"Contact Support" questions

When I got my account cleared today, I noticed a sentence in the email Support sends when you've changed your password. It says:

• If you didn't request this change, please contact the Guild Wars Support Team immediately.

So, we have a situation where an account has been compromised by someone other than the player. This is thus a time-critical situation for the player.

But, contacting support simply cannot be done "immediately". They don't respond for weeks.

There needs to be another support process for compromised accounts.

The CS Team often temporarily (or permanently) suspends an account when ownership is in question (such as compromised account cases). They don't have to respond, first, before doing so.

Besides, usually when an account has been compromised, the email account has been compromised, as well, so only the 'hacker' gets that email.

Good luck.

Perhaps I wasn't clear:

I received this email. In it support tells me to take this action (if it wasn't me): contact support immediately.

This action is impossible to complete.

My point is: If the CS Team received such a response to that email, they would or could easily suspend the account without replying to you. They don't have to acknowledge your email responses or wait for permission to action an account.

There's been many a post on the forums (and Reddit) where players have found their account suspended (and often because it had been compromised with or without their knowledge), and then must wait to work through the issue with the CS Team.

It says contact support immediately which you did. It does not say you will be contacted back immediately.

Whilst I don't dispute account issues like such should be prioritised (maybe they are) over other issues, the email statement is otherwise 100% accurate

You're confusing the two ends of the process: the player sending a request to Support and the player getting a response with the solution.

They're asking players to tell them there's a problem which they need to investigate as soon as possible, not saying they will get a response the same day. But until you tell them someone else has accessed your account they won't even know there is anything for them to do, so absolutely nothing will get done. Meaning the sooner you tell them the less damage there will be, no matter how long it takes them to respond.

As other people have said when an account is compromised they'll often start by banning it, so no one can log in from anywhere, then investigate a bit on their end and then get back to the player to discuss who should have access to the account and from where.

It was the same for me when I worked in Customer Service, even though it was completely different problems I was dealing with. I'd often work on a problem for 30 minutes at least before I even started writing a reply to the customer because until I'd done some investigation I couldn't tell them anything other than "ok I'll look into it" and the minimal benefit they might get from me reassuring them that the email had been seen (which in theory was already covered by the automated message) wasn't worth my time, especially because then they'd almost certainly reply wanting to know what I could tell them and what I was going to do. It was just better for everyone involved to wait until I could actually answer their questions before replying.

You guys are all reading way too much into this.

Scenario 1:

1. Player changes his password.
2. Player gets email.
3. End of story.

Scenario 2:

1. Player does NOT change his password.
2. Some hacker DOES change his password.
3. Player gets email instructing him to contact support immediately.

I'm only referring to that last step (3) of scenario 2. That step is impossible, as there is no way to contact support "immediately". They take weeks to respond.

Hence, there needs to be another contact method for situations where an account may have been compromised.

@"Daddicus.6128" said:You guys are all reading way too much into this.

Scenario 1:

1. Player changes his password.
2. Player gets email.
3. End of story.

Scenario 2:

1. Player does NOT change his password.
2. Some hacker DOES change his password.
3. Player gets email instructing him to contact support immediately.

I'm only referring to that last step (3) of scenario 2. That step is impossible, as there is no way to contact support "immediately". They take weeks to respond.

Hence, there needs to be another contact method for situations where an account may have been compromised.

Everyone is also referring to the exact step, which is not impossible. The player can contact support immediately (even if the player is a 'her'). Scenario 2/Step 3 is about the player's responsibility to initiate the process, it's not about whether ANet takes 1 minute or 1 year to respond.

Again, the CS Team does not have to respond to action an account. It's happened countless times.

Example:

1. Player receives email about changing password, but did not change password.
2. Player contacts CS Team.
3. CS Team receives ticket, and investigates. While doing so, notices that different IP addresses have accessed account.
4. CS Team suspends account until the time account ownership can be ascertained.

At no time must the CS Team notify or ask permission to action the account.

I made the experience it depends really hard on the customer support in question.

In my guild the usual process now is to submit new anonymous tickets via trash email adresses until you get an employee assigned actually willing to help. That reduced the average ~2 weeks response time down to ~6 hours.

@evosociety.7042 said:I made the experience it depends really hard on the customer support in question.

In my guild the usual process now is to submit new anonymous tickets via trash email adresses until you get an employee assigned actually willing to help. That reduced the average ~2 weeks response time down to ~6 hours.

While this may reduce your response times, I can't help but think that this approach may be contributing to the longer wait time issue overall. Every one of those tickets needs to follow the process, which costs quite a bit of time and resources. If I could be so bold, could you please stick to one ticket submission per issue and encourage the same with others in your guild? Thanks

@"Daddicus.6128" said:I'm only referring to that last step (3) of scenario 2. That step is impossible, as there is no way to contact support "immediately". They take weeks to respond.

"Contact support" means "send a message to support". It does NOT mean "send a message to support and get a response".

So yes, you can do that. Send them a message.

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:

@"Daddicus.6128" said:

I'm only referring to that last step (3) of scenario 2.

That step is impossible, as there is no way to contact support "immediately". They take weeks to respond.

This.

Contacting them means you making contact - it's done as soon as you hit send on the email. Getting a response is different.

Think of it like shopping online - you'll often see adverts like "order by 9pm to get it at this price". That doesn't mean you will receive your item before 9pm - it means you need to have submitted the order before then to be included in the promotion. No matter whether it takes them 2 hours or 2 days or 2 weeks to send it out - the important thing is when you sent in the order. Same situation here.

