[Paul Howlett]

The press really cheese me off, with a couple of exceptions it’s all fluff pieces about how great the game is going to be and how they’re employing loads of people and how they’ve raised all this money to get away from the evils of publishers and develop the best game ever.

Where are the hard hitting articles about the lack of progress? Current state of the project? Changing to focus on single player because they can’t figure out the multiplayer aspect? Lack of refunds for people whose patience has warn out. Cases opened at FTC and trading standards as well as the upcoming court case.

You have to dig to personal twitches, youtube and other sources to find out what’s really going on.

If it wasn’t for this blog and a couple of articles you’d think development was on track and it’s going to be great. This is why people continue to fund this joke of a game.

[Paul Howlett]

Hello again Derek,

I don’t mind it being public knowledge, it’s a small amount really.

I can afford to lose it but I object to loosing it.

I feel like I’ve been conned and it’s cost me time and money and still no resolution to my satisfaction. I can’t run what’s been produced and from what I’ve seen I wouldn’t want to anyhow.

<span style=”color: #343434; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;”>Where are you located? When did you back the project? Roughly how much are you in for?</span>

Devon: England, August 2014 and $125 Hornet Package.

So far I’ve tried:

Direct – Various reasons given for not refunding
PayPal – Too long to chargeback
Bank – Visa – Too long to chargeback
Citizen’s Advice Bureau gave me a template to start with and advised I should use an alternative mediation service (Don’t know how much this costs but I bet it’s more than £77) and opened  case with trading standards, I’m phoning them tomorrow to update on progress.

My general feeling is no-one is prepared for the dramatic rise of crowd funding, most try to apply existing laws that don’t quite fit and are easy for CIG to get around.

In this case their argument is that the product isn’t finished and shipped so the sale of goods and services act 1983 doesn’t apply and there has been a game cost for development meaning my money’s been earned as per their TOS v1.2

They said the TOS means unspent money would be returned and financial reporting given in full only in the event of abandonment which they aren’t doing. So even if it collapses if they’ve spent the money it’s hard cheese.

Basically they have produced stuff, that stuff cost so my money has been spent so there will be no refund.

I’m very unhappy and my only hope is that others read this and decide not to fund. I can’t see how I’ll ever get my money bacl.

I don’t think I’ll ever crowd fund a project again.

They’ve got away with it, they even blamed the community for advertising that refunds were available to anyone who wanted it forcing them to stick to the TOS.

I couldn’t help thinking: Yeah imagine if everyone who thinks this is rubbish got their money back, you’d never survive.

Sorry folks.

[Paul Howlett]

Hi Derek,

Actually I mentioned the TOS and how they’d have to refund me anyhow on June 1st and the guy categorically denied me saying that they had earned the money through development of the game and that even though the requirements had changed and my PC won’t be able to run it they won’t be refunding me at all June 1st or not.

Sorry folks.

[Paul Howlett]

Just thought I would share my experience of trying to get a charge back done.

After a couple more months since CGI refused my refunds claiming this absolute mess of software that won’t even run on my computer despite Elite Dangerous running fine has made great progress I finally attempted a chargeback and got no where fast.

Contacted PayPal, turns out their secure messaging system is completely busted and has been for months so my messages went no-where, great! Phoned them and they said it’s over 6 months (I backed in August 2014 expecting delivery in November 2014 as promised) so no joy contact your bank.

Bank said it’s over 120 days so no joy contact trading standards. Trading standards have opened a case but I have to email them in a standard template giving them 14 days to respond detailing everything they said would be available by November 2014 and isn’t available now.

Just bear in mind you might not be able to chargeback at all!

Sorry folks.

 

[Paul Howlett]

@Mdrake SC

Thanks for the information, I guess I have a long wait on my hands then if they still haven’t replied to you and you pledged an insane amount! Sorry but that seems like a lot to me.

I hope you get your money back, I feel a little silly for worrying about my $125 now but my refund is on principle rather than amount or hardship. They’ve failed on so many promises and I seriously doubt they’ll even finish to a high standard what I want to see so it’s more about letting me down then anything else. I would have happily played something smaller in scope that could have actually been delivered.

I guess I have to keep waiting, I’m in the UK so we’ll have to see their response. Failing that I might raise the issue with PayPal and see if there’s anything they can do.

Thanks for the reply.

Paul.

[Paul Howlett]

Hi,

I just thought I would share my experience of requesting a refund.

I was never a detractor of Star Citizen I was genuinely excited about the resurgence of the space sim genre. I pledged to Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen in the same month but while I’ve been playing Elite Dangerous I haven’t so much as downloaded the Star Citizen game because it isn’t a game yet but rather a set of tech demo’s which are buggy and problematic.

I started reading this blog, the other articles and the looking in depth at the progress. To be honest the Star Citizen persistent Universe didn’t excite me as much as Squadron 42 but I still watched with baited breath the updates and hoped we would get something soon.

About 5 weeks ago I’d had enough, I’m playing Elite Dangerous loads and don’t feel this will ever be completed to a high standard we’re still in Alpha builds of small sections of the game after years of development and huge investment!

So I requested a refund, at first they told me no but said they would escalate it to a manager to review my reasoning.

I was full of hope however it’s now been 5 weeks, I have had repeated automated mail saying they are experiencing high ticket volumes and would get back to me shortly but nothing meaningful and any request for a meaningful update is met with a standardised we’ll get back to you soon response.

I’m not impressed, I’ve lost faith in CIG’s ability to deliver the game as promised and my experience of trying to get your money back is woeful. I wonder how many others are requesting refunds?

[Author]

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