Fuck Rockstar. I changed my email accounts a few years ago but forgot to change Rockstar first. This wasn’t a problem. Now, after buying GTA V on Xbox and Steam and sinking a lot of time into it over two accounts, they added some mandatory launcher on Steam that forces you to login to their Social Club. Mandatory launcher calls an account that I can’t unlink, triggers mandatory 2FA to an email that doesn’t exist. They refuse to help despite my willingly handing over a lot of private information - their support system is as good as fake. The end result is I have sank >£100 in buying their games and they ensure that not only do I not get to continue my account on GTA V, but I have been permanently locked out and actually impossible to play any Rockstar Social - walled game on Steam.
Partial ‘correspondence’ of my third attempt to get help from them. Twice they ignored the support subject.
Judging by other complaints online this exact issue has persisted and screwed over players since the creation of GTA V, so at least 12 years.
I have the same issue with Activision, and here’s the kicker. They’re exactly the same blueprint. Same support. Same result. Same fake-ass Western names on their signature.
I feel like Rockstar needs to be continuously pressured, injustices talked about, just in case they give.
Just don’t give corps like Rockstar money.
Additional:
(from Schwaggaccino • 2y ago • Reddit)
I emailed Rockstar and started a request ticket and they want me to log in to get me to reset my 2FA which is preventing me from logging in.
THIS IS PEAK CLOWN WORLD I CAN’T BELIEVE SOMEONE ACTUALLY GOT PAID TO IMPLEMENT THIS JOKE OF A SYSTEM
Edit: For the time being it seems they have disabled all support as none of my support requests are going through, even with omitting data and using VPN multiple times… I’ve had seven unsuccessful tickets and was just brainstorming how to automate the requests.
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I dunno man, I’d kind of rather you lose your account rather than Rockstar happily handing over my account to anyone who contacts support and claims they’re me but can’t access my email account.
I know this is probably not helping but ideally you’d want to go through this process
If this process is not working people might want to report on it.
Yep, I have the same story verbatim dude. Fuck Rockstar, permanently. Haven’t played one of their games in like 5 years, and I never will again.
I mean, rockstar hasn’t release a new game in like 5 years. So you have not missed out on anything yet.
My daughter played on my account while she was a minor and didn’t have her own rig. She got a gaming PC and her own steam account and is grown now, has her own copy of gtav.
But my account is tied to her email. Almost every time I want to play I have to call her. I’d just buy another copy on a steam sale but, “you already own this game”.
Yeah this is the cancer that is email 2FA.
Unfortunately email is the only way they have to verify your identity. No email, no account. But this is very much not exclusive to Rockstar.
I changed my email a couple of years ago and it’s absolutely astonishing how many companies are completely unequipped to deal with someone changing or deleting their email account.
Unfortunately email is the only way they have to verify your identity. No email, no account.
That isn’t really true, I’ve restored access to multiple game accounts before in situations where I lost access to my email, it mostly involved providing information about the account that only the person using it would know, like the names of characters on it and some other stuff. If a company can’t handle this it’s because they don’t want to pay for competent customer support workers and just rely entirely on lazily coded automated systems.
Yes, it is the lazy way to secure accounts. No defense there.
Lol, YDI. When asked to provide the identifiable information, you just say “Stop and do the thing I want.” You seriously expect them to just hand over an account to someone who can’t provide basic information about it? You owned yourself, pal.
Just wait until that guy learns about Crypto
I’m just imagining their pure rage when reaching out to a Bitcoin Dev/maintainer whatever with something like „I don’t know what my Wallets name was, idk my 10 phrase password, but give me back my 10$ in Btc right now”
And then pasting this again with the Title DONT BUY BTC THEY SCAM YOU
Dude, treat every service like your wallet.
You have an Email, you have a password. If you forget these, consider everything the Support does as an extra service and not the bare minimum.
I used to work for a company that Epic Games outsourced their support to. We were based in Athens, Greece. There were other companies receiving the same email pool on Helpdesk Bulgaria or Romania, as well as an Indian office, all supporting US customers via email.