@crashburntoo.7431 said:

@"evosociety.7042" said:I made the experience it depends really hard on the customer support in question.

In my guild the usual process

now

is to submit new anonymous tickets via trash email adresses until you get an employee assigned actually willing to help. That reduced the average ~2 weeks response time down to ~6 hours.

Also if people in your guild are getting their accounts compromised regularly enough that you have your own process for dealing with it you might want to check out this article on simple things players can do to keep their account secure: https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/230428927-Guild-Wars-2-Account-Security

@evosociety.7042 said:I made the experience it depends really hard on the customer support in question.

In my guild the usual process now is to submit new anonymous tickets via trash email adresses until you get an employee assigned actually willing to help. That reduced the average ~2 weeks response time down to ~6 hours.

Yea as other have stated, more then likely its becouse of people like the persons in this guild that there is now a huge backlog for them to work through.

I see a lot of people complaining about response time, but IMHO it has to be the complexity of the tickets (or opening multiple tickets). I have had to open several tickets since starting the game for simple issues and the response time has always been fantastic. I think my most complex issue was accidentally purchasing 8000 gems instead of 4000 and I believe I got a response the same evening. If there is an issue with a compromised account and ownership, that's a lot more complicated and I would actually be surprised if any games support could resolve that "quickly".

Well a few days ago I received an email from ANET in relation to me apparently intimating that my account might of been compromised… errrmmm when did I advise that... I did no such thing!This was a reply to a ticket sent in reporting a potential wall hack by Elona Reach players in last weeks WvW matchup.. yet apparently that seemed to suggest it was my account that was compromised.. curious for sure.. amateur at best.

Contact: "the act or state of touching; a touching or meeting, as of two things or people." Source: dictionary.com/browse/contact?s=t, definition 1.

@evosociety.7042 said:I made the experience it depends really hard on the customer support in question.

In my guild the usual process now is to submit new anonymous tickets via trash email adresses until you get an employee assigned actually willing to help. That reduced the average ~2 weeks response time down to ~6 hours.

That hurts EVERYBODY, including you. Don't do it.

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

@"evosociety.7042" said:I made the experience it depends really hard on the customer support in question.

In my guild the usual process

now

is to submit new anonymous tickets via trash email adresses until you get an employee assigned actually willing to help. That reduced the average ~2 weeks response time down to ~6 hours.

It doesn't backfire because those are legitimate issues, and tickets "stuck" in the queue won't be workend on properly anyways. Actually we can wastly disclose which one of the pseudonyms the support uses are actually doing their jobs and and those who aren't just by comparing response content and time. E.g. submitting 3 times the same ticket, 2 times after 11 days being asked for aditional infos with the same question template when actually the issue got resolved the same day by 'Galactic Bat' being the only one to read the Ticket. You can mostly tell if someone is willing to work out the issue if he or she is using smileys in their response.

It's bad. I mean really bad. Constantly asking for already submitted infos again, mixing up gw1 and gw2. We had people being banned for reporting gem store bugs 3 times of which we couldn't retreive one account ever again because the bug manifasted as "credit card fraud" on your side. So please explain to me why I should care about other people trying to claim back disputable accounts when a friend of 10 years lost everything for being honest?

Do you actually know that right now if you buy 1 char slot in gw1 you receive 2? A lot of people know that, but nobody dares to report it via your system afraid of being falsely accused of some weird charge back claims your support immediatly refuses to even discuss.

@"Daddicus.6128" said:Contact: "the act or state of touching; a touching or meeting, as of two things or people." Source: dictionary.com/browse/contact?s=t, definition 1.

Yes, you reach out to support; you get the automated reply: that constitutes "contact."

But let's say everyone else, including ANet, is wrong about the connotation of the word, "contact." What would you like the new text to be that would be accurate, unambiguous, and useful to players?

If you didn't request this change, please [fill in the blank] the Guild Wars Support Team immediately.

Given that ANet would have to translate that updated text into 4 other languages (and probably get a legal team review), at some additional cost, do you still think this is important for them to do? Is it more important than other text changes or other work for which those involved are also responsible?

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Daddicus.6128" said:Contact: "the act or state of touching; a touching or meeting, as of two things or people." Source:

dictionary.com/browse/contact?s=t

, definition 1.

If you didn't request this change, please [fill in the blank] the Guild Wars Support Team immediately.

No legal team was used on the current one. Lawyers understand language, and don't use even marginally-deficient words.

But, you're completely missing the point: When someone's account is compromised, they need IMMEDIATE attention. That's the whole point of their email: to determine if immediate attention is needed.

But, meeting that goal is impossible, regardless of how one interprets the sentence.

My main point is that there needs to be a way to immediately lock the account until more solid action can be taken.

You have no idea whether the accounts are immediately locked, or not. You seem to be under the impression that receiving a response from the CS Team equates with account action, and/or reading the tickets. I imagine, if someone selects, say, 'Purchase Issue' instead of 'I can't log in', then it might take a bit more time for the appropriate Team to see what the problem is, but considering there is the Account Restoration Tool, it would not make much difference.

If the CS Team only locks accounts when sending a response to a ticket, why do players come on the forum and query why they are locked out of their accounts, and then find that, having spoken with the CS Team, their account has been compromised?

My rant has been a read by a few and I've been asked to post this one here.

Yes a 690000xx one. Answered Yesterday.

Q> Hey, my password can't be resetted

...13 days later....

A> Here! Have a Level 80 Boost.