Well folks, another day another outright fraud committed by Wargaming North America. This one comes to us via our Facebook page from a player named Borsao and is available in it’s original form on Reddit.
Now, this all started back with the 1.0 Grand Extravaganza contest back in March.
The premise is pretty straight forward: you do shit, you get prizes. The one we’re concerned with today is this one:
Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?
So our man Borsao, like many others, put his game face on, grabbed a 12 pack of Code Red Mountain Dew, and got after it.
And he did it by finishing in 126th place:
So at that point, it was (or SHOULD have been) academic. You use the information of the player in your database to contact the player, get his or her information, and send them their prize.
So simple a child could do it, right?
Yes. But this is Wargaming we’re talking about, so it’s never what it seems.
So Borsao fills out the form with his shipping information and waits.
He never gets a fucking thing. So then, he contacts Wargaming Support – which from this point forward will be referred to as Wargaming Fraud Central.
Hello there. According to the 1.0 Grand Extravaganza leaderboard, I was one of the winners of the Intel processors and filled out page to have it shipped to me.
https://wotonereward.com/?utm_source=portal&utm_medium=wg_sites&utm_campaign=news This shows me (Borsao) at 126th. I have not received the processor and was wondering if there was a problem.
My name & shipping address is:
REDACTED
Any help is appreciated. Thank you in advance
Borsao
That was sent to Wargaming Fraud Central. It takes them an entire week to respond with this:
Hello Borsao,
Thank you for contacting Wargaming Support, I apologize for the delayed response.
I have been looking in to your account and unfortunately it would appear that I do not have your shipping information in our list of confirmed winners. This may have happened if we did not receive your confirmation and shipping information on time. The cutoff date for submitting your shipping information was on May 25th, extended from our original cutoff date of May 14th.
Since we do not want you to go empty handed I have spoken with our leadership team and have received approval for alternative prizing. Please select any three of the following tanks to be credited to your account:
Lorraine 40t, T26E5 Patriot, Defender, AMX M4 Mle. 49 Liberté, T-54 Mod 1, Scorpion G
Please let us know once you have made your selection and we will be certain to credit these tanks immediately.
Kevin Baker
So wait just a fucking minute here: You were SUPPOSED to ship him a 350 dollar processor, but since you failed to do that you’re going to offer him HALF THAT VALUE IN PIXEL TANKS?!?!
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!
But wait, there’s more!
Kevin I’m currently on vacation and can’t look at my chat logs in game. I did receive a message from one of the three coordinators in game and immediately responded and went to the site to fill in all the pertinent information needed to collect my prize before the May 25 deadline. I will get the information to you on Friday when I get back to my computer.
Actually, since you can see our chat logs. Simply check out the conversation between 1984BigBrother [WGA] and Borsao May 10 2018.
Thank you again
Borsao
So right there he has the proof he told them about it. He knows the fucking guys name he talked to, the day the conversation took place, and it all went down WEEKS before the fucking deadline.
What kills me as well is that Borsao doesn’t even really bitch about the fact that what he is being offered has NO VALUE AT ALL but even if you wanted to put a value to it, it would be LESS THAN HALF OF WHAT HE SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED.
But wait, there’s more!
Hello Borsao,
Thank you for letting me know about the exchange between yourself and 1984BigBrother on 05/23. I can see that you received the link and that you said that you put your information in on that day which means that it should have gone to Intel that week.
I will reach out to our event coordinator with these logs and with your shipping information that you have provided here to see what we can do for you. I will let you know as soon as I have heard back from the coordinator but please note that as they are in the CIS region it may take some time for me to receive a response.
Until I can get an answer for you I will be placing your ticket on hold.
Kevin Baker
So he flat out calls Borsao a fucking liar!!!
And then, this:
Hello Borsao,
Thank you for your patience in this matter, I apologize for the extreme delay.
With the evidence you gave we began an investigation into your Intel Rewards trophy form. We have spent the last several days speaking first with our event coordinator and then our contacts in Intel but unfortunately in all of our data pulls your trophy form does not appear before May 25th. I am terribly sorry but at this time we have exhausted all options for getting you the processor reward.
If you are interested in the alternative prizing, please let me know. You can choose up to three of the following tanks:
Lorraine 40t, T26E5 Patriot, Defender, AMX M4 Mle. 49 Liberté, T-54 Mod 1, Scorpion G
Again, I regret that we were unable to secure the physical prizing for you, but I hope you have a good evening.
Kevin Baker
So even though they KNEW he won it, even though they have logs of him talking with Wargaming personnel about it, they MYSTERIOUSLY DIDN’T GET IT, so he doesn’t qualify.
Yeah. Gonna call MASSIVE BULLSHIT on that. We’re of the opinion that they sent them out to the FEW people they WANTED TO who they DEEMED WORTHY of getting them.
The rest were probably sold on Ebay and the cash pocketed by the employees and their buddies. After all, whose to argue with them, right? All they have to do is bury your fucking ticket and you’re done.
But wait, there’s more!
