No choice of one time purchase option for ESO+ at all that's not through 3rd party?

Argruna

After the free trial, I decided to give eso+ a try but only for a bit longer. After doing some research, I hit a roadblock and want to know straight up. This is what it says on the buy page.

†All ESO Plus™ memberships are recurring except for purchases using iDeal, WebMoney, PaySafeCard, and Giropay. You may return to "Manage Membership" at any time to change your membership settings

When I check my account settings, my only option is to have a recurring payment done. I have no other option unless I use iDeal, WebMoney, PaySafeCard or that Giropay. I don't want to deal with the hassle of paying for 3 months and then telling it to cancel and hope it cancels. After watching a friend fight with Blizzard and having all the proof they unsubbed (emails stating the canceling was successful) and the company still kept charging them, I'm highly wary of the fact that I have to jump through hoops just to make a one time payment. So

Why is there no option to not have a recurring payment when purchasing straight from the website?
I can make one time purchase of crowns no problem yet don't get an 'opt-in/opt out' option for subbing which would mean I'd have to have my card information on my Eso account.

Why do I need to use a 3rd party company to even get the option of a one-time purchase?
Of those, 2 straight want bank details (Webmoney/Giropay, on top, Giropay is all in German), 1 is hard to find details on (the only thing that popped up for iDeal after searching is about making prepayment for gas, electricity and water) and the last has very few locations available or none at all (PaySafeCard only has one location in my state that sales the cards) to get the option.

Of the 3rd party options listed, why is Gamestop not listed at all as an option to purchase game time if we do not want a recurring payment?
https://www.gamestop.com/pc/game-time-cards/the-elder-scrolls-online-tamriel-unlimited-60-day-subscription/122289?cid=fds_10000777&CAWELAID=120192760000030576&CAGPSPN=pla&CAAGID=31186781042&CATCI=aud-194829429602:pla-294682000766&CATARGETID=120192760000115094&cadevice=c#productDetails

Overall, why must we jump through hoops to be able to do a one-time purchase at all?
This is the most frustrating part off all. Why is this option gated through a 3rd party? Why isn't it part of the main website? I know of the trick of 'oh just buy the time and then click cancel'. Then hope that cancellation goes through and that you saved any emails sent saying that you clicked cancel. This was one reason why I bought time cards for WoW instead of doing a recurring payment plan was watching IRL friends fight games that had this set up, canceled, still got charged and then fight billing to get those charges reversed.

I even looked up to see if there were still time cards as an option and found conflicting information all over about it. They were phased out when One Tamriel was released yet support tells me;
Prepaid ESO Plus time cards are now available. Game time cards that were previously available for PC/Mac subscriptions can be used to redeem ESO Plus membership but ONLY for PC/Mac.
https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/26554/kw/time card

That was updated 04/04/2018 @ 02:57 PM. Soooo where do I find these cards? Have they even been implemented yet? If they have been implemented, who carries them? Because right now, finding out my only option for a one-time buy of eso+ is to go through a 3rd party company and that has made me decide not to purchase eso+. This has probably turned off a few other customers as well who were interested.

Arobain

All you have to do is buy it then make sure you set it to not refresh when the time is up

Syncronaut

Just use paysafe. You dont have to worry abauth canceling sub. I find it weird that your location doesnt have that many araund, but you should find them 100% on any gas station.

As for any other currency that you could use, sadly i dont know any as they dont have anything like playstation store (unless you play Eso on that).

The only thing that exist like this are 3000 crown codes.. but those are usless.

But there is another way. You could get a pre-paid master card with limit, so if the site wanted to get money out of you for a sub, its gona get blocked due to lack of founds. (just be 100% its not a debit version)
For example:
http://www.smartpaycard.net/en/default.wlgt

WembleyOTG

you can purchase the recurring subscription, then cancel it right away.. you keep the remaining days but you will not be billed in 3 months, or 1 month etc..

Just cancel right afterwards. You keep the time

Nestor

Yes, just sign up, pay for the 3 months, then cancel the next day. Your sub will run out after 3 months.

You will get confirmation that the cancel happened in plenty of time to deal with any issues. But I have not see a thread where someone said they could not cancel, so I don't think there is a systemic reason to worry about cancellations.

Danikat

As other people have said you can sign up for a reoccurring subscription and then cancel it before it ends and you will not be charged again. You could cancel it immediately if you wanted to, but I like to subscribe, then log into the game and make sure the sub is active and I've got the crowns, then cancel it.

I've done it 3 times now and never had a problem getting the cancelation to go through and never heard of anyone else having that problem either. It's actually easier to cancel than to set up (mainly because you don't need to put in payment details) and I've never been charged after I cancelled it.

You do have to put your card details in but they're not saved if you cancel the subscription. (I can't remember if there's an option to save it and I just don't use it, or if you have to put them in again for every purchase, but either way it's not saved once the reoccurring payments are cancelled.)

huntgod_ESO

I use the 6 month sub and it does not auto resub, you have to manually do it.

I thought the 3 month worked the same way, guess not.

As many have mentioned you can cancel the sub shortly after purchasing it and it will run through the end of the sub period and not auto renew.

heaven13

I concur with the above posters. I always sub, then cancel (usually same day). I don't know if I'm still going to want to play in 1 month or 3 months and I hate having a sub running if I've got zero interest in playing. I've not had any issues with my sub not actually canceling (have never been charged when I shouldn't have been) and have had no issues trying to resub after a cancellation either.

I use PayPal through the ESO site rather than entering my card information directly, so that's also an option if you want to use it.