Microsoft Store - Precautionary Tale

MJ202

(XBOX)

My daughter's birthday is coming up and she has had her eye on one of the houses available in the Crown Store. I decided to get it for her as a birthday gift but needed to purchase some Crowns to do so. I logged in and went to the Crown Store and selected Purchase Crowns, which took me to the Microsoft Store. I selected the option which would give me enough Crowns for the house. When completing the purchase I received a pop-up message saying:

Oops, something happened. Please try again later.

I use a pre-paid credit card for my on-line purchases, so thinking maybe there wasn't enough funds to cover the cost, I logged into my bank account to check. There was enough funds, so thinking it might just be a glitch, I tried to make the purchase again. Once again I received the same pop-up message. At this point I decided the problem was with Microsoft systems and would give them time to correct it and try again the next day.

As I went back into ESO to log out, I noticed my balance of Crowns and in fact increased. Both purchases had in fact actually gone through. I now had twice the balance of what I needed and intended. So the moral of the story is if you get the "Oops, something happened. Please try again later", double check to see if the purchase actually occurred before trying a second time.

pdblake

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Hotdog_23

Good advice, now your Daughter gets two homes or one for her and one for you

AJones43865

I've noticed issues when making online purchases while using a browser that is not an MS browser. I'm not sure how it works, but it's as if some IT pro's set up webpages to only work fully and properly while using the MS browser.

To clarify, most of the time my preferred browser, Firefox, works much better in every way, but occasionally I do have to open the MS browser to complete an online transaction. I'd like a better explanation if someone knows what's happening here.

zaria

This is not very uncommon, the transaction works but the callback to user fails.
Microsoft store need to interact with both the credit card backend system and ESO crown store, the crown store has to tell MS store transaction was completed and the MS store then has to show this.

If something fails on the last two steps you get stuff like this.

VaranisArano

pdblake wrote: »

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Be very careful about chargebacks. In the past, ZOS has banned players for this, since they have to pay extra fees and such.

If you need a refund, it's much safer (though slower) to go through the proper channels with Support.

Lucozade85

MJ202 wrote: »

(XBOX)

My daughter's birthday is coming up and she has had her eye on one of the houses available in the Crown Store. I decided to get it for her as a birthday gift but needed to purchase some Crowns to do so. I logged in and went to the Crown Store and selected Purchase Crowns, which took me to the Microsoft Store. I selected the option which would give me enough Crowns for the house. When completing the purchase I received a pop-up message saying:

Oops, something happened. Please try again later.

I use a pre-paid credit card for my on-line purchases, so thinking maybe there wasn't enough funds to cover the cost, I logged into my bank account to check. There was enough funds, so thinking it might just be a glitch, I tried to make the purchase again. Once again I received the same pop-up message. At this point I decided the problem was with Microsoft systems and would give them time to correct it and try again the next day.

As I went back into ESO to log out, I noticed my balance of Crowns and in fact increased. Both purchases had in fact actually gone through. I now had twice the balance of what I needed and intended. So the moral of the story is if you get the "Oops, something happened. Please try again later", double check to see if the purchase actually occurred before trying a second time.

This has also happened to someone in one of my prog teams, except it happened 4 times to him. Fortunately I don't get involved with microtransactions but there should be more protection in place for people.

Danikat

VaranisArano wrote: »

pdblake wrote: »

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Be very careful about chargebacks. In the past, ZOS has banned players for this, since they have to pay extra fees and such.

If you need a refund, it's much safer (though slower) to go through the proper channels with Support.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

Incidentally that goes for any company you want to keep doing business with, not just ZOS. It's always best to ask them to sort it out first and only ask the bank for a charge back if you get no where.

(I've only had to resort to a charge back once, and that was for concert tickets. I'm still not sure if the company was a scam all along or just utterly incompetent but I got an email on the day the tickets were due to arrive saying they were "out of stock" and I wouldn't be getting them, then they stopped responding to all emails and phone calls. I had no intention of using that website ever again so I didn't mind if they blacklisted me when the bank refunded the money.)

pdblake

VaranisArano wrote: »

pdblake wrote: »

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Be very careful about chargebacks. In the past, ZOS has banned players for this, since they have to pay extra fees and such.

If you need a refund, it's much safer (though slower) to go through the proper channels with Support.

Sorry, I assumed since the OP is posting about it here that had already been tried. There's assumptions for you .

MJ202

Overall I'm not worried about a refund, as the amount of real cash wasn't that much. As for the extra Crowns, well the next time I decide to buy something from the Crown Store, I'll already have some crowns.

Minyassa

Oh, ouch! I'm sorry that happened to you, I hope it doesn't make things too difficult. Thanks for the warning!

ShawnLaRock

Although I am an eternal sceptic - I had great experiences with the Microsoft Store (purchases and refunds) when I was exclusively on XBOX - and even received refunds for ESO Plus Subscriptions on two separate occasions. GL!

S.

