Charging money for something you know doesn't work is fraud.
@NianticBrian, you know that CORE is fundamentally broken. The bugs forum is full of reports about it, yet you barely respond to anyone about it, and have made no statement about how and when the issues will be permanently fixed.
I and many others are being Ghosted by support.
This has been going on for months, and it appears to be getting worse.
Can you give me one good reason why I, as a paying customer, should not report your actions to Apple as fraud?
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Good morning.
Meet Niantic -- the most user friendly company in the world.
I think you should. Hopefully that could teach them some lessons.
Question: You say CORE is fundamentally broken, but what % of subscribers do those reports affect? They're almost all iOS so it isn't affecting Android. I'm interested to know the actual subscriber percentage.
Thanks to the PoGo/Ingress email combination account issue, there's a percentage of folks on Android who are now also locked out of their subscription too.
this is a pretty bad take. You should probably keep your mouth shut on this
Wow. First, no, it's not just iOS. Second, are you saying it doesn't matter if it's "just" iOS players? And third, they clearly can fix the problem (after two months of screaming, my iOS subscription has worked flawlessly for the last two months), but they can't manage any kind of consistency whatever, or clear (or any, for that matter) communication directly with the affected users.
My two cents:
Agents have posted on these forums, filed support tickets, and patiently waited for a resolution to these on-going issues with C.O.R.E. They have given Brian and Niantic a fair chance to make things right.
At this point, there seems to be little recourse but to ask third parties to compel Brian and Niantic to do that which they will not do of their own volition. File reports with Apple or Google. Look into Section 13 of the ToS to clawback compensation for services paid for and not provided (assuming that wasn't signed away as part of Section 12…).
As I mentioned elsewhere, money changes everything.
Imagine going through a Drive Thru, ordering food, paying for it, and then just not getting your food. It doesn't matter what percentage, those people are going to have a hard time wanting to come back, and they have friends that they tell about this Drive Thru that just takes money without giving you what you ordered. What is that adage? People tell another person about a good experience, but ten people about a bad experience. Even if there's just one customer, that person's experience needs to be set right.
Others have provided excellent explanations as to why this "defense" is weak, but it's also worth noting that this is the 4th renewal cycle for C.O.R.E. and it has happened each time. There was considerably more patience the first time - most of us who love this game enough to subscribe were quite willing to cut them a lot of slack. With each month that goes on, it becomes harder to do that. I'm on Android, my subscription is fine, but I personally know several agents whose subscriptions have been in this limbo for 5 days and counting.
At first the excuse was that the subscription was still "pending" in Apple's payment system - which as others have pointed out is not the correct way to handle payments from Apple, but at least it was a logical explanation. At this point, however, the payments have been processed, the agents have transaction IDs, have shared them with Niantic support, and they are still hobbling along on reduced inventory. And based on the experiences of other agents who have gone through this experience in previous months, it seems likely that if/when the subscription is reactivated, it will still have a renewal date 30 days from the original renewal date - effectively cheating the agent out of ~20% of the value of the subscription.
These agents are showing much more tolerance and restraint than they would for any other game company that had similar issues with honoring payments because they love this game and have gotten a lot out of it in the years they have played it. But that tolerance is not unlimited, and if/when they finally give up in frustration, they are likely to take others with them.
I'm thankful this hasn't happened to me (yet), but I feel for those who it has impacted. The inventory increase that came with CORE changed the way I manage my inventory.
Before CORE, my inventory was pretty suffocated by "deadweight" (long-term mods and viruses) and keys for fielding. When CORE came out, it gave me more breathing room. I was able to carry more keys and even had more room for resonators and bursters. As I've gotten used to the 2,500 limit -much like when it was 2,000- I've maximized the benefit of this additional space and am left with very little breathing room with the new thresholds I carry. Another thing that happened with the rollout of the Epoch badge is that I've decided to take another stab at sojourner. So, the reason I mention all of this? I'm relying on continuity. I know I'm not unique.
