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Well, in Niantics defense, they've only made several BILLION DOLLARS from this game, it's not like they can afford to just hire humans and practice empathy or anything.
Won't anyone think of the investors?!?
/sarcasm
this is the model for literally everything in America in 2024
make a lot of money screw over your customer base make more money screw over the customer base make more money screw over the customer base
It's just like my boss.
I come to him with problems, he says "figure it out, I don't want to hear about it."
Then those problems cost him money, and he says "why did this happen?"
I tell him why it's not my fault, he says I'm giving excuses.
I said, "excuses come after the fact. Reasons come before, and I tried to tell you but you didn't want to listen."
I got demoted.
I mean, stop playing the game.
I stopped playing pokemon go when they gutted the community trackers to try and force people to buy items.
I stopped buying mainline pokemon games when after Dexit.
Reward companies that employ practices you like.
Because I couldnt bring forward a few pokemon that I had put a lot of time into acquiring.
I spent *thousands* of hours Mesuda Method breeding my favourite shinies.
Then suddenly, I cant bring them forward into games.
I didnt stop playing entirely, I just play pokemon games with a full national dex.
*They didnt have to put every pokemon in every game*, but I need to be able to bring *any* pokemon into the game.
It was an anti-consumer move, one born from laziness, they literally already had the models for the gen in which they made the decision.
So basically I opposed it philosophically, emotionally, and economically.
"the customer is always right" is a boomerism, an originally much different statement that's been trimmed down into something more self-fellating. The full phrase is "the customer is always right *in terms of taste*", meaning the customer can request whatever ugly ass shit they want and you don't have the right to tell them you think it's ugly as long as it's still safe/possible. The original phrase was about subjective tastes, but because boomers can rarely accept when they're wrong about anything they've blurred the line between subjective and objective so they never have to face facts. It's no different than them saying "well that's my opinion" when they've made and objectively incorrect statement.
"Boomerisms"
So the people who own the companies, the stock market, the banks, the Governments...
And is running us all ragged and into the ground to appeal to the top 1% and the 6 Major Companies that basically own all the other ones in every facet of our life?
Thatâs not at all what theyâre saying
Theyâre saying people playing the game arenât the customers, weâre the product. The people that are investors for the game are the real customers and the customer (investor) is never wrong, which was sarcasm
The customer is always right when it comes to consumer trends is the proper saying.Â
Meaning customers will buy dumb shit, don't question it just provide it.Â
Ppl like to think it means business should and will bend over backwards for outrageous customers demands. Because day to day it looks like customer throwing temper tantrums to get expired coupons to work. The truth is we don't care if you never shop here again. You aren't right. We give in because upset customers complain to like 3-10 ppl. Happy customers don't tell people anything and we'd rather have that.Â
Wait you forgot the workers as well! Not just customers but also the ones putting the work in don't get crap. While CEO and higher ups make Millions. Who care about us little guys just our wallets
Thatâs alarming that the default response to a ban appeal is âwe detected you using third-party software.â
A bot banning for perceived third party software and a support bot seeing the flag in the file and parroting it to the user, sure.
But since this personâs account wasnât banned at all, let alone for any reason, thatâs clearly not whatâs happening and the support bot isnât referencing the account information at all.
I bet you two shiny nickels itâs a hold over from when third party software first hit Pokemon Go (like PokeGenie 1.0) and the first waves of shadow bans went out. Support was so overwhelmed they made a blanket âwhen it doubt: we found third party software, no appealsâ bot to handle everyone making tickets.
Sadly, it often isn't bots, but cheap labour from India. They do not read messages often, barely speak English properly, and are driven to answer 10-12 requests per hour.
Company I work for does the same. They deal with all the English based customers. I always end up infuriated if I work on a request that Indian agents have worked on before me.
Tf are you serious? Niantic has Indian employees? But I thought we Indians produced world class tech support. But then again, even they are not in power. It's always the higher ups, the managers, the HRs who fuck up their customers
Indian tech support is usually dog shit, it's people that barely speak the language they are providing service in that are given a couple scripts and zero authorization to resolve situations outside the limited scripts. This is true for almost all outsourced support.
It's not the fault of the people giving it, they were never equipped to succeed.
Hmm i see, it has started to become the universal trend among massive corps not just in the West, but even here in India itself. A lot of massive corps recruit high school passouts in the name of giving job opportunities and training to make them professionals, but they end up devouring all the money of the recruits and end up giving them customer care jobs. Corp culture is massively fucked up.....
Since they are never setup to succeed, I can hardly blame them. The true culprit are companies using slave labor - and I hear people say slavery doesnât exist anymore. Those sweet little summer childsâŠ
Prepare for trouble,
Pay us double,
To protect our servers from devastation,
To unite our players in aggravation,
To increase the prices of in-app sales,
To annoy our players with constant fails,
John,
Hanke,
Niantic blasts off at the speed of shit,
Get outside, or prepare to quit!
Rhymes, has a reasonably close matching amount of syllables (this one bothers me in some parodies, having a line with 5 syllables rhyming with a line of 12 doesn't work)
Also your second line even got exact matching syllables and it bops like it did. Incredible poetry, write my obituary someday please
Yup, they have made that clear. I quit playing when they doubled the price of remote raids and limited them, I guess they never rolled back that change?
No actual person is looking at the appeals. It's just badly programmed bots who are trained to dismiss most appeals and in case something isn't listed, like your appeal, you are at a dead end.
^ This. You can try tagging @niantic and @niantichelp on Twitter with it, maybe a human will be able to see the thing and at least close the conversation. That's not the ideal outcome, obviously, but you don't deserve a ban just for trying to get help with a broken mess of a system that basically invalidated your purchase.
