I just finished a 2 week ordeal with these thieves. After many promises to deliver, I finally filed a dispute with PayPal. They, of course, tried to get me to close the dispute. I refused. Then I escalated the dispute to a complaint with PayPal. PayPal immediately sent me a reply that my complaint was not allowed because they don't get involved with "quality" of product. My complaint was that they only delivered 2k out of 3k that I ordered! But, that doesn't matter either. PayPal has another policy that they only deal with physical items. So, none of the gamegold merchants have to deliver anything to you. The only thing I accomplished was filing a complaint, which PayPal says will be in Gogoers file. Has anyone ever received anything from a PayPal complaint for game gold? I'm pretty sure that PayPal is more interested in keeping Gogoer as a customer than they are about me. Oh well.  

 
Having worked in customer service for oh the better part of the last 10 years, I am very sensitive to how companies both large and small treat me as a customer. If they treat me really good, I go out of my way to make sure that people know about it and talk up good things about their company. If they screw me ... well lets just say I have a nasty vengeance streak.

This was my first foray into buying gold for LOTRO. I had searched through Google to get an idea of what companies were selling and for how much. Of course, I am shopping for the cheapest price I can find just to see what I could get for my money. I now know that this was mistake numero uno. By going for the bottom I pretty much set myself up for what was going to happen, but that doesn't excuse any company from abdicating its responsibility to the customer.

I've had at least three discussions with these people, each time coming out of it dumber than when I went in. Why? Because it's broken English and not very well put together. Each time they told me that they are working on getting the gold and would let me know when it is ready. The first time I contacted them it was about an hour after I placed my order (after all, they do advertise that they deliver within 30 minutes) and they tell me they are are getting it. The second time I contacted them was a couple of hours later, still wondering where my gold is and getting the same standard scripted answer in return.

At that point I headed to PayPal to dispute the transaction. Filled out the standard stuff, entered a message about the dispute and sent it out. I also sent a regular email to a couple of the email addresses listed on their website, just to make sure I had everything pretty well covered. A couple of hours later I get emails from both PayPal and "Maggie" at Gogoer, each one having the same message as a response to my dispute. "Maggie" apologizes for the delay as they were having some "trouble" in getting it to me and to give them another day or two. Oh, and they want me to close my dispute before they will refund my money. For those of you who are new to PayPal disputes, let me give you some good advice: if you open a dispute through PayPal and the vendor or individual on the other end asks you to close the dispute for any reason, DO NOT close it unless you are absolutely certain that it has been resolved to YOUR satisfaction. If you close it before it's been resolved, you cannot open another dispute for that same transaction and at that point you're screwed.

Where was I? Oh yeah - still no gold. It's been close to 72 hours since I place my order and I'm fuming at this point. In a valiant attempt to salvage what little I could from this terrible situation, I went back into their live chat for the THIRD time since placing my order. Here's what happened:

Chat Information: You are now chatting with 'Jenna' Jenna: Welcome to the Customer Support Live Chat! This is Joanna, the Customer Service Representative at your service.What can I do for you? Lord of the Rings Online: I'd like to check on the status of my order please Jenna: OK I will check it for you at once will you plz wait a moment ? Lord of the Rings Online: yes i will thanks :) Jenna: ok the guy will do it for you as soon as possible Lord of the Rings Online: i can log into the game right now and he can hand the gold right to me Jenna: will you plz wait a moment ? Lord of the Rings Online: sure no problem Jenna: because we have a lot orders need to handle one by one ,but the guy will send it to you in the game as soon as he can Lord of the Rings Online: i ordered mine 3 days ago. how much longer do i have to wait? Jenna: the guy will do it for you as soon as he can Lord of the Rings Online: that is not good enough. how do i get a refund since you cannot deliver what i ordered? Jenna: but the guy is trying his best to do it for you now Lord of the Rings Online: i dont want the gold anymore. i am tired of waiting and i'll just go someplace else to get my gold. Lord of the Rings Online: so how do i get a refund? Jenna: will you plz wait a little more time ? as the guy is doing it for you Lord of the Rings Online: I will not wait any longer. Either I get my gold right now or I get a refund. Jenna: I know ,so i have hurried the guy for you again Lord of the Rings Online: Does he have my 30 gold right now? Jenna: he is trying his best to do it for you Lord of the Rings Online: Then I need to go find someplace better to buy my gold. I would like a refund of my money immediately. Jenna: I am really so nsorry Lord of the Rings Online: So you'll refund my money then? Jenna: sorry for your waiting ,and thank you for your patience Lord of the Rings Online: When can I expect my money to be refunded back to PayPal? Lord of the Rings Online: Can I expect a refund soon? Jenna: sorry as we have problems in system ,so we cant do it now Lord of the Rings Online: Then I will be contacting PayPal and putting in a claim with them Lord of the Rings Online: I will get my money back from you one way or another Lord of the Rings Online: As far as problems go, you have more than just problems with your system Lord of the Rings Online: You have problems with everything Lord of the Rings Online: I am going to make sure that everyone knows that your company rips people off and doesn't deliver orders Lord of the Rings Online: Have a nice day :)

I was being as polite as I could be at the beginning, but towards the end it just got to the point where I was boiling over with anger. Notice how many times "Jenna" told me he's doing it right now? I count at least four in this conversation alone. It was duck and dodge at every turn and I couldn't help but think she'd make one hell of a good Republican. This company seems to have a lot of serious issues with its ability to deliver on-time and take care of its customer base. Any company that screws its customers over and over and over won't be getting any new ones to replace the ones it lost.

My next step, barring any sudden return of monies paid into my PayPal account, is to escalate this to a claim through PayPal, at which point they step in to try and resolve the situation. When it gets to that point, I will be looking to see just what it would take for this company to lose the ability to take payments through PayPal. I mean, if it loses that ability then a majority of people looking to buy from them won't have that ability any longer. Personally, I could think of nothing better than to see them out of business because they neglected to take care of the one thing that matters most to any company - its customer.

EDIT: Changed the formatting in the quoted section to make it far more readable :)

[Edited on 9/21/2008 by tripdream]