Many other agents who subscribe are also relying on this continuity. When you yank that extra space from a paying customer for even a day, you are throwing people into chaos. Want to keep that sojourner or continue epoch? Better recycle 500 bursters, or 500 keys, or 500 mods, or some combination of those items to keep it going. All items that you spent time farming for, and particularly with keys, are essential to your day-to-day play. I suspect that most (if not all) of the employees at Niantic have never been hard-core players, and don't understand the impact players feel when they lose this continuity so abruptly.
At least when an agent makes a decision to unsubscribe, they'd have the rest of that month to use items and adapt their inventory back to the 2,000 level. But when you abruptly take that away... I would be enraged. Even more so if I were ghosted after my money was taken. Y'all better right this ship before you end up in a class action lawsuit.
Why haven't you unsubscribed and requested a refund for the affected months? If there's a bug with your account specifically cut it off until it is fixed
Because I want the benefits I've paid for.
I will be supplying gear to a teammate this week who had this same problem. They finally got their 2500 cap back, after losing 500 items so they could continue their hack streak......
100% unacceptable. I'm questioning the health of Ingress' future with paid features being broken with no communication. Fire customer support which was outsourced out of the US... No better than bots.
You're never getting back 4 months worth of 500 extra inventory slots. Ask for a refund.
I've been consistently amazed he was chosen as an XMA. At least you can only see someone's posts in quotes when you have them blocked on the forums.
Edit: Sent the post too soon.
I'm personally not having any trouble with my CORE sub, but if Niantic doesn't have this stuff straightened out by next month, I'm going to cancel my sub. Treating customers like this is horrible, and I'm not going to reward them for doing it to some people, when it should be working for all of us (for those willing to pay.)
Edit 2: Why wait? Subscription cancelled. I'll pick it back up when they get it fixed for everyone.
Edit 3: Did not think about capturing screenshots when I was doing it, but here's the best I can show at this point:
My C.O.R.E subscription has also been fine (so far…), but I can't abide the awful treatment my teammates and fellow Agents have received. Rather than be the next victim, I'm choosing to take control:
With that, I think my charity and goodwill are at an end. I've tolerated years of bugs and slow development. I've tolerated years of spoofing and multi-accounting. The friendships and connections formed over the years have been powerful reasons to stay — perhaps the only reasons.
I held out for the longest time on rating Prime in the app in the store, because I didn't think it was really at the level of 4* or 5*, yet, but I also didn't want to contribute to a lower rating. No longer. Treatment this bad is an automatic 1*, and people deserve to know.
I know of at least two people who have tried for the last four months to have their subscription fixed. Support is not responding to their requests. I will resub when those people are fixed.
I am joining those who are cancelling in solidarity with those who have had their money taken and are neither receiving the C.O.R.E. benefits they are paying for nor any response from support about this.
What percentage of your posts are useful?
Oh wait, 0.
Such amazing comments were here that is not here anymore.
Well, I must admit that I've not unsubscribed from core yet because I did not suffer from this issue. The moment this happens to me, it's very likely that I'll give it up too and demand a refund.
A big company cannot afford to work like if 3 sudents met in a garage and created a game for the world for free.
The "cash out" feeling is so strong these days...
How are people replying to a comment thats not here? I see a lot of people replying to perringaiden but can't actually see the comment.
People replied to the comment before it was hidden or deleted. Any quotes of the comment stick around.
Oh right, didnt know comments could be hidden or deleted, only edited
Well, if no one else, I believe the forum's moderators have the power to delete comments. The rest of us don't.
Your comments are incredibly unhelpful. It appears you have no ability to actually help in solving the problem.
I had a comment deleted in the past day in another thread. It’s definitely happening more often. Rather than respond to the community, they’re just censoring us more. That should help their cause.
That's generally a bad sign overall.
Time to start screenshotting your posts as evidence, when a company goes into denial like this it usually takes a story in the press to force them to live up to their obligations.
Hey everyone, sorry for the confusion caused. It seems like some comments are getting deleted/hidden based on the number of flags. We are looking into this issue but for the time being I've restored the flagged comments in this thread. If there are any other threads you have noticed this issue on, please let me know.
Our team is working on addressing the subscription issues. If you or anyone you know hasn't received a response from us, please flag the ticket ID here or on TG (@Suivezmoi) and we'll take care of it right away.