Bethesda does not want my money - Do I laugh or cry?

patrick_smyth

On 15 April I decided to buy some crowns so that I could get the Black Lion Mount. I tried both my cards - ESO store said they were both declined. The customer service reps for both cards denied it. I tried doing troubleshooting as I thought there might be a problem between my browser (Chrome but I also tried Edge) and the ESO website. Eventually I gave up.

On 28th April (Today) I received an email saying that the renewal of my ESO Plus membership had failed. This is strange because I used the same card to set everything up 6 months ago. The card has not expired or anything. Card customer service denies any attempt was made to bill the card and everything is fine at their end. It is not an internet transaction so I am completely mystified. I tried to renew ESO Plus interactively but with the same result as above. I used the card on a different website a few days ago with no problems.

Did I offend someone at Bethesda/ZOS? Is it their way of saying that I am no longer welcome?

In my first 6 months I have done almost all the quests (Tamriel Hero, Cadwell Gold etc. etc.), the Mages Guild questline and the Fighters Guild questline. I have explored almost everywhere I can solo (Tamriel Master Explorer). I did all of the "Thieves Guild" and "Dark Brotherhood" quests (except Heists and Sacraments). My character is at CP400+ and I have more skill points than I can use. I bought a small house to use as a workshop and I have just finished installing all the crafting stations.

Not much left to do except becoming a nine-trait crafter (7+ now), adding to my recipe/motif collection and fishing.

Maybe I would get around to all those PvP and Group PVE things I have been so desperately putting off :-P However, my PC is obsolescent, my internet connection is not the best and my mind/fingers are too slow and clumsy for a lot of team things.

I have been working on a patch for a mod as well as a new mod to replace an outdated one. The patch is almost ready for beta. Not sure what to do about this.

As I am an active crafter and an inveterate hoarder I think inventory management would be too difficult without ESO Plus.

I did find both the lion and the renewal difficult to justify financially. This certainly saves me money - and money is rather scarce for me. Maybe they have my best interests at heart after all.

I have enjoyed my first six months but maybe this is the end. Should I be happy or sad? - Not sure

SydneyGrey

Call the number on your card to see if there's a hold on the account for some stupid reason. The reason I say this is because one time my credit card company decided to suddenly block my credit card, and it was because I drove across a state line to another state, in a drive that was less than 3 hours long. Anyway, they sometimes block for weird reasons that have nothing to do with your credit or balance.

patrick_smyth wrote: »

The customer service reps for both cards denied it.

Oh, whoops. I missed seeing this in your post. Apparently you've already called them. Argh. Sorry, dude.

vMaick

Bethesda? Haven't heard that name in a while

DMBCML

I had a similar issue with my card at Amazon. The bank denied having declined the card. After four calls to the bank, they finally said there was a daily spending limit. They only gave me that information after I got the transaction numbers from Amazon and called the bank for the fourth time. I was pretty pissed since it is debit and not a credit card. Who are they to tell me how much money I can spend from my checking account?? They assured me that all banks do it and the spending limit is arbitrary based on your average daily balance.

TheCoolcg10

So idk what current card you are using( prepaid or otherwise), but I recommend making a ticket with ZOS. They should know what is wrong or if not they need to know something is wrong with their system.

patrick_smyth

After some email back-and-forth "blame anyone but us" type interactions I was finally able to renew my ESO Plus.

How was this problem fixed? Must be magic. I don't think we players have access to that skill line though.... :-|

Euant

I do feel your original post is dramatic and unnecessarily negative. I re-read it a few times and saw no mention of you attempting to contact ZOS/ESO customer service (prior to the last post you made above) because it seems like the issue clearly rests with their systems. Also, I'm not sure what your in-game achievements have to do with a billing system error. Lastly, if you truly thought it was an error you should have posted in the Bug/Glitches forum instead of here.

If you have a problem with the game/the company or just wanted to get people to support your decision to leave (or stay, which your second post implies), that's fine. Just say those things. Implying a malicious intent is behind a system billing error you experienced though is, in my opinion, misleading and unhelpful for anyone.

patrick_smyth

Euant - I do not want to discuss openly what has transpired between myself and customer services. The original post was at a very low point in my relationship with the ESO team. It looked, at that time, like it would be my final post.

I wanted to stress that I had put a great deal of effort over many hours into ESO and I was going to end up being dumped out of it for no valid reason.

In the end I persevered just long enough that someone took me seriously and investigated. I wonder how many other people have not persevered or not been able to put forward a good enough argument to persuade the Elder Scrolls Team to investigate real problems.

chaos1970

I contacted the "support team" and exchanged emails with them for several days and NEVER received a satisfactory resolution.I called every card commonly that I tried to use and none of them had declined any charge's (four different card companies). The work around was that I had to create a PAYPAL account. Looking at all the times this issue is listed when are you going to admit YOU as a company have an issue and fix it???

DarkIntention

all transactions are automated. there rarely any longer is a real human involved until Customer support is needed. if there is a problem with authenticating your transaction it just wont go through.

Zos CS may not even have a code to go by to see an error and are being honest when they say they havent done anything because nothing is showing up on their end to say anything went wrong. . you'll have to chase it down with your banks or card holder.

set up a paypal account with your credit card and that will help immensely. Paypal validates your card and acts like the middle man with your bank or cardholder and your payments go through with little to no problems or delays. Using your credit card directly could cause authentication issues for automatic payments..especially international ones ..problem which may not be anything ZOS can do to take care of.

Silver_Strider

You would think this would be an important thing for ZOS to keep a track of.