[Eval] Purchase Issues Procedures

🧾Receipt Example Screenshots

Before we can investigate purchase issues or offer a Google/Appcharge refund, we will need the correct screenshot from the player in order to help us correctly identify the purchase they're referring to.

If the player selected a purchase from the list given to them by Jeeves, we can proceed with addressing that purchase, so we do not need to ask for a receipt again (unless the player said something to indicate that it's not one of those purchases).

For each platform, here's an example of the screenshots we're looking for:

Apple

Google

Appcharge (Masters Market / Web Store)

Please note that for the online store, players can also send receipts in the "ord_xxx" or "pmt_xxx" format. This won't appear in Admin, but it is in the Snowflake purchase table:

Side note: Tier 2 agents can use the "receipt number" to find the purchase as well. If that's all the player sent, a colleague on Slack can easily give you the corresponding ID for that purchase.

Aghanim (Web Store)

Please note that for the online store, players can also send receipts in the "ord_xxx" or "pmt_xxx" format. This won't appear in Admin, but it is in the Snowflake purchase table:

🚩Most Common Issues/Macros - Google & Apple Flowcharts

(can right-click the image + open image in new tab to make it fit to your screen)

Google

Apple

🤕Accidental coin/credits purchases: in-game currency refunds

When players report an accidental purchase with coins or credits, please follow this procedure to determine whether a refund is possible.

A player would be eligible for a coin refund if they meet all of the following conditions:

• The purchase can be confirmed in the video or in Snowflake - Purchases.
• The purchased items are still in the player’s inventory.
• The player does not have excessive coin refunds, either historically or recently. Check the compensation history!

Player Eligible for a Coin/Credit Refund

If all of the conditions are met, please remove the items from the player’s account without sending a notification or a pop-up message. Mark the compensation as Store Coin Purchase Refund or Store Credit Purchase Refund:

Then, send the player the coins they used, this time with a notification and a pop-up. Mark this compensation as Store Coin Purchase Refund or Store Credit Purchase Refund too:

Finally, send the Accidental Purchase With Coins / Credits - Approved - Currency Refunded and Items Removed macro to the player.

All cosmetics (Emotes, Outfits, Showoffs) can be removed from Admin:

Emotes can also be removed from FactBranch if you prefer this method:

After removing cosmetics (Emotes, Outfits, Showoffs), please leave a note in their Admin:

Player Not Eligible for a Coin/Credit Refund

If a player fails to meet all 3 of the criteria listed above, we will deny the refund with the Accidental Purchase With Coins / Credits - Refund Denial - Items Already Consumed macro.

Where to find perks in Admin

If a player purchased a perk box by accident, or a coin/credit offer that included perks, we should start by checking if the player still has those perks on their account.

In Admin, press the User State button:

Then, look for "boardAbilitiesInventory:"

The in-game perk names that correspond to each internal name can be found here: Booster/Perks Names.

🍭GPP. info/coupon issues

Players can find their receipt numbers here - Find your Google Store receipt & order number.

GPA is an abbreviation for Google Payment. These are order numbers, used to identify each purchase, and they follow this format: GPA.1234-1234-1234-12345

Anytime the player sends us a screenshot that's different than what we asked for, we can use the Purchase Issue - Player Sent Incorrect Screenshot macro.

GPP is short for Google Play Points. These purchases have a similar format, the notable difference being that they start with “GPP.” instead of “GPA.”

Players can use them in order to purchase a variety of things, however, for us, it’s relevant that they can exchange their Google Play Points for coupons that offer discounts on Match Masters purchases.

Google Play Points and coupons are offered and managed by Google. However, we can still help players with issues related to making purchases in our app.

We can send players whichever article fits best with their message/problem:

- Fix problems with gift cards & codes

- How to fix problems with Google Play Points

- Use points in the Google Play Store

If the player claims that the relevant article did not help, we can use the Payment Platform Issue/Query - Contact Google Play or Apple macro.

🍭Google Play Pass

The Google Play Pass is a subscription system for the Google Play store.

