Official Complaints Procedure? [ Edited ]

[squelch87rn]

I've been looking about and have found no resources that point me in the direction to make an official complaint to EA.
My Fifa Ultimate Team has been deleted, a team I spent hundreds of pounds building. I hear the [snickers - edited for potentially offensive spelling] and all that now, but it was only until recently i found that buying coins was against policy. I genuinely (and naively so it seems) thought that the website I used was affiliated with EA. How wrong was I?

Anyway, I tried to contest the deletion of my squad and basically got told where to go. They replied using a "no reply" email and left no source of address for me to respond to. By EA's own standards and practces, principals and procedures, they should have gone about this situation by implementing their three-strike system. I never received a warning that what I was doing was again at the Terms Of Service, had I of been told, I'd have stopped. I now want to contest their pathetic decision and get my team back, together with the first strike that I deserve.

I'm bitterly disappointed in EA and the whole make up of Ultimate Team. How the hell are people supposed to develop a squad with what we receive in packs? I've been buying fifa points for the last two years, I've purchased hundreds of packs. In fifa 2015, ive only ever got two players of any decent stature, Shweinsteiger and Falcao. That's it. How can we be expected to get the squad we want with such a rubbish system? It's not my fault that I went to an external agency, what other choice do we as gamers and football fans have? How else are we supposed to get a good team that can compete when ther packs are rubbish and the fifa points are rediculously over priced? Surely they can't get away with this just because it's suits them?

I did not Realise that buying coins from an external source was against ToS, do we ever actually Read said terms? Nope. Why couldn't they follow their own policy and warn me about the activity? Make me realise that what is as doing is frowned upon? The realisation of having my team deleted would have ensured I'd never touch another website again. I had an awesome team and one I spent a lot of money on! Yes, I now realise it was wrong but do we as gamers really have a choice? EA have their own departments to deal with this issue, they pay people salaries to sniff out the "cheats", wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to change the way that Ultimate Team is designed and the way in which we can get the teams we want?

Is the anyone else that feels as strongly about this as I do?

If someone could please point me in the right direction for the official complaints procedure, id appreciate that. That'll be better for EA before I go down the Trading Standards and Watchdog avenues because the way this is handles is wrong

[glenzilly]

I have edited your post as your particular spelling of "snickers" might be offensive to some (unintentional I am sure and probably only immediately obvious to an American reader). There is no official complaints department but you can send an email to accountdisputes@ea.com if you want to dispute the action against your account.

I will say that ignorance of the law is generally not considered a valid defense, nor is "I never read the TOS before I agreed to them". If it were everyone would claim ignorance and enforcement would be meaningless.

[squelch87rn]

Sniggers
noun
1.
a sly or disrespectful laugh, esp one partly stifled

No need to edit anything, that term and example above is straight from the English dictionary!

I agree with the enforcement, of course I do. But, where was my initial warning? Their own policy states a three strike system! They've failed to follow their own policy here! I deserve a warning, of course. But to delete my team? Give me a warning, make me realise I can't buy coins and that's lesson learnt

[glenzilly]

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@squelch87rn wrote:
[removed]
noun
1.
a sly or disrespectful laugh, esp one partly stifled

No need to edit anything, that term and example above is straight from the English dictionary!

I agree with the enforcement, of course I do. But, where was my initial warning? Their own policy states a three strike system! They've failed to follow their own policy here! I deserve a warning, of course. But to delete my team? Give me a warning, make me realise I can't buy coins and that's lesson learnt

---

Unfortunately drop the "s" and you have the most offensive word possible in the US. There is another often used word in the UK whose definition is "miserly" but also close to the US racial slur so we do not use it here either. I think the word that rhymes with yankers is similar the other way around. Very offensive in the UK but not so much in the US.

[squelch87rn]

Are you actually serious? You're removing a word despite the fact it is part of the English language, to which im literate in? Then, despite me placing a quote from the Oxford Dictionary, you still feel the need to edit my post?

What is the world coming too?

[glenzilly]

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@squelch87rn wrote:
Are you actually serious? You're removing a word despite the fact it is part of the English language, to which im literate in? Then, despite me placing a quote from the Oxford Dictionary, you still feel the need to edit my post?

What is the world coming too?

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You are using the UK spelling, but the US spelling has been changed to "snicker" to avoid confusion with the racial slur. I think for people who live outside the US I realize it seems ridiculous but the word is considered so offensive that we have actually modified spellings and dropped the use of words that might be mistaken for it.

[tominie]

Hate to sound like a hater but I have no sympathy for this issue. Not only is it obvious that you don't buy coins from a third party but also you have never read any terms and conditions for 'the last two years'.

When you first start Fifa and also Ultimate Team you enter into a contract when you click that you accept the T&C's. You have breached the terms of the contract by going outside of the servers to obtain coins and therefore would likely fail with any legal mediation. As for the 3 strike system; if you have been buying coins regularly for 2 years I think you should count yourself lucky that they haven't banned you outright as you may be an exceptional case, still having your club and 6000 coins seems more than fair. 

If coin selling was a 'correct' thing don't you think that EA themselves would have capitalised on it through their own site?

Finally, can you not see the biggest issue with the points that you've raised below, that you're involved in creating the inflation that you're complaining about by buying the coins?

Sorry to be so negative but there's no point in sugar-coating it.

[DiggerHawk]

I have heard it all now. Replacing a word someone has posted because it rhymes with an offensive word. The word in question is most definitely not the "N" word as it begins with an "S". If we can't use words because they rhyme with an inappropriate word, are vocabulary will be extremely diminished.

On another note,  I really cant understand why people spend more money on buying virtual cards for a mode that is killing the rest of the game. As long as EA can milk this Ultimate Team cash cow, they wont bother fixing anything else. I can remember when you payed money upfront and they worked out of the box (and they did come in a cardboard box). There was no way of patching it because your console or PC wasn't connected to the Internet (it didn't exist). If a game didn't work you would return it, the developers wouldn't get their money. A pretty good incentive to make a good game don't you think?

Rant over.

[squelch87rn]

Who said is been buying coins over the past two years? Last years fifa I spent a lot of time getting the team I had, I never had any in form players of TOTY's and I struggled to climb the leagues.

This year was the year I tried my hand at buying coins. I felt I had no choice because coins were so highly priced that I just couldn't get a good team, despite my best efforts. Like I said, naively I didn't even know these coin buying sites were available until a short while ago, fortunately im in a position where I can throw money at it so that's what I did, not realising it was bad. When you have websites which look very authentic, it's hard to tell that it's against the rules. Yes I was naive and yes I should have read the T's and C's, but like 98% of people on here, you just click accept.

As I've stated, if I had a warning that what I was doing wasn't permitted, don't you think I'd have stopped wasting my money? I certainly do. Yes I've done something which is frowned upon but I should have been dealt with exactly how EA say they deal with people, by implementing that three strike system. I purchased Suarez, and TOTY Silva, Luiz and Kroos (although for Kroos I had to do a lot of buying and selling to get the rest of the coins), why not just take them off me?

There's a wider issue here and it's one that they need to look at. Why not cap players? I mean, to get Messi and Ronaldo for example, you will never be able to purchase these players without being lucky enough to get them in a pack or looking at an external agency, not when you only get a few hundred coins per win and a measly few thousand for tournament wins.

[boollie]

My question is why are you punishing the buyer and not the seller. The sites, the YouTube videos, you could shut down all these sites in a week if you just go through the hula hoop process they have created