I bought, a while back, the TBC collectors edition amongst various others. I started by redeeming my Mists of Pandaria code, no issues at all, got the mount and pet. There was no reason for me to doubt that the burning crusade one would be a problem so I unsealed it and tried the code. It didn’t work. I messaged support and I have been told that I can’t redeem the code for the TBC collectors edition.
Firstly, if I had known this I wouldn’t have opened a very expensive collectors edition from the seal.
Secondly, I wouldn’t have broken the seal on the other collectors editions on a new account if I had known that one of them would not work.
I’ve been given some nonsense excuse about an office closing down in France. Presumably they didn’t all get fired and can process my issue from somewhere else, or similarly just review it through email.
I need to claim this item and I will not be happy with similar excuses as I got from customer support that I can’t get it.
There is surely an obligation for you to provide me with the achievement and items from the code. I had no reasons to look for some obscure post about it not being redeemable before I opened it.
This has cost me a lot of money and I need the items and achievements.
Well they decided not to accept those codes anymore. Those codes are old and nobody ever claimed they’d be valid forever. You bought it from a 3rd party so blizzard isn’t responsible for this.
Not sure what the relevance of buying from a 3rd party is, the item is still there to be claimed.
I can’t see how it would be such an arduous task for Blizzard to allow me to email or send in photos and evidence of the item. I’m fully expecting them to do that as a result of this post
The relevance is that the TBC CE was last sold through to retail by Blizzard in 2007, which is 15 years ago. After that period, items not sold at retail would have been sent back to Blizzard or assumed by Blizzard to be in the hands of customers. Blizzard’s EULA states:
(…) Blizzard warrants up to and including ninety (90) days from the date of your purchase of a license to the Game, that the physical media on which the Game was distributed, if any, shall be free from defects in material and workmanship. In the event that such media proves to be defective during that time period, and upon presentation to Blizzard of proof of purchase of the defective media, Blizzard will at its option: (a) correct any defect, (b) provide you with a similar product of similar value, or (c) refund your money. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE FOREGOING IS YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTY SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION.
Blizzard provided the opportunity to redeem these codes for 13 years through a manual process that involved sending items to an office location that now no longer exists.
To put this into perspective: there once used to be a service called “Ultraviolet”, backed by most major movie studios. Almost all movies sold during the lifetime of that service had that feature advertised on the movie box (right on the top of the cover). Those movies had a unique serial code - just like a game code - in every box so you could redeem your movie on a digital platform:
That service started in 2011 and was shut down in 2019, rendering all those digital codes still packed in and advertised on BluRay discs completely useless.
Blizzard supported TBC CE code redemption 6 years longer than that service even existed. At some point a company has to weigh the cost of labor and processes to keep this service up against the requests coming in per year.
In short, you say:
I don’t think there is and I don’t think Blizzard does either. I understand that you’re sour that you paid a lot of money for the CE and didn’t know about the policy for turn-in but that’s the risk that you take for buying an old CE.
You have no choice in the matter and no matter how much you complain you won’t get it. I would guess a GM told you to come here and post about it, well, they say that to get rid of you and to discuss it with other players, not the Blues who post on the forums.
Considering the rarity of the TBC collectors edition, or at least those that are likely still to be unsealed and the size and income of Blizzard, the cost to support me in redeeming this item will be very small.
I am happy to pay a small fee if blizzard require it, but I don’t see how this is something that can’t be done very easily.
The pet from the collectors edition is still in the pet journal and not marked as no longer obtainable. This adds further confusion.
If we are able to claim other collectors editions, this one should be not different.
I am still able to redeem trading card game loot which came out before or around the same time as the collectors edition, so the time factor doesn’t make sense
As I say, I am expecting a response that will enable me to claim this item.
That is assuming that, after closing the office in Versailles that had the facilities to receive those physical mail-ins from customers, Blizzard
set up those facilities for receiving physical items by mail from customers in another location
keep staff at hand trained to recognize the circumstances, items mailed in, those physical items not being fake / obtained from other sources etc and also keep staff trained for an edge case through employee turnover
have their internal tools, which likely evolved alongside the games, still set up to enable customer service to add these items and achievements to player accounts
Plus many other possible factors that we can’t know about without knowing Blizzard’s internal support structure and current policies.