For us, the relevant part is that it offers an alternative to skip ads, without having to rely on our Premium Pass.

There are certain requirements for a Google Play Pass. Most notably, it is not available in every country. 

If the player is having trouble subscribing or seems to not benefit from the subscription features, we want to use the Payment Platform Issue/Query - Contact Google Play or Apple macro.

For personalization and being extra helpful, we can also send players the following article to help them find the information more easily - Subscribe to Google Play Pass.

💸currency_earned, but player insists there are no items

In rare cases, Snowflake can record a currency_earned event for a purchase (both with coins or real money), but the items get removed immediately after.

If a player insists after we confirm a purchase they did not get the items, please check the numbers in the General Dashboard to make sure.

In this example, a player purchased 7,000 coins:

These cases should be rare, but whenever you see this happening, please raise the ticket immediately on Tier 1 Slack, and compensate the items that were not correctly added to the player's account.

🤦‍♂️Not a technical issue, the player picked “wrong” items themselves

Sometimes, players may report that they received the incorrect items, but the video will show that they selected exactly what they received.

Other times, players may report that they are aware that they pressed items they didn’t intend to purchase.

In either case, after getting the correct receipt or screenshot from the player, these tickets should be escalated to Tier 2 with Internal Note Escalation - Purchases.

💰{} in the Admin purchase table

Empty brackets in the items column guarantee that something went wrong! 

These cases should be escalated to Tier 2 with Internal Note Escalation - Purchases.

EXCEPTION: Save Your Streak offers and Booster Run Hearts

If the player purchased a Save Your Streak offer or more hearts in the Booster Run event, they will always show up with empty brackets, since there's no actual "item" to add to the player's account.

In these cases, we will need to check the relevant table in Snowflake - Events to find out if the purchase was added to the player's account, and only escalate to Tier 2 if something went wrong.

💰Purchases done quickly, wrong items

In rare cases, when players make two different purchases within a short amount of time, they can get the wrong items. Here's an example:

Note how there are two different offer names, two different “GPA.” receipt numbers, and two different prices, but the player received the same items.

In this case, 10 Checkmate Charles boosters would not cost 1 dollar and then 10 dollars, so we know that something went wrong due to the purchases being made one after another.

Most commonly, this issue happens with Side-By-Side sales, since it's easy for players to purchase both sides quickly. However, it can also happen with tiered sales:

In this example, the player was able to buy the first level twice, which should not have been possible. 

When a player receives wrong items due to two purchases being made in quick succession, the ticket should be escalated to Tier 2 with Internal Note Escalation - Purchases.

🍎Apple tax

For more information, the article for Apple app developers can be found here - Tax updates for apps, in-app purchases, and subscriptions.

In essence, Apple administers a tax on purchases made. However, the tax amount varies for different categories of purchases, and the country that the purchase was made from.

If a player complains or is confused about being overcharged, please ask the player for a screenshot of their purchase history to investigate if they were overcharged using the Need Purchase Info - Apple/iOS Purchase History SHORT - Apple Receipt SHORT macro.

After receiving a screenshot of the player’s purchase history, if you see that multiple charges were grouped and billed together, it would be an Apple/iOS Several Receipts - Purchases Grouped Together - Receipt Delayed case (more details about this macro can be found in the section below).

However, if the player was only charged for one purchase, but a slightly higher amount than the price in the game was showing, we would want to use the Apple/iOS Tax Difference - Charged Slightly More Than Price Displayed macro.

🍎Apple Several Receipts - when and how to use it

You can find detailed information here - How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed.

Most commonly, players mention that they were overcharged, or charged twice.

As our macro explains, due to how Apple operates, receipts and charges may be delayed. 

Please note the example below, where a player was billed for 4 purchases at the same time, on the 19th of August. However, these purchases were made between the 13th and 18th of August.

In this situation, we would like to use the Apple/iOS Several Receipts - Purchases Grouped Together - Receipt Delayed macro to explain why this happened, along with a list of all of the items they got from each purchase that was bundled together, to clear up any potential confusion or misunderstanding.