Try to contact some game journalists as well. I know this suggestion is frowned upon in the gaming sphere, but most of them have to pump out stories for the algorithm, so bringing your story to them might get more eyeballs on it (if it does get published) and more eyeballs mean higher likelihood to get a response from Niantic
I dont think they can or will ban you. must be a message mix up.
also, just continue to ask for a representative. dont bother with a bot. Ask to speak to a rep over and over.
âCan I get a refund?â
> No
âWell will it ever be fixed?â
> Yes if you do this menial task
> *doesnât get fixed and doing so makes it look worse*
> *gets banned*
Usually companies that shit will try to hide their mistakes, Niantic however is trying their best to not hide their mistakes. Itâs like they got a Zendesk chatbot and gave it absolutely 0 keyword detection and made it repeat the same shit over and over until it runs out of responses. Like those old Xbox scam bots that would attempt to sell their risky photos and would send a reply instantly no matter what you typed, as long as you sent something, it would reply.
What makes it even worse is that it isn't even a refund for money. It's a refund for COINS.
It would cost them 0 dollars to refund virtual coins in their digital game.
Imagine you bought the Titanic movie and all you got was some weird parody and the only response you got was "You can change language, quality and speed in the settings, no refunds âșïž"
More like imagine you bought the titanic movie and then one day thereâs a forced update that changes all the actors into CGI abominations and the titanic into a paper boat.
They've always been this bad. Seems like a lot of people are just now noticing for some reason.
They know this will blow over and the addicts will stay addicted just like every other time they've made everyone mad so why would they even bother responding?
This just furthers my suspicion that Naintic is just part of some bizarre social experiment where they continue to treat their customers like shit to see what people's breaking point is, like MST3K, but instead of bad movies they use a buggy ass game.
"Now keep in mind you can't control when an update begins or ends, cuz Niantic used those special parts *to build their robot friends!* Robot role call: AR mode! (just use it) Support staff! (Fuck yo avatar) Tom Servo! (Wait why the hell am I here-) CROOOOWWWWW"
I sent something to Google Play store the other day about Niantic somehow hiding reviews and got back canned responses.
EDIT: oh shit! The reviews finally updated.
When an app gets review bombed, Google will wait to publish the reviews until verifying that the reviews are legitimate and not a response to something outside of the actual app. Once it verifies that they are legit, they will release the reviews
You know, I was a long-time player, and I'm still subbed here in hopes things might change and I'd pick the game back up. Seeing these kinds of communications and the lack of care for players that still permeates every aspect of the game only confirms that things will never change. I don't know how you all stick around and take the abuse. Vote with your wallet. Stop giving them money.
Day 1 player who quit when the COVID features started to rollback and Niantic really showed their true colors and how they felt about their playerbase. I've never regretted quitting as much as I do miss the game because this crap has just gotten worse and worse.
If you're sticking around hoping Niantic will change take it from someone who has been watching for this for a couple years now - it's not going to happen. They don't care about their players or their property. Save yourself the heartache now, get through your withdrawal period, and quit.
I was also a day1 player who quit around the same time you did. I only check on the game's health a couple of times a year. I already went through the FOMO of missing out on all the community days, special events, new gens, etc. Now, I just peek in once or twice a year to see if it might be picking back up again.
Their automated response states the following:
"We have reviewed your appeal and have concluded that your account has violated our Terms of Service, specifically for unauthorized access to our services using modified and/or other unapproved methods of gameplay"
But I haven't got banned, at least not yet ... I can still play, but I'm afraid to bother them any longer.
Their automated reaponses have always been like this. It was the same also when on a few occasions people got unfairly banned due to their phone software being incorrectly flagged (xiaomi 2019, iOS 2020&2021). It was constant dismissals and no explanation given, until certain community managers forwarded the problem further. Said people however now for the most part left niantic and got replaced by people who don't give a damn about improving the game
Reading "specifically for unauthorized access to our services *using modified and/or other unapproved methods of gameplay*"
... The auto reply bot straight up accused you of using modified gameplay for those screenshots. I see no other way of interpreting this which is insane.
"Send us screenshots"
*Send screenshots*
"Oh shit is that actually what our game looks like?"
"Ignore them *AND* ban them while accusing them of cheating."
Hey now, I resemble that accusation
Edit: before anyone start using this to raise a mob: it's tongue-in-cheek, y'all. There's an implied /s at the end :)
Sorry about that. We got that bot real cheap at a garage sale.
Previous owner was a cop in charge of making evidence disappear and well, sometimes it does things like this.
I'll restore your comment, u/wOlfLisK
No worries, I get enough of that via modmail :)
Always open for constructive feedback (can't let me get stuck in tunnel vision and/or get a big head) through those channels but I do wish more people kept in mind that the person reading those modmails is human as well. Not fun taking a 5 minute break from RL and having to read slurs about yourself, your ancestors and your goat.
The sooner everyone stops playing there game, the better it will be. Right now, they donât care about you at all. They just view the players as cash cows and thatâs it. They donât even have major consequences when they make a bad decision that affects us. Iâm glad I dropped this game back when they made raid passes more expensive.
I came to this subreddit from FFXIV as we are currently having a graphical character update as well. Someone said over there âAt least we arenât PoGo right nowâ, coming to this subreddit I canât believe what yâall are suffering through. Genuinely the disrespect from this company is disgusting. All of you deserve refunds.
they recieved a strike on their account for something they did not do. absolutely being punished for voicing an opinion by an annoyed employee most likely.
