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.
Final Edit: Thanks for your responses everyone, looks like legal is the only route. After 24h my support requests are still being auto blocked (not submitting as there’s no delay before response), and I am skeptical they switched off support for that long, even if it is fake, so they just blacklisted my details I think.
You must log in or # to comment.
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…
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.
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.I misread the order of the interaction, which painted a much more antagonistic view of OP. Sorry about that. That said, the actual interaction plus their further reaction here is still not good. “Brainstorming how to automate the requests” is not an appropriate response to any of this.
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.
Social Club is the kind of account you use a throwaway email for, and just use whatever random nickname isn’t taken yet. I, personally, have no idea what the email or nickname to my Social Club account are. I also have bought GTA V through Steam back in 2015 and haven’t lived into Social Club since. I think it’s perfectly fair to expect that your Steam account shouldn’t be hijacked by Rockstar upon linking it to one Social Club account once.
At the very least, if they’re gonna have a Rockstar launcher, it should allow you to unlink your Steam account through it, using your Steam credentials, and free it up to link to a new Social Club account.
Look at the timestamps, the conversation is from top to bottom. So technically I guess he tried to answer, but he probably missed the answer and instead had a tone that happened to match exactly how a scammy email would sound.
If legitimate, it’s probably better that they didn’t get to successfully automating spamming the support system. Nothing screams legitimate requests like bot spamming… Don’t know the tone of his follow ups, but best to take a breath and reset their tone and try again, asking what other details aside from nickname can be used, given their steam access.
I think you meant “bottom to top”. But yes, that does change the tone a bit.
Ah, yeah, I totally misread those screenshots. My mistake. Still not good, though. I take back that YDI, but yeah, not surprised they’re getting ghosted after all that.
Everyone in the comments making such a huge deal of account security when literally all Rockstar had to do was allow people to unlink their Steam accounts from Social Club. It could even be done in their own launcher, with the credentials of the Steam account that actually owns the game. Then people could just make a new Social Club account, it’s not worth shit anyways.
They’re locking people out of playing a local, offline game, over some decade old account that I used my spam email for, and now I’m supposed to remember it? Get a fucking grip bro.
Why don’t you request a refund from Steam? If the game doesn’t work because they changed it then I want my money back.
deleted by creator
I have the same issue and had the same result with Rockstar. Ubisoft managed to change my email though after providing proof of purchase. Fuck Rockstar, I’m sailing the seas with their games.
Somehow I had 3 separate Ubisoft accounts with differing games on them. After a short back-and-forth proving I was the account(s) owner, they actually did what I asked. They combined all 3 accounts into one and combined my games catalog.
The corporation sucks ass, but their support did me a solid.
I had same issue trying to play that after a long time and after sending a screenshot of my steam acct logged in on a certain page they gave me a link to reset my info and I now have access again. What a pain in the ass it was though
God, can these companies fuck off with their third party launchers? Its why I don’t buy any game off Steam which has that warning, not worth the hassle
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!
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.
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.
Time to sail the high seas.
Exact same for me but an Ubisoft game linking my Steam account to a long gone email address of a long gone Ubisoft account.
Absolutely hopeless customer support saying there is no possible way for them to help me.
Good thing I wasn’t planning on buying any Ubisoft game ever again, problem pretty much sorted itself out.
Step one: put this on your tinder profile:
I have been permanently locked out and actually impossible to play any Rockstar Social - walled game on Steam.
Step two: reel’em in. You’re free now!
Maybe I was lucky, but I had the same issue where I no longer had access to my old e-mail account and they sorted it out for me within a few hours (after a few e-mails back and forth).
It probably helped that I was able to provide them with a screenshot of the game in my Steam library as well as a list of all the games linked to my Rockstar account with dates of purchase. To find the dates of purchase on Steam I went to “account details” and “view purchase history”.
Thanks - from what I can gather the support member is a roulette spin with each message - hopefully I can use your tips and increase my chances of success
Yep. I have the exact same problem with EA-Connect. My account is just gone because EA doesn’t offer any support.
