I am outraged at the fact that customer service representatives are demanding confidential and personal information in emails before tickets will be looked at, forwarded or addressed. I know I am not the only person that thinks this is insane. There are threads all over these forums with similar complaints. I also know almost every other active MMO out there would never demand you provide such details as your name, date of birth & user name in an email. Also, it seems like each CSR I deal with has a different requirement list. There is no consistency. I have corresponded with 4 customer service representatives since early access, due to a bug that wiped my bank items including some imperial bonus items.
For the 1st response to my ticket, the CSR (Ligia) stated:
We are very sorry you are experiencing this issue and will work hard to fix it. But in order to proceed with restoration we will require data confirmation.
- The last 4 digits of your credit card
I complained about this and then received a 2nd response from another CSR (Nicole):
We understand you are missing items from your vault. We're sorry to hear about that. For verification purposes please provide one the following:
Game code
the last four digits of credit card used for purchase
or
The answer to your secret question
One of these validation points is required to make changes to your account.
Once I provided my information, I received no further correspondence. No updates, no ETA, no restore, nothing. After waiting 7 days with no responses, I decided to try the phone support option. I never received the promised call back, but did get this email two days later:
Response By Email (Ambernae) (04/09/2014 10:21 AM)
Greetings!
Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. The next thing we will need to do is verify your account. Please email/contact customer support with the following information:
Both email address:
DOB:
First and Last Name:
Username:
Beta Key Used on Account:
Thank you for your continued interest and support!
Warm Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team
Question Reference # 140407-042746
Not only did the request for PI make me crazy for security reasons, but my questions to support were not even account related, which just infuriated me more (well #3 kinda was). Just for reference, my initial text to this response was as follows:
I have been unable to get a response to my outstanding ticket. I've waited 7 days and no one will answer my questions. The last response was an apology for no response and a promise to escalate the response. That was 2 or 3 days ago and still no response. Ticket #140401-055267.
1) Is it safe to use my bank now or does the bug still exist?
2) Will using my bank now affect the items restored? I am afraid to put anything in it if it means I won’t be able to get my pre-order maps back that disappeared
3) Is there any ETA? If so, what is it?
ZOS, Is this a company policy or just a mistake due to poor training? Why are CSR requesting this information? If such verification is truly needed, why not just ask for the answer to the secret question to prove the account is not stolen? Obtaining someone’s first name, last name & DOB is enough for Identity Theft/Fraud. You’re requesting more personal information that some financial institutions do. This is unacceptable.