I have a shopping guide I made for importing games but I would like to take time out to share an experience with an American online game store that I will absolutely never do business with again. I hope this will serve as a warning for any future buyers ( and tbh I just want to rage about how shitty this store is 😂).
So I’m an avid player of FFXIV and one thing I love about the game are the lore books. The first lore book came out in 2016 and I had preordered it with the FFXIV “Duality” soundtrack. Once both were released though, I was told they were “out of stock” on the Duality (even though it was a PREORDER) and I heard stories of people receiving copies of that soundtrack when they bought it after the release date. After waiting for a week I got really tired and just told them to cancel Duality and just ship out my lore book. Fortunately that time, it went fairly easily and I got my refund but never bothered buying the soundtrack just out of spite/anger.
三FAST FORWARD 2 YEARS LATER三
They were now releasing LORE BOOK II. Oh boy more FFXIV Lore I can’t wait! I was apprehensive because of my experience 2 years earlier, and I had not bought anything from that store since…..But I thought well it’s a different store vendor this time MAYBE IT WILL BE BETTER.
OMINOUS VOICE: It wasn’t better.
On September 17, 2018 I placed my preorder for the book which was to be released on November 24. Come November 24th, all my friends in Japan are getting their books but there’s no movement on mine in fact it was still listed as “Pre-order” on the store. I also noticed a “Debit Now” button so I thought “oh no is it because I didn’t press this button my order wasn’t shipped?!” I panicked, and pressed the button and had them charge me 60 bucks. Days go by, with dead silence. Other people are getting shipping emails, but I’m not. What’s going on? I decided to contact their customer service – which by the way is an EMAIL FORM HIDDEN DEEP INSIDE THEIR FAQ. They have no phone number and if you try to contact the general Square Enix account help line, they will tell you they have “no information on anything at the store.” Cool, the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. After contacting them via email I got a response:
Ok then, fine I will wait. A week goes by. Nothing is happening. I even hear people who are now ordering right off the store are already getting shipping emails. What the hell? I send another email asking if I can cancel my order since it hasn’t shipped, and get the following response:
Oh really? It’s being prepared for shipping yet people are placing orders and already getting shipping emails no problem HMM? Another week goes by. We are now 2 weeks past the release date and it feels like everyone but me has their book. Suddenly I get another email:
Oh swell! A shipping refund! Okay fine $10 off for my grief I guess. Everyone gets their shipping refund over the weekend – and I am back to being stuck in dead silence. I contact them again this time threatening to report them to FCC/BBB and do a chargeback to get my money back unless they give me a tracking number and refund my shipping. 2 days later, I get a tracking number and notice a refund on my shipping. Wow, amazing what happens when you threaten them. Finally on Wednesday of this week my book arrived and I was just gonna forget about all of this bullshit until TODAY…….when I got the following utterly idiotic email:
Holy fuck. Guess what you dumb CS idiot, I already got my refund and maybe you would have known this if any of your staff fucking knew ANYTHING that was going on in your store. (ノ｀Д´)ノ彡┻━┻ But you don’t, you just send copy and paste bullshit responses like you have all the previous times. Had I not gotten my refund of course I’d just copy & paste their own bullshit email right back to them….but I have my money, my book and the hell with this garbage store and its customer service.
Meanwhile the Japanese E-Store everyone got their book all fine, and on top of that they actually sell both the ENGLISH and JAPANESE editions of the book! Japan also puts the Japanese edition of their book on Amazon Japan but try to find the English version other than Square Enix store? NOPE. So they keep these products hostage for English players and then keep people’s money hostage by giving them the run around on top of it! I do pretty heavy online shopping and I’ve never dealt with a store THIS incompetent in my life. How does Square Enix allow these fools (Scalefast) to continue running this store? How are they just straight up not losing money? At least 2 of my friends were affected by this and multiple others who voiced their concerns on the FFXIV forums. After doing some digging apparently they also failed to deliver people’s 4.0 expansion preorders last year as well. If you google there are COUNTLESS ISSUES with this store. But have they attempted to fix or do anything about this? No. They could literally just partner with Amazon and probably be more competent than whatever monkeys run their store right now.
