Play.com Fraud – Your account has been temporarily suspended

I never used play.com though I’ve kept an eye on them. Recently I wanted to dispose of some books and computer accessories so decided to check them out. I created seller account on play.com, aka PlayTrade account, last week and also sold one book.

I wanted to list one more item today and when I logged in I was greeted with this message:

Your account has been temporarily suspended and requires further verification.
Please contact our Customer Support Team on 0845 800 1020 or +44 (0)1534 877595 (from outside the UK)

Play.com - Account Suspension Notice
Play.com – Account Suspension Notice

Sensing trouble I googled and found loads of play.com fraud and scam warning pasted all over the Internet. That is so weird as I always assumed that play.com is some kind of reputed website and will not be affected by fraud.

On MSE alone there is a thread alive for past 2 years. I should have checked for Play.com scam before applying for a seller account.

The worst part is that they ask for Credit Card details without which they don’t allow to open account.

To make matter more worse they never send any e-mail or informed me that something is going on.

I just checked my Card statement and didn’t find any suspicious transactions. Sine it is dead of night I can’t contact their customer support and I’ve to for 10 odd hours to call them when I wakeup late on Saturday.

This is really so frustrating, specially when you trust some Internet based sweat shop like Play.com and happily spit out your credit card details.

Let’s see what happens when I call Play.com customer support to check out what went wrong and why they didn’t bother to at least drop me an e-mail if something went wrong.

From the information which I’ve gathered so far on play.com seller account fraud I came to conclusion that better be safe with them.

I’ll update again when I’ve a word with play.com customer support team.

Update on Saturday 06-Aug-2011 at 11:15 AM

After waking up on this lazy Saturday I called Play.com customer support on 0845 800 1020. My guess was that in worst case they will connect to a call center in India. But it seems that they have call center in Phillipines or some such SE Asian country.

I spoke to one guy and he informed me that my PlayTrade account has been suspended because of it has some problem with details. When I asked what are those details he requested me to contact PlayTrade support team via e-mail.

So I’ve sent e-mail to playtradecs@play.com asking to explain the problem.

Still can’t figure out, if there was a problem they should has contacted me by e-mail at least.

I’ll update when I get any response from PlayTrade customer support.

Updates on Monday 08-Aug-2011

This is really hilarious. Today morning I received 2 e-mails from Play.com. The first e-mail says my PlayTrade account has been suspended. This is some kind of joke, account was probably suspended 2-3 ago and they sent e-mail only today. It seems that their action is faster than their brain. It’s like you start browsing the Internet before your modem powers on.

lol!

Here is the e-mail which I received from PlayTrade today morning at 11:51

From: playtrade@play.com
To: my-mail
Date: 08 August 2011 at 11:51
Subject: Your PlayTrade selling account has been temporarily suspended

Dear ,

This email is to notify you that your PlayTrade listings are not currently visible on the website. This may be due to a negative PlayFunds balance or the need to verify a recent order or changes made to your Play.com account.

If you have placed an order or have made changes to your account details then you will shortly receive a separate email advising you how to proceed.

If your PlayFunds balance has fallen into the negative please check the following details within your Play.com account:
Card number
Expiry date
Valid from date
Issue number

If you require any further assistance please contact our Customer Support Team on 0845 800 1020 (UK only) or +44 (0)1534 877 595 (outside UK). Our opening hours are 9am – 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am – 5pm Saturday and Sunday.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Kind regards,

PlayTrade

If that was not funny enough, they sent one more e-mail informing that my account has been approved with apologies for the inconvenience.

From: info@play.com
To: me
Date: 08 August 2011 at 11:51
Subject: Your PlayTrade account has now been approved

Dear AJAY KUMAR SINGH

Thank you for your recent email. Your account has now been approved.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused to you in this
matter and thank you for your patience and valued custom.

Kind Regards,

Customer Support Team
Play.com

See the time stamp for both e-mails. They are same. So they sent me 2 e-mails back to back first for account suspension and 2nd for approval.

What a load of rubbish play.com are! Shame on you.


Comments

11 responses to “Play.com Fraud – Your account has been temporarily suspended”

  1. Play.com is fraud. Once I purchased a book and immediately credit card was scammed. I don’t use them anymore.

  2. sam richardson Avatar
    sam richardson

    ive recently got this screen message but they told me its because people didnt leave me feedback for games i sold ?

    1. What? Serious?
      That’s bullocks and if they said so then these fellas must be exterminated from the Internet. These guys are some kind of joke.

  3. i just recieved this email for no reason. I topped my Playfunds account up to give a refund tried to give a refund and it sent this email

    1. anthony jones Avatar
      anthony jones

      hi there i have had the same problem i refunded an item my playfunds account says -£10.23 how do i update it thanks

      1. Play.com are bunch of thugs. In the above saga I finally forced them to close the account. And guess what, even after closing the account someone bought my product which still shows as listed.

        They are absolute disgrace.

  4. Palaniappan Avatar
    Palaniappan

    Hello All developers,

    I would like to share my terrible experience with google play. I had launched 5 apps in a month on google play after getting good response on first two. My account was going on well and I was hitting revenue of $75+ a day.