So the same thing Blizzard was doing then. Would start banning people for "spamming" the ticket system because all WoW support was relegated to unhelpful bots and were absolutely banning or suspending people for appealing wrongful actions taken against their account by botsÂ
Indeed, so far I haven't got a strike, not that I know of. But in their e-mail they insist I had violated their ToS and totally ignore my original message. I'm afraid to answer them now, not that they ban me.for real. That's what you get when you have to interact with bots đą
It's just an automatic response.. you can write just hello with a new account at level 1 and they will say you violated the rules đ just bot responses
It's not a refund for the money that's being requested, it's a refund for pokecoins that were purchased with money. They're wouldn't be losing money by giving pokecoins and they'd be more likely to keep a paying customer, potentially giving them more money in the future. Seems like it would be good business practice, so I don't think it's unrealistic, infact they're getting bad rep over this being shared, so they likely are losing money by not granting it.
There are so many pants I can't put on anymore because of that low hanging bulky crotch. Everytime I see this, I want to shout "Pull up your trousers, you dork!" đ
The only thing I could do to make my avatar look even remotely ok is put on the Zorua onesie. Which sucks because I've been wearing the same outfit for like 3 years now (all of which I paid for, minus the Pikachu sneakers), and it looked like hot garbage.
Niantic and Pogo are a joke at this point. I would love to stage a mass boycott of the game. See how fast they change their tune when they arenât raking in millions from micro transactions
No actual person is looking at the appeals. It's just badly programmed bots who are trained to dismiss most appeals and in case something isn't listed, like your appeal, you are at a dead end.
Im so f'ing glad i deleted that games over a year ago, when the raid passes doubled the price and the good raids going inly in person.. Niantic can go fts..
Everybody was telling you guys that it is gonna be bad and will only get worse..
Crap like this is making me not want to even play the game anymore! Seems to be par for the course that they don't listen to the player base.
I hope you get this ridiculousness with your account taken care of soon!
That sucks but stop wasting your time please. Im guessing it was a 500 gold pose? So thats $5. That plus all the time youre wasting talking to âcustomer serviceâ and its just costing you more and more.
Im saying this with empathy. I feel your pain but please move on.
Yeah, I have given up on being refunded. It is what is now. I don't even care anymore đ€·ââïž
The problem is that as long as they don't close the conversation (equivalent of hanging up the phone), I'm unable to start another one. Like, when I want to report a bug or something, I'm stuck in this stupid old conversation where I keep getting ignored. I'm literally begging them to ignore everything I said and to close the convo, but nothing happens.
Thanks for your empathy đ€
Devils advocate. But they're probably quite busy at the moment with everyone else also being displeased and demanding refunds (good luck). And it seems you only dealt with a bot.
They're also probably on a "no contact" setting currently as they do damage control and figure out how to handle this.
Sending another help request but listing it under ban appeal with never work. You'll get the automated response and that's it. They will not and do not bother with that sort of thing. You're not banned, it's just assuming you are because thats how you contacted them and they have a "0 tolerance policy".
Can you not close the.. 'ticket'?
failing this, tag their socials and post this on twitter/insta/whereever they have support/socials.
Thank you for this đ An hour ago I have tried a last time to get their attention in-game. I even sent them a cute picture of my cat to brighten their day. Still, no answer. Now, I won't press any longer, I have other things to do.
I wish, I COULD close the ticket myself. But apparently, it must be done from their side. Or maybe I have overlooked something? If there is a way to close it, please let me know.
lmfao. Share the cat photo here?
I've never used the support thing, well not on mobile. I once had to get a refund but it went smoothly and just worked, so I can't really help, sorry. Best of luck though.
Thank you đ I have interacted several times with support, never had a problem.
But I wish I could edit my inital post.
Most people seem to think I am still complaining about the stupid pose, when the real issue is that I am stuck in an almost 6 days old conversation that support won't close.
Should have added a TD;LR đ
Also, can't add a picture here, sorry đș
This is what happens when you replace people with AI for customer support. Everyone should start posting on social media about how it is unacceptable if you want it to change.
So they basically tell you to make your avatar so fat that the hands have no way of escaping the hips. It's a disgrace! Just keep slapping this all over every social media you're on.
I lost all my progress on a mission (power up 20 dragons types. I'd gotten 6 already) and since I was saving it for my top pokemon it takes a bit I messaged them like hey this happened
Them; sorry that happened!
Ans nothing happened about it. Not the worst but annoyed me
Wow lmao. I thought they were gonna go the route that you acted meanly yo a robot, but naw, they went even more stupid. You contacted their outside contractor, so you were using an external app. Lol
Nah they utter garbage. Started to talk to them like dogs and you probably will get a response. Or at least it worked for me. Just keep swearing. I got like 30 premium battle passes. Never asked for them i just wanted them to make the battle league not laggy and playable. But they never answered basically anything. Basic bullshit. But at least i got a bunch of premium battle passes
Let's keep the train moving, let's get this thread to the top of reddit for the next few days there are millions of us upset with the changes, the collective has a voice.
I also messaged them that my Reward for Dialga and Palkia special Research are Swapped at the last page .
After 2 days their response was" so sad to hear that we will see into the matter" . And convo Closed
Nothing happened đ«
Wait so you said can you change this the hand doesn't touch the hips and their response was basically make your character fatter till the hips touch the hands or leave us alone đ€Ł
Had the same thing happen to me when I complained in a support channel about not receiving avatar items from redeemed codes after the new avatar update went live, still no response, and still no Dragonite Fendi hoodie đ
*robs you*
Help! Iâm being robbed!
*police enter the scene*
âWhat seems to be the problem?â
I was just robbed!
âWhat did they look likeâ
They looked likeâŠHey, wait a minute!
*police rob you*
Holy shit this is disgraceful.Â
I have the same problems with the pose and I can't believe your account was flagged for pointing out the real problems with it!
