The Fortnite community may be polite, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting the customer service they deserve. The Better Business Bureau gave Fortnite maker Epic Games an “F,” the lowest possible grade.
The Better Business Bureau, which is not a government agency but rather a national network of nonprofits that measures how well businesses handle dispute resolution and relays that information to customers, says that 247 of 271 BBB complaints filed in the last year have gone unanswered by Epic.
An Epic spokesperson told Kotaku that “Epic Games is not affiliated with the Better Business Bureau and has redirected all player submitted complaints from the BBB to our Player Support staff.”
Kotaku points out that the BBB isn’t necessarily above reproach. TIME reported in 2013 that the one branch of the BBB based in Los Angeles had been involved in a pay-to-play scheme:
While the BBB offers consumers many services—lists of popular scams to watch out for and such—the organization’s mission isn’t to have your back. From top to bottom, the BBB is funded by the annual dues paid by businesses it anoints with “accreditation,” which allows the companies to put those iconic BBB stamps of approval on their storefronts and websites. This fact raises obvious questions about an inherent conflict of interest: The organization’s customers are businesses, not taxpayers or consumers. How can the BBB serve as an honest broker between businesses and consumers when it is fully funded by one of these parties? Many argue that it cannot — that there’s a natural incentive to paint its paying clients in the best possible light.
Epic Games is not accredited with the Better Business Bureau.
Here’s what the BBB had to say about its rating for Epic Games:
Epic Games is the creator of a number of well-known games that have a global following; in addition to Fortnite and Infinity Blade, they make Unreal, Gears of War, and Shadow Complex. The company has grown significantly in the past twelve months, and their most popular game, Fortnite, currently boasts more than 6 million followers on Twitter. A majority of complaints submitted to BBB against Epic Games deal with customer service and refund or exchange issues. One complainant wrote, “Epic Games failed to protect customer security, resulting in several unsanctioned charges over mine and my partner’s account.” Another complainant added that, “There is no phone number or proper email response time to return my unauthorized charge of $160. Nobody will answer, and I feel cheated.”
Epic has also had issues with account hacking on Fortnite, which has led the company to incentivize two-factor authentication on accounts by offering a special emote.
Though we are moving to an increasingly digital age, with email, Twitter and live-chat customer service growing more prevalent, there are certain instances where customers may feel they need to speak to another human being about their issue. Account hacking and unauthorized charges are two such situations, and the Epic Games support page doesn’t list a phone number, but rather asks customers to look up their question within a support FAQ or email.
We reached out to Epic Games but haven’t heard back.
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