Unable to play expansion pack - sims 3

[annemarie213]

Hello everyone,

I've had this problem for about 3 years now, and even though I've reached out to EA customer support, it has still not been solved.

It's about the Island Paradise expansion pack. I bought the CD in an electronic shop, and installed it. Then Origin came along and I had to install it on Origin. No problem. 

However, one day I am unable to see the expansion pack in the game launcher. It is seen as bought and installed in my Origin profile, but it is simply not IN my game. I've tried un-installing, deleting and re-installing, but nothing works. I've contacted EA several times, but they say it's a 'chargeback' and I must contact my retailer, but the place I bought the game no longer exists. 

Any suggestions on what to do? 

[puzzlezaddict]

@annemarie213  If EA is saying the pack has been deactivated, which is what happens when a retailer issues a chargeback, then there's nothing you or anyone outside of EA support can do to unblock it.  I'm surprised though that a physical disc would be subject to a chargeback; this has always seemed to be exclusively a problem with digital download codes.  But maybe the retailer you bought from, or whoever sold them the discs, did in fact issue a chargeback against EA.

At any rate, you could try manually uninstalling Island Paradise and then installing it via disc.  Sometimes this works, although often it doesn't make a difference.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/the-sims/the-sims-3/manually-uninstalling-the-sims-3/

Other than that, you're probably out of luck.

[annemarie213]

Thank you for your answer. It sucks if it really is true that nothing can be done. However, do you think that I would be able to play the game if I bought a new CD of it, and try to install that? Totally fine if you don't know, just curious

[roberta591]

@annemarie213   The cd is generic as in all the cds for this item will be the same. The code is what you are paying for. You can get Island Living through Origin and it will show in your purchase history and is automatically added to your Origin account and should be added to your game the next time you start Origin via digital download. Do you remember if the case was open when you bought it? Some retailers don't realize that a person only needs the code. If your dealing with a true 3rd party vendor and use a credit/debit card your can always claim the problem with the card company. You may have to contact EA to have the old purchase removed. Unauthorized retailers can legally sell these items if they are the physical item but can not sell just the code. I have purchased some from Amazon with no issues as they are an authorized code seller. The DRM for Sims 3 was very loose and when the DRM was changed to Origin some holes were fixed such as activating packs to different accounts. A charge back would be like someone contested the charge made to a credit/debit card and EA was debited the money. How did you pay for the card? The problem now it has been so long that trying to figure out what happened would be hard.  hth

[puzzlezaddict]

@annemarie213  Yes, you can re-buy the pack and register it.  But you would probably need to ask support to remove the pack from your account before you'd be able to play with the pack again.  If a support rep tells you this can't be done, they're misinformed: it's a common practice in this kind of situation.