DO NOT PLAY SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED FOR ANDROID

[Tomato]

So as some of you are well aware, I'm a pretty avid player of mobile games. They're typically easy, low energy enterprises that only take money from you if you want them to.

Well, one that I used to be quite fond of, particularly in light of my recent Spider-Mania, was Spider-Man Unlimited. It's basically temple run, with the added bonus of getting hundreds of different Spider-man characters. I say used to because a few months ago I had a glitch happen that basically broke my enjoyment of it forever.

See, for the most part, I play on my iPad, on which I haven't ever had any issues. But I flipped over to trying to play it on android to get a specific character (who I had on iPad but needed it on android for different reasons). That character happened to show up in one of the portal drops, so I splurged and spent money to get a pack of ISO-8 so I could try my luck at getting her.

Well, when I did that, it glitched my account. See, one of the ways the game makes its money is that in order to unlock portal drops, you have to buy some pack of ISO-8... which can be as little as $0.99 and was something I had done for both my android and iPad accounts ages ago. However, there's a glitch (and a common enough one, judging by how many threads I've found about it) where buying ISO-8 after you've ALREADY unlocked the account can, randomly, reset your account so you can't access portals anymore. It doesn't matter if you then buy more ISO-8, you're locked out.

But whatever. I contacted Gameloft support, especially after I discovered online that this was, apparently, a fairly common glitch. Surely they could just flip a switch on my account or whatever that reset me back to being able to use the ISO-8.

What followed has been a 3 month headache the likes of which I've very rarely seen. First of all, it has continuously taken over a week for every single response. Secondly, because there has been so long between responses, it is almost never the same person, so I'm constantly repeating information that I already stated two emails ago. Third, it hasn't mattered how many emails I've sent or how many screenshots I've sent SHOWING THEM THE PROBLEM, No one seems to have even the slightest idea what the hell they're talking about. The "solutions" have been consistently asinine ("Make sure you're connected to the internet" the screenshots I sent two emails ago prove that I was online, "Try uninstalling and reinstalling" I stated that this was occurring on multiple different devices in my very first email, therefore this issue is tied to my account, etc.)

Finally, I gave up, said "I want a refund." I didn't want that going in mind you, but I was so exhausted with this entire process that I was just like "Enough. Clearly none of you know what you're talking about, this version of the game is forever broken now, I just want the money back for the ISO-8 I cannot use." That was about a month ago. I still do not have my refund, I do not have my account fixed, I have nothing.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Talk about bad customer experiences.  I have only monkeyed with a few of these, so sorry for you negative experiences.

[Tomato]

It takes a special kind of incompetent for customer service to get a person from just looking for assistance to wanting a refund.

Looked back at some of my email transcripts, and while I apparently exaggerated the dates a bit (this started September 13th, asked for the refund October 7th.) I missed a couple highlights... most notably after I explained to them that I had attempted to run the game on multiple devices with the same result (in response to them saying I needed to just reinstall the game), I got an email explaining what to do about the "too many devices" error message. I am including said transcripts, so that you guys can see the severe disconnect between what I actually said, and their response

((Responding to an email asking if the error was fixed, which I got at least twice during the process. Once before I had even gotten an actual response)) It is not ok. As I mentioned at the start, I have attempted to fix this across multiple droid enabled devices, and I still have the issue. I have uninstalled and reinstalled it multiple times across those devices while waiting for your responses, and it has done nothing to fix the problem. The fact that, in the weeks that this issue has been occurring, the best response I've gotten is "reinstall it" is beyond frustrating.

At this point, I am done. I have a version and an account on my ipad that actually functions and that does not have this issue, so I have given up on the droid version and have been playing that instead. I would like a refund for all the iso 8 I have purchased (both the one related to this service request and the smaller purchase I made to attempt to unlock the account while I was waiting days for a response) because clearly I will not be able to ever use it.

We are very sorry that you have these inconveniences with our game.

Concerning the error ''too many devices'' we checked and you should not be receiving this error. Please send us a screenshot if this is currently happening to you. In the other side, could you indicate why do you want the refund ? Could indicate the email address associated with the purchase?

My follow-up to this... brilliance was not nice, to say the least.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Well, in my experience about half of customer service email responses are equally incompetent, but they should eventually find someone competent after they run through all the scripts.  I have had similar conversations where they ask me things I spelled out for them in the very email they are replying to, but I understand these are slave labor paid people that are just following a script which assumes everyone asking for help is stupid.  But those have always been fast responses at least.  This is--pretty sad.

My last experience, though was good.  I was with a card game manufacturer who just sent me what I asked for the first time I asked for it, without even asking for proof of purchase, and even sent an apology letter with it. (There was a card missing)

[Tomato]

So you know that refund I requested? That they told me they were sending me back when I made this thread? I finally got it on Monday (Jan 9th), after basically having to use every curse word at my disposal and threatening them with making the emails and dates all public.

YEAH.