Kevin, I meant to ask, as you can see from my account, I collect the Chinese tanks. Any possibility I could get one of those as a Type 59 for my collection? Its the only one I’m missing and my efforts at the contests have proven fruitless.
Thanks again man.
I guess the Lorr 40t, T54m1 and if possible, the REGULAR T26E5 (not the patriot) that way I can at least get the gold equivalent for the the three.
Borsao
So after all this bullshit, the only thing Borsao is asking for is a fucking Type 59. That’s it. You give him that and he’s all good.
So what does Wargaming Fraud Central have to say about that request?
Hey there,
Thanks for getting back to us.
It is with your deepest regrets to let you know that we can’t grant your request to give the Type 59 as part of this. I understand that she is a rare tank and would complete your collection for acquiring her, but she can only be obtained from our official competitions/tournaments as of this moment.
We could, however, give you the following vehicles to help you out:
Lorraine 40t;T-54 Mod 1; andT26E5
We look forward to your reply, Commander.
Have a great day!
Earl Begovich
First off, learn to speak English you fucking half-wit. Secondly, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!? YOU GAVE THE FUCKING THING AWAY IN BOXES JUST A FEW MONTHS BACK YOU SHIT-FOR-BRAINS MOTHER-FUCKER!!!
This takes us back to the fucking fraud. Why wouldn’t they REALLY give him the Type 59?
Because it’s beyond Wargaming Fraud Central to give it. They would have to get approval from the mother ship to do that, and if they ask for permission from the mother ship for it, then the mother ship will find out they were taking prizes for themselves and shit can them instantly.
But wait, there’s more!
Borsao, after all this bullshit, simply wanted the gold value. That was it. He was over it. Just give him the gold equivalent on his account and he’ll move on.
Simple enough, right?
That’s not asking too much is it?
Of course not!
UNLESS YOU’RE WARGAMING FRAUD CENTRAL!!!
Hello Borsao,
Thank you for your reply.
We are processing the credit for the requested items today. Since you already own the three tanks you requested we will be giving the credit value for the tanks as outlined in our article here: https://na.wargaming.net/support/en/products/wot/article/19061/. You should notice a credit of 11,660,000 credits into your account today, 3,500,000 for the T-54 Mod 1, 4,280,000 for the Lorraine 40t, and 3,880,000 for the T26E5.
Thank you again for all of your patience in this matter, and I hope you have a great day.
So they won’t even give him the fucking gold for it.
OK, folks, here is where the shit gets thick. I’m going to all cap this shit so you can read it without having to strain:
WARGAMING OFFERED A REAL WORLD PRIZE. WHEN THAT REAL WORLD PRIZE WAS WON, THEY REFUSED TO SHIP IT EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW THE WINNER WAS LEGITIMATE AND KNEW HIS SHIPPING INFORMATION AND KNEW HE HAD TALKED WITH OFFICIAL WARGAMING PERSONNEL WEEKS BEFORE THE DEADLINE.
AFTER REFUSING TO SHIP HIM THE REAL WORLD PRIZE HE WON, THEY REFUSE TO OFFER ANYTHING REAL WORLD IN RELIEF AND SWITCH HIM OVER TO FAKE CREDITS THAT HE CAN’T EVEN BUY PREMIUM CONSUMABLES WITH.
If that isn’t the most blatant, wanton case of outright fraud you’ve ever seen, then you’re as blind as a fucking bat.
It just can’t get any worse than that, can it?
Well, yes. It can.
After reading about all of this we took the liberty of contacting a lot of the “winners” in that list. We’ve heard back from 7 of them already.
EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM WENT THROUGH THE SAME EXACT THING. NOBODY GOT THE PROCESSOR THAT WE KNOW OF YET.
Can you believe this mother-fucking shit?
Yes, I CAN believe it!
We’ve seen wg time and again obfuscate, backpedal, lie and outright deny their own words.
For me the real fucking shit is: this was a REAL WORLD thing. It wasn’t some fucking pixel tank with no real world value to speak of. At the very least, they should have bit the bullet and either bought and shipped him the fucking processor, or at least gotten him some sort of gift certificate of equal value to something along the same lines. A Tiger Direct gift card or some shit like that.
The guy got totally fucked and winds up with worthless in game credits he can’t use for jack shit other than spamming gold.
It’s fucking outrageous!!!
Wow. Just wow. Just when you think they’ve done just about everything imaginable that’s low down, corrupt, and bordering on criminal, they do this.
I’m simply stunned to a point I can not express in words.
God Damn !! Is there a fucking Attorney in the House ??? Jesus H Christ ( But, obviously he’s not at Wargaming )
Better still I bet all that computer hardware was shipped back to poor ass, Belorussia some where?
What I’m betting they did was apply for the processors using most of the “winners” names and get them shipped to themselves.
Then they simply sold them on Ebay or used them for themselves. I mean, who’s going to do a fucking thing about it? What can you do?
They know full well all they have to do is say “we have no record of your information, here’s some free credits that cost us nothing” and you’re shit out of luck.