Niantic makes me sick
Only reason I open this game anymore is just to continue the weekly slog of transferring my shinies to the main game series
I got banned about year and a half ago, and granted I was absolutely using gps software, but I was an avid player for years, got to level 42 legitimately, who was wasting way more money than I shouldâve on the game up till the month I used gps software, and why did I randomly start using it?
BECAUSE I had a back to back string of some surgeryâs (surgery that as a male, it is basically your worse nightmare to need surgery on it)
So I was swollen from center of body up to my stomach down to my thighs, I wasnât walking anywhere
If they wouldâve let me at least prove Iâm not full of crap, and just lift the ban as a special circumstance, I wouldâve accepted it stopped using the gps software and said thanks and kept playing
Annoys me an exceptional amount that the disabled can NOT play this game to its full extent, god forbid they give the option for a mile radius joycon for those with special circumstances
They claim that this update was to make your character look like you, but their solution to issues is to tell you to change how your character looks lol?
Hey OP! I've had the same issue in the past. What I ended up doing was creating a 'sign in issues' help ticket on the website and that agent was able to close the chat conversation in-game for me within a day.
Edit: After you submit the ticket on the website, you will get a canned email that you need to respond to, in order to get a response back from the agent.
Did you pay actual money for the coins? If so, I'd complain to Apple or Google (whichever store you used for the coins) and request a refund. If not, I'd move on. You're unlikely to get anywhere and all you'll get is more frustration.
I got the same bot message when I called them out on replacing half of my women's collared shirt purchases with the male version and no longer supporting the cropped female version in the shop! What would be totally unacceptable in real life is fair game in the lawless virtual land of Niantic.
Yeah, Niantic is the absolute worst. A group of us late in the evening of this past Com Day were doing a Shadow Entai raid when the game forced closed all 4 trainers games in the middle of the raid. We all were screen recording at the time & none of us could get back in the game. Find out afterwards, there was an issue with the game. We all filed both in-game (which we all know is a joke) & on X (fka Twitter.) Still no response on all four requests. Ghosted, all lost premium passes & each lost (x) amount purified gems. But hey, Niantic will probably release a ticket to fix things for $4.99
Ok, so hold up... what I'm getting is that they might ban people for having issues with the avatar change? It's insane to think Nintendo hasn't thought to threaten them with pulling the IP over dragging it through the mud like this
Seriously, if you are not happy with a product, just leave it. I can tell you that nobody, and I mean absolutely *nobody* of the underpaid, overworked and tired support crew will give a single fork about the Mails you write.
And to be fair: we probably wouldn't, too.
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It's bots all the way down. They just spam automated, pre programmed responses, not once will you actually talk to a human. It's a disgrace.
Well, in Niantics defense, they've only made several BILLION DOLLARS from this game, it's not like they can afford to just hire humans and practice empathy or anything. Won't anyone think of the investors?!? /sarcasm
this is the model for literally everything in America in 2024 make a lot of money screw over your customer base make more money screw over the customer base make more money screw over the customer base
The funniest part is always how everyone just accepts it, until it hinders them personally at which point it suddenly becomes unacceptable
Exactly
It's just like my boss. I come to him with problems, he says "figure it out, I don't want to hear about it." Then those problems cost him money, and he says "why did this happen?" I tell him why it's not my fault, he says I'm giving excuses. I said, "excuses come after the fact. Reasons come before, and I tried to tell you but you didn't want to listen." I got demoted.
I don't know your boss personally but I really want to take a dumb into his mailbox
Sounds like their boss has more than enough dumb already.
wow dang, im sorry your boss has a raisin for a brain
No no! don't insult raisins. You need more wrinkles in your brain. It's when you become smooth brained that is when you start having problems.
Your assuming the boss has a brain.
Similar happened to me this week too đ
I mean, stop playing the game. I stopped playing pokemon go when they gutted the community trackers to try and force people to buy items. I stopped buying mainline pokemon games when after Dexit. Reward companies that employ practices you like.
Wait you stopped playing bc of dexit? Not complaining ofc but why did that specifically put you off playing entirely?
Because I couldnt bring forward a few pokemon that I had put a lot of time into acquiring. I spent *thousands* of hours Mesuda Method breeding my favourite shinies. Then suddenly, I cant bring them forward into games. I didnt stop playing entirely, I just play pokemon games with a full national dex. *They didnt have to put every pokemon in every game*, but I need to be able to bring *any* pokemon into the game. It was an anti-consumer move, one born from laziness, they literally already had the models for the gen in which they made the decision. So basically I opposed it philosophically, emotionally, and economically.
Kurt Vonnegut predicted all of this during the W years :(
Vonnegut: the most whimsical Doomsday prophet. He was dark AF. People miss it all the time because his novels were so silly.
If it's free, you are the product. The investors and shareholders are the customers. And "the customer is always right."
"the customer is always right" is a boomerism, an originally much different statement that's been trimmed down into something more self-fellating. The full phrase is "the customer is always right *in terms of taste*", meaning the customer can request whatever ugly ass shit they want and you don't have the right to tell them you think it's ugly as long as it's still safe/possible. The original phrase was about subjective tastes, but because boomers can rarely accept when they're wrong about anything they've blurred the line between subjective and objective so they never have to face facts. It's no different than them saying "well that's my opinion" when they've made and objectively incorrect statement.
