Reader Zach is having some trouble with Blizzard and is wondering what he should do. He tried to download a copy of Diablo II from their digital store, but the download didn’t work. Blizzard’s customer service then tried to download it again — which also didn’t work. Finally, they told him to buy it at an actual store — which he did. Now he’s bought the game three times and would like some money back.

I tried to purchase a digital download of Diablo II from blizzard.com’s online store two weeks ago. Everything seemed to be going fine until I attempted to download the file and it failed. I checked with my online account and it showed that the order ‘failed’ in one section of my account, but was ‘queued’ in another part of my account. So, I called customer service and spoke with a guy named Joshua. Joshua said he didn’t see anything wrong on his end, but that since I saw ‘failed’ on my end, the charge wouldn’t go through, so I wouldn’t be able to get the download. To solve this, Joshua placed a second online order for the digital download – directly over the phone.

He told me to wait a couple hours and the second order should go through. Because of how unusual Blizzard’s site is, I had to create a second account in order to use a second ‘key’ to download the product again. A couple hours passed and both orders showed ‘failed’ on my side of the account: the original order I placed that Joshua stated I wouldn’t get charged for, and the second order Joshua placed. At this point I called customer support again and emailed Joshua (who gave me his email). I spoke to Sam who told me that both orders had failed and that I wouldn’t be charged for them. Joshua recommended that I go to the store and buy a hard copy of the game – which I did. Last week I checked my checking account and guess what? I was charged for both online orders!

I emailed Joshua asking for him to refund my two charges since I was never able to download the products and because I had purchased a hard copy and didn’t need them. (The online store now showed that both orders were ‘successful’.) After much confusion Joshua has told me that it is impossible for them to refund me because the ‘keys’ for each of the digital downloads had already been claimed.

The emails Zach forwarded us show that Blizzard is willing to refund the money — but claim that their system will not allow it and that he should wait for that “functionality to become available.” That’s unfortunate for them, but there’s no reason Zach should wait around for the company to debug its software.

Zach, call your bank and let them know that you’ve been mistakenly charged and that the vendor says they aren’t able to refund your money. Tell them that you’d be happy to provide them with the emails from Blizzard. There should be no problem getting a straightforward error such as this fixed. Your bank is there to protect you from this sort of nonsense.

Give them a call!

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