    One day I woke up to realize my account has been suspended without giving any valid reason. I was shocked to read the google notice without knowing the reason for account suspension. On contacting them multiple times, all I could see is standard emails which other developers have received in different forums. Till date, I have not been able to figure out reason for suspension. Prior to hosting apps, I had got warnings but I was never clear as the warnings were vague. They never clarified the exact reason on replying them back on these warning emails. All they do Is send a big list of issues and you keep guessing your exact mistake. Not only this, google suspended one of my poor friend’s personal google play account which was registered from the same credit card when my cc was not working. His apps got also delisted together with mine.

    The biggest mistake I did in my life was putting all my eggs in same basket..i.e google play. If I had spread my risks I would not be in ground zero today. I strongly urge all my fellow developers not to be totally dependendent on google play and explore all alternatives to diversify you self.

    1. Port your apps in other platforms i.e Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry

    2. Port your apps in other markets: Amazon, GetJar, Opera, Appbrain

    3. Have multiple google accounts purchased from different cards with no linkage of each other not even in Admob. Google pulls information from its entire networked channel when it takes action.

    I am still guessing the reason for removal and one of the reason looks like multiple usage of the same code. I had used same framework and code while just changing the contents which was on different languages. I had learnt this in a very hardway but I swear to limit myself to google play going further.

    Last I would like to Say to Google “Don’t be evil” This is the same message you were giving to other corporations when you came up and now you are doing the same.

    On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 2:42 PM, Google Play Support wrote:

    This is a notification that your Google Play Publisher account has been terminated.

    REASON FOR TERMINATION: Multiple violations of the Content Policy and Developer Distribution Agreement as outlined in previous emails sent to the registered email address of your Publisher account.

    Please note that Google Play Publisher terminations are associated with developers, and may span multiple account registrations and related Google services. If you feel we have made an error, you can visit the Google Play Help Center article for additional information regarding this termination.

    Please do not attempt to register a new developer account. We will not be restoring your account at this time.

    The Google Play Team

    Google Play Developer Support Aug 11 (5 days ago) to me

    subject: Re: [#1091630540] Urgent Appeal to restore Google Play

    Developer Account Suspension

    Thank you for your email. At the moment we’re only able to respond to the

    emails submitted through our contact form in the Developer Help Center.

    For assistance, please visit Google Play Android developer Help Center at

    Regards,

    The Google Play Team

    Google Play Developer Support

    Aug 12 (4 days ago)

    to me

    Hi Palaniappan,

    Thank you for your note.

    Your Google Play Publisher account has been suspended due to prior

    violations of our terms of service by this or associated accounts. You may

    view these terms here:

    developer-distribution-agreement

    developer-content-policy

    Please note that Google Play Publisher suspensions are associated with

    developers, and may span multiple account registrations and related Google

    services.

    Please do not attempt to register a new developer account. Any subsequent

    registrations without an explicit reinstatement will be closed and your

    developer account fee not refunded.

    We are unable to provide further details regarding this issue. We

    recommend your utilizing an alternative application distribution system

    and payment method for future orders.

    Regards,

    The Google Play Team

    Google Play Developer Support

    Aug 15 (1 day ago)

    to me

    Hi Palaniappan,

    We will not be reinstating your account.

    Regards,

    The Google Play Team

    1. Mate fist of all this post is for play.com and not for Google Play.

      From Google’s replies it seems your account was terminated because of multiple accounts which is certainly violation of their terms and we can’t do anything about it.

      Firstly you should not create multiple accounts and if you make sure to cover it and not to get identified easily.

      Yes that’s right you should never reply on Google for ur bread and butter. This os true for any of Google products/services which you use to make money.

      the last resort for you is to ask any other developer to make your ap live again using his account. Make sure to do things right this time.

      Good Luck!

  5. Hi, I bought some DVDS from an ebay wholesaler, and start selling on playtrade/play.com
    I sold about 40 DVDs for the value of £400.
    When i tried to transfer the money to my account, play.com suspended my account.
    and asking for the suppliers/ stock information, which i don’t have
    The ebay seller who i bought the DVDs from , he made a deal and i collected the DVDs from his place , and pay cash on collection, so
    I don’t have any reciept to show play.com

    Also play.com ask me to ask the buyer to leave feedback ,but my account has been suspended how can they leave feedback?
    I have 0 feedback.

    The ebay seller does not response to email and his not an active seller on ebay anymore.

    What should i do how to get my money?
    Please help

    THANKS

    1. Mate! it’s easy, assuming you live in the UK.

      Do what you would do if any one tries to cheat you. Drag them in the court.

      Visit Money Claim Online website and file a court case, they will pay up if they are really legit.

      Use this link https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

      Read on other forums on how to file a small court case to recover money.

      Or if you can’t find it then ask me again nicely and I’ll explain, may be in a new post to help you out.

      Before filing case make sure you got all evidences, e-mails etc in soft copy and a printed copy.

    2. Before proceeding with the MCOL send them a demand notice stating that if they didn’t refund you the owed amount within 14 days you will be left with no option but to file a recovery claim in the court.

      Send e-mail as well as a copy by signed-for post. Keep the post office receipt.

      Most of the legit business will refund after receiving the demand notice.

      Google to find out a legal demand notice, or if you can’t find one let me know and I’ll send you one.

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