The fact that the European CE of TBC can not be claimed by “traditional” means is even in the Wikipedia entry of the TBC expansion. The reason you can’t claim a TBC CE code is that they put the wrong type of codes into the CE boxes back then, which is why your point about redeeming old trading card game codes is moot - they didn’t have this problem. They offered a solution to the problem thus created back then and kept that solution going for a full 13 years.
While I wish you the best of luck with that mindset, all the forum posters here are trying to do is help you manage your expectations. We’ve all seen exceptions being made (for different cases, not TBC CEs as far as I know) through the forums in exceptional circumstances, but we’ve also all seen forum representatives confirm the current Blizzard policies in most instances.
In addition to that, as much as it pains me to say, you don’t really have anything to put on pressure apart from voting with your wallet. You did not buy an item from Blizzard directly within the timespan laid out in their EULA, Blizzard covered their behinds in multiple support articles - such as
where it says
You can only claim codes for the latest expansion, or Collector’s Edition codes for any expansion except Burning Crusade. Blizzard Customer Support cannot assist with redeeming Burning Crusade codes.
Godspeed with trying to get this policy changed. Maybe posts like yours will make Blizzard want to put the old non-physical CE rewards into the battle.net store for a nominal fee (the small fee you spoke of) and that would surely make many pet collecting people very happy.
I just think the redemption if collectors editions should be consistent, either we can redeem them all or none. If blizzard put the wrong codes on then that’s a problem they need to support us in dealing with
I won’t be the first person with this issue and they need to rectify it as a result of this post, otherwise people will lose money. There is no way anyone would be looking up the links that have been posted about this issue prior to breaking the seal on the CE and trying the redeem the codes
You are not the first person as Saneko’s link shows and you will be disappointed. Sorry but that’s the cold hard facts of this. You may as well get used to it now.
Someone at Blizzard decided to withdraw the support for this item and I need to know who, or at what level this happened so I can contact them to rethink it. Telling me something that clearly isn’t impossible is impossible and telling me just to get out over it isn’t helping my thread
The policy for assisting with EU TBC Collector’s Editions has been retired now, and we no longer grant the Netherwhelp to people who might own a Collector’s Edition but never contacted us to claim it before now.
Why is the netherwhelp pet in the pet journal and not marked or removed as unobtainable. This has lead me to spending a lot of money on an item that I can’t get and had no way within the game to realise I couldn’t get it, especially as all the other collectors editions are reeemable. the only way I know that this item is not redeemable is when ive opened it and the code doesnt work, then have to search up some obscure posts
I know it is possible for blizzard to be able to validate the item , they are just not doing it. I think you need to implement a paid feature to allow this to occur at the least. Its so unfair for us collectors to be stiffed like this. I now have a worthless unsealed item if not.
The change to policy was relatively recent, so it may not have yet made it into the game, also US players can still obtain the pet as the error was only with EU codes.
You still have all the items from the Collector’s Edition itself, and a box to complete your collection on the shelf. We had a system in place for 13 years after release of The Burning Crusade to allow this error to be corrected, there are no “new” TBC Collector’s Editions in circulation that we need to support or being sold by us, so the policy was retired with this in mind. Any “new”/sealed purchase is through a third party vendor and you’d have to reach out to them about the issue with your purchase now.
Would your response be different if I had bought this originally myself and just decided to use it now? I can’t see on the box where it says there is a time limit on the redemption of the code
I understand that things can’t go on forever, but this situation has shown a complete disregard for players and collectors, especially as blizzard are so quick to remove the validation process but not to update the game to reflect the change
I presume from your response that there is no plan to implement a paid process to validate it?
This is consistent with other now unobtainable pets, such as the Spirit of Competition or the time limited WoW anniversary pets. I don’t think any of the unobtainable pets or mounts in the game state that they are no longer obtainable.
Can a support article be called “obscure” if the first google result for something like “claim warcraft collector’s edition” is linking to https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/17625 telling you that you can no longer redeem it and customer support can’t assist?
There’s numerous other results that bring this information front and center, such as
Nobody here is contesting your frustration for having bought an expensive item through a third party and now finding that it expired some time ago, but I don’t think it’s fair to say
I redeemed the mists of pandaria collectors edition first, and encountered no issues. Why would I search google first to see if I can claim the TBC one too. Logic suggests that it is also redeemable in the same way, as the code format is identical