Yoville YoCash Fiasco and Hackers

I recently purchased a Yoville account with 3900 YoCash for $150 and I thought it was a very good bargain. I was getting 6 times more YoCash for paying 50 bucks more than Zynga's offer of 650 Yocash for $100.

I shopped like a maniac in game. It was fun but the fun lasted one day. Zynga brought the axe and banned the account I bought and my other playing account.

I contacted them as usual for their wrong actions but I guess it was me who had committed wrong this time because of my ignorance and greed. Customer service told me that it was illegal for me to buy Yoville accounts. I even felt guiltier when they told me that the YoCash account that I recently purchased had used a stolen US credit card that made a purchased somewhere in Serbia.

I really felt bad now for buying that account and decided to confront the seller. I told her about the incident and asked if I can get a refund. She declined the refund. She sounded sincere though in live chat and asked for apologies and told me she never knew it was a stolen account and that she is just a reseller and bought it from someone in the United Kingdom. She added too that from time to time she buy an account like the one she sold me for $40 US Dollars from a guy in Russia. I never understand why she said that but I guess she felt bad about the situation too. I asked for her phone number but she did not gave it because she told me it will be expensive for me to call her in Hong Kong.

Looking back at the entire incident I think Yoville 3rd party market is being run by illegal operations abroad that is involved in stealing credit cards. Who knows, people might be using those stolen credit cards to fund other illegal activities or even worse terrorism. I come to this conclusion because every time I look at a Yoville 3rd party website selling coins, there is no address listed, no phone numbers.

Another factor to check out is that these sellers are using Plimus because Paypal and Google Checkout don't allow sellers from certain countries. Don't get me wrong, Plimus is a good payment system and it is much more secure than Paypal or Google but it is sad that they are being utilize by other people. If these sellers are truly in the US they should be using Paypal or Google Checkout and there are only 2-3 Yoville sellers that are in the US.

If you put logic into it, 3900 YoCash is worth $600 US dollars. How can these people afford to sell it at $150 or in case of the supplier for the Hong Kong girl $40? Even if you do the subscription and services that Zynga offers to acquire YoCash for free it won't be enough to make an account for Yoville with 3900 YoCash. So these clearly shows that those account in 3rd party market are hacked/duped credit cards.

I learned my lesson and I hope you don't have to follow my footsteps. Buying YoCash accounts mean you are supporting these kind of illegal activities. One day it might be your credit card that they will use for buying YoCash. I don't advise you to buy from Zynga either since their customer support is worse. Zynga only cares about money but there are other 3rd party websites out there that are based in the US that are discreet and believe don't deal with hacking activities.

Take care and always remember that not everything that glitters are gold. Don't let greed and ignorance be your guide.

Yoville Rocks - Zynga Sucks

I love YoVille and I had been playing it for almost 2 years now.
This game had gain me a lot of new friends both online and in real life. It had brought me closer to my relatives and share time with them that we havent had before.

I love playing Yoville so much that I have to make a new Facebook account even after Zynga banned me even if it is their own fault. This blog isn't about Yoville though but it is about Zynga. About their shady policy and their sucky customer support.

I had been buying YoVille Coins and YoVille Cash from Zynga regularly but during my 6th month of playing, I purchased 70,000 coins for $100 USD. The transaction had gone bad. Zynga had somehow given me 140,000 coins and my Paypal has some been double charge for total of $200. I contacted Zynga immediately so that they can give me a refund and I can return the extra coins or they replace it with Yocash. They replied after a week saying all purchases are final and refund is not possible. I was tempted to sell it to my friends but Zynga does not allow that either so I am stuck with excess coins.

The only action left for me is to call Paypal and file a dispute against Zynga for the double charge. I have to fill up a dispute form and after one month of follow up, they finally refunded my $100 USD. I was happy and use the money to purchase YoCash instead. But the bomb came after a week. Zynga banned my account for fraud and scamming. I filed a petition but their decision was final.

The ugly incident though did not stop me from playing YoVille. I just made another account, bought some stuff again from Zynga and played peacefully. But an uglier incident came after a few months, I was standing inside YoDepot then someone gave me a gift. I said thank you, I opened gift and was happy that I got a tiger costume. Then a second gift came and it was the same item. Then all people in YoDepot gets the same gift. I went home and logout for the night.

After 3 days though, a lot of my limited edition items that I bought for YoCash/YoCoins are gone. I sent a petition to Zynga but again I get BS responses. They told me that they deleted all hack items. I purchased alot from Zynga and their customer support will ruthlessly delete everything even if it is not your fault. It's really frustrating but what can I do? I am just a paying player playing in a Zynga created world and Zynga has all the powers.

I love this game and been playing it for almost 2 years. Even with bannings and item deletions I can still say that YOVILLE ROCKS but ZYNGA CUSTOMER SUPPORT SUCKS.

With all these incidences and grievances, I promised myself not to buy from Zynga anymore until they make Yoville better in terms of game play and customer support.

PS:
I heard news that ZYNGA had grossed over 2 billion USD in 2009. With all these money, I hope Zynga can have a better customer service.