Elsonso

Sigh. Store websites should never display a message to a customer that says "Oops, something happened. Please try again later." This goes double for cases where they should not, in fact, try again later.

etchedpixels

pdblake wrote: »

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Open a ticket with Zenimax first and work through that - as a guildmate discovered if you report the double transaction to the bank Zenimax then ban you from the game and it takes a bit of sorting out.

Paulytnz

etchedpixels wrote: »

pdblake wrote: »

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Open a ticket with Zenimax first and work through that - as a guildmate discovered if you report the double transaction to the bank Zenimax then ban you from the game and it takes a bit of sorting out.

Jeez that seems a bit harsh. It's also silly if you think about it - if you don't bother trying to get the ban removed that's potential dollars they are losing from you in the future. Especially if you are an ESO+ member or buy crowns often enough.

Elsonso

Paulytnz wrote: »

etchedpixels wrote: »

pdblake wrote: »

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Open a ticket with Zenimax first and work through that - as a guildmate discovered if you report the double transaction to the bank Zenimax then ban you from the game and it takes a bit of sorting out.

Jeez that seems a bit harsh. It's also silly if you think about it - if you don't bother trying to get the ban removed that's potential dollars they are losing from you in the future. Especially if you are an ESO+ member or buy crowns often enough.

Think of it like this... The charge back escalates the transaction to the level of fraud and the merchant gets a charge back fee. At this level, either the credit card was misused (aka stolen) or the merchant failed to deliver on their part of the transaction and is refusing to refund. This is the "when all else fails, nuke it" response to getting a refund.

In this case, the merchant did deliver, but simply delivered twice. It is a mistake. When the charge back comes, out of nowhere, on a seemingly legitimate transaction, the best course of action for ZOS is to treat the transaction as fraudulent (aka stolen credit card) and lock the account. This prevents future fraud using a different stolen credit card on that account. If the account holder is just a **** that used a charge back instead of asking for a refund, as they work through the customer service process, this will eventually get resolved and the account can be unlocked. This may require the player to reimburse ZOS for the charge back fee.

Bottom line is that if you work with ZOS for the refund, it will take time to get the refund, but you get to play the game while this happens. If you work with the bank, instead of ZOS, you do not get to play while it is being resolved, and you may be required to pay more money to get the account unlocked.

Danikat

Elsonso wrote: »

Paulytnz wrote: »

etchedpixels wrote: »

pdblake wrote: »

You could probably get your bank to sort that out for you.

Open a ticket with Zenimax first and work through that - as a guildmate discovered if you report the double transaction to the bank Zenimax then ban you from the game and it takes a bit of sorting out.

Jeez that seems a bit harsh. It's also silly if you think about it - if you don't bother trying to get the ban removed that's potential dollars they are losing from you in the future. Especially if you are an ESO+ member or buy crowns often enough.

Think of it like this... The charge back escalates the transaction to the level of fraud and the merchant gets a charge back fee. At this level, either the credit card was misused (aka stolen) or the merchant failed to deliver on their part of the transaction and is refusing to refund. This is the "when all else fails, nuke it" response to getting a refund.

In this case, the merchant did deliver, but simply delivered twice. It is a mistake. When the charge back comes, out of nowhere, on a seemingly legitimate transaction, the best course of action for ZOS is to treat the transaction as fraudulent (aka stolen credit card) and lock the account. This prevents future fraud using a different stolen credit card on that account. If the account holder is just a **** that used a charge back instead of asking for a refund, as they work through the customer service process, this will eventually get resolved and the account can be unlocked. This may require the player to reimburse ZOS for the charge back fee.

Bottom line is that if you work with ZOS for the refund, it will take time to get the refund, but you get to play the game while this happens. If you work with the bank, instead of ZOS, you do not get to play while it is being resolved, and you may be required to pay more money to get the account unlocked.

Yeah a chargeback is supposed to be a last resort: something you do either because your card details have been stolen or because attempts to get the merchant to solve the problem have failed and you need the bank to step in and get the money back on your behalf.

As a result it's treated seriously and as well as the refund and a fee for the process a company that has too many chargebacks against them can have further consequences, including the bank or even the card provider (Visa, Mastercard etc.) refusing to do business with them in future. One way to protect themselves against that is to stop doing business with customers who use chargebacks without a good reason, and it's something most companies (definitely ZOS) are well within their rights to do. (I assume most people who request chargebacks with good reason never notice this however, because you're not going to keep buying from a company who has scammed you in the past.)

Jayne_Doe

Thanks, OP, that is good to know! While I've never had any issues when purchasing Crowns on XB, either going to the store from within the game or navigating directly to the store from the dashboard, I'll keep this in mind if I ever do encounter this error message.

Blinx

there is an option to request a refund from the MS store, log onto your MS account, select purchases, select the duplicate purchase, and request to be refunded

MEBengalsFan2001

AJones43865 wrote: »

I've noticed issues when making online purchases while using a browser that is not an MS browser. I'm not sure how it works, but it's as if some IT pro's set up webpages to only work fully and properly while using the MS browser.

To clarify, most of the time my preferred browser, Firefox, works much better in every way, but occasionally