We were paid 3.5eu / hour and our performance was micromanaged by counting how many replies we did per hour.
Hence, we had canned responses that we’d copy/paste to save time and maybe achieve a bonus for that month.
Unfortunately we ended up being shit on on reddit on multiple occasions because some poor guy misunderstood the request and a legitimate request would be promptly denied, even though it shouldn’t be. The level of English comprehension varied wildly among us.
All I’m saying is maybe Rockstar actually has a way to ID your account based on IP addresses, credit card used, date purchased if you have the receipt email, driver’s license etc and you’re just dealing with an underpaid dude in Eastern Europe not quite understanding you.
Usually if you threaten to sue they escalate to tier 2, so you may have more luck that way and tbh I don’t know about Rockstar, that’s how Epic did it back in 2018.
Maybe try explaining it a different way? I dunno but good luck.
Edit: I just saw the rest of the messages in your comment.
I wouldn’t have given you back the account either in their shoes. You just claim things that anyone could claim from their point of view, they have procedures they need to follow.
They can’t try your password, or see it anywhere and would never ask you for it either.
They’re asking simple things that you should have been able to verify. After that they’d likely ask for IP addresses and last 4 digits of card used etc.
They have to do this, or anyone’s account could be hacked by social engineering all too easy.
Thanks for the context, which led me to downvote this post. Come on, guys; not all complaints are valid.
It is valid to take people’s money and deny them the product? Interesting opinion…
It is valid for them to make sure accounts cannot be taken over by hostile actors, and it is valid for them to assume that you are able to notify them about email address changes in time.
Tell me, how many years did you have to resolve the situation regarding your email address before it came to this?
For all we know, it’s a 50/50 that the customer service guy receives back an email back from that email that supposedly is not accessible saying “WTF I have no idea what you’re talking about, was my account hacked?”
But since you’re that gullible - hey bro, that wallet in your back pocket is mine, I put it there when I washed my jeans. Hand it back now, I paid for it and I’m 100% entitled to it!!
No and it is shitty to implement this new authentication system after all these years, however should they just hand over any account to some rando writing an angry email? If that were the case, we’d be reading about that right now (“Rockstar gave my account away!”) instead of this.
Edit: I just saw the rest of the messages in your comment.
I wouldn’t have given you back the account either in their shoes. You just claim things that anyone could claim from their point of view, they have procedures they need to follow.
They can’t try your password, or see it anywhere and would never ask you for it either.
They’re asking simple things that you should have been able to verify. After that they’d likely ask for IP addresses and last 4 digits of card used etc.
They have to do this, or anyone’s account could be hacked by social engineering all too easy.
I honestly don’t see how you can turn the blame on him. It’s not his fault the support didn’t ask for the right things. It’s actually part of Rockstar support procedure to ask essentially public information like previous email addresses or previous nicknames. On my first try they asked the same things from me. On my second try they also asked for Steam purchase history and game keys. It’s not his fault the support fucked up and didn’t ask for the right things.
The thing is, and I think you’re missing this, he got those wrong. After being asked for email and Nickname he provides them and the support person says “I’m unable to verify that you own the account”, that means he answered wrong, yes those might be bad questions because some random person might know them, but he didn’t.
Looking at the conversation, you do sound like a hackerkid™ trying to social engineer itself into someones rockstar account
You should give them the info they ask for
Also, the poor indian dude answering you probably doesn’t have access to you crew’s name in gtav or anything like that.Don’t give them money because you aren’t able to keep your email address updated? Don’t give them money because you are not able to provide the information they need to verify you are who you say you are?
I’ve worked costumer support for many years, and me and my supervisors would have rejected your request too. Since you can’t provide what they want (not even a definite nickname wtf), you probably can’t prove the purchase either.
Don’t flame some poor support guy or a company, kick yourself in the ass for letting it slide for so long that you cant even remember the original nickname anymore and chalk it up as a learning experience - we’ve all been there.
Well then can we flame them (rockstar) for turning off Linux support on GTA V Online? I know the exact same anticheat works on linux, because I am playing Dune online and it’s working just fine. So yeah, back to that, fuck rockstar!
