The man that broke the bank at Monté Carlo

^ Me doing a handstand in Conan ^

HELLO!!

After three day's of being extremely neglectful and selfish I have finally got round to writing a blog!

So much to talk about so I'm afraid some of it will be slightly condensed.


On Monday I bought a packet of pringles of Mum... this is very unlike me because I'm usually a tight fisted little begger and just uh... beg (lol) crisps off H and J. Anyway, they were on offer in the shop so I felt able to spend a quid on a massive pack. Mum took the money and then said, 'Ahahahah! That was the packet that cost nothing! If you had picked the other packet up you'd have got one pound for free! FOOLED YOU!!!!!'

Now quite understandably I was more than a little confused at this outburst, which wasn't at all helped by the fact that she seemed to find my expression rather priceless and continued her barrage of laughter for a few minutes more!

Mothers eh!

Band went well in the evening, we prepared for the "Music Marathon" which is coming up on Saturday. The organisation is playing for twelve hours non-stop to raise money for the band.

TUESDAY:
Great day again. Lots and lots of music practice for our upcoming exams.

Violin lesson in the afternoon. Margret was in a bad way because she'd had a bad two weeks at the Ei-wotsit-ffod which was a shame. People can be very cruel. 'nuff said.
My Violin Grade 3 exam hath been postponed for a week because the examining board mucked up and put her down for a time when she said she 'Was NOT available'.
People are fools.... 'nuff said ;-)

Youth Band went well in the evening. Paul got some cocky remarks from H and I. We're too clever for him :D. We started learning Pirates of the Caribbean theme music which was fun. I've played it before but it's a great score so tis still as fresh as ever.

WEDNESSSssdayyy.....oh yeah, that's today.... *coughs*

CUT!
LIGHTS!
CAMERA!
SHUT UP!!....

ACTION!

TODAY:

I got banned from the computer for being generally out of control with regards my blasted big hair tongue towards Mum. Anyway, despite my tongue being big and hairy and Mum being ever so correctly angry with me, I did get a lie in until 10:03 because the computer was not so paramount as it was the day before :D

This is where I begin the explanation of my 14 day battle with a very large Norwegian game company called Funcom.


"Several weeks ago I pre-ordered a game called Age of Conan, produced by Funcom and bought from Play.com.
With it was a promotional code which unlocks a War Rhino Mount which you can let your character ride in game. This was not available to anyone other than those who chose to pre-order from Play.com.



The email arrived with the code inside and so I was happy with that.
A few days later the game arrived right on time. I was over the moon. I installed the game and created an account. I put my bonus code/key into the correct box and entered it..... up popped an error: 'This code has no promotional item to claim for this code'
Why is nothing ever simple?
I couldn't write to Funcom because their customer service system was all bugged up and they were too busy with the launch of the game to worry about helping their customers... The forums didn't work for me either so that was a pain.

Finally I found out that Steffan had the same problem and, being the resourceful family that they are, he worked together with Geth to find a way to contact a real human being, or at least as human as they could find in Norway. (hehehe)
Geth finally found the email address (key-replacement@ageofconan.com) and the information needed:


Subject:

Country of Origin:
Version:
Account name:
Broken Key:


So Steff found out that this email got a real person reading it at the other end of the line and had his problem resolved within two days. Good for him.

I then found out from a reply from Funcom that my key was being used by someone else. They gave no indication of what I should do next so I seemed to be stuck.
The next Friday Youth Club, I talked to Steff at great length about the whole thing, and he said that his first impressions were that the code was not, as stated in Play.com's email, unique and that the code had been used by someone else before me.

I wrote another email to Funcom suggesting this possibility and they confirmed it, but again with no other helpful information as what I should do next.

Throughout the next few days I continued to refine my emails to Funcom, and get them more and more to the point and including all the information I had about my problem until someone called Ben Kay wrote back saying:


"Hello,

You are correct, that Key is in use by another customer. Normally, it
would be up to game to take care of the situation, but if you can scan a
copy of the key and your receipt and send them to me, I will be able to
issue you a key. You can also fax it to the attention of Ben Kay at 001
*** 806-0365.

Thank you!"


FANTASTIC! A break through at last! I sent off a copy of my receipt attached in an email, and copied the message from Play.com into it as well.

I waited and waited and waited. Two days later I received a reply from a Mr Jonathan Malchiade saying:


"-- Greetings

I apologize but there has been a mix up. We are unable to provide you a
key at this time. Please contact your retailer as they are responsible
for issuing you the correct pre-order key for your mount as they were
the ones advertising and selling it.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

GM- Lugal"


Ok so not so great.... the one person who I had sent loads of emails to, worked on and convinced, and who had finally consented to helping me, had been replaced by someone new; someone determined to be as removed from from the source of the problem as possible.

I thought I might have to end my epic campaign at this point but by this time I was so enraged at being fobbed off onto my nice innocent retailer that I reasoned that my problem had gone way past getting my promised item, it was the whole theory of the unfairness of it that was bugging me.


*****


The next day I phoned Play.com as this was the only way of contacting them. Positively spam proof :P

I got a nice Scottish bloke on the other end of the line who laughed like he was going to crack when I explained my problem. He said:

"Funcom are doing this to everyone. They gave us the correct number of codes for the people who pre-ordered it from us but obviously some of them were duplicated. We know this because we supplied codes to everyone and have none left to give you, sorry, and yet people are telling us that they have problems. I know this sounds stupid, but you need to get back to Funcom and tell them that you've contacted your retailer like they asked.
To be honest it is them that screwed up."

Well, that's useful I thought, I have more ammunition to bombard Funcom with now.

So I wrote my final draft of the email:


"Country of Origin: Wales UK

Account name: Tarvii10

Version: UK Standard Edition

Broken Key: FDF5JN9SCYNU46FF

This is a code for a bonus Rhino mount which is non-unique.

I have been told to contact my retailer by Jonathan Malchiade who said:
"We are unable to provide you a
key at this time. Please contact your retailer as they are responsible
for issuing you the correct pre-order key for your mount as they were
the ones advertising and selling it."

I phoned Play.com today and they informed me that they have no codes left to give as they have sent out all the codes that were given and have none left, and, even if they did, they told me that Funcom have discontinued that batch.
I am therefore left with no other option but to come back to you and request that you supply me with an alternative code. I have already sent information to Funcom proving that it is my code (see copy below and attached receipt) and I am authorised to receive one.

Awaiting a reply,

Tarvi"

Note: I omitted the receipt and Play.com email from the blog as it will take up too much room :D




The next day, just after 12 noon, I received the following from my late acquaintance Mr Jonathan Mac-the-Knife (something like that anyway):


"-- Greetings!

Alrighty! I managed to dig up a war rhino pre-order key to replace the
lametastic one the retailer provided you since they were unable to help.
Thanks for supplying me with the needed information to get it to you so
quick.

TGXQ45YTEFQ59REA

Enjoy! and have a nice day!

GM- Lugal"



YES!!!!!! I had done it! I nearly went through the roof with excitement. Not at the prospect of my shiny new Rhino, but at the fact that I persevered to the end and, because of that, I achieved my aim."


Well goodness gracious, what a blog. It's taken me over one and a half hours to write so I hope it's been a good read! If you haven't been able to read it all don't worry. I'll batter you later ;-)


VIDEO: The song in Mary Poppins, 'I love to laugh'.
I think its happy sentiment is appropriate ;)



Love it! "And some, they just blast...............BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
I think that could be me from time to time :D!

Love you all, hope you enjoyed Tarvi's longest Blog!

Tar.... I mean Ðave :D