A DayZ player/Reddit user says they recently got some really bad customer support. Not the wait-20-minutes on hold kind of bad customer support. More like the threaten-to-send-your-home-address-to-criminals kind.
The saga, which popped up in Reddit and message boards for the popular DayZ zombie mod, involves some escalating exchanges between the gamer, known as SinisterPrime, and the tech support at Defcon Servers, a self-described “premiere game hosting company.”
SinisterPrime recently purchased a server from Defcon Servers to host a DayZ game with his friends. What he didn’t realise was that the server required 40 players to run. He thought it only needed 10. So he took to Defcon’s customer service line to inquire about a refund.
But SinisterPrime’s experiences didn’t go over well. He shared his story on a Reddit thread:
I actually purchased a 10 man server from them with the idea of making a DayZ server as they advertise having a DayZ installer. After purchasing the server, I was having issues and contacted their customer support. They informed me that it is required to have a 40 man server for DayZ and being that a 40 man server is 80 bucks I asked for a refund while I found some people to join with and buy a server. They declined the refund and were very rude throughout the entire conversation and basically stated I was dumb for not knowing the requirements first (Can’t argue that point much).
I left them with a message about how to be better at customer service and recieved a message back with a half assed “We can’t do anything, sorry you feel that way”
SinisterPrime later received this response via email, in which the alleged Defcon Server customer support representative accuses him of blackmail. The quote is taken mid-email, presumably addressing SinisterPrime:
…ordered a server with the intent of running a specific mod and made the mistake of not knowing the mod makers policy. We gave you the exact server you ordered and it worked as advertised. If you have a complaint with that I would take it up with the mod maker not us. It’s they’re policy not ours. We don’t owe you a refund and we sure as hell won’t be blackmailed into giving you one. Which appears to be your intention here as I don’t see any other motive. That “I’m just trying to let the world know” charade is B.S honestly and I don’t buy it.
Giving you a refund would be against our Terms of Service which is a legal binding document. We do not offer refunds on pre-paid services and we don’t give refunds based on your inability to run a 3rd party mod on your server, That is not within our control as we do not make the mod nor do we make the rules for them.
We have been in business for over almost 10 years and in that time I’m quite sure there have been folks who didn’t agree with our practices, That goes for any business anywhere, You simply cannot please everyone. I wouldn’t go as far to say we “have a history of bad customer support” as the 10+ thousand current customers we have can attest to our support. You can also attest to our answering each and every ticket you submitted within a few minutes. Being a “user friendly” company is about making the customer aware of your policies and upholding them both on our end and yours. Refunding you for not being able to run a mod would go against our Terms of Service. How would that make us a user friendly company if we simply pick and choose which rules to follow? This all could have been a non- issue if you simply inquired about the rules of the mod maker BEFORE ordering service and you would have been provided that information. We had no way of knowing which of the several mods we have available you were planning on using so I fail to see how we could be at fault here. We set your server up how you ordered it and for that we have to be paid for it. Your quarrel should be with the mod maker not us.
SinisterPrime says the customer service representative then contacted him again, emailing back with vulgar language and even some upsetting threats:
So you want to play games you little shit? How about I post your home address and personal details all over the internet? Would that make you happy? Watch who you fuck with. I will make it so every criminal in your state has your address.
The threat follows with a Google maps link to what is presumably SinisterPrime’s house, which you can see in the email interaction documented by the image below.
It appears that this afternoon, Defcon Servers posted a public apology on the DayZ forums, stating that the tech support representative was “disgruntled” but has since been terminated, and the company is even considering pursuing legal alternatives to retaliate to the comments, which Defcon says “borderline on criminal.” The full statement is below:
This is quite an embarrasment to me personally and our company and I don’t know how to begin explaining how this happened.. From what I understand speaking with one of our techs; is the person who made those comments (A different support tech) was disgruntled (to say the least). From my understanding the customer ordered a server from us and later was told we could not host a 10 slot dayzmod for them so they proceeded to cancel and later requested a refund which was denied. I’m not clear on what transpired between that time and when those comments were made but understand there were emails sent back and forth using a company address and as you can see they made some threats and used strong language which I have to take full responsibility for as they were under my employment.
This person has been terminated and we are now considering pressing charges. I’m not certain if that’s possible at this time but the comments made borderline on criminal. I sincerly apologise on behalf of defconservers to the dayz community for the actions of this person and can assure you this is not the way we operate our business. We are and have always been a customer oriented business and pride ourselves on customer support and this has given us a severe blow to that which I hope we can overcome. Again I apologise for the comments made and will be contacting the individual they were directed at personally to extend our apologies as well.
According to the harassed customer, Defcon Servers have since refunded SinisterPrime’s purchase, and reached out to him personally to apologise.
We’ve reached out to both SinisterPrime and Defcon Servers, and will update this post should we get a response.
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