So far, it’s up to 9 now that have responded that never got the processor.
That is really terrible to do people that way. Wargaming has no shame at all, no conscience, no ethics, their a bunch of scheming, swindling, schysters !!
This is a grim reminder of how awful WG really is. Sorry about what happened to all the winners(it’s my way of being sympathetic), and these guys deserved to get their prizes 100%. But this reminds me of an incident I had with WG. Years ago, around 2012(? Bad memory) and paid for roughly $7 worth of gold(1250 to be exact) and the WG scumbags tried to rip $25 out of me in addition to the gold price. I actually threatened them that I would tell the FBI about this, and I actually was in the process of contacting the feds not the FBI website, and my threat worked! They wised up a teeny bit and though they locked my account(yeah I had to go to a freaking money gram to pay the gold price. Wrap your heads around that!), I paid the original price, and those scamming saps never got their previous $25. Next time this happens, I’m going to take a picture of this and send it to the FBI. Maybe they’ll step in. That would be really awesome.
The FBI wouldn’t give a shit. The FCC would.
Well, out of the 50 we contacted, 38 have responded. 9 never received a thing and went through a similar experience. 29 received theirs. So it breaks down like this:
Didn’t respond: 24%
Didn’t receive prize: 18%
Received prize: 58%
Now if we apply that sample to the overall picture, it basically means that around 50 processors went missing and/or were never claimed. Folks, that’s worth about $17,500. Even if you sell them half price on Ebay, it’s still a lot of fucking cash.
I bet the other 24% took the pixel tanks, and are ashamed to respond, I believe? I could be wrong about that? That’s just a theory on my part only. What other reason might they not be responding?
Even so, it would be so nice if the Feds stepped in and dealt with these morons, after all, you CAN fill out a complaint with the FBI. 🙂 That is an awful lot of lost and misused money, and if the Feds gave a crap, Victor Kislyi may be arrested by Belarussian authorities.
@Leftist – it’s hard to say. A lot of people have multiple accounts with emails they only used once to verify the account, so they may not have ever gotten the alert that we sent them a message. The only other way they would know is if they visited the official forum and saw the alert there.
It’s far more likely the guys just never knew they were messaged or simply didn’t give a shit than anything else.
Just wait till you see my article on their latest attempt to fuck players. I am sure you’ll enjoy it. Just hit submit a few minutes ago hopefully it gets published. Wargaming really messed up this guy’s purchase.
I was under the impression that the current game center did the same fucking thing. After all, you HAVE to use it. You can’t update the game without it. So when you launch it to update the game, they get all your info anyway.
It seems like all they’re doing now is making it to where you can’t launch the game without it so they have access to all of your data while you’re playing as well.
All these fucking internet things do it. Steam has been doing it for years. Wargaming is just now playing catchup…although why they’re bothering with it now that they’ve run off the majority of their player base is anybody’s guess.
Well the Wargaming center sends information to more third parties than the current launcher out of Ukraine of all places some Nokia llc company.
Unreal. My condolences to these guys.
None of this surprises me and anyone would be a fool to trust this company by grinding away for days or weeks to get a real world prize.
The company is unethical and is being run into the ground by bad management. When a product is hot and is selling like hotcakes you don’t need to be a good businessman or woman, but when things turn south, that is when you need to have the ability to sense the problem and try to correct it before it falls off the cliff.
This company has fallen off the cliff. It is in a freefall right now and there is no one at the wheel. All management is doing is trying to force feed a dogshit MM scheme that some bean counter figured on a spreadsheet would make them more money down everyone’s throat.
Their explanations are dogshit. First, they try to blame preferential MM and the entire world called BS, and then they phase shifted into saying their dogshit MM doesn’t have a fail safe to make you not be bottom tier 80% or more of the time and to just wait six months so they can tweak the dogshit MM so you still keep the 3/5/7 dogshit MM but won’t be bottom tier 80% or more of the time.
This is total BS. They didn’t even test the new dogshit 3/5/7 MM on the test server because they knew there would be an outcry from the masses. That’s right, zero testing, and now they want you to wait six months until they can tweak their dogshit MM slightly but retain the dogshit 3/5/7 eternally bottom tier format. FU
This is complete and total shit. Is there a Better Business Bureau thing that can be done? Class Action Lawsuit?
~Beorn (been dealing with some health stuff, sorry I have been scarce of late)
@Thing1, Gomez and Insurrectional_Leftist
Are you guys aware the CV Rework during the weekend was given a preview, well many CV mains like Farazalleth and etc are calling quits because Wargaming are incoporating World of Warplanes gameplay/mechanics into the plane squadrons
https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/169013-cv-rework-feedback/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMvwmm-ut78
Sounds like a walking, talking, breathing clusterfuck.
@Thing1
What really pissed a lot of CV mains off is that when Sub_Octavian the developer admitted that all Aircraft Carriers after the rework will no longer have their air superiority and strike configurations, after the rework all CV’s will only have 1 Fighter, 1 Dive Bomber and 1 Torpedo Bomber Squadron