Wednesday 21 May 2014

False Advertising With Beeline Smurfs' Village Exclusive Offers

Exclusive Offers are a way for Beeline to sucker players out of more money for items that should otherwise be made available in each update with the purchase of Smurf Berries. Instead, Beeline will wave the new item in players face for 30 mins (HURRY UP AND MAKE UP YOUR MIND!)  with an attatched price of $9.99-$25.99.  Beeline creates about 3, to four of these a month and never puts them on sale below the $9.99 mark.  You either get the same amount of Smurf Berries you would if you purchased them from the in game resources shop, or they will rip you off by taking as many as 50-100 (A $5 to $10 amount) and replacing them with worthless resources you can easily earn in game.  This high pressure sales pitch has suckered many out of countless dollars for a piece of pixel art.  The item does little, to nothing 99% of the time, save for a 3 second animation that loops continuously.  (Some do not even do that.)

So where is the false advertising you ask? Why just look below!




Each of these items specifies that their space colours will be different then as pictured. For a long time Beeline didn't advertise this fact and honestly when they are lazy enough, they still don't. But the thing is this: NONE OF THESE ITEMS ARE AVAILABLE TO PLACE IN SAPCE. So why even put it there? You are just leading on your players with false hope that these things can be placed on the Swoof Planet. They cannot. What is even WORSE is that it doesn't say where any of these can be placed. Since last fall Smurfs Village has had major problems related to game crashing. Traveling between areas can take hours of repeated attempts to just move from one area to another. Having to restart the game over and over is stress enough, but there is more to it then that.  There is the stress and fearing that you will lose progress and items, or worse! You may be taken back to level one again and will have to restart from a previous save, losing everything you earned, or purchased since midnight that day. 
So what happens when players are in the WRONG area and they purchase and exclusive offer? They run the risk of being taken to another area. This has been the cause of panic and fear for many players. If the game crashes, you will lose the items you purchased with no in game way of getting them back.  You have to go through the lengthly process of dealing with Beelines horrible customer service. Since the game is such a buggy mess, they more often then not cannot send you the items you use. Yes the people that RUN THE GAME CANNOT MAKE IT WORK RIGHT ENOUGH TO PLACE A SIMPLE GIFT IN A VILLAGE.  They will keep stringing you on with false hope, until finally they tell you that you are screwed.  They will not refund your money and they will not offer any other resolution.  It's been stated by even VIP players that attemps at request help, have met with Beeline Customer Service even blocking their e-mails.  What kind of a company is this exactly?  A company the enjoys stealing your money and watching you suffer as you try to get it back, that's what!  Why does Apple allow such horrible practices on their itunes store?  Why does Capcom, a company with 30+ years in the video game industry, want to be associated with such bad business practices? 
 

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