A lot of private information
Public nicknames, passwords and emails that could be fished from public dumps and retried, public crew names… Where’s the private and where is the a lot?
Also you’re not even paying attention. You called someone Aaron well after they’ve left the conversation.
Yeah I wouldn’t have let you in either with that hostility and level of vaguery
yeah this is the circle of ownership because the only way to get your account back at this point is social engineering, which is a serious topic about getting accounts hacked which different companies will handle seriously, as it requires a level of “trust me bro” on identity, If possible, id try to look for a CS that will take receipts of the game purchases to help further prove your identity.
I couldn’t play red dead 2 because of some old email I didn’t recognize was associated with my rockstar social account that was linked to my steam account where I bought the game. I didn’t even give a shit about cloud or online play. I just wanted to do the game all alone but it wouldn’t let me without that email. It was the dumbest shit ever and i eventually just got a refund. They definitely use people over seas for support and it takes them forever to reply.
Mandatory launchers can fuck right off. I was lucky enough to get Rockstar support to accept my Steam purchases but even then I had to try twice because the first time they pretty much blew me off.
I also had a similar issue with Ubisoft. There it was actually easier to restore my old email than get Ubisoft support to cooperate.
In short, fuck forced launchers and anyone who says “it’s just another account”. Yeah, it is at the moment but who knows 10 years from now. You’ll be locked out of your games because some fuckery happens and support won’t do shit.
Mandatory launchers can fuck right off.
… Iike Steam’s? 😛
Think the complaint is where a launcher is required on top of a launcher. Like if you buy Cyberpunk 2077 from Steam, GOG, or Epic it doesn’t required another launcher on top of the launcher you bought it from.
Good thing is that it does seem like majority of games don’t do that. Even EA is moving away from it.
I am aware of this list. Try comparing it to itch.io and GOG, though.
You know what I meant. If I buy a game on one launcher it shouldn’t open another launcher that then launches the game. The other launcher is completely unnecessary but it is mandatory to launch the game, hence mandatory launcher.
Edit: just to make it clear, if I make another account on another store that IMO is fine. I don’t have a problem with having steam, gog and itch accounts. But when I buy a game on one storefront/launcher and then I have to make an account on another storefront/launcher to play the game I already bought, that’s bullshit. In OPs case he was forced to make an account for a game he bought elsewhere and is now being punished because the company is stupid.
Oops, I misunderstood and agree; I didn’t realize a second launcher was the issue here. That is messed up.
First of all, I agree entirely. Now: Pounds, so you’re in the UK. Have a read about your options with the ombudsman service: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/get-more-help/how-to-use-an-ombudsman-in-england/
the Financial Ombudsman Service sorts out problems with banks, insurance, PPI, loans, mortgages, pensions and deals with other money and financial complaints - read our advice about getting your money back if you paid by card or PayPal
If nothing else you’re putting them on blast with the government, and that contributes to the paper trail for eventual action. In the meantime it might get your complaint resolved. Did you try tweeting at their official account too? Sometimes that can help get things moving.
Thank you! I didn’t think an ombudsman would be at all helpful against a game company, I should reconsider aha. No Twitter account but that’s good advice!
It’s not a game company. It’s a company period. It sold you something that you’re not able to use.
Yes but the financial ombudsman regulates financial services.
Through “no fault” of the company and years after the purchase.
Its not the companies fault he couldnt be assed to :
- Diversify his email addresses in the 1st place
- Update his email address.
When you put all your eggs in one basket, you’ve really got no one else to blame when you then decide to throw the basket away.
Still paid them money and they’re not allowing him to use what he bought.
You’re right, this is more of an issue with your purchase not being complete. I think your legal remedies would either be through your card provider (probably too late) or civil action directly to Rockstar.
I advise you to try out GOG and itch.io as they sell games wbthout DRM
Thanks, yes that’s good advice. I’ve got an account with GOG and use their launcher
Although l think it sacrifices achievement progress, you may consider Heroic Games Launcher instead, which is open-source.
