Last month Turbine had identified an issue that prevented VIP points to be applied to accounts and reported it on the forums. [source] Last Friday CarpeNoctem posted on the forums this message regarding VIP Monthly Points allowance.
We are happy to announce that we have fixed the issue that was preventing players from receiving their VIP Points. As many players have been affected by this issue, it is going to take a bit for all of the points to go out.
All VIP Points should be granted to affected players by the end of the day on Sunday, March 10th. Affected players are those who should have received VIP Points between February 15th and March 8th, but didn’t. If you were impacted by this issue and still have not received your 500 VIP Points by 11:59pm Eastern Time on Sunday, please contact Account Support and they will be happy to assist you.
We did mention this in episode 188 but after discussing with some friends and sharing it with the CSTM audience, I thought it warranted a post.
Verify Your Points
Yesterday I checked my points balance in-game and I could see my points granted for January but nothing for February. The reason I’m bringing this to your attention is after mentioning this on Twitter/Facebook/Google+, it prompted others to check and find they also were missing their VIP points.
Now I’m not mad or lashing out at Turbine. This is the first issue I’ve had with my Turbine Points since TP was added to the game. Issues happen. They attempted a fix but my account didn’t make it into the fix and if you keep reading you’ll see I was able to quickly amend this.
The reason I’m bringing this up is I want to make you aware that not all VIP accounts may have been correctly applied and I don’t want folks thinking they should still wait for their points. As CarpeNoctum posted, if you still haven’t received the points you need to take action.
If you are VIP or Lifetime player, I suggest you just take a quick peek to verify. You can do this in game by going to the LOTRO Store and clicking the “My Account” in the upper right corner and viewing the purchase history. It should show a list of transactions both TP received and purchases you made. I saw my last subscriber bonus was applied on January 30th and knew I needed to call.
The timeframe CarpeNoctem listed was Febuary 15 – March 8th. If you typically get your points in those dates just verify you got your points. It may be as late as March 10th which is when they were expecting the fix to be fully implemented. If you have your points, great! If not, keep reading.
Requesting Your Points
I was easily able to resolve this by calling the Account Support line. Note they don’t have hold music, just stay on the line, you are connected.
The gentleman was able to quickly verify I hadn’t received my points and applied them. I saw them in-game immediately. The person I spoke with also said this was a one time thing and that March’s VIP points should apply without a problem.
I’ve also heard of others who have had success with a out-of-game support ticket but it was a bit more work to get it resolved than my phone call but I can understand how a phone call may be overseas and difficult for some so that may be preferred.
Here’s how you can contact to request your VIP Monthly Points:
By Phone: 855-924-2637; 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, 7 days a week. (GMT –5)
Support Ticket: http://support.turbine.com/ics/support/ticketnewwizard.asp?style=classic
Make sure it is filled out noting that VIP Points were not received.
March 12, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Thanks Goldenstar, I’ll check on this tonight when I get home from work, much appreciated!!
March 12, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Just to note that if you use the online ticket system you need to then check your emails soon after as you will likely need to reply to that email before the ticket actually goes through to customer support.
March 12, 2013 at 1:17 pm
I submitted a ticket using the online form and got a copy/paste email shortly after with the info already on the support site about when you’re supposed to get your points. The email said something like “if you don’t reply, we’ll assume this solved your issue.” So pay attention and reply letting them know that a form email is not the help you needed!
March 12, 2013 at 1:58 pm
My phone has been acting up since the weekend, so I asked the LOTRO twitter account if there was another way to contact them (since I’d only been hearing of people getting this sorted out over the phone). The reply was: “Email, but response times are slower and they have heavy ticket volume at the moment. Have you considered using Skype?”
A quick download of Skype and less than 4 minutes on hold and I had my VIP points applied to my account.
I don’t know if you’d have to pay outside of the US, but for me it was a free call with Skype since it is a toll-free number.
March 12, 2013 at 1:23 pm
For those who are VIPs and not lifers, also verify that you got the 4 days added.
You can check your sub’s expiration date on myaccount.turbine.com.
After they announced the days had been added, I checked, my date was unchanged. A call to Turbine’s account support got it sorted as well, though the change may not propagate till tomorrow.
March 12, 2013 at 1:31 pm
Thank you so much! I didn’t know you could see the purchase history, I checked and both my subscriptions hadn’t had their points added. A 5 minute call and it was sorted!
March 12, 2013 at 1:41 pm
I’ve found that the fastest way to get things like this fixed is to call Account Support at 1-855-WBGAMES. The phone lines are open Sunday – Saturday from 10:00 am to 7:00 PM Eastern time.
March 12, 2013 at 2:56 pm
That is the same number (and support hours) I have posted above.
March 12, 2013 at 1:48 pm
It sounds like I would have been better off picking up the phone for this issue. I always assume that handling these things electronically (ie. in-game support) would be Turbine’s preferred method and thus the most efficient. Here’s proof positive that that isn’t always the case.
I had created a ticket a couple of weeks ago. I received an email that the points should be issued no later than March 8th. I checked again on Sunday, and the points had still not been issued. Per the email’s instrunctions, I simply created another ticket using the in-game support system.
I have chosen… poorly.
