The end of January meant only one thing for a lot of gamers around the world: Kingdom Hearts III. Sadly though, if you were from an EU or UK country, then this time might have been more like a nightmare than a dream. A large amount of customers that ordered from the Square Enix EU store did not receive their copy of Kingdom Hearts III on release. What’s more, those customers had their money taken from their account and have still not received their game days after release. There has also been very little or no communication from the Square Enix team.
My personal experience from this store has made me certain to never shop there again. My money was taken from me the moment I ordered my copy of Kingdom Hearts III—the “KINGDOM HEARTS III DELUXE EDITION + BRING ARTS FIGURES [PS4],” which costs a total of £205.28 including release day delivery. Fast forward to release day, and my order still says “validated.” This means that the money has been taken out but the item ordered has still not moved to shipping status.
After waiting patiently all day, I sent emails to Square Enix asking for an explanation. I then took to social media to see if anyone else was having this problem, and to my surprise, there was a lot of people with this issue. Square Enix EU Store had failed to provide any explanation or update for many of it’s customers that had ordered Kingdom Hearts III.
Some customers were told that it might take their copies two to three weeks to arrive, whilst others were told their copies should arrive a few days after release. What makes it worse is that some customers were also told that they could not cancel their orders due to it already being processed.
After hearing that some customers were not being allowed to cancel orders or that they’d have to wait so long for their pre-ordered copies to arrive, I decided to see if I could still cancel my order due to it still saying “validated.” Luckily I was able to, and was refunded fully in two days. I did receive an email back days after release stating me that my order should be with me. The problem with that information and reply is that I had already cancelled my order by that point, so that information was incorrect, as well.
A little research on the Square Enix EU store shows that this is not the first time the store has provided terrible service. One look at review site—such as Trustpilot, a website and company review site—shows that customers have been having issues with this store for many years—anything from figures to games. It has become increasingly clear that Square Enix has not been providing good quality service to it’s customers in Europe and the UK for quite some time.
Whilst many customers do get good service and receive their copies on time from the other Square Enix stores, there are far too many customers that do not. I highly recommend against ordering anything from the Square Enix EU store. Due to the Square Enix EU store failing to provide a good service, many customers were left out of pocket and without their copy of Kingdom Hearts III on release.