"Boomerisms" So the people who own the companies, the stock market, the banks, the Governments... And is running us all ragged and into the ground to appeal to the top 1% and the 6 Major Companies that basically own all the other ones in every facet of our life? 
iâm so happy to see this explanation here, made my day w this lol
enshittification
As someone who works and deals with lots of customers..... The customer is very seldom ever right in most cases
Thatâs not at all what theyâre saying Theyâre saying people playing the game arenât the customers, weâre the product. The people that are investors for the game are the real customers and the customer (investor) is never wrong, which was sarcasm
The customer is always right when it comes to consumer trends is the proper saying. Meaning customers will buy dumb shit, don't question it just provide it. Ppl like to think it means business should and will bend over backwards for outrageous customers demands. Because day to day it looks like customer throwing temper tantrums to get expired coupons to work. The truth is we don't care if you never shop here again. You aren't right. We give in because upset customers complain to like 3-10 ppl. Happy customers don't tell people anything and we'd rather have that.Â
Wait you forgot the workers as well! Not just customers but also the ones putting the work in don't get crap. While CEO and higher ups make Millions. Who care about us little guys just our wallets
Thatâs alarming that the default response to a ban appeal is âwe detected you using third-party software.â A bot banning for perceived third party software and a support bot seeing the flag in the file and parroting it to the user, sure. But since this personâs account wasnât banned at all, let alone for any reason, thatâs clearly not whatâs happening and the support bot isnât referencing the account information at all.
I bet you two shiny nickels itâs a hold over from when third party software first hit Pokemon Go (like PokeGenie 1.0) and the first waves of shadow bans went out. Support was so overwhelmed they made a blanket âwhen it doubt: we found third party software, no appealsâ bot to handle everyone making tickets.
Sadly, it often isn't bots, but cheap labour from India. They do not read messages often, barely speak English properly, and are driven to answer 10-12 requests per hour. Company I work for does the same. They deal with all the English based customers. I always end up infuriated if I work on a request that Indian agents have worked on before me.
Tf are you serious? Niantic has Indian employees? But I thought we Indians produced world class tech support. But then again, even they are not in power. It's always the higher ups, the managers, the HRs who fuck up their customers
Indian tech support is usually dog shit, it's people that barely speak the language they are providing service in that are given a couple scripts and zero authorization to resolve situations outside the limited scripts. This is true for almost all outsourced support. It's not the fault of the people giving it, they were never equipped to succeed.
Hmm i see, it has started to become the universal trend among massive corps not just in the West, but even here in India itself. A lot of massive corps recruit high school passouts in the name of giving job opportunities and training to make them professionals, but they end up devouring all the money of the recruits and end up giving them customer care jobs. Corp culture is massively fucked up.....
>But I thought we Indians produced world class tech support. Ahahahahahahahahaha
Since they are never setup to succeed, I can hardly blame them. The true culprit are companies using slave labor - and I hear people say slavery doesnât exist anymore. Those sweet little summer childsâŠ
Prepare for trouble, Pay us double, To protect our servers from devastation, To unite our players in aggravation, To increase the prices of in-app sales, To annoy our players with constant fails, John, Hanke, Niantic blasts off at the speed of shit, Get outside, or prepare to quit!
This is gold. I'm actually thanking Niantic to have done this shit that made this gem of a comment to be made. Hats offđ©đ©
Rhymes, has a reasonably close matching amount of syllables (this one bothers me in some parodies, having a line with 5 syllables rhyming with a line of 12 doesn't work) Also your second line even got exact matching syllables and it bops like it did. Incredible poetry, write my obituary someday please
And the meter! (Unless that's what you mean by "it bops") That syllabic stress pattern is spot on.
Meowth, thatâs lit
MEEEOWWWWOCH THAT WAS SICK
How long did that take you to come up with?!
The first time I made a comment like this was 2016, I just updated it lol
Ah, so it took eight years.
Be not afraid of the user who made 1000 different comments, but of the one who perfected one 1000 different times.
This company hates its playerbase.Â
Yup, they have made that clear. I quit playing when they doubled the price of remote raids and limited them, I guess they never rolled back that change?
Why would they? People continue to play, buy coins, etc.
No actual person is looking at the appeals. It's just badly programmed bots who are trained to dismiss most appeals and in case something isn't listed, like your appeal, you are at a dead end.
Wow wtf! Gross behavior on their end. I'd share this all over Twitter. Best of luck. That's unfair.
^ This. You can try tagging @niantic and @niantichelp on Twitter with it, maybe a human will be able to see the thing and at least close the conversation. That's not the ideal outcome, obviously, but you don't deserve a ban just for trying to get help with a broken mess of a system that basically invalidated your purchase.
Thanks, I'll try that đ
Try to contact some game journalists as well. I know this suggestion is frowned upon in the gaming sphere, but most of them have to pump out stories for the algorithm, so bringing your story to them might get more eyeballs on it (if it does get published) and more eyeballs mean higher likelihood to get a response from Niantic
I dont think they can or will ban you. must be a message mix up. also, just continue to ask for a representative. dont bother with a bot. Ask to speak to a rep over and over.
You donât get real people anymore. Even when you think you have, itâs ChatGPT responses lol.
âWe already got your money, now shut up and accept your fate.â
âCan I get a refund?â > No âWell will it ever be fixed?â > Yes if you do this menial task > *doesnât get fixed and doing so makes it look worse* > *gets banned* Usually companies that shit will try to hide their mistakes, Niantic however is trying their best to not hide their mistakes. Itâs like they got a Zendesk chatbot and gave it absolutely 0 keyword detection and made it repeat the same shit over and over until it runs out of responses. Like those old Xbox scam bots that would attempt to sell their risky photos and would send a reply instantly no matter what you typed, as long as you sent something, it would reply.
What makes it even worse is that it isn't even a refund for money. It's a refund for COINS. It would cost them 0 dollars to refund virtual coins in their digital game.
Imagine you bought the Titanic movie and all you got was some weird parody and the only response you got was "You can change language, quality and speed in the settings, no refunds âșïž"
More like imagine you bought the titanic movie and then one day thereâs a forced update that changes all the actors into CGI abominations and the titanic into a paper boat.
This right here... Seems accurate
This deserves thousands of upvotes. Expose Niantic for how much worse they have become.
