Thread: Given wrong ToO armour item at barter, denied help ingame.

I have been a good customer, Ive subscribed since launch, and have bought hundreds of dollars of TPs amongst my accounts. I've been hassle free, and low-need of customer support; I am exactly the kind of customer this company should want to help.

But today, about an hour ago, I went to the Minstrel trainer in Ox-Camp, opened barter, went to page 2, scrolled down and looked at the cost of "Gloves of The Thelin". I then went over to the Sigil trader, and bartered my seals up from 166 to 174. I then went back to the Minstrel trainer, opened the barter window, went to page two, scrolled to the bottom, selected Gloves of The Thelin and bartered for them, and then I received Gloves of the Hadollin.

I know exactly the process I took, and I never went anywhere near the DPS set. Why would I have, when I wanted the last piece of my blue-line healing set, and I do not PvP and if I want to DPS I use my RK. There was NO user error, I am 100.0% sure of my actions being exactly what I have stated.

I appealed with an ingame ticket this issue, and without even so much as a reply I was denied an item-switch, or having the item deleted and the seals refunded. What is the effort of correcting this bug, compared to the inconvenience and anger it causes the customer?


I think this is grossly unfair, and as politely as I can say it, I feel outraged. It would not have been hard to correct the error in the game, and please the customer. Instead, the customers time was wasted, the customer did not feel heard, and now the customer is absolutely angry and being spited and is closing his pocketbook for good.

I did call Turbine CS afterward, and found out that nobody on the phone end can help me in game. I had them correct a TP discrepancy I hadn't previously followed up on. I find it amazing that as loyal and as much of a paying customer that I have been, that when a bug took away a substantial amount of effort, not even a tiny bit of effort on Turbines part was made to correct it.

I feel absolutely angry. I also feel very powerless to have this game error corrected. The only choice I seem to have to express my dissatisfaction is to never again buy TPs - as I would do with any company physical or online, that had treated me in this disrespectable fashion.

Should that be the result of interaction with a Turbine Customer Service response to an event in which the customer has no fault?

The difficulty you are facing is the following:

1) You are claiming that you ordered a "Gloves of The Thelin". The game gave you a "Gloves of the Hadollin".

2) According to our (Turbine's) official record of the event you ordered a "Gloves of the Hadollin". The game gave you a "Gloves of the Hadollin".

Therefore, there are two possibilities

a) The game software fouled up. Probability 0.001%

b) You made a mistake. You are trying to trick Turbine. Probability 99.999%,

We believe 2b occurred. Enjoy your "Gloves of the Hadollin".

You best hope that a 1a does not happen to you in real life. People end up being fired or put in prison for these errors. All it takes is a mistake in something like tests on a blood sample for drugs. We have no idea how many people got screwed this way. It becomes a permanent black mark on their record. It never gets fixed. Once in a great while, there is a news story about how someone got out of this situation.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

1) You are claiming that you ordered a "Gloves of The Thelin". The game gave you a "Gloves of the Hadollin".

2) According to our (Turbine's) official record of the event you ordered a "Gloves of the Hadollin". The game gave you a "Gloves of the Hadollin".

1) is exactly what occured. I am a meticulous person. Furthermore, Hadollin is found at the top of page 1, and Thelin at the bottom of page 2. My selection was made on page 2.

Given a certain amount of transactions, someone will be unlucky enough to have stumbled upon the error.

Were it my error, or if I even questioned that it *could* be my error, I would not be so outraged at the CS response. But I know that it is not. I never look at page 1 because it is only dps items. I did not hover over it, tooltip it, nor select it. I went to page 2, at the bottom, and picked the item I wanted - the last item needed in the set I already had.

I do not know if Turbine has the tools to verify 2), that I actually selected Thelin. Can they determine that - the smoking gun if you will? I do not know, but all other evidence which surrounds it indicates I did not - or that I would have to be incredibly stupid to chose an item at the top of 1 page when I wanted the item at the bottom of page 2, where I had gotten the other 5 of that 6-item set.

Furthermore, this is not a trial, nor is it a serious situation. But it is one that nevertheless affects both Turbine and myself. So I ask, whats the cost to them to trade it for the poor guy who does stumble upon this, vs the cost of his anger at feeling disenfranchised and unwilling to spend more money when the company cannot be bothered to address their error?

You don't need a trial to solve it; that ones dead easy to figure out.

Originally Posted by L_Loomis

I do not know if Turbine has the tools to verify 2), that I actually selected Thelin. Can they determine that - the smoking gun if you will? I do not know, but all other evidence which surrounds it indicates I did not - or that I would have to be incredibly stupid to chose an item at the top of 1 page when I wanted the item at the bottom of page 2, where I had gotten the other 5 of that 6-item set.

What most likely happens is that a defect in your PC or the Lotro client resulted in a select the wrong item event being generated. - possible by not likely. Or the UDP message got corrupted on the way to the Lotro server software - given that UDP is an unreliable protocol - this situation is the most likely cause. The only logging is going to be on the server side. The server log will say you asked for "B" we gave you "B".

The real time systems that I work on have a slower more reliable protocol. In my implementation the client stores the that the customers ordered A. Send a message to give the customer an A via transaction number 1765. Start a count down clock. I wait for a response to transaction 1765 stating that A has been completed. If I get back did B. I send a Negative ACK to 1765 - try again - I want an A. I do not get any response. I will resend 1765, I want an A, I expect to get an A.

Originally Posted by L_Loomis

Furthermore, this is not a trial, nor is it a serious situation. But it is one that nevertheless affects both Turbine and myself. So I ask, whats the cost to them to trade it for the poor guy who does stumble upon this, vs the cost of his anger at feeling disenfranchised and unwilling to spend more money when the company cannot be bothered to address their error?

The problem Turbine is facing is a dollar cost. Turbine can not afford:

1) The Yula solution. That is heavy weight implementation. It is expensive to implement. You need a beefy complex to handle all the extra message traffic, processing and time delay. Turbine's Lotro complex is unable to do it.

2) Exchange the items. They have to spend all these dollars on hiring Game Masters. Turbine is not willing to go this route. It would cut their EBIT - Earnings Before Interest and Taxes.

Some companies decide to shave their costs to make a viable product. In the process accept that some customers will either not buy the product. Or will leave for a competitive product that provides the features they want.

The company I work would fix this kind of issue for you. It will cost you. You have to buy customer service time in one hour blocks. You get a receipt saying how many minutes were consumed. Some of the more expensive purchase packs include some minute tokens. It is a customer choice at purchase time. You can choose the least expensive option with no support. We dump it at your door. Have fun installing and using it.

As a customer, you have to decide:

1) How much support you want from your supplier?
2) How much you are willing to pay for that support?
3) Can you find a supplier iwth a support level you want for a price you are willing to pay?

You vote with your wallet. Companies that do not match up with enough customers die - go out of business. The problems are:

1) You are part of too small a group. No supplier is willing to meet your request. You are frustrated. Good luck finding a full service gas station in South Florida.

2) The supplier form a united front. We are not going to provide it. There are no options. Some business segments like airplane travel and mobile phone service fall in this category.

3) You can not find it for an acceptable price. It costs more than you are willing to pay.

The exact same thing happened to me last night. I traded two pieces of Delaulagos; the helm and gauntlets and I received the correct helm but incorrect gauntlets. I reported it as a bug. Gee it made me mad lol

Did they end up helping you out?

Thanks,

Adrian