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Gamers rejoice: you can cancel easily now

August 1st, 2008 (Visited 2197 times) Tags: vw law

Virtual Worlds News reports that an alderman in Illinois tried to cancel his kid’s MMO account, found it too hard, and took it up with the House. And now it’s the law in Illinois that there has to be a way to cancel on the website, with no phone call or snail mail required.

This will likely be a ripple effect, unless companies are going to make Illinois-facing websites and account management.

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7 Responses to “Gamers rejoice: you can cancel easily now”

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Kristen said on August 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm:
Does this mean we can cancel ToonTown soon? *duck*
cliff said on August 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pm:
Kids’ MMOs are not the only culprit I’ve seen do this, but they’re certainly the worst.
I think what I find the most frustrating is not just how hard it is to cancel, but the fact that they cancel immediately so if you don’t cancel close to your billing cycle, then they get free money.
Morgan Ramsay said on August 1st, 2008 at 4:21 pm:
cliff wrote:
I think what I find the most frustrating is not just how hard it is to cancel, but the fact that they cancel immediately so if you don’t cancel close to your billing cycle, then they get free money.
I’m sure you can complain for a prorated refund, but you’re right that “cancel my account” should mean “do not bill me again and close my account at the start of the next billing cycle.” Otherwise, you’ve paid for products or services that you did not and will not receive, and the issuer could be liable for breach of contract and nonperformance, regardless of your intent to opt out of the contract.
IMDb Resume actually works the right way:
Please note that cancelling your subscription only prevents the next charge from kicking in: it does not suspend the service that you paid for in advance. Your subscription will still be active and fully functional until the Paid Through date listed on Your Account information page. On that date, your account will cease to work and you will not be charged anymore. You don’t have to wait until the last day.
jason said on August 1st, 2008 at 6:57 pm:
How many games actually cut you off on the date of cancellation? Personally, every game I’ve played since EQ has always been of the “your account remains active until the next billing cycle” type.
KevinMc said on August 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 pm:
Same here, Jason. Honestly, I haven’t ever seen an MMO that didn’t have a cancel feature somewhere on the website, too… At least not the free ones. Which ones make you phone or write in? Seems odd business to me.
Jack-o-Lantern said on August 4th, 2008 at 5:12 am:
I played a lot of MMO’s.
I gave a try to Matrix Online too.
After only an evening, decided that it wasn’t my game. Among many flaws, I was suffering simulation nausea. Weird as it was happing only with that game.
Anyway, I tried to cancel my account. Just stop billing cycle after first free month. (Registration needed credit card and billing selection beforehand even for first free month)
After almost 30 minutes of search on Matrix Online website, I found inside a small FAQ that only way to cancel was… by phone.
A mayor title wasn’t providing a cancel button from account page!
Also very few phone numbers avaible….
A toll free number valid only in US, and phone numbers in US and UK (regular phone numbers)
Also consider that many know english, can read or write it quite well… but spoken english (especially by phone) is a lot harder to understand. And there is no written (or log) trace of your choices.
I had to write 4 mails to customer support and threat them a lot to get my account closed as they were insisting that they couldn’t close my account.
I was ready to ask my bank to block them.
Now, to consider things from a different side….
Often a player could eventually decide to close an account and then come back in a later moment. There’s many reasons someone could close an account, like life issues. But often you close an account, reopen it after some time (may be after a big patch) etc etc
So, if a publisher don’t give me an easy way to cancel my account… I won’t reopen it. Doesn’t matter how much interesting is a new content patch. I won’t reopen it, in fear of the troubles to cancel it again.
bonder said on August 5th, 2008 at 6:50 pm:
Iguarantee you that they will indeed special-case their account management. Why give up all the benefit of a cloudy cancellation process for 2% of US states?

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