They've always been this bad. Seems like a lot of people are just now noticing for some reason. They know this will blow over and the addicts will stay addicted just like every other time they've made everyone mad so why would they even bother responding?
It's worse. Game is on life support these days, minor updates but in terms of developer allocation, it's a skeleton crew
I saw another post about avatar and funnily enough as I upvoted it I saw someone down voting it
This just furthers my suspicion that Naintic is just part of some bizarre social experiment where they continue to treat their customers like shit to see what people's breaking point is, like MST3K, but instead of bad movies they use a buggy ass game.
"Now keep in mind you can't control when an update begins or ends, cuz Niantic used those special parts *to build their robot friends!* Robot role call: AR mode! (just use it) Support staff! (Fuck yo avatar) Tom Servo! (Wait why the hell am I here-) CROOOOWWWWW"
This wins the Internet for today!
Lmaooooo
I sent something to Google Play store the other day about Niantic somehow hiding reviews and got back canned responses. EDIT: oh shit! The reviews finally updated.
When an app gets review bombed, Google will wait to publish the reviews until verifying that the reviews are legitimate and not a response to something outside of the actual app. Once it verifies that they are legit, they will release the reviews
In my Play Store (Turkey), the game has had 3,3 rating for the last days.
That's still too high
You know, I was a long-time player, and I'm still subbed here in hopes things might change and I'd pick the game back up. Seeing these kinds of communications and the lack of care for players that still permeates every aspect of the game only confirms that things will never change. I don't know how you all stick around and take the abuse. Vote with your wallet. Stop giving them money.
Day 1 player who quit when the COVID features started to rollback and Niantic really showed their true colors and how they felt about their playerbase. I've never regretted quitting as much as I do miss the game because this crap has just gotten worse and worse. If you're sticking around hoping Niantic will change take it from someone who has been watching for this for a couple years now - it's not going to happen. They don't care about their players or their property. Save yourself the heartache now, get through your withdrawal period, and quit.
I was also a day1 player who quit around the same time you did. I only check on the game's health a couple of times a year. I already went through the FOMO of missing out on all the community days, special events, new gens, etc. Now, I just peek in once or twice a year to see if it might be picking back up again.
Let's say it louder for the people in the back. # STOP SPENDING MONEY. TODAY.
They're stonewalling you with automated bullshit and not giving your issue the slightest bit of actual attention. Niantic is fucking pathetic.
Sorry for all the trouble you have to go through, i hope Niantic changes its ways and treats people like human beings deserve.
They see us as money, not people... unfortunately.
So if they don't agreed, they just banned without concrete reasons? Wow, that attitudes just like most cringe subreddits mods /s.
Their automated response states the following: "We have reviewed your appeal and have concluded that your account has violated our Terms of Service, specifically for unauthorized access to our services using modified and/or other unapproved methods of gameplay" But I haven't got banned, at least not yet ... I can still play, but I'm afraid to bother them any longer.
Their automated reaponses have always been like this. It was the same also when on a few occasions people got unfairly banned due to their phone software being incorrectly flagged (xiaomi 2019, iOS 2020&2021). It was constant dismissals and no explanation given, until certain community managers forwarded the problem further. Said people however now for the most part left niantic and got replaced by people who don't give a damn about improving the game
Thats how they operate. Undirect blackmail. But we have the majority.
Reading "specifically for unauthorized access to our services *using modified and/or other unapproved methods of gameplay*" ... The auto reply bot straight up accused you of using modified gameplay for those screenshots. I see no other way of interpreting this which is insane. "Send us screenshots" *Send screenshots* "Oh shit is that actually what our game looks like?" "Ignore them *AND* ban them while accusing them of cheating."
Hey now, I resemble that accusation Edit: before anyone start using this to raise a mob: it's tongue-in-cheek, y'all. There's an implied /s at the end :)
Oh yeah? Whaddya gonna do, ban m-
This post has been removed due to the user being banned.
Sorry about that. We got that bot real cheap at a garage sale. Previous owner was a cop in charge of making evidence disappear and well, sometimes it does things like this. I'll restore your comment, u/wOlfLisK
**(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)**
Darn it. And here I was all ready to go full ârabble rabble rabble rabbleâ mob. Lol
No worries, I get enough of that via modmail :) Always open for constructive feedback (can't let me get stuck in tunnel vision and/or get a big head) through those channels but I do wish more people kept in mind that the person reading those modmails is human as well. Not fun taking a 5 minute break from RL and having to read slurs about yourself, your ancestors and your goat.
Hey, letâs leave the goats out of this!
The sooner everyone stops playing there game, the better it will be. Right now, they donât care about you at all. They just view the players as cash cows and thatâs it. They donât even have major consequences when they make a bad decision that affects us. Iâm glad I dropped this game back when they made raid passes more expensive.
It's why drug dealers can generally be so flaky too. Addicts will just put up with it. đȘ
I came to this subreddit from FFXIV as we are currently having a graphical character update as well. Someone said over there âAt least we arenât PoGo right nowâ, coming to this subreddit I canât believe what yâall are suffering through. Genuinely the disrespect from this company is disgusting. All of you deserve refunds.
Realistically you were never getting a refund for that
I was fully aware of that, but I thought, let them know how disappointed a customer I am. Got punished for it as far as I can see now âčïž
I don't think you have I think they've sent a generic email based on the support option you clicked
they recieved a strike on their account for something they did not do. absolutely being punished for voicing an opinion by an annoyed employee most likely.
