Fuck Rockstar. I changed my email accounts a few years ago but forgot to change Rockstar first. This wasn't a problem. Now, after buying GTA V on Xbox and Steam and sinking a lot of time into it over two accounts, they added some mandatory launcher on Steam that forces you to login to their Social Club. Mandatory launcher calls an account that I can't unlink, triggers mandatory 2FA to an email that doesn't exist. They refuse to help despite my willingly handing over a lot of private information - their support system is as good as fake. The end result is I have sank >£100 in buying their games and they ensure that not only do I not get to continue my account on GTA V, but I have been permanently locked out and actually impossible to play any Rockstar Social - walled game on Steam.
Partial 'correspondence' of my third attempt to get help from them. Twice they ignored the support subject.
Judging by other complaints online this exact issue has persisted and screwed over players since the creation of GTA V, so at least 12 years.
I have the same issue with Activision, and here's the kicker. They're exactly the same blueprint. Same support. Same result. Same fake-ass Western names on their signature.
I feel like Rockstar needs to be continuously pressured, injustices talked about, just in case they give.
Just don't give corps like Rockstar money.
Additional:
(from Schwaggaccino • 2y ago • Reddit)
I emailed Rockstar and started a request ticket and they want me to log in to get me to reset my 2FA which is preventing me from logging in.
THIS IS PEAK CLOWN WORLD I CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE ACTUALLY GOT PAID TO IMPLEMENT THIS JOKE OF A SYSTEM
Edit: For the time being it seems they have disabled all support as none of my support requests are going through, even with omitting data and using VPN multiple times.. I've had seven unsuccessful tickets and was just brainstorming how to automate the requests.
Final Edit: Thanks for your responses everyone, looks like legal is the only route. After 24h my support requests are still being auto blocked (not submitting as there's no delay before response), and I am skeptical they switched off support for that long, even if it is fake, so they just blacklisted my details I think.
I used to work for a company that Epic Games outsourced their support to. We were based in Athens, Greece. There were other companies receiving the same email pool on Helpdesk Bulgaria or Romania, as well as an Indian office, all supporting US customers via email.
We were paid 3.5eu / hour and our performance was micromanaged by counting how many replies we did per hour.
Hence, we had canned responses that we'd copy/paste to save time and maybe achieve a bonus for that month.
Unfortunately we ended up being shit on on reddit on multiple occasions because some poor guy misunderstood the request and a legitimate request would be promptly denied, even though it shouldn't be. The level of English comprehension varied wildly among us.
All I'm saying is maybe Rockstar actually has a way to ID your account based on IP addresses, credit card used, date purchased if you have the receipt email, driver's license etc and you're just dealing with an underpaid dude in Eastern Europe not quite understanding you.
Usually if you threaten to sue they escalate to tier 2, so you may have more luck that way and tbh I don't know about Rockstar, that's how Epic did it back in 2018.
Maybe try explaining it a different way? I dunno but good luck.
Edit: I just saw the rest of the messages in your comment.
I wouldn't have given you back the account either in their shoes. You just claim things that anyone could claim from their point of view, they have procedures they need to follow.
They can't try your password, or see it anywhere and would never ask you for it either.
They're asking simple things that you should have been able to verify. After that they'd likely ask for IP addresses and last 4 digits of card used etc.
They have to do this, or anyone's account could be hacked by social engineering all too easy.
Thanks for the context, which led me to downvote this post. Come on, guys; not all complaints are valid.
It is valid to take people's money and deny them the product? Interesting opinion....
It is valid for them to make sure accounts cannot be taken over by hostile actors, and it is valid for them to assume that you are able to notify them about email address changes in time.
Tell me, how many years did you have to resolve the situation regarding your email address before it came to this?
For all we know, it's a 50/50 that the customer service guy receives back an email back from that email that supposedly is not accessible saying "WTF I have no idea what you're talking about, was my account hacked?"
But since you're that gullible - hey bro, that wallet in your back pocket is mine, I put it there when I washed my jeans. Hand it back now, I paid for it and I'm 100% entitled to it!!
No and it is shitty to implement this new authentication system after all these years, however should they just hand over any account to some rando writing an angry email? If that were the case, we'd be reading about that right now ("Rockstar gave my account away!") instead of this.
I honestly don't see how you can turn the blame on him. It's not his fault the support didn't ask for the right things. It's actually part of Rockstar support procedure to ask essentially public information like previous email addresses or previous nicknames. On my first try they asked the same things from me. On my second try they also asked for Steam purchase history and game keys. It's not his fault the support fucked up and didn't ask for the right things.
The thing is, and I think you're missing this, he got those wrong. After being asked for email and Nickname he provides them and the support person says "I'm unable to verify that you own the account", that means he answered wrong, yes those might be bad questions because some random person might know them, but he didn't.
They will say "I'm unable to verify that you own the account" even if you give the correct answers to those questions. I know that because it literally happened to me.
