Epic Games: Completely Unsatisfactory

Let me get one thing out of the way first, because I’m biased. I don’t like exclusive titles. I want to play games using services that I know and trust, and I do not like being forced to use new, untested services, particularly when that forcing is accomplished via deliberate artificial scarcity. I’m a fan of Steam, and was quite disappointed when I learned that a game I’m excited for, Satisfactory, was going to be an Epic-only title. I’m a huge fan of Factorio, and Satisfactory looks like it might be a great new release in the obsessive resource management genre. Despite my reservations, I decided that it would be worth looking past my discomfort to purchase it from the Epic Store.

How wrong I was.

I am now on day six of trying to purchase my first game from Epic. Talking to their customer support is like talking to a brick wall.

I knew things were going to be trouble when the Satisfactory Early Release went live, and I tried to register an account with Epic Games. I’d checked my password manager to see if I had an existing account, which I did not, so I started setting one up. I used the email address that I typically use for registering game accounts, but I saw an error that it was already being used by an existing account. Now I know that I can be forgetful, but this struck me as odd, because I haven’t played any Epic titles for as long as I can remember, certainly well before the Epic Store existed or you needed an online account to play one. I assumed that one of two things may have happened; either I’d registered for an Epic game way back in day and they still had my account information, or that registering for Satisfactory updates on the Coffee Stain website had automatically registered me with Epic itself in some form.

Given this account was linked to my email, I did the usual password recovery steps and changed my password so I could log in, finding an empty account with no purchases. Great! I went to the product page for Satisfactory, and attempted to buy it, entering my financial details. That’s when it got weirder. My purchase was rejected because my credit card was in a different country from the one on my account: Thailand. I immediately went to my account details to change my location, still figuring that this was a simple mistake.

Once there, I found that my username was a mess of random seeming characters. My first and last name were set to ‘Ican’ and some longer name that began with ‘Ican’ but was definitely not an English surname. And indeed, my country was set to Thailand. I updated whatever I could to show my actual details, however, I could no longer change the country without contacting Epic support, because setting my payment method had disabled my ability to change countries, according to the very form I was using. Oh well. I did as requested, and sent a request to have my location changed through the Epic Store’s support link.

This is when the nightmare begins.

While I was waiting for a reply, I chatted with a friend about how I was unable to log in and play with him, because I still did not have a working account. I explained my situation, and he immediately said that almost the exact same thing had happened to him: An account with his email address had already existed when he tried to create one, the first name was ‘Ican’, the last name was ‘Ican[something]’, his display name was a mess of random characters, and his location was, surprise surprise, Thailand. However, he’d fixed his location and other information before he’d tried to purchase Satisfactory, so the site had allowed him to buy and play the game. I would have been happy with this resolution, myself.

The next day I received an email from Epic Support asking me a preliminary set of four questions to verify my identity. I understand the importance of this process, I am a game developer myself. I answered those questions in full, and explained the situation above, figuring that they would want to know that multiple people are encountering the same weird problem, which could indicate a flaw in their back-end or the actions of a malicious user. I also expressed my concern that this was now a matter of my own information security.

After another full day, I received a reply that did not acknowledge my security concerns, and I was asked a set of 8 new questions to verify my identity, many of which I can not answer. One asked me for the invoice numbers of games I’ve purchased, which I could not provide because I’ve never purchased a game from the Epic Store. Another asked me for the date I created the account, but I didn’t create it, and I was never sent an email about it’s creation. Trust me, I checked. You get the idea. I sent back a question-by-question response giving them the information they wanted to the best of my ability, and explained why I couldn’t provide the rest, while also repeating my concerns.

