Gadgetory

hey Ron this is Steve from gamers Nexus dotnet and today we're doing a consumer report on rockstar games and GTA 5 this story came about when a few of our readers emailed us telling us that they had been hung up on it by rockstar game support when they called seeking assistance for hacked accounts and I wasn't too sure I believed them at first so I decided to investigate this myself and call but before getting into that I want to play you a clip from one of our readers Rob who called Rockstar support after being hung up on to inquire as to why he was hung up on and what course of action he could take as a consumer to remedy his hacked account thank you for coming dr. sport my name's Peter man Henry first name please hi Peter my name is Robert Robert Hawking happy nature I just called and I was hung up on by a previous person after they continued to tell me that I'd be contacted by email on my account my account had been hacked and I just want to know what the time frame is that I'll get it back um you know we're not at liberty to guarantee a time frame oh and though I can understand that but can you put me can you provide me a phone number to contact this fraud department that I'm being told about because I just dished out $50 for a game that I have absolutely no access to no one seems to be able to tell me when I'll be able to have access to or the Department that's handling it it's worth noting that the ticket for Rob's account has been open for several days now and has not yet received a noteworthy update and if you look online this is actually a common issue so after hearing this I decided to call with my own hacked account issue and see if I would be hung up on by support agents here's what happened I'll take it out before Hey yeah I have a ticket number okay when can I get the ticket number sir so it is okay sir can I put you can I put you on hold for a minute sure and you said and you're correct the ticket number is wrecked right okay thank you bro thank you for holding sure oh can I put you on hold sir yeah go for it okay thank you okay third thank you for holding yep your case has been logged for further review our understanding is that there is no further help we can provide at this time and we will need to end this call thank you again hey hang on hang on don't hang up on me uh so what so the status is is what I'm sorry could you repeat the status ha ha as you can see before I even had a chance to reply from the script that was read to me the the phone call was disconnected and I didn't have a chance to ask if I should be emailing someone if I had a fraud department I could call her even if I could get a refund for my inability to play the game so I decided to call a second time for parody maybe this was a one-off instance hello thank you for calling rossport my name is crow caws but this issue before yeah I have a ticket number okay but will she take Allah with her it is it would be three issue today I was just calling calling to follow up and see if there's been any update to this ticket my GTA social account was compromised recently and I'm trying to reattach yeah we are very sorry for the fact that you are unhappy with our product service your case has been logged in our system and will be rude infer it further okay so is there any update right now or boy able to just invite sorry no sir okay so but is there anything else we can do for you the helping troubleshoot I actually was just hung up on by one of your other support agents uh so I'm trying to get a very clear answer you know when I can play the game that I paid $60 for you your case will be transferred follow-up will be via email if we can get you you know dress you who still have access to your ticket to monitor for updates as well okay um is there a supervisor I can talk to your case has been low for further review understand is that there is no further help we can't provide at this time we need to end this call thank you for calling us okay so you're hanging up on me too the sad thing is that we have even more recordings of being hung up on but I've removed them from this video for brevity so at this point I'm getting fairly annoyed as any reasonable consumer would be I haven't yet been given a course of action I haven't been told what to do when I'll be contacted or if I can get my money back so I decided to call one final time and take a different approach I wanted to ask the agent directly whether they were told to hang up on me yeah I actually I have a ticket number I just called car minutes ago and I was I was hung up on so um all right okay pick it up over here yeah it's are you over here I'm just trying to get a clear answer here my account was actually compromised and so I'm trying to get access to it again and I'm having trouble getting a clear answer from the phone support folks you know what I should be doing next when I should expect it to be back in my control well your case has been logged for you for the review our understanding is that there is no further help we can provide at this time okay um so yeah so is this like is it standard for support agents to hang up after saying that line because I've heard it three or four times yeah it is it's standard we we have to okay all right I understand so that's how rock stars phone support staff handle their customers and this is policy pushed down the chain by rock star and Rob's original call that he sent me it was stated by the support representative that if Rob had purchased the game through Rockstar warehouse rather than Green Man gaming or steam or whatever service then Rockstar would offer a warranty policy that would cover this scenario we did you buy the game from Rockstar warehouse the game was purchased through Green Man gaming which was a code for the Rockstar social club right so if you wanted a a refund you'd have to go to that despite the fact that it's Rockstar that's failing to provide the service so out of desperation I call back one final time this time I provide no identifying information they effectively see me as a new caller and I decided to ask if the warranty policy would cover this scenario I'll let you listen to the somewhat unclear answer and determine for yourself what you think I just was wondering if I could go through the the warranty policy well for that particular issue we have to escalate this up because it's a the account you know we need to get it straightened out right um yeah I would this particular situation I'm not sure if that would cover it because you're trying to what return it yes so I guess in an ideal situation the way I kind of see it being the easiest for everyone is is terminating the existing account and then refund me and then I'll just I'll buy the game and do it that way through a different email that way it's it's a hundred percent secure yeah II don't have a way to really generate the codes for that the this is the for that particular scenario that's happening this is what's been outlined that we have to do is if we have to escalate the account up so at the end of the day it is inexcusable for any support staff to hand up on their customers before the customer is even given a chance to further discuss the issue before the customer is even given a chance to fully comprehend what was just read to them you're still sitting there processing okay how do I respond to this in a nice way they hand up on you before you even have to worry about that in my opinion that is not an acceptable fashion to treat your customers who have just spent fifty or sixty dollars on your game that they can't play because you had a security issue it should be noted that one of these hacked accounts we called about uses a unique password that is not used on any other service meaning that it is not stored in rainbow tables that we are aware of it is designed in a fashion which is effectively impossible to brute-force within the time frame that it was hacked and perhaps Rockstar was compromised or something similar to that the account I was calling about has been inaccessible for a few days it was hacked when the email was changed the account holder received an email notifying them of the change but not requesting confirmation which is poor security further it appears that from research conducted through forums there is an issue with sessions remaining active through Rockstar service for instance some Xbox users were reporting that they were still logged into their accounts even after they were compromised and their emails and or passwords had been changed so that is rockstars policy that is how they treat their customers when it comes to a hacked account I have reached out to Rockstar for official comment and have not yet received a reply if you dislike the way we were treated in these phone calls by Rockstar I would advise you to share this video reach out to them perhaps via email maybe not clog the phone lines as those people really do have no control from our investigation and see if maybe we can enact some change just by reaching out via email Twitter things like that and get in touch with the company responsible for this that is all for this video I will see you all next time thank you for calling Rockstar Games technical support please note this call may be monitored or recorded for Quality Assurance purposes