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How Can I Make EA Hear Me???
Saunta2
Posts: 870 Member
This doesn't go here but at this point I am beyond frustrated and don't know what else to do. I have emailed, posted a thread in the tech area, done live chats for FIVE years and EA absolutely REFUSES to understand what my issue is and have not helped me.
I live in Barbados, in the Caribbean. Origin quotes my prices in Euros, I do not use a VPN. The latest excuse from EA is that my region does not have a dedicated Origin store so it directs me to the nearest region that does. How is Europe the closest region to the Caribbean?
Now getting a price is European currency would not be an issue if the price was actually correct, but it isn't. A game that costs US$9.99, $19.99 and $39.99 should not cost me €9.99, 19.99 and 39.99. If you do the conversion you will see that the prices do not match. When converted I am instead paying US$12.03, $24.07 and $48.15 respectively. This does NOT include taxes but is the base price. I also enquired of someone who lives in Europe as to the price they are seeing on their Origin and it is not the same that I am getting. I have been raising this issue since 2015 and NO ONE seems to ever understand what I am saying.
Something I use to relax and relieve stress should not be stressing me out this much because after five years this is just too much. I love the Sims and usually purchase games immediately on release or shortly after but I am just fed up at this point in time. The only fix I have for this is to purchase any future content or Sims titles ONLY when they go on sale because I am absolutely fed up and absolutely disgusted that this cannot be fixed after all this time.
I live in Barbados, in the Caribbean. Origin quotes my prices in Euros, I do not use a VPN. The latest excuse from EA is that my region does not have a dedicated Origin store so it directs me to the nearest region that does. How is Europe the closest region to the Caribbean?
Now getting a price is European currency would not be an issue if the price was actually correct, but it isn't. A game that costs US$9.99, $19.99 and $39.99 should not cost me €9.99, 19.99 and 39.99. If you do the conversion you will see that the prices do not match. When converted I am instead paying US$12.03, $24.07 and $48.15 respectively. This does NOT include taxes but is the base price. I also enquired of someone who lives in Europe as to the price they are seeing on their Origin and it is not the same that I am getting. I have been raising this issue since 2015 and NO ONE seems to ever understand what I am saying.
Something I use to relax and relieve stress should not be stressing me out this much because after five years this is just too much. I love the Sims and usually purchase games immediately on release or shortly after but I am just fed up at this point in time. The only fix I have for this is to purchase any future content or Sims titles ONLY when they go on sale because I am absolutely fed up and absolutely disgusted that this cannot be fixed after all this time.
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Comments
https://simscommunity.info/2018/01/16/origin-has-changed-prices-for-the-sims-4-packs-in-multiple-countries/
It has nothing to do with custom duties. This is my price listed on Origin. There are no customs duties on a digital game. It's an issue with Origin that needs to be addressed. I shouldn't even be charged in Euros.
This only happens on Origin. How can there be import duties on a digital purchase? I can shop on Amazon, Ebay, Steam any website and pay what is charged on those sites. I bought Snowy Escape on HumbleBundle and paid US$19.99. Humblebundle however no longer carries sims games. Why can't I pay US$9.99 for this last pack on Origin or couldn't on any pack in the past. Origin is charging me €9.99. How can that be??? That's US$12.04. No one who actually lives in Europe is paying €9.99.
That link you posted is from 2018, I've been having this problem since 2015 at least.
https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/5dmneb/guide_buying_digital_games_from_other_regions/
Otherwise you are just unlucky and have to wait for sales.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/barbados-remove-u-k-s-queen-elizabeth-ii-head-state-n1240195
I don't know where to direct you to for it, but sent this link to this thread to contact some Gurus on where to direct you to help you out hopefully. You might need to contact SimGuruFrost about it on Twitter and ask him about it because your situation is very unique. Just explain what is happening. Honestly I think the whole Caribbean should be charged US prices in my personal opinion. I know SimGuruFrost lives in Canada, so he probably has a better understanding on how international pricing works out. I hope you are able to get some help on this and directed to the right area for help. SimGuruFrost is the community manager for the Sims 4, so could start there. Make sure to explain that you tried contacting EA help and they were unable to help you. You got this.
Would I still get to keep my current packs?
I don't want to use CDKEys because EA doesn't recognise it as an authorised dealer. I used Humble Bundle last time but they don't sell Sims 4 anymore. I'm not sure about Instant gaming.
No matter what country I change my Origin to the pricing and currency remains the Euros.
We have our own currency so removing the Queen as head of state won't affect that. I don't use Twitter unfortunately but thank you. Every single website I use quotes me in US prices which is actually tied 2:1 to the Barbadian dollar and therefore easy for me to calculate the local cost to me. I don't understand why Origin is like this.
You won't be able to transfer your origin packs into steam but you should be able to transfer the packs from steam into origin. I've never read of a problem being able to use steam packs in origin but I have read of problems of being able to use origin packs in steam.
I have all the packs in sims 3 through origin and when origin stopped letting me load more than the base game when I play it, I bought the sims 3 and most of the packs again through steam. Before I got greedy and tried to load my store packs from the sims 3 into steam, (but is it really greedy since I already owned them?) I was able to play the steam packs with no problems. Now steam gives me an error when I try to play the sims 3 and origin won't let me load my owned origin packs because the game plays better with fewer packs even though my computer specs can play the sims 4 at high settings. I uninstalled the sims 3 from both steam and origin but I still can't get it to work in steam, so I gave up. I'm really furious with EA about it.
They offer me the new region prices in foreign currency and the region locked version, but they don't accept my credit card in due of the foreign IP-adress and foreign bill adress and I'm not able to buy the game in my own language anymore because of the region lock thing. Yeah Origin is very bad designed for me too, I gave up. In a few years amazon will help me again.
In Italy the price is a little lower because of their tax.
Also, if you're looking at prices in the US, those listed are excluding tax, so by the time you're at the checkout, the full price is more than the listed $9.99 etc. (as per their laws regarding pricing, where tax is not added until the end of the purchase process).
I believe it's because in Europe taxes are already included in the price, whilst in other countries taxes are added after. The price to get the packs in Britain is exactly the same as the higher prices you listed when converted to dollars
I believe one of the gurus or origin themselves confirmed that cdkeys was safe to use. We debated on this a long time ob this forum. But someone finally confirmed it.
Hopefully someone here can link the official info. It might have been on twitter.
LOL..
I actually asked in a live chat and was told no
When I bought Snowy Escape from Humble Bundle I paid US$39.99. There was no tax added on.
When you go to the grocery store, do you have to pay taxes on your purchase? They can only add sales tax if you have to pay sales tax where you live.