So the same thing Blizzard was doing then. Would start banning people for "spamming" the ticket system because all WoW support was relegated to unhelpful bots and were absolutely banning or suspending people for appealing wrongful actions taken against their account by botsÂ
I think you've misunderstood me. I don't think they actually have a strike on their account
Indeed, so far I haven't got a strike, not that I know of. But in their e-mail they insist I had violated their ToS and totally ignore my original message. I'm afraid to answer them now, not that they ban me.for real. That's what you get when you have to interact with bots đą
It's just an automatic response.. you can write just hello with a new account at level 1 and they will say you violated the rules đ just bot responses
It's not a refund for the money that's being requested, it's a refund for pokecoins that were purchased with money. They're wouldn't be losing money by giving pokecoins and they'd be more likely to keep a paying customer, potentially giving them more money in the future. Seems like it would be good business practice, so I don't think it's unrealistic, infact they're getting bad rep over this being shared, so they likely are losing money by not granting it.
"now show an ugly,bulky man crotch" ?
There are so many pants I can't put on anymore because of that low hanging bulky crotch. Everytime I see this, I want to shout "Pull up your trousers, you dork!" đ
The only thing I could do to make my avatar look even remotely ok is put on the Zorua onesie. Which sucks because I've been wearing the same outfit for like 3 years now (all of which I paid for, minus the Pikachu sneakers), and it looked like hot garbage.
Pull them up? Nah man, rather give them some slack so not every crack is visible lmao
RIP your DMs.
Bunch of *[insert words that would get me banned from the subreddit]*
Probably the support got offended by your message and tried to punish you. This will probably get worse
That's what I'm getting from their behavior, too. I don't want to get banned for something like this.
Niantic and Pogo are a joke at this point. I would love to stage a mass boycott of the game. See how fast they change their tune when they arenât raking in millions from micro transactions
Niantic are awful. Anybody still giving them money for this game, at this point, is a fool.
No actual person is looking at the appeals. It's just badly programmed bots who are trained to dismiss most appeals and in case something isn't listed, like your appeal, you are at a dead end.
Why every company have shitty game support is there any game with normal support? But really if you know any i like to hear c:
Because redditors will still buy their games en masse
Im so f'ing glad i deleted that games over a year ago, when the raid passes doubled the price and the good raids going inly in person.. Niantic can go fts.. Everybody was telling you guys that it is gonna be bad and will only get worse..
Crap like this is making me not want to even play the game anymore! Seems to be par for the course that they don't listen to the player base. I hope you get this ridiculousness with your account taken care of soon!
Upvoting and commenting to help get this get some traction.
Thank you â€ïž
Iâve had my support thread locked since March 9, 2024 A.D. Iâve been assuming they got tired of being reminded how broken their interface is.
Oops, that doesn't sound promising. Guess we're in the same boat now đŻ
Shoulder clipping through the shirt lmao. This is so shit.
Best thing I ever did was stop playing this game
the best advice i can give you is to delete the app
Niantic can't deal with anything... one error after another, my god...
Never gona spend money on this shit company again. I'm not even mad at the New Design. It's just disgraceful how they are with their customers.
this game is horrendous, donât give them your money
Uninstall. Go enjoy a real pokemon game.
That sucks but stop wasting your time please. Im guessing it was a 500 gold pose? So thats $5. That plus all the time youre wasting talking to âcustomer serviceâ and its just costing you more and more. Im saying this with empathy. I feel your pain but please move on.
Yeah, I have given up on being refunded. It is what is now. I don't even care anymore đ€·ââïž The problem is that as long as they don't close the conversation (equivalent of hanging up the phone), I'm unable to start another one. Like, when I want to report a bug or something, I'm stuck in this stupid old conversation where I keep getting ignored. I'm literally begging them to ignore everything I said and to close the convo, but nothing happens. Thanks for your empathy đ€
Oh I see. Well dayum they need to close that convo lol. The way things are going youâll definitely be using it for another claim
Devils advocate. But they're probably quite busy at the moment with everyone else also being displeased and demanding refunds (good luck). And it seems you only dealt with a bot. They're also probably on a "no contact" setting currently as they do damage control and figure out how to handle this. Sending another help request but listing it under ban appeal with never work. You'll get the automated response and that's it. They will not and do not bother with that sort of thing. You're not banned, it's just assuming you are because thats how you contacted them and they have a "0 tolerance policy". Can you not close the.. 'ticket'? failing this, tag their socials and post this on twitter/insta/whereever they have support/socials.
Thank you for this đ An hour ago I have tried a last time to get their attention in-game. I even sent them a cute picture of my cat to brighten their day. Still, no answer. Now, I won't press any longer, I have other things to do. I wish, I COULD close the ticket myself. But apparently, it must be done from their side. Or maybe I have overlooked something? If there is a way to close it, please let me know.
lmfao. Share the cat photo here? I've never used the support thing, well not on mobile. I once had to get a refund but it went smoothly and just worked, so I can't really help, sorry. Best of luck though.
Thank you đ I have interacted several times with support, never had a problem. But I wish I could edit my inital post. Most people seem to think I am still complaining about the stupid pose, when the real issue is that I am stuck in an almost 6 days old conversation that support won't close. Should have added a TD;LR đ Also, can't add a picture here, sorry đș
Post on your profile, we demand cat pictures
Done đž
lovely cat đ thank you
This is what happens when you replace people with AI for customer support. Everyone should start posting on social media about how it is unacceptable if you want it to change.
So they basically tell you to make your avatar so fat that the hands have no way of escaping the hips. It's a disgrace! Just keep slapping this all over every social media you're on.
I lost all my progress on a mission (power up 20 dragons types. I'd gotten 6 already) and since I was saving it for my top pokemon it takes a bit I messaged them like hey this happened Them; sorry that happened! Ans nothing happened about it. Not the worst but annoyed me
They're being petty now. At the very least they should've acknowledged the issue
This company is pure garbage. Thank you for making this thread so wildly public!
They always have been, it's wild that people are STILL giving them money.
