My little 'chat' with IGEFollow

Well I've seen everyone complaining about IGE so i decided to go to the IGE website, and guess what! I saw a link for 'Live Chat' (yippee i thought, this is gonna be fun ^^). Now mind you, I am not one to rush into things, I've done my research. Well I clicked on the link (expecting that they would probably brush me off to some other branch of their department, which they did in the end).

Below I am pasting in full my entire conversation with their 'representative', and i use the term loosely. Nothing has been changed, and even though I cant prove I did not change anything you will just have to take my word for it(although i did use the HTML setting at top of this page to color code the responses).






Please wait while we find an agent to assist you...
You are currently at position number 1 in the queue.
You have been connected to Jason A.
Jason A: Hello, how may I help you today?
Currently experiencing network delays, one moment please....
Network connection re-established.
Customer: Hi, I wanted to find out why IGE breaks the rules and regulations, set by SquareEnix Incorporated, and is therefore breaking the law?
Jason A: No sir
Customer: What does that mean? No sir??
Customer: Your company is breaking the law. Would you like me to prove it?
Currently experiencing network delays, one moment please....
Network connection re-established.
Customer: hello?
Jason A: We are not breaking the law sir
Currently experiencing network delays, one moment please....
Network connection re-established.
Currently experiencing network delays, one moment please....
Network connection re-established.
Customer: OK, well on the FFXI website under SEI rules and policies page, they clearly state in Article 3:Prohibited Activities and Indemnification, Section 3.1 Prohibited Activities, subsection (e) it clearly states that it is against the rules set by SEI to buy, sell or transfer gil in any form. Then in the playonline rules and policies book which comes with every copy of FFXI,
Customer: Iin section 7.1 it clearly states that any of the rules set forth by SEI, if they are broken is in direction violation of California's legal and justice system.
Customer: CPlease tell me how you are not breaking the law?
Currently experiencing network delays, one moment please....
Network connection re-established.
Jason A: Sie please email customercare@cannotlinkto regarding this matter
Currently experiencing network delays, one moment please....
Network connection re-established.
Customer: OWill i receive a response from them, or will they just redirect me to another branch of your company as you have just done?
Jason A: Those are the team that responsible handling your question
Customer: OOK thank you very much
Jason A: You are welcome.
Currently experiencing network delays, one moment please....
Network connection re-established.



As i predicted, they just brushed me off. I then went on and sent a similar e-mail to both the customer care and legal departments of IGE (I am still waiting for a response). These e-mails were basically asking the same thing. Next I am going to try and get in touch with SEI, although on their website it says that any issues regarding a violation of user agreements must be selected from the proper in-game section, and they cannot be resolved through their mail forms and/or phone services. So next time i log on I will talk to SEI, because the GM's either don't care, or don't have the power to do anything about the gilsellers, and since that is the case I went for the company since they are blatantly breaking the law. Come on people, it says right on IGE's website that they are buying and selling gil for FFXI, and SEI's rules and regulations say that is not allowed, and in Section 7.1 of the Playonline handbook (which comes with every copy of FFXI, the book you got all ur registration codes from) says that it is against California State Law.

So please, if you really want them gone, do something about it. Even if you do the same exact thing as me, it will make a difference if even 1% of the posters on Allakhazam (even though thats probably only about 5% of FFXI player).

Thank you and Happy Thankygiving

Lmao.. HE made himself look like an ***? um.. your rude response sorta makes you look like one... As for the whole IGE thing.. you gotta kind of expect them to brush you off, i mean, they make money off of selling gil..

If i were a company that sold online currency, i wouldnt just shut down shop because i made a few people upset.. sure it sucks, but.. what are we gonna do.. nothing.. just enjoy the game, or leave..

Whatever, I'm tired of people who harass customer service reps thinking they're on a noble quest and whatnot. My point is, people have done this before and nothing has come out of it, save your time and try something else.

I agree with what Large is trying to say.

Mr.X has killed 24 people during this week. What Gamion did :

"Hello, man ! I'm from the Police Dpt. Are you the Serial-killer who killed so many people ? You know, that's bad, look at the law, it's prohibited. You can't kill people. Please tell me you're killing people, so I'll bring you to jail."

Guess what Mr.X will answer ...

This is useless. You won't resolve the problem, or even do anything for it. That's what, I suppose, Large wanted to say. (Even if flaming isn't the best way to answer).

I'd be interested in seeing the response from the email to their legal department though, if they do respond to you. Bothering the live reps is kinda like going to a big store and making a complaint about a store policy to the cashier. They didn't have anything to do with it, so complaining to them won't do much, if any, good. Your email to the legal department though, while they will probably not respond, is a fine place to direct complaints like that. Wonder if they'll say that "we're selling the time it took to get the gil" excuse if they respond.

Yeah, I guess I was kinda harsh, I'm sorry about that. *cough* Valkurm Dunes *cough* That place gives me a headache.

Unfortunately, IGE is not breaking the law. At best (from our point of view), they're just breaking the license agreement. And, even there, it's iffy. You can give things in game to any other player for any reason you want, including out of game reasons -- like say, a nice item upgrade for a friend on her birthday OR 100k gil because that person paid you $10. It's all the same thing.

Legally, SE *might* be able to scrap together a case that IGE is deliberately disrupting the play of the game and thus seek punative damages that way, but that's really tenuous. The only sure way SE has to fight something like IGE is account banning. Break contract, terminate account. IGE could probably even demand partial refund back for paid but unplayed balance on that account and get it (or sue and get it if SE demurs).

IMHO, selling stuff isn't the issue here. It's just a way to catch them. It's the other things that are the real issues with an organization like IGE: disruption of the game itself by the folks that work for them. Training, spawn monopolization, etc.. Those are the things that impact us as players. The ingame economy is just fine. If you have problems with it, it's almost certainly because you want a +1 item you don't need. The place to start your complaining campaign is with SE, not IGE. We need a serious and HEAVY crackdown on bots and miscreants who persist in rude play.

SE's current problem seems to be that they're stuck on their own rules. They only ban the laundering accounts. They don't trace back to find out where it all comes from and ban the real accounts. Not sure if SE permits game-cards, but those are another problem. Use of a game card and similar cash methods permits false IDs to be used. They can't track by CC that way. If they *required* a CC, they could track the culprits by name and CC number. They'd be able to create only a few laundering accounts before they ran out of unique disposable CCs.

So, you have rude obnoxious folk running around making play miserable and nothing is done about them because the proffessionally obnoxious ones use disposable accounts to keep their useful accounts from being banned. The fault is with SE. They could find and stop those. They could track back trades and learn the source. They choose not to do that. They choose not to target bots. IGE is profitable because SE chooses to let them be profitable. Cest la vie.

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Oh, btw, there's another way to fix this completely: move all the nice items to tradeskills and INSTANCED battles. If there is nothing to fight over, there won't be any fights. Fortunately, the vast majority of nice stuff comes from instanced fights already. A tiny bit of reitemization and suddenly all the IGE'rs are out of work. All they can do then is fishbot and sell gil that way. It's trivial to catch a fishbot. SE could ban them all within a week if they wished.