Complaint Rating:

My complaint concerns a German company who offers free on-line gaming.

The company is BigPoint, the game in question, Dark Orbit.

I have spent about $450.00 on that site in the first month, but because of billing issues concerning bonuses on time sensitive offers despite their advertisement that ANY payment method was valid, I purchased a pre-approved credit card!

Do you know how they work ? you pay a fee and deposit money in an account.

You use the card and if you have the funds to cover the purchase, it goes through, if not, it gets refused . simple isn’t it !

Well I made purchases ( and made sure the funds were in that account) and my purchases were accepted, but for some reason BigPoint cancelled one I made.

I did not get any warnings, any e-mails, any type of communication at all apart from trying to login one day and being locked out of my account .

“You’re account has been suspended “ is the only notice you get!

If there was a problem why then did that purchase go through?

If there was a problem why did 3 other purchases made after the fact go through using the same card?

And if there was a problem, why did I not get an e-mail ??

All very good questions! But apparently BigPoint doesn’t think so because none of these were answered ! Either that or this is a common practice for them.

So now I’m out about $800.00, 2 ½ months and can no longer play with my niece or nephew ( which is why I started playing to begin with! ) .

I have sent them the statement I received from MasterCard both to their billing and customer care and still I’m liable for it! No discussion, no one contacting by e-mail from their billing department, no manager contacting me to try to resolve this, just locked out!

So my main complaint is this company has unethical practices, imagine if this was done to a child!

To me this is extortion !

Since that time there has been another instance of a cancelled transaction!

So if I would have been able to pay ( which I couldn’t because they can’t provide me with the needed information ) my account would have been locked out again! And again I would have had to pay! Meanwhile it takes 16 days for the money to be returned to my pre-paid Credit Card account!

My statement is available for anyone to view ! They have several copies of that file.

It doesn’t correspond with what I have received from MasterCard, They wont explain it and keep insisting I made a purchase on the 12th of April yet my statement clearly shows the 11th and also clearly shows they took 19.06 and then tried for another 103.88 for the same transaction!

They took my money and tried taking out more, but I didn’t account for an extra $19.00 so I believe this is what caused the issue, yet they refuse to even accept responsibility or partial responsibility.

I purchased the card based on a recommendation made by their support team!

BigPoint are extortionists, how else would you explain accepting a purchase and then canceling it, without warning or notice and then demand you pay funds to a collection agency, Now after this time I went to the site to see what I now owed ( according to them) and am now being accused of fraud if I don’t pay!

How can a pre-approved credit card be fraudulent ???

They are most unethical and I believe borderline criminal business practices and I hope your site can do something about it. Warn people that this could happen to them too .