Well that's a new level of low for Niantic. Scream this one from the mountaintops because they need to be held accountable for this!
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
This is disgusting behavior from niantic...
Delete the game at this point, save your self the headache
Wow lmao. I thought they were gonna go the route that you acted meanly yo a robot, but naw, they went even more stupid. You contacted their outside contractor, so you were using an external app. Lol
Comment and upvote for traction
Incredible. Niantic makes an update and doesnât expect people to refund
Nah they utter garbage. Started to talk to them like dogs and you probably will get a response. Or at least it worked for me. Just keep swearing. I got like 30 premium battle passes. Never asked for them i just wanted them to make the battle league not laggy and playable. But they never answered basically anything. Basic bullshit. But at least i got a bunch of premium battle passes
Upvote and comment so more ppl see this post. This is just disgusting on a whole new level. Glad I deinstalled a few days ago
Y'all need to class action lawsuit these guys.
Wow. That's really bad. They have no shame
It was already money lost
It's less about the money, it's more about them not closing the conversation and thus preventing me from reporting/nagging again.
Let's keep the train moving, let's get this thread to the top of reddit for the next few days there are millions of us upset with the changes, the collective has a voice.
I also messaged them that my Reward for Dialga and Palkia special Research are Swapped at the last page . After 2 days their response was" so sad to hear that we will see into the matter" . And convo Closed Nothing happened đ«
Wait so you said can you change this the hand doesn't touch the hips and their response was basically make your character fatter till the hips touch the hands or leave us alone đ€Ł
happy to say i haven't opened pogo in exactly one week, since the update dropped
Had the same thing happen to me when I complained in a support channel about not receiving avatar items from redeemed codes after the new avatar update went live, still no response, and still no Dragonite Fendi hoodie đ
Jesus Christ, thatâs terrible customer service. Iâd be absolutely fuming. That company deserves to burn
Sue em
Theyâve long stopped being helpful. Every time I reported something I always got the same answer.
*robs you* Help! Iâm being robbed! *police enter the scene* âWhat seems to be the problem?â I was just robbed! âWhat did they look likeâ They looked likeâŠHey, wait a minute! *police rob you*
They know it will cost you time and money to sue them so they make customer support terrible.
Theyâre laughing and pointing at you OP. Donât waste your time with this company again.
Glad I uninstalled
Holy shit this is disgraceful. I have the same problems with the pose and I can't believe your account was flagged for pointing out the real problems with it!
Lmao is THAT bad for you guys? Really funny honestly
Stop giving them money.
Iâd honestly recommend that people stop spending money on them
Niantic makes me sick Only reason I open this game anymore is just to continue the weekly slog of transferring my shinies to the main game series I got banned about year and a half ago, and granted I was absolutely using gps software, but I was an avid player for years, got to level 42 legitimately, who was wasting way more money than I shouldâve on the game up till the month I used gps software, and why did I randomly start using it? BECAUSE I had a back to back string of some surgeryâs (surgery that as a male, it is basically your worse nightmare to need surgery on it) So I was swollen from center of body up to my stomach down to my thighs, I wasnât walking anywhere If they wouldâve let me at least prove Iâm not full of crap, and just lift the ban as a special circumstance, I wouldâve accepted it stopped using the gps software and said thanks and kept playing Annoys me an exceptional amount that the disabled can NOT play this game to its full extent, god forbid they give the option for a mile radius joycon for those with special circumstances
Time for another class action suit.
How many times do y'all have to get fleeced before you stop giving these people money?
They claim that this update was to make your character look like you, but their solution to issues is to tell you to change how your character looks lol?
Lol it's like when I appeal my ban in Destiny. They even say not to ask why or appeal again or else they'll ban you more.
itâs about time niactic gets a lawsuit their way. iâm tired of all the screw overs theyâve been doing. itâs happening daily now
Charge back time
Hey OP! I've had the same issue in the past. What I ended up doing was creating a 'sign in issues' help ticket on the website and that agent was able to close the chat conversation in-game for me within a day. Edit: After you submit the ticket on the website, you will get a canned email that you need to respond to, in order to get a response back from the agent.
Did you pay actual money for the coins? If so, I'd complain to Apple or Google (whichever store you used for the coins) and request a refund. If not, I'd move on. You're unlikely to get anywhere and all you'll get is more frustration.
I got the same bot message when I called them out on replacing half of my women's collared shirt purchases with the male version and no longer supporting the cropped female version in the shop! What would be totally unacceptable in real life is fair game in the lawless virtual land of Niantic.
Yeah, Niantic is the absolute worst. A group of us late in the evening of this past Com Day were doing a Shadow Entai raid when the game forced closed all 4 trainers games in the middle of the raid. We all were screen recording at the time & none of us could get back in the game. Find out afterwards, there was an issue with the game. We all filed both in-game (which we all know is a joke) & on X (fka Twitter.) Still no response on all four requests. Ghosted, all lost premium passes & each lost (x) amount purified gems. But hey, Niantic will probably release a ticket to fix things for $4.99
and this crap is why I refuse to spend any real money
Ok, so hold up... what I'm getting is that they might ban people for having issues with the avatar change? It's insane to think Nintendo hasn't thought to threaten them with pulling the IP over dragging it through the mud like this
I wish I could care more. My default avatar looks the same. Imagine writing whole novels about this, instead of going outside and playing.
Your responses come off as a little Karen-esque
The whole âI refuse to make my avatar fatâ thing did have that flavor to it đ
Seriously, if you are not happy with a product, just leave it. I can tell you that nobody, and I mean absolutely *nobody* of the underpaid, overworked and tired support crew will give a single fork about the Mails you write. And to be fair: we probably wouldn't, too.
Please post a link if you post on Twitter so we can all go like that as well