Bad Customer Service - Buying 44 West DLC

[brettz123]

So I went to buy the 44 DLC a couple minutes ago and after paying for it I am not allowed to download it. Instead of getting to download the game I am told that my transaction needs to be verified. So AFTER I log into my account and pay through paypal (which obviously I have to log into that too) it isn't good enough for Slitherine to determine that I actually meant to play the game. I would like an explanation as to why I am not being allowed to download the game. Very poor customer service in my opinion.

[GSlapshot]

I didn't have a problem using PayPal. The Slitherine site took me to PayPal site with my email address. I entered my PW, paid and immediately got a confirmation from the PayPal site with a serial number. We're you paying by check or CC?

[brettz123]

I didn't have a problem using PayPal. The Slitherine site took me to PayPal site with my email address. I entered my PW, paid and immediately got a confirmation from the PayPal site with a serial number. We're you paying by check or CC?

Automatic payment from my bank account. I have used paypal before with no problems.

[brettz123]

Looks like they approved my purchase. Thanks.

[VPaulus]

I do apologize for the issue you experienced, brettz123. But unfortunately paypal sometimes take time to process the payments and clear it. It's rare but it happens from time to time.

[KeldorKatarn]

Yeah, that has nothing to do with customer service. Payment transactions are automated and sometimes the servers need time to process it all. There is a lot of parties involved, Paypal, your bank, service layers in between, then the result has to be transfered back to slitherine shop... anywhere in between there can be delays. That's just how it works. As Pauius said, usually it goes very smoothly, but somethings it can take a bit. It's annoying but Slitherine really is not responsible, and even if they tried to, they wouldn't be able to do anything to speed that up. It's completely automated and it's not even that easy to say where exactly the delay is at. Price of a highly automated and networked world. A decdade or two ago a person would have been somewhere in that chain, ready to help you if there's a hold up. Now not so much, just wires across the globe

[VPaulus]

Thanks KeldorKatarn . You're right. The process is automated and unfortunately there's nothing we can do when these things happen.

[mulleto22]

This has happened to me, too, when I purchased AK. And while I was upset as well, I got an immediate response from slitherine, who cleared the payment and had the issue resolved within less than 30 minutes. So, after all it was an example of almost perfect customer support as far as slitherine was concerned.

As much as plimus (the payment processor who was responsible for the delay because they reviewed my transaction) are concerned: I am still wondering if they use the right algorithms for determining whether to examine a transaction: After buying all 6 DLCs sucessfully (even from a fixed IP!) I suddenly got reviewed on my AK purchase. Sorry, but that seems just to be random and without reason beyond shooting blindly into the forest. And thats whats leading to a bad customer experience which is then associated with slitherine. I don't know whether its possible to negotiate these things with plimus, but I sure would try if I was at the helm at slitherine.

[MrsWargamer]

People need to sloooooooooooow the heck down in most cases

The internet is not always as instantaneous as we like to think. I mean in a store, you plop the item on the counter, the cashier scans it tells you the price, you offer cash and then you walk away. But even that entire process is longer than a mouse click in duration.

I have bought a few games as digital downloads in my time, and the process was not always immediate. It also sometimes is not within a minute, or 5 minutes either. I didn't panic, I left the page open, I opened a new browser window, and I spent some time killing time. I think I watched a few minutes of Netflix in that instance. I came back a short bit later, and the download link was waiting for me. It might have been there waiting 5 seconds after l wandered off, or it might have appeared only 5 seconds before I returned (no way for me to know). But I didn't panic.

Look at the time stamps people. Reports problem 23:11, problem is discussed and problem is resolved 0:08 of next day. That is if I am not mistaken about an hour. And we have no way to know if it was resolved sooner, and it merely took brettz that long to update us And it was done in the middle of the night (well it seems like middle of the night according to the time although the internet never sleeps).

And it should be noted, Slitherine sells the games yes, but, slitherine does not handle the download process, that is done via Plimus (who are called something new if I saw correct). All complaints about the download process, really should be discussed with Plimus (who likely have no forum, and use more limiting contact hours). And there is no point mentioning to Slitherine that they should pick another service. I am sure they shopped around. And to date, I have never had any troubles with Plimus, or the service that predated them. And I have downloaded likely way too many wargames to think about, but enough to have at least given Plimus enough chances to stumble if they were going to.

[MrsWargamer]

Oh and my 44 West DLC went fine the other day.