Refer a Friend Issues - What is going on

Is what i got the second time around contacting customer service, somewhat better than the automated robot but still not the answer i'm looking for

Well it's basically the same thing reworded.

"It was broken, we fixed it, we are perfect, ergo you are wrong, no rewards". I still struggle to understand why BW think that THIS many customers are wrong/lying. How can they not be prepared to even CONSIDER the possibility that it is still bugged??

This was not rocket science. The instructions were perfectly clear. It seems to keep coming back to whether the referral subscribed to the e-mails - this was set as ticked by default and if you tried to untick it, you got a warning message that said that if you did not subscribe, your account would not count for the Refer a Friend programme.

Not to mention, my accounts are GETTING the SWTOR e-mails. I have them right now, sat in the inbox. I can prove they are on the mailing list (and why can't BW verify that themselves? They must have a searchable database of those getting e-mail updates).

I honestly find it hard to understand how they can actually be convinced that we are all just crazy/stupid/lying. Which, I'm afraid, does lead me to cynically wonder if they just thought it was easier to say no and hope everyone shut up? Can they really think we'd be sending in all these tickets if we just hadn't read the rules? I can understand they must get some dumb tickets... but this many of us? Over and over again? Explaining the problem over and over again? Swearing on the lives of our pet hamsters that we did sign up for the e-mail updates??? And they still think we are crazy/stupid/lying?

Aside from the practical problem, that we DID follow all their rules, there is a philosophical question here about why it matters. I mean, say I hadn't clicked on the referral link (which I did). There's still me saying I referred this person, and my referral saying I was referred by this person - isn't the point of the scheme to get more subs? So if you have a new sub saying they were referred, wouldn't that be enough?

So even if BW do think we are crazy/stupid/lying, why don't they just give us the rewards anyway??? There's no perspective from which their behaviour makes sense.

Bump. Still waiting for CS to tell us how come we are ALL reporting the same error.

Well. another subscriber gone. Well done, BW, this has been a really great scheme! Get some new people in, then piss them off until they unsub. Good strategy.

And I've raised two new Paypal disputes, so I'll let everyone know how I get on.

How is this not being answered yet by CS. 24 new threads since the program launched and over 150 replies and not one admission of an issue by CS.

Hey CS, if you are actually monitoring this thread...

I did an experiment in this thread. I got someone else to make a new e-mail account and then use my referral link. It worked! It has now shown up in my account as a referral.

So, I am wondering if the bug may be linked to cookies or temporary internet files or IP address or something along those lines. I don't know about everyone else, but I made 3 successful referrals. But I've tried it over and over on my work computer and at home and it hasn't linked. Maybe there's something that means it's not working if it is done on the same computer where you have logged in on your own account??

Or maybe there is something about if you have already made a referral, it's not registering the referral link properly because there's a cookie or something that makes it think that referral link has already been used and it won't let it register again???

I'm sorry, I'm not very technical (as you can tell), but maybe this could give you a lead on looking to fix this problem?

Can anyone else provide any similar data i.e. had you made any successful referrals? Were you using the same computer that you use to log into your own account? I know that a few people on here have commented that they had made the account themselves so presumably that's using the same computer?

Come on CS, I'm trying to help you track this down - but it would be super helpful if you'd admit it is bugged. Please try and look into my idea. If we can provide more info to help you, just ask us.

PS I got this to work by getting someone with a completely different computer to make the referral. If anyone would like me to try doing the same for them, I'd be very happy to, if you are still just trying to get the speeder and pets. (I still need one more lucky volunteer too!)

Whoa, how did this slip to page six? Hey CS! We're not going away until the problem's fixed (or we unsub - which do you want?)

My guess is they are either a) looking into it and don't want to post until they can find the problem or b) hoping we all get fed up and go away.

I think they are pretty dumb if they are counting on the latter. We're gamers. We devote a lot of our lives to repetitive tasks. If we're willing to run the same dailies over and over just for a few comms, what makes them think we'll give up on this when it was real money??

As unbelievable as this may sound, using a different computer to sign up actually works.

I've now created 5 accounts on this PC trying to get a referral to work. Not a single one of them worked. I pulled out my laptop this morning, created another new email account, sent my referral link to it and success. Creating a referred account on another PC actually does work and the referral is showing up on my account.

UPDATE: I was able to create a second referred account on my laptop and the referral worked. However, a third account did NOT work. It looks like there is a limit to the amount of referrals you can sign up on a single PC.

UPDATE #2: Since I couldn't create a third referral on my laptop, I decided to create one on my wife's laptop. I used the link and followed all of the instructions as before and the referral did not work. Maybe they're looking at IPs? Whatever it is, it doesn't make sense to me.

I definitely agree with both of you, and thanks for the info. A friend came over with her laptop and tried setting up an account from my refer a friend link while she was here. She did everything according to the instructions BW gives (including checking the boxes for all email communications). Still no referral and no rewards.

I have now tried setting up 4 different accounts from 3 different PCs (also using IE and Chrome) and still nothing has worked. The only common thing was my internet. I think it is either the cache that the internet provider has, or the IP address, or both.

In any case it seems to vary quite a bit for each person. If BW did program a limitation into the system based on IP address, PC or whatever, it would be completely unfair to anyone who had more than one person wanting to play per household (which is my situation).

Here is a question for everyone who has been able to get this to work even once. Have any of you noticed what the URL changes to after you click on the referral link? I ask this because when I have clicked on mine the URL doesn't seem to have any tracking info in it. My link auto redirected to https://account.swtor.com/play-for-free. IMO this is missing all tracking information. It's possible if it is done by a cookie, it could be still tracked, but I don't know. If some of these links are defective and not forwarding to the correct pages/tracking that could be the cause of all these problems.

Anyway, time to go submit another ticket.