Refer a Friend Issues - What is going on

Dear Mike and Jerry,

I may as well start honestly and say that I am after a favour please! Why do you want to help some stranger who sends you a whining e-mail? Because, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility And sadly, games companies don't want to listen to the players (because all we do is pay their wages!).

I, and a great many other players, are having some problems with Star Wars: The Old Republic and their (lack of) customer service. Specifically, our issue is with the Refer a Friend scheme (http://www.swtor.com/info/friends). It looks pretty straightforward, right? Sign up a friend, if they subscribe, you both get rewarded. Easy.

Unfortunately, the scheme is bugged and has been from the outset. Bioware admitted it was bugged and told us they would fix it, so like the naive people we are, we believed them. Now it's two months later and they've changed their tune. It's not bugged, it works perfectly. It turns out it's our brains that are bugged, because we must have done it wrong. It's the only explanation they can think of, considering that the scheme is perfect.

So we've referred our friends, they've paid their subs and no one has gotten any rewards. No one is offering refunds. No one is offering to sort it out. No one is offering to just give us the rewards, considering we can prove from both accounts that these were referrals. No, it turns out we are wrong and should probably go and sit in a corner and think about what we did.

Surprisingly, we're not happy. We've ranted, we've raved, we've begged, we've pleaded, we've had long, tearful conversations with Customer Service. No one cares. We get copy and pasted auto-replies explaining the scheme to us again. They won't listen.

This isn't just my own personal problem. The forums are full of other players with the exact same issues (http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...671698&page=13). There are actually lots of other threads too, but that's the main one. Except it turns out to be mass psychosis, because Bioware say that we all did the scheme wrong. I actually managed to get 3 referrals to work, but then I guess I hit my head and forgot how to do it.

So... that's where we are. They won't listen to us and they won't accept there is anything wrong with the scheme, even though they admitted it 2 months ago. They've changed their mind and we can't get anywhere. All we want is what we paid for and what they promised us when we signed up. I even tried EA Customer Service, but they told me they don't support SWTOR. So we have no one to turn to.

We're now doing everything we can to get them to accept their fault and correct it. People are filing complaints, starting Paypal disputes, etc. And some people suggested contacting gaming sites, which is of course where this mail comes in. If you could spare the time to look into this and maybe ask Bioware why they are ignoring so many paying customers, they might actually listen to you. It's got to be worth a shot, because they definitely won't listen to us.

I know you guys have played SWTOR. It's an awesome game. I've spent a hell of a lot of time and money on it and I've put up with the bugs, the patches that break more than they fix, the lack of communication and the terrible customer service. But this is too much. There was a specific agreement here - we follow the steps in the Refer a Friend scheme and we get the rewards. We did our bit and it's just not right that they are refusing to do theirs.

If there's anything that you can do, we would all really appreciate it.

Thanks very much if you read this far!

PS Copied to the SWTOR forum.