March 13, 2013 at 7:08 am
There’s no reason you can’t call anyway. I had sent in a ticket first and then later decided to call. After the phone call cleared up my points issue, I just replied to the automated email from earlier letting them know that it was taken care of and that they could close the ticket.
March 13, 2013 at 9:21 am
Well, after my belly-aching, I went home and had an email from Turbine that my points had been granted.
So, nothing like a four-minute turn around, but it’s fixed now!
Thanks, Ketani.
March 12, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Ticketed yesterday – as I am in UK so phoning not really an option. Responded to auto response but still no points 24 hrs later although to give them their due – I did respond from wrong email address I suppose. Hoping this gets resolved soon.
March 13, 2013 at 3:56 am
Also UK, so after reading this I too filled in a support ticket. The points were issued within 2 hours.
As you have to click reply to the initial email you definitely do need to give a correct email address.
March 12, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Sure has been alot of issues with turbine lately..
March 12, 2013 at 3:04 pm
FWIW… Just got off the phone getting pts for all my lifetime accounts. After the hold they very quickly verified and issued pts to all accounts. Just had to log out my toons and the points showed up.
The guy said since the last script run they identified a problem with just lifetime accounts getting the Feb pts this time around.
March 12, 2013 at 3:51 pm
One of my accounts did get the February points but not the March points. My other account didn’t get February (March points date hasn’t arrived yet as I get them for that account on the 30th). Check and make sure you get them for March also as something is holding up March points for me.
March 12, 2013 at 3:48 pm
I sent in my email request to Turbine yesterday after reading Merric’s post on Twitter. I responded to the auto-reply. I got the confirmation this morning that they have applied the 500 points to my account, but I’ve not yet checked in-game to confirm it.
NB: Both my husband and I are lifers and both of us did not receive Feb’s points.
March 12, 2013 at 4:05 pm
Thanks for the heads-up. I opened a ticket (because I’m sure as anything not going to make a phone call to the US over this), so I’m interested to see if anyone will bother to do anyone about this.
March 12, 2013 at 4:08 pm
Just got off the phone with Jeremy @ WBGames Support. Got my Feb. TP bonus issued and he also took care of a different TP issue I had on Monday. Service was fast and courteous. Have to say, I have never had issue with their support staff on any occasion I have had to call in on with regard to my account. They’ve always been fast and courteous for me.
Hope everyone gets their issue(s) resolved as quickly.
March 12, 2013 at 11:32 pm
Thanks Goldenstar!
With your helful information, I’ve submited a ticket to turbine on VIP TP.
Hopefully I can get what I supposed to receive!
March 13, 2013 at 12:31 am
This is a new one on me – how do I check my point allocations to see if I received them when I should? I tend not to notice when they’ve gone on, so I don’t know if this will affect me or not.
March 13, 2013 at 1:01 am
That’s in the article – look under the header “Verify Your Points”.
March 13, 2013 at 3:19 am
Mine seem to be there except for March but they are scheduled on the 12th of each month so I’ll be checking again today.
March 13, 2013 at 4:19 am
Thanks a ton, Goldenstar!
Without your information I would not know what to do now since I just found out that I am affected by this bug, too.
You are such a gem to this community, dear Goldenstar. Big hugs to you for all you do for us.
March 13, 2013 at 5:21 pm
I’m very impressed. Living in the UK I emailed them, and it was resolved within 24 hours. Excellent stuff, and thanks CSTM for the heads-up, I would have forgotten to have checked otherwise.
March 14, 2013 at 9:45 am
is it me or does it seem very dodgey that its up to the customer to verify and go thru all this rigamarole in order to get the points which Turbine has declared has been credited and fixed?
how many customers have not gotten their points because they assume all is well now. not sure about everyone else but i have a few accts with varying amts of points in each so now i have to check each one and go thru this hassle tho they triumphantly croon how its all fixed and done. pfft
March 15, 2013 at 7:04 am
I have submitted one request to get the standard yes it will be updated then it did not. Left it a day or two with no update. Got the your ticket has been closed message so replied to say it is not fixed. Got a reply to say I have manually added the points. Checked and the points have not been added aka the total is exactly the same prior to the ticket.
March 19, 2013 at 1:02 am
Just a heads up on this, I submitted a ticket and was granted my outstanding points on 3/13. I passed the info on to my husband on 3/15, but when he checked his purchase history he had just been granted the points that day, without contacting anyone. Then the next day, 3/16, my account was granted another 500 points. Not sure why, maybe they had gotten lost in the system somewhere. I sent a ticket back about the extra points, not sure what they are going to do about it yet.
March 19, 2013 at 2:42 pm
Something similar happened to me. I checked in for the first time since the weekend to find 500TP awarded on the 18th March, and then another 500TP on the 19th.
I had not raised any support tickets at all.
To confuse matters further I had recently downgraded from VIP back to Premium, though it’s possible I was owed 500TP that had been due.
March 24, 2013 at 7:40 pm
Has anyone gotten “extra” points? When I got my March monthly points, I got 5000 instead of 500!! I had to submit a ticket to get Feb points, finally got them on Mar 11. I never did the 250 free points offered for the Feb downtime, but I’m inclined to let things lie?