T would sue me or the person who used my phone, because it would infringe on their policies. Lucky me, they were aware of the policy and died because they couldn't call for help, letting me keep my right as a customer of EAT&T (please no I don't want it).

So after a very long discussion of me defending my rights as a customer and consumer, whether or not bound by a digital end user license agreement, I offered a simple solution. I'm no longer going to be a customer, because I'm going to transfer my rights as a customer of EA to another individual. Technically speaking, they are not losing a customer, rather I'm just passing the baton to the next paying customer. Ahem, to the next victim. EA is not getting any money from me, I gave up on gaming when I started my own life with my wife and child years ago. The potential customer is obviously not going to buy a brand new copy of the game, otherwise they wouldn't be looking to buy this used one, maybe because of financial restrictions, internet capabilities, or even bigotry towards a certain company.

It was at this point the representative of my case gave up and said, "As i have confirmed from the specialist team they informed in this case there is nothing they can help with as whatever the scenario i have already discussed  with you they have delivered the same to me so i would like to request you if you want to sell your account you can do but that scenario will remain same."

They denied me asking them to un-redeem the serial code on my account so whoever I'd pass it to would be able to play, but told me I can sell my account if I would like to do so.

In light of all of this, there is nothing stopping people from inviting other people over to their houses with their computers so they can use their Origin account to install the game onto the recipient's PC, afterwards blocking Origin's access to the internet, allowing anyone to play the game at a reduced price, or even free of charge. The MAC address and IP would be easily spoofed to be the same as the seller's PC. Nobody would know, and EA is none the wiser. So why keep people from selling a game they got bored of years ago? That's one of the reasons why I've seen so many people publicly announce a boycott of EA. Lucky for them I'm a law abiding citizen, but there's a million more out there who aren't. I just want to get rid of this game, but I don't want to throw away the money I spent. What's the point of keeping it anyways? I paid for a digital code that won't exist in 10 years.

That being said, I was told I am allowed to sell my account. Where do we go from here?

[EA_David]

@Truman69Snake The agent in question was completely incorrect, and we will investigate further to ensure that the correct information is being given out.

You are not allowed to sell your EA Account, you can find the Terms of Service here: https://www.ea.com/terms-of-service

The relevant parts are: 

"6. Rules of Conduct

When you access or use an EA Service, you agree that you will not:

....

• Sell, buy, trade or otherwise transfer or offer to transfer your EA Account, any personal access to EA Services, or any EA Content associated with your EA Account, including EA Virtual Currency and other Entitlements, either within an EA Service or on a third party website, or in connection with any out-of-game transaction, unless expressly authorized by EA."

and 

"Some examples of severe violations include, but are not limited to: promoting, encouraging or engaging in hacking, selling EA accounts or entitlements (including virtual currencies and items) without EA’s permission, extreme harassment, or threatening illegal activities. When practical, EA will notify you of the action it will take in response to violations of these rules or breach of this Agreement."

As for your main point about transferring the games, the game/disc is yours do to with as you wish, but the license tied to the product code is non-transferable. 

"2. License

The EA Services are licensed to you, not sold. EA grants you a personal, limited, non-transferable, revocable and non-exclusive license to use the EA Services to which you have access for your non-commercial use, subject to your compliance with this Agreement. You may not access, copy, modify or distribute any EA Service, Content or Entitlements (as those terms are defined below), unless expressly authorized by EA or permitted by law. You may not reverse engineer or attempt to extract or otherwise use source code or other data from EA Services, unless expressly authorized by EA or permitted by law. EA or its licensors own and reserve all other rights, including all right, title and interest in the EA Services and associated intellectual property rights."

Sorry that I can't help with this, but I do thank you for bringing this to our attention. 

[Truman69Snake]

I quote, "selling EA accounts or entitlements (including virtual currencies and items) without EA’s permission."

I was given permission by a representative of EA to do this, as it was the only solution to my case. Did you do the research? I still have the chat window with all the evidence and proof.

[Truman69Snake]

Could I get a confirmation on this please? Otherwise I'll go ahead and transfer the ownership as I was told I could, and prepare for retaliation against a ban on the account by filing a lawsuit?

[Truman69Snake]

Still waiting for a confirmation. Getting in touch with a lawyer also, to see how solid my case would be if there is retaliation. This topic will be Exhibit 2.

[XXXO77O4906]

@Truman69Snake

What @EA_David said is still correct. You are not allowed to sell your EA Account to anyone at any point. Doing so would be a breach in the TOS that you agreed to when you made your account and if discovered would lead to sanctions/bans being applied against your account.

The agent was sadly mistaken and his case was escalated further up so this does not happen again as it was said above.

Further to this situation, the topic of discussing to sell accounts or take legal action is not allowed or fit for this forums. If you wish to see the rules, please check them here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/help/faqpage#welcome-user .

Since you were now answered several times, I will be closing/locking this thread here. Again you are not allowed to sell your account and doing so will lead to punishments so do not do it if you what to avoid that.