But this whole situation started with him ignoring that he didn't have access to the mail address connected to his account, and i bet that this has been this way for years, not a few days. And he couldn't even spit out one definite answer for the original nickname used when creating the account (which tells me it definitely has been years). They didn't ask for the wrong things, OP couldn't answer them.
The whole situation started because he was forced to make a separate account when he really didn't need one. He wouldn't have to remember any of those things if Rockstar simply let him play their games.
As for the rest, I guess all I can say is I hope it happens to you because you clearly lack the empathy to understand why this is a problem so they only way for you to understand is by having to go through it yourself.
This doesn't happen to me because i made the mistake of not taking stuff like account creation seriously 20 years ago and i learnt my lesson, OP will have learnt his now. Since you seem to share the notion that it's not important if you lose access to an account which active software is bound to, WITH NO OTHER REAL WAY TO PROVE THAT YOU OWN THAT SPECIFIC LICENSE (you can't even be sure from Rockstar's side that the Steam account hasn't been hacked and now the criminal wants to get the GTA credentials, and Rockstar does not have an ID stored to compare OP's to), you will probably learn it too sooner or later.
That the support asked him for the original username (that's something they HAVE stored and is bound to the owner, because it was defined at account creation) to confirm his ownership (on a pretty weak basis i might add), is the way Rockstar wants to remedy those situations unbureaucratically. But OP can't give them an straight answer because he has ignored the situation for so long that he can't remember that info anymore.
The legal office of any Corp worth their salt forbids the (outsourced, but where it's inhouse the rule is the same tbh) support to login into user accounts, because that's one way to be in real trouble if your support takes over user accounts and pulls shady shit with them.
The Crew name is public information, so it's of no use to them, and sending your password in cleartext per email is either a sign of being mentally unwell or you don't care because you got it from a hack somewhere. If I were the support here, i would suspect someone other than the owner of the account wants to take over the account (no definite answer to my questions and infobombing are social engineering tactics), and go into high alert mode, which happened here.
I don't defend 3rd-Party launchers, those are unneeded trash. But as a veteran support, I have to defend them - they are not responsible for picking up OPs slack that hasn't been cleaned up for years.
There's nothing wrong with defending the support, doesn't mean you need to blame OP. Support has to deal with this shit because Rockstar sucks.
Which they wouldn't have to do IF THEY DIDN'T REQUIRE AN ACCOUNT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Also do you even realize what you're saying? You're pretty much saying OP shouldn't have bought any of the rockstar games to begin with because (if we exclude Steam) THERE IS LITERALLY NO WAY TO PROVE THAT YOU OWN THE LICENSE. When social club rolled around there wasn't even a store there, the only way to buy the game was through a third party store like Steam. That said, they will still verify against licenses bought on Steam but I'll get to that.
And that weak basis can get you nowhere because that happened to me. They asked the same things and when I gave them that information (which, before you start speaking stupid, was correct information) they closed the ticket but didn't return my account. I'm pretty sure they store game keys with the account and then verify using the time of purchase and the key, because that's what they asked the second time around and then I got my account unlocked. AFAIK support did the same thing OP and I think for that support should get shit because why are you asking for useless information when you could ask for useful information?
Now you're talking about a different thing. OP shouldn't have given them their password because support can't use it. That's on OP. But that doesn't invalidate what I've been talking about.
And OP here is on attempt 3 trying to fix something they shouldn't have to fix in the first place. I can imagine OP is already frustrated beyond belief. Of course he's going to look unhinged, but maybe he wouldn't be in that situation if support had actually tried to help him the first time around. Or better yet, if he wasn't put in this situation to begin with.
I get wanting to defend support but support is not to blame (except for the poor procedure where they don't ask the correct information) and OP is not to blame (for forgetting to update an account they most likely haven't directly used for year, because for the longest time once the account was made it would be linked to Steam and it would never show itself). If there's anyone to blame for this hole mess it's Rockstar for putting in the stupid third party launcher in the first place.
I simply repeat: it is OPs job to keep their accounts in order and contact information updated. The license is bound to an email account. Keep your info updated for stuff you actively use, or run into trouble. There's nothing else to say in this matter.
Clearly both of those statements can't be true because the only reason he needs to keep his accounts in order is because the unneeded trash of a third party launcher requires it, so which is it?
Actually, it doesn't matter. This discussion has already shown that you'd rather be a corporate cuck than stand with the consumers.
If it comes to keeping contact information in order, that is something that only consumers can do; it would be pretty creepy if Corpos knew my new email address without telling them.
It has nothing to do with what i think about 3rd party launchers. Those are 2 different things, no need to get personal.
If there was no Rockstar launcher OP wouldn't be having this issue now would he? I'm not saying Rockstar should magically keep the information correct, I'm saying Rockstar shouldn't need this information in the first place. Their launcher shouldn't exist in the first place. I guess it's impossible for you to imagine a world without useless launchers.