Silverwolf's Auditorium

Perhaps unsurprisingly I have a World of Warcraft account that I play quite often.  When a friends account was hacked recently I decided to add a Mobile Authenticator to my account to increase security.  I used the free iPhone application for this since I didn't want to have another gadget to keep track of.

All was well for quite a while, It's somewhat a pain to have to pull up the app and key in a code every time I log in, especially right after a patch when i'm having problems with addons and having to log out and back in a dozen times to fix it.  But it's a minor inconvenience and I've felt safer knowing my account is a little bit more secure.

Well, yesterday my iPhone crashed and I ended up having to restore it with iTunes to get it working again, I didn't think about it at the time but this also removed my Mobile Authenticator Application.  Late yesterday evening when I tried to log on to WOW I realized that I didn't have the Authenticator on my phone anymore and I would be unable to log into my account.

I thought, well there must be a way to deal with this, I would imagine that it happens quite often people's phones crap out all the time.  So I turned to the WorldofWarcraft website, and to my suprise I discovered that in order to fix this problem I would have to call customer service, there was no way to remove a Mobile Authenticator from an account on the web unless you have access to the Mobile Authenticator (And therefore no reason to remove it from your account).

Now, I understand that they are just trying to keep my account safe, but Customer Service will ask me some random security questions to validate that I am who I say I am.  That same functionality could be easily added to the web page without any drop in security.  After all I don't have to call the bank to reset my password for online banking, and my WoW account seems a lot less valuable than my Bank Accounts, right ?

Anyhow, I also learned that customer service is not open 24 hours, so they were closed when I was trying to reach them.  I was not allowed to leave a voicemail, instead the recording suggested that I send an email, which is precisely what I did.  That was yesterday, so far today I haven't received any reply to my email (Other than the automated response saying that my message had been received.  So I decided to give them a call back to see if I could speed up the process, I want to play my Death Knight tonight since I wasn't able to play at all yesterday.

I called the number (1-800-592-5499) and after the standard language prompts I was presented with a recorded message that said "We are currently experiencing a high call volume, our associates are currently assisting other customers and we are unable to help you at this time."  The recording then suggested that I send an email instead, or if I really really need to talk to someone I should call back at an undisclosed time later.

This strikes me as being a little ridiculous, first they force me to call customer service to resolve an issue that i should be able to resolve on the web in 30 seconds all by myself, then they tell me that customer service is not open when I need them, and thirdly when they are open I still can't speak with anyone because they are too busy.

Now, generally I like blizzard, but I harp on them when they do something that I don't like, such as killing off all the 3rd party WoW related programs on the iPhone app store.  Blizzard collects $15/month from millions of players for World of Warcraft, in addition for charging for the software, and again every time they come out with an update that adds new content.  In other words, they are making money hand over fist on WoW, but they clearly aren't investing nearly enough into Customer Service, if you do a google search you turn up lots of rants similar to this one where Blizzard didn't take care of it's customers.

I'm a strong believer that an angry customer is usually an under served customer, and right now i'm under served!  If you are going to force me to call Customer Service then you had better have a Customer Service Department that can help me dammit.

I've already called three or four times this AM and I keep getting the same message about them being too busy to help me.  I will post more updates later on to show how it turns out and how long it will actually take for me to get my account fixed.

Update : NOON

I just received a reply from Blizzard to my email of yesterday, where I was instructed to send an email to a different address including a completed form and a copy of some identification, which I have completed and sent now.  I will update to see when they reply to this one.

I can't believe they didn't have just post the form online with instructions on where to send it and what to include if you need to remove a Mobile Authenticator from your account, the FAQ specifically says that if you lose or damage your Authenticator to send an email to a different address (the one I sent yesterday).  It doesn't even mention a form to fill out.

Update : 5:34 PM

I received an email reply from a Blizzard customer support rep where he indicated that the authenticator had been removed from my account.  I tried it and it worked !!  All in all it took 19 hours and 34 minutes to resolve an issue that took a rep all of 30 seconds to fix.  Given an average customer support experience with most companies it should have taken me 20 - 30 minutes on the phone with a rep to get this done instead of taking nearly 20 hours.

They did eventually resolve my issue, but I had to jump through several hoops and wait 40 times longer than I should have had to. 

Overall I rate Blizzard's customer service as : Dismal, if you have a problem they will probably fix it eventually, but you can safely expect to have enough time to watch every star-wars movie ever made and still be able to read a book or two before it's fixed. Oh, and don't expect to speak to a live human being on the phone, ever.