Gaming company refuses to disclose total purchases made by a customer

What kind of privacy policy is this?

[Future]

A friend plays some facebook games and purchases some virtual goods from within the game for past few years.

He enquired with the company about the total purchases he had made till day in email and received following reply:
"We are unable to disclose this information due to our Privacy Policy. If you would like more information regarding your purchases, please contact Facebook for further assistance"

Prior to facebook he purchased directly with gaming company, they had gateway setup to charge customers via there direct credit cards/paypal.

For first time I heard an online store refuses to give details about the purchases made by a customer, sounds very fishy,

[brokaddr]

Did he contact them via one of the methods he had previously registered with them (such as an email/phone number)?

If not, the company did the right thing by not disclosing an order history.
Order histories should only be made available to the person who made those orders and can confirm their identity as such.

However, any persons contacting a company via a confirmed/registered method and the company does not disclose, that is very weird. I'd be interested to hear the reason behind their decision.

[lucy24]

Even if he contacted them the wrong way, he should have got an answer telling him the right way to contact them, or how to prove he's the same person. "Our privacy policies prevent us from telling you what we know about you" is creepy.

[edited by: lucy24 at 7:20 pm (utc) on Mar 14, 2012]

[jecasc]

Sounds more like a personal "I am to lazy to do the work I am paid for" policy by an employee.

Or even more probable: The email was answered in an outsourced customer service center and there was neither a fitting text module nor did the person answering the request have the necessary access to the data.

[Future]

Dear All, Thank You for your replies.
Company in question still does not discloses total purcahses made by my pal till day.. but providing just an excuse not accepted by there privacy terms etc. etc.

They encourage to check profile payments on facebook, which does not displays relevant information for past few months or years, but only last 1 month.

This is something weird, is this something fishy !..
I am very very surprised to know that this virtual gaming transactions are worth more then 5000 US$.

[onepointone]

$5000?
I didn't know FB had online poker! :)

[enigma1]

Usually companies may disclose the past order history to their customers as part of a good customer relationship, but they're not obliged to do so. You should keep a record of what you've ordered from the orders emails.

[Future]

sorry for late update, seems like my friend is no more interested but i met today and got to know the game is named **ville on fb.

and the gaming amount is more then 15000 US$

[jecasc]

He spent 15k on Farmville? In some countries he could have bought a farm with that money...