So.... I am thoroughly disappointed with the lack of communication and quality customer service from both Amazon and Zenimax after today.

I pre-ordered the physical Imperial Special Edition of the game on February 1 from Amazon. They have been my go-to retailer for pre-ordering games for years - games have always, without a hitch, shown up on day 1 via overnight or 2 day shipping. When I placed the order, I received a code granting 5 day early access for pre-ordering.... which went without much problem. Today, Zenimax ended their 2 day grace period given to allow people who ordered physical or digital copies to enter their game access codes.

If you ordered a physical copy, you only received the rings of Mara, the ability to create any race on any faction and the ability to play as Imperial. The actual game code and the explorer's pack codes are inside the hard-copy of the game... which has not arrived - and will not arrive until Tuesday. Apparently, Amazon and Gamestop WAY oversold these Special Imperial Editions... some people are having to wait a month to receive their copy.... and until we all receive our game, we are unable to login because the only way to enter billing information is to enter your code into Account Services on the ESO website.

I have spoken with 3 CSRs from Amazon... none of them are willing to help - I offered a suggestion that they give a code from a digital copy that is available on their site - or to credit my account for the amount of the digital version so I can receive a code myself - they aren't willing to budge - after writing a detailed incident report of the issue, I received this response:

"Thanks for contacting us. I'm sorry you weren't able to take advantage of this promotional offer before it expired. Our promotional offers function much like a coupon in a physical store. They are sometimes limited to certain products and are valid only for the length of the promotion. The code has been expired as it was suppose to be used within 5 days of the game release date."

Huh? They don't even bother reading the extremely detailed description of the problem. I then took the opportunity to live-chat with another CSR. He was unable to help me at all, and the one response he gave me repeatedly was "Don't worry about it, we will work this out.... in a few days" I told him there wouldn't a problem to work out in a few days because by that time, the game will had arrived - I need a solution now.

I escalated the issue to a phone service rep... she offered no solutions but assured me "don't worry about it - we will take care of it." By this time, it's clear that Amazon management is clearly telling the reps to use this verbiage, and it's beginning to really upset me... I assured them that I was most definitely worried about it, especially since she was the 3rd person telling me not to worry, but neglecting to offer and real customer service.

Concurrently, I attempted to contact Zenimax to help with the issue - the direction given was to leave my phone number and an agent would contact me because the current wait was over an hour - they are supposed to call. That was 8 hours ago. They can fix this issue easily - simply add a few days to the grace period so the people who are affected by this aren't left upset by not being able to log-in. Either that, or allow us to enter in billing information without needing the game code - we aren't being billed for another 30 days anyhow.

None of this makes any sense. I have been in customer service for 20 years - this is an absolutely deplorable way to treat people who have given you their money... and who are begging you to take more of it. I hope this isn't a glimpse of how Zenimax treats their clients - maybe they weren't expecting the sales or demands to be this high - they should have planned better and staffed more help for this first month. I'm tired of excuses without solutions.