💲Web Store purchases

https://store.matchmaste.rs/shop

Example of a purchase:

Example of gifts:

Please handle these tickets according to our Masters Market / Web Store / Appcharge Procedure - Tier 1 article.

➡️Player claims they were redirected by Google or Apple

If you put yourself in the player’s position, you can imagine how being sent back to Google/Apple, after Google/Apple instructed them to contact us, would cause a negative experience and frustration.

However, we are not a payment platform, and there’s only so much we can do or investigate.

If you confirm that the issue the player is experiencing is not something that we’re responsible for, or is not managed by us, please redirect them back to the payment platform using the Payment Platform Issue/Query - Contact Google Play or Apple macro.

You may experience some upset players, so please make sure to offer as much empathy as you can in these cases, as they’re having to work harder to get their issues resolved. If the player doesn’t have the native language tag applied, it would be recommended to switch to English, to be able to explain a little bit more about why we’re unable to assist, and to offer more sympathy.

🚫Prices showing as N/A

Please note that the macros for this case should only be used when the player mentions that their prices are showing up as “N/A” or we can verify that in the video log:

• Cannot Purchase Android/Google - Keeps Loading/Spinning - Price N/A - Troubleshooting
• Cannot Purchase - Apple / iOS - Price Shows/Appears N/A

We have a little bit of additional information here.

In summary: 

• If it’s only one offer showing up as N/A, may be an issue on our end, and it should be escalated to Tier 1 on Slack.
• If all the offers are showing up as N/A, it’s most likely a payment platform issue.

📶How do tiered sales work?

The most common cause of confusion is that players have to purchase multiple keys in order to reach some levels.

To explain this to them, we have the Tiered Sale/Deal/Offer Explanation - More Keys to Unlock Levels macro.

If a player pushes back, or does not understand our initial explanation, please personalize the Tiered Sale/Deal/Offer Still Did Not Receive Key to Unlock Level Reply macro to explain again that some levels may require multiple keys, and therefore multiple purchases.

Information about the player's tiered sale progress can be found in the Special Offers section of their Admin. The Claims column displays what items they claimed so far, while the Required keys column explains how many purchases are needed for each level.

🍭Google info change

Players may also contact us in order to change the payment method they use, or the e-mail address attached to their Google Play account.

We have two macros for this case:

• Request Email Change - if the player was being vague
• Want to Change Payment Method or Email - Contact Google Play or Apple - to tell them that we can’t

😡Not a technical issue, no confusion, just a complaint

Sometimes, players understand how things work, but they simply don’t like it.

We have multiple macros to address various complaints, which may be self-explanatory either using the macro name, or its text. 

⚠️If a player makes a chargeback or dispute threat, it does not count as a reason to escalate the ticket to Tier 2. In most cases, it's safe to ignore the chargeback threat, and address the rest of the ticket as a refund or purchase not received case. If you're not sure, it's a good idea to ask on Slack.

Here’s a list of macros you may find useful when players don’t like a particular feature:

• A Player From Russia Cannot Purchase on Android/Google
• Money/Coin Price Increase Complaint - Items More Expensive - Higher Cost
• Not Happy With Sale Price/Items Compared to Others
• Restricted Location - Cannot Make Purchases From Any Platform
• Same Sale/Deal/Offer But Different Cost/Price - Apple/iOS vs Google/Android
• Unhappy With Cost/Price - Sale/Deal/Offer Too Expensive
• Unhappy With Sale/Deal/Offer Items - Wants Different Items
• Wants To Purchase an Offer for Another Player

⛔Disable Purchases - Purchase Limits & Restrictions

If a player requests that we block the ability to purchase anything from that account, or wants us to set spending limits for them, we can apologize for being unable to do so, and redirect them to the payment platform for assistance.

If the player is referring to purchases from the in-game store, we can use the Payment Platform Issue/Query - Contact Google Play or Apple macro.

If the player is referring to Web Store purchases, we can ask them to send an e-mail with this request to [e-mail] or [e-mail].