Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

I have one of the free memberships, never used an Amazon code, but I'll wait a couple of months to see how things go. Checking my emails it seems I registered in September, so I have a lot of time to see how things change.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

I wish I could provide an animated gif detailing just how.

Edit....Thanks to wmansir, I now can. rotfl

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6982/vagpunchc.gif

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

Joystiq posted a response from the president of the ECA.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/02/ec...ation-hassles/

Key points of hilarity:
- claiming that the free membership/amazon discount combination only resulted in a 'small bump' to their membership.

- pretending to be ignorant of the fact that a free membership code would be widely distributed on message boards. If the nature of the gaming community is that foreign to the ECA, it's a wonder they can claim to represent it.

- saying that they have to make it difficult to cancel a membership in order to stop people who join, quit and rejoin to abuse the system. Given that almost none of the 'benefits' are 1-use-only, anyone stupid enough to quit and then pay $20 to rejoin multiple times would be handing free money over to the ECA. Yes, I'm sure they worry about that a lot.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

:lol:

This is going to be fun to watch as it unfolds and completely bites them in the ass. Seriously, how stupid can they be? Not only is this probably violating several laws, it will end all goodwill toward them from any current or potential members. Their forums are quite entertaining today.

I signed up back in September because, hey, it was free. Never even bothered to use any codes before they pulled them. I went through the online cancellation process which has now apparently been invalidated. There's no way I'm going to waste time typing, printing, and mailing a letter since this situation will be resolved way before my renewal date comes up.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

I asked my CC company if it's legal to continue to charge you if your credit card information is expired and if a merchant is allowed by either manually or automatically/systematically figuring out your new expiration date is in order to keep charging you. They replied back that they would forward it to the "appropriate department" and get back to me within a business day.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

To be fair to ECA, the cancellation policy was evidently clearly detailed in the Terms of Service that we all agreed to when we signed up.

I'm glad I used a one-time-use CC number.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

I imagine there'll eventually be a button you have to push if you don't want your account deactivated automatically :lol:

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

They've since changed them and unless you go back to the site, you have no idea it has changed nor that the option you selected not to be charged any further was not working nor valid and that you will continue to be charged unless you mail them a letter which doesn't necessarily mean they'll follow through on.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

Reportedly, they are threatening to send any re-sub transactions that fail to a collections agency.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

In addition, they had a button to cancel the auto renew! Sure they disabled it later, but I have seen no notification from them in email or whatever to let us know that that option did not work. So how many canceled on the website and never went back?

Not to mention that the president's reply came across, to me at least, as incredibly smug, admitting no wrongdoing and placing the blame entirely on the membership.

Who the heck is signing up, canceling, and signing up again? Can someone point me to even one of their perks that is worth going through the trouble of signing up multiple times?

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

It's absurd. If he were a legit businessman, there would be no problem with allowing people to cancel their memberships (which was the actual option on the website) or opt out of auto-renewal. If I can do that with Sports Illustrated subscriptions (they even sent a letter to remind me), why can't I with the ECA? Are they that much busier? This is a very crooked operation and I hope they get fined up the wazoo for these business practices. I want to send a letter to cancel, but am worried it'll get lost, either accidentally or not, among the flood of letters they're about to receive (if they even agree to sign for them, which I kinda doubt).

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

Basically the same thing from the joystiq article

ECA President Blames Exploiters For Cancellation Concerns

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

My membership won't renew until July of next year (I joined strictly for a discount on the Beatles RB set). I am sure this operation will be completely out of business by then the way it is going. :lol:

If not, I will simply dispute the charge on my credit card. I remembered there being a button for saying no for automatic renewals and I either checked or unchecked it, whatever it was.

Are they seriously going to going after hundreds, if not thousands, of members over $15 to $20 bucks each? I know once you add it up that that is a lot of money but it seems you would pay more to the collection agencies to get that far.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

Oh yeah, I trust this guy :rolleyes:

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image.../12/halpin.jpg

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

That's definitely a face that was made for punchin'. :lol:

It almost seems like they know they are wrong on this one, but they've got their story and they're stubbornly sticking to it despite all the arguments that they should probably let you turn off auto-renew via the website. It's 2009 - we shouldn't need to send snail mail to accomplish such a simple task.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

What a douche bag.

So this crook is claiming that he was bamboozled by members who were repeatedly rejoining and now only those people are the ones who are complaining and the banks and the BBB are going to come down on them and eat their first born? This guy's got some kinda balls. Next thing you know Madoff is going to send the FBI against all of his investors.

http://kotaku.com/5417416/eca-presid...ation-concerns

Halpin goes on to suggest that the majority of complaints to the Better Business Bureau and personal financial institutions were exploiters, angered at the measures taken to thwart them, ominously pointing out how seriously banks take fraudulent fraud reports.

"Needless to say, (the letter requirement) incensed the exploiters who then contacted the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and their personal banks to report that we attained their membership under fraudulent conditions, in effect committing fraud themselves. Upon investigating the opened investigations, the respective banks and BBB all found ECA to be soundly reputable. We understand that several of the banks have since opened fraud investigations into their customers and that they take such matters very seriously."

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

I almost signed up but it was back when it was still not free and I stopped when it asked for the CC # for some reason. I have an account at their site but I have nothing listed under Orders. If I had gone through with it, I think I'd have something there.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

I'm 99% sure I did the same thing, but I'm not sure. There's nothing listed under my orders and I do have an account with emaill address and password, but I have no idea how to find out if they have my CC info or not.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

from CAG

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

Shady organization is shady.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

This all sounds like what you go through with Girls Gone Wild, except with less nudity.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

Just got today's ECA newsletter. The new Zero Punctuation is in there, but nothing about a major consumer advocacy group turning on the very consumers they claim to protect. Bizarre.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

I've read this entire thread while nude, if it makes you feel any better.

I also called and left a message with their cancellation department, so we'll see what happens with that.

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

You know it always does make me feel better!

Re: ECA - BASTARDS CHANGED POLICY An Important warning to ALL MEMBERS!
 

That was for Corvin, but glad I could help!