G2A is charging customers to log into their accounts
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Controversial game marketplace G2A has begun charging people to sign into their accounts.
After not signing into their account for 180, Reddit user ninth_revolution received an email from the website saying that they were being charged a €1 “inactivity fee”.
The email continues saying that the user would be charged another euro for each additional month they didn’t log in for. The funds were to be taken from the user through their G2A Wallet.
The Reddit user posted the image to the subreddit r/assholedesign. It was there that G2A gave an official response.
“G2A Pay charges an inactity fee after someone has not logged into their G2A.COM account for 180 days,” the reply says. “An e-mail is sent 3 days before the charge to remind the user and allow them to log in and easily avoid the fee. This fee is €1 and is taken from the user’s G2A Wallet (if there are no funds on the Wallet, PAY does not charge anything). Another €1 will be taken each month that the user stays inactive. If they log in, the timer resets itself and they have another 180 days before they are charged. If there are no funds left (or no funds to begin with) on their G2A Wallet, then the account is set to inactive. All a user needs to do to reactivate it is log back into G2A.COM. We never force the user to make a transaction or do anything with the funds. It’s just to let the system know the user is active, and the account has not been abandoned.”
G2A then continues, “Why do we do this? It costs money to upkeep accounts (IT infrastructure, server maintenance, etc.) and if someone does not use the account, it doesn’t make sense to upkeep it. We don’t require these users to buy anything, just log in at least once every 6 months, just so we know they are still with us.”
G2A’s response came under fire from numerous commenters in the Reddit thread, especially regarding their explanation of account upkeep. Whether or not the company is in the right or the wrong, it certainly isn’t a cost that other companies feel the need to take back.
Source: Reddit (via r/assholedesign)
