The ECA rapes and pillages members!

While browsing CAG this morning (http://www.cheapassgamer.com/), I noticed a thread regarding membership cancellation issues regarding The ECA.  The ECA is a non profit advocacy group for electronic consumers a.k.a. gamers.  They usually charge 20 bones for a years membership to the org and offer up discounts to retailers online and old fashioned.  Several months ago, they had a 10% Amazon.com promo code that many people signed up to access.  A couple months later, they offered free ECA membership with a promo code published in Game Informer magazine.  Of course Amazon was not happy and killed the code.

The ECA then changes it's TOS to make sure that members have to jump through flaming hoops of death to cancel their membership.  You can no longer email them, phone them, or use the auto renew off button on the site.  And anyone that turned auto renew off, you are still going to get charnged 20 bucks when your year is up.  Did your credit card expire? Doesn't matter...The ECA will play the guessing game on your new expiration date.  So how do you cancel this great membership? Snail Mail.....and they have to recieve it 30 days before your renewel.....which they don't notify you of until 30 days before.  Their TOS also claims that mail might conviently be lost so if you want them to get your cancelation.....better send that sucker fried and certified.  And from what I am reading on the forums....that is not working either.

So you have a membership that you want to cancel and decide to ask questions on the ECA forums....be prepared to be banned.  Ask them questions and they play the smoke and mirrors game with you.  Question their answers and welcome to the state of bandom and be prepared to be called retarded by the board sponsered trolls.  Yes, a consumer advocacy group has just ripped off you the consumer, called you a retard, and run their forums like nazi's....thanks for looking out for me ECA!

Not only are they ripping off members but they are breaking various CT. laws (their state of origin) in regard to online transactions and subscriptions.  Perhaps the greatest part of all of this is what arcane93 posted over at CAG....

Here's the thing -- he can't. I have asked this question again and again, both here and on their forums, and the most answer that I ever get is "read the website" -- despite the fact that I have noted each and every time that I had already done so. I have been all through the website -- I see lots of position statements, and I see petitions (including one very poorly planned generic petition to Congress linked on the front page asking them in very vague terms to "protect the rights of gamers" -- who thought that was a good idea?). When I go to the forums, I see links to interviews and some discussion amongst members. So sure, there's a lot of talk about what the issues are, and that's great.

What I don't see anywhere is anything about what actions the ECA actually is taking or what they've actually accomplished. Nothing. And when I asked on the ECA forums, I was directed to a lot of smoke and mirrors. One person (GamesLaw, I believe) directed me to a several-year-old forum post by Hal Halpin himself in which he stated that he can't tell us what they're doing because then their enemies would know too (paranoid much?). Another person (Gypsyfly) gave me a bunch of links to those same position statements and petitions that I mentioned earlier -- again, great, I'm glad you have positions, but that doesn't tell me what you're doing. A third one (the infamous KN, who is the first apparently actually mod sanctioned troll I've seen on a forum) called me a "front page tard who can never hope to fit into our community" for even asking. Um, ok, sure -- with that attitude, I don't want to be a part of your "community". Thanks.

Likewise, in a post in the former ECA thread here, Gypsyfly actually had the nerve to say that members need to do "research" to know what the ECA is doing. You know what? No. Part of the purpose of any advocacy organization is to educate and keep their members informed. The ECA has massively failed in that respect. I shouldn't have to dig through a forum site looking for any sliver of information that I can manage to find in order to simply know what the organization that I've joined is up to. I should be receiving regular updates from the ECA -- not general gaming industry news, but specific ECA news telling me what they've got going on.

And there's the problem. The ECA makes themselves look very good on the surface. They put important sounding position statements up on their site, which I'm pretty sure that the majority of us who play games would agree with. Hal writes articles in magazines like Game Informer about how these issues are so very important. They put out several newsletters of general gaming industry news, the information in which, I'm sure, is largely (and probably through automated means) culled from other sources and available elsewhere. But try to go beneath that, and find out what advocacy work they're actually doing (other than writing about how the issues are really important), how they're actually affecting those issues, and what they're accomplishing, and you hit a brick wall.

Honestly, even if I wanted to be more actively involved in the ECA's work, I wouldn't know how to even begin. Other than providing a few lame web petitions for me to sign and collecting my membership dues, they have provided no means for me as a member to be involved. Unless, apparently, I'd like to do some "research" first.

And yet all that their staff and their apologists like this guy can do is run off these generic lines about the "important" work that they're doing, and spout insults at those who ask questions. I'm honestly baffled -- are these people somehow seeing what I'm not, or are they the ones who only look at the surface?

Really, I tried. Yes, the Amazon discount was what enticed me into actually taking the leap and joining, but I also had an interest in some of their issues. I really wanted them to be a good, legitimate organization that I would be proud to be a member of. But the entire attitude, even before all of this went down, has completely turned me off to them.

At this point, I don't think anyone can answer that question about what they've done for us, because honestly, I don't think anyone actually knows.

Fro out~