Another day passed, and I received another response from Epic. Once again they’d ignored the information I’d sent. It only included more details about how to find (or not) information that doesn’t exist, treating me like I didn’t understand how to provide it, not that I couldn’t. What was once:

Your public IP address(es) (IPv4), which you can find by searching “What is my public IPv4 address” in your internet browser; if you use multiple devices, please include all IP addresses

Became:

Your public IP address(es) (IPv4), which you can find by searching “What is my public IPv4 address” in your internet browser; if you use multiple devices, please include all IP addresses… Please be sure to send me your public IPv4 (ie. 231.12.32.123 / 14.545.23.213 / 32.123.321.43 )

Ironically my public IP address, which I had already sent them, was one of the few pieces of information that I could actually provide. While I know that customer support is often using a script, they were now repeatedly ignoring the information I’d already given them, and treating me in an increasingly condescending manner. I replied to them that I’d already answered these questions as well as they could be answered. I also explicitly asked for someone to acknowledge that my issue was no longer about changing the country listed on the account. It was now one of identity theft, because I had not authorized the use of my email address on it, and if necessary I wanted the account deleted completely.

Another full day passed, without a reply. I sent a followup email that morning, restating my request for someone to acknowledge my security concerns, and to have them explain how I was supposed to continue this process when I could not provide the requested information. Later that afternoon, after still not receiving any reply, I filed a second ticket through the Epic Store support link, specifically about the unauthorized use of my email address. I referenced my existing ticket, and explained that I had been told more than once that I could not continue without giving them information I do not have. I also made it very clear that I am worried about my information security.

I got a reply almost immediately:

It looks like you’re already being assisted with your issue under a different ticket, so we need to close this one. For further assistance with your issue, please locate your email with Conversation ID: # [withheld].

If you need help with a different issue, please respond to this ticket with details about your new issue, and I’ll be happy to help.

Foolish me, giving them the very information they were now using to deny my request! As they suggested, I repeated my new issue, verbatim, from my ticket:

I am submitting this second ticket to try to get someone to help protect my identity, because I am unable to use my own email address to register or purchase games.

Changing the country on an account is quite different from reporting unauthorized use of an email address, is it not? Regardless, I quickly received a reply:

In order to avoid confusion, we do advise that you return to the original email thread with the previous agent so that you can get a resolution quicker. For further assistance with your issue, please locate your email with Conversation ID: # [withheld].

If you need help with a different issue, please respond to this ticket with details about your new issue, and I’ll be happy to help.

Quicker indeed! Remember, at this point I was still waiting for a response to my first ticket for well over a day, and was much more concerned about my information security than purchasing a game or changing the account’s location. I still am.

So, I waited.

Today, on the sixth day of this process, I received another reply to my original ticket:

Thank you for writing back to us. My name is [withheld] and I have taken over your case from my colleague. I hope you have been doing well.

I see how the situation is and for this, I would like to let you know that I have taken some time to write down a set of instructions that will help you gather all of the information that was previously requested. I know it can be a little tricky to gather them and this is why I’ll be happy to provide you with the following:

- To locate your Public IP Address, all you have to do is search for “What is my Public IP” in your internet browser. All links will display the same address, so choose whichever you like!

- Information in regards to your original display name, Invoice IDs and date of creation can be found in the inbox of the email address associated with your Epic Account, as we have made sure to notify you via email for all changes that occur and with an online receipt (Invoice ID) for all Epic Games Store purchases. If you have made purchases for V-bucks outside the Epic Store and on a console, then the respective console’s store Invoice ID will be most welcome instead. If you do not have access to the email address, then I encourage you to do your best to give me an approximation of the month that you started playing as well as the year.

- Information in regards to your card, location and external console display names can all be gathered from within your household, as we have made it so that only the original owner of the account can gather them!

For any additional assistance, I will be happy to hear back from you!

Awaiting your reply.

You can imagine my frustration. I am no closer to understanding how to restore access to my email address today than I was six days ago, and there’s that pesky IP address request again! It’s obvious that no actual communication has occurred.

Epic, my experience as a first time customer of your store has been miserable. You aren’t responding to my concerns, and aren’t acknowledging the information I’ve given you. You’ve repeatedly offered me increasingly condescending requests for information that I can not provide, as if I were incapable of understanding what you are asking for, or how to accomplish it.

All I want is access to an email address I own, and to give you my money. You are defending the empty shell of an illegitimate account at the expense of my information security, and have given me no assurances that I will be protected, or any explanation about why this has happened. If you are going to force me to go through your store to purchase the games I want to play, you need to get your house in order!

Your service has been completely unsatisfactory. I’ve repeated my answers to your security questions for the third time, and I’m still waiting.

And this is why I don’t like exclusive titles.