Three words: ACTUAL. CUSTOMER. SERVICE.
This is gonna be my rant here, but - what the FUCK are they doing? In essentially every other customer service situation I've been in, the reps will kiss my ass to make sure my issue is resolved. Even if it doesn't end up being fixed the way I was hoping (whether that was a warranty replacement, a return, a software issue, etc) the company will often take a (comparatively teeny tiny) loss - such as replacing a cheap-ish product for free, regardless of stated policy - in order to retain my business as a customer. And it totally works! I will absolutely keep returning to a company over and over because I know they're going to be chill and/or helpful. Clearly, it works for other people too, because it's still common in spite of the growing enshittification of business practices.
Neopets is essentially the opposite of a typical company customer service experience. They're
(you need an account to see links). Every time I've ever spoken to any of their representatives, they've essentially spit in my face and booted me out the door, and I'm not even asking for hard stuff like "hey so I got that account frozen but want it back". Memorably, Tony P "yelled" at me for reporting the customisation bug a couple of years back,
after support had specifically asked people to report instances of it happening. None of their reps know what's happening behind the scenes at the company, or with the user support situation in general. Their policies are absolutely batshit crazy - I'm looking at you, original email only policy - and they don't know what the actual rules of the game are half the time (don't even get me started on the vagueness of the rule situation on-site). Clearly, each of these reps is several different people (perhaps a revolving door of poor, exhausted employees) but the company won't acknowledge it, making their replies look more and more inane. I'm fed up with this shit! I've given Neopets some of my IRL money; they should be bowing and scraping to give me even the smallest crumb of a positive experience. I'd love to say "I can't believe they've gotten away with it this long" but obviously no one was going to hold them accountable, so there's no point. All I can hope for (and not believe in the slightest that we'll ever get) is a massive support overhaul with this new transition, to hopefully beat Neopets' customer support service into something even remotely resembling a traditional setup.
...anyway, uh, tl;dr support can kiss my ass