So let this be a warning to you – even if you may never have had any problems before, until they partner up with a decent vendor, there is a VERY high chance you WILL run into problems with their store. If you can buy the item elsewhere, the shipping will probably be cheaper too (especially if you are in Canada.) And now I’m going to finally sit down and read through the lore book I waited 3 months for. 😓
かわいいじゃなきゃダメなの！ 
lmao I had to look up on Wikipedia about the merge…but I coulda sworn I was around for when it happened (yep 2003) though I wasn’t much into rpgs as I am now xD
In a galaxy far far away, there once was a competent company called Squaresoft…..
Definitely not the worst experience. It could had been something like yours. But they did take up a lot of space, which was a major pain. XD
well thats awesome you got free stuff LOL not even worth arguing xD
I had the literal opposite problem with the Sqex EU store. I preordered the PC version of Heavensward (collector’s edition), but for some reason the store itself put my order as PC and PS4. I noticed it the day after when it had been charged, explained that I had only ordered the PC box in an email, and so they fixed my order (apparently) and sent me my refund on the PS4 and it was removed from my order. Come release and a few days later I have my package. With a PS4 and PC box. Another few days later, I get the exact same content in a second package. That’s when I realised they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.
That… was a very interesting experience.
Same to you, I couldn’t believe what I was reading because it sounds so insane but after experiencing this garbage I can’t.
Lol it’s like “logistics” is their Bethesda approach to why they don’t have enough in stock.
Awesome, I definitely will. It’s not worth any kind of hassle lol.
holy shit your story sounds so fucking garbage I can’t believe these people! What kind of website does this? And also I love how “logistics” is their excuse for basically EVERYTHING.
Yeee from now on check Japan Amazon they USUALLY have most of the stuff the American square store does and with DHL shipping it costs basically what you’d pay from their shitty store. NEVER AGAIN indeed.
Hahaha…..guess who just went through something similar? 😂My mom (bless her she tries despite being so concerned that I’m not out of the “anime phase”) bought me a figure of Noctis from their store for Christmas and immediately she gets blocked out of her account. Apparently you can’t just add an item to your cart and then checkout. You’re supposed to login during the checkout (not before because that makes sense). We had to go through their FAQ to contact them as well and it took them 3 weeks to respond…but by then we had already figured out how to purchase something without getting booted out or told “sorry, your account doesn’t exist” or the lovely, “you’re already a member please enter your member email and password” when we already had done so. After placing the order, they tried to say her card had expired. So she updates her card, nothing works, we call the bank and they verify that everything’s fine. We shoot them another email and in 2 days of waiting for some response, the card magically is accepted. Then they send us an email saying the exact same thing your first one did…logistics issues.
We weren’t sent any tracking either so I had to once again email them and by the time I got a response that wasn’t a copy/paste automated message, it was already on its way to my house. Like….Jesus. I’m normally pretty lax with orders. I get that stuff happens and I try to give sellers the benefit of the doubt, but that figure was a pricey one that my mom paid for so I sent them a long email explaining everything they’d failed to do.
During this whole mess I saw countless of similar stories on google and reddit threads about SE’s legendary “customer service” and I’m shocked at how they’re still running. But the BEST part is that if you happen to accumulate enough points to earn an item from their store, YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR SHIPPING! 😂
I can’t.
I’m done with them too and I’m glad you got your item but no-one should ever have to deal with a company that treats their customers this way.
yea from what happened with this book a lot of people in Europe got screwed too and I’m still seeing people in France/UK who have yet to receive their books. What a shitty store, I hope anyone who got screwed by this speaks with their wallet and never buys from that garbage store again
Oh boy the Square Enix store…it’s European version is just as bad. I remember ordering the Steelbook Exclusive Version of Final Fantasy XV, people were playing it left and right and me and a friend of mine got ours THREE WEEKS AFTER THE RELEASE. Yaaay.
Needless to say, that was the first and ONLY time I ever used that store. They’d have to throw out incredibly good, exclusive Nier merch for me to buy from them again – but their quality when it comes to plushies and figures is meh from what I’ve seen, so I’m good.
yea haha my Australian friend said the same thing “I’m ironically saved from their incompetence” xD
but I will consider them the same was as you do “a do not purchase” place lol
This is absolute garbage and I’m sorry they put you through the ringer for so long. I can’t order from any of the Square stores (for physical items that is) because I’m based in Australia, so I’ve never had to deal with this kind of drama before. I’m glad you got your purchase in the end, even is the customer service was balls— I mean appalling.