I started playing Neopets about 2 years ago. It became very addictive very quickly, AND WITH GOOD REASON! The site was INCREDIBLY fun. I started out like most Neopians, getting very excited when I hit my first 10,000 nps (which we all NOW know isn’t much) and was able to get my first painted pet, a mutant Grundo named hank_6698. Those days were great, I couldn’t wait to get home and play Neopets. And then, I discovered the discussion boards.
The discussion boards made Neopets THAT MUCH BETTER. Meeting great friends such as sugarypixiestix and many others made my Neopets experience that much more enjoyable. Little did I know things would not stay that way.
About a year into my playing, I started noticing something. A LOT of people were disappearing from the message boards (especially battle chat). Apparently an influx of people were “scamming to get neopoints or items”. The thing that baffled me the most was, I knew most of these people, and they had staked (in some cases) YEARS into Neopets and building up their accounts and pets.
I just had to ask myself, “why would they waste all that time for a few lousy neopoints or some worthless item?” It just didn’t make sense to me. Then, something awful happened. I was in the battle chat and suddenly got logged out. I tried to log back in and there it was, “THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN FROZEN”…..for what? “scamming to get neopoints or items.”
I HAD NEVER SCAMMED ON NEO!!! EVER!!! Why was this happening? And then something hit me, If this happened to me unfairly, couldn’t it have happened to the others unfairly also?
I took it upon myself to begin emailing Bryan (bryan@support.neopets.com) and asked him what was going on. He got back to me quite quickly saying that my account would be unfrozen. I got excited, as I’m sure you can imagine. However, after 3 days I was still without account so I emailed him again. This time his reply was a bit different, something along the lines of “I’m sorry, I have checked on your account and though you appear to have done nothing wrong I cannot help you.”
I didn’t understand this, so I thought I’d give it a shot at emailing Donna and as I didn’t know her email address I tried donna@support.neopets.com and after a few days I received a response along the lines of, “Sorry, your account will not be reactivated, However you can always start a new account. Be sure to sign up for our sponsor offers as they will get you off to a good start in building your new account.”
I was stunned as I realized what she was TRULY saying was “your account won’t be given back, but sign up with our sponsors as it benefits us financially.” I really couldn’t believe the audacity. I get told that they will not help me out, but I can sign up for a new account and (basically) help them out by getting spammed by their sponsors???
The terrible realization of Neopets hit me like a brick. They care NOTHING about their players (unless your name is Featheralley, Garet_Jaxx, xxxx, alombar42 or hrobi), what they are really after is the money.
Where did the good old days of Neopia go?? The times when you didn’t really have to worry about being unfairly frozen. I believe those times have passed and this is very sad indeed.
To quote one website I came across quite recently, These are the steps you have to take to avoid being frozen in Neopia.
- Don’t play games
- Don’t create a pet
- Don’t talk on the message boards
- Don’t read the news
- Don’t submit editorials
- Make sure your name is Featheralley
I wouldn’t have believed those things at one point, but now they seem hard NOT to believe.
I hope you all have better luck with Neopets than a lot of us have had. I know a lot of people say it’s only a game, but when you spend several hours a day on it and it’s all taken away for no reason, you lose much more than just a game; You lose time, and time you can never get back. – jasn