Dawdle.com's Position On The ECA

 

Dawdle has had a number of people contact us regarding our association with the Entertainment Consumers Association.  Dawdle is a partner of the ECA, and we offer a reduced commission structure for Dawdle sellers who are ECA members.

We are well aware of the controversy and backlash regarding the ECA's cancellation policy.  (See here, here, and here for a good run-down if you're not familiar.)  We are disappointed that the ECA requires registered snail mail to cancel an ECA membership; that's about as evil as the workout gyms that continue to charge you long after you've left.

However, at this time, we've decided to not drop our partnership with the ECA.  Let me explain our thinking for a bit.

First and foremost, the ECA does do good work.  They are forceful advocates for gamers' rights in a way that no other organization is.  They do their best to keep the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) honest and they do a remarkable job of monitoring legislative developments at the state and local level.  These efforts take people, and the ECA is funded primarily through memberships. 

Let's be clear: people at the ECA will be fired because of the controversy and the resulting reduction in membership dues that decreases their budget.  This is not good for gamers.

I get that the ECA feels that the Amazon coupon stackers were taking advantage of the organization's efforts to deliver value to its members.  Unlimited coupon stacking is like an infinite juggle combo in a fighting game - you may want combos, and you may want juggles, but no developer wants to have an infinite juggle combo exploit - it kills the game.  If Amazon and the ECA couldn't close the infinite coupon stacking loophole, I get that they needed to withdraw the 10% off benefit.

However, that's no excuse for being draconian about membership cancellation.  It doesn't mean that the ECA needs their technical partners (who, in my experience, aren't the greatest) to set up an online form, but they should be a lot better than certified mail.  At Dawdle, for example, we kill accounts after an e-mail request.  (We also disable the e-mail address.)  I will say that I have seen some organizations auto-increment credit card expiration dates, but it's not the standard as far as I know, and Dawdle doesn't do this either.

Lastly, I received an e-mail from the ECA late last night.  Let me quote from the e-mail (and this is without his permission):

Hello Sachin,

We are currently working on a revamp to our member cancellation system because it has caused a bit of a problem. The ECA in no way tries to take advantage of or exploit our member base. I hope you understand that we value our member base and partners more than anything and this is a bump in the road.

Please feel free to call me with any questions and I encourage it in fact.  [xxx-xxx-xxxx] is my direct line.

-Best

Seth Stebbins- Marketing Manager

Entertainment Consumers Association(ECA)

64 Danbury Rd.| Suite 700| Wilton, CT 06897

Here's my response, in full:

Seth,

I trust you guys to get it right.  Don't let me down.

Cheers,
Sachin

Here's his response from this morning:

Thanks Sachin, we working [sic] round the clock…

Based on our strong belief in the ideals and programs of the ECA, as well as their word that they are working "round the clock" to fix the situation, we are presently satisfied that this is truly just a bump in the road.  However, if the ECA does not rectify the situation to our satisfaction, I will not hesitate to terminate Dawdle's association with the ECA. 

I personally have an ECA membership, and at the end of the day, I trust the ECA to live up to its word and fix this situation as soon as humanly possible.

Cheers,

Sachin Agarwal

President & CEO, Dawdle.com

Comments

[Mike House]

They've since shut down their forums entirely, trying to put a lid on the complaints. For a consumer advocacy group, this is entirely backwards and I can't understand how you support that.

I've ordered through you guys in the past, but as a result of your backing the ECA in this, I'm afraid I won't be supporting Dawdle again in the future.

[MG]

The problems with the ECA go way beyond "draconian" cancellation policies. They have also engaged in a smear campaign against anyone who didn't like their policies and has made an effort to lump any member who has a complaint into the "exploiter" camp.

They changed their member contract multiple times with the span of a couple weeks in order to justify their actions, they shut down their forums because they didn't like the complaints and they tried to entice people to become members with an Amazon discount that had been discontinued and invalid.

When you combine that with a cancellation policy that appears to be a scam that tries to trick people into staying a member and paying fees I don't see how anyone can simply brush off this fiasco and support the ECA.

The real issue isn't the way you cancel your ECA membership, but rather their extremely poor handling of the situation that is reminiscent of a guilty politician trying to spin and cover his tracks. Honest people and organizations do not act in such a way.

[Rick]

Its not just the cancellation policy. Its hypocrisy in changing their own ToS to shady terms, not communicating with membership when a "broken" button to cancel auto-renewal was discovered, and the subsequent responses to complaints that reek of self-righteousness and indifferent towards membership. This isn't how a "consumer advocacy" group should be run. They are everything they supposedly advocate against. They need to fix their shortcomings, and I think Hal Halpin should resign. His handling of this situation shows him to be disingenuous about his commitment to the "cause" and at best, incompetent at running an organization like ECA.

[michal]

What work does ECA do?

Publish a few stories? Link to some upcoming votes?

Outside of collecting money, the output they produce is nill.

Futhermore, they treat their members like they were in kindergarden, because of a few possible bad apples, everyone got treated like shit.

I'm sorry you are support a group of scum bags.

[JD]

"First and foremost, the ECA does do good work."

Well, they like to claim they do good work. There are very few actual deeds that back up their claims. They write nice articles, sure, but there's not much on their website or elsewhere about what they *have* accomplished.

[scurker]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you.

It goes way beyond just allowing membership cancellations with how the organization handled the situation. Do I want to support a gamer consumer advocacy group? I sure do, but the ECA has shown its true colors in how hypocritical they really are.

The continually spin the situation and place the blame on the members saying we are at fault. I can't support an organization that doesn't even uphold their own core values within their own membership.

[The Dawdle Team]

All of these comments are much appreciated - the more we know, the more helpful it is. We want to make sure that we're on the side of the angels.

It's pretty clear - our position to date has been to give the ECA the benefit of the doubt. It looks, from these well-considered and thoughtful comments, that we should revisit that position. We have been in constant contact with the ECA over the past week, and we want to make sure that we don't needlessly cut them off while they're working on their issues even though we're making it clear that we don't support their current policies on these matters.

The forum lockdown, in particular, was new information to us that we hadn't seen elsewhere. Dawdle has never had forums, and so, we're trying to better understand just how "bad" (for lack of a better word) it is given that the ECA is still available via Facebook and Twitter.

Again, please keep raising issues in this thread. Keep helping us understand what exactly is going on. We want to be on the side of the angels here - we don't need the ECA to keep our business running, but we don't want to throw our relationship with the ECA away (since they have been really sweet to Dawdle) over what they claim is a temporary issue.

[David]

You're still listed on their website despite the fact that they haven't even attempted to solve this MAJOR problem. You're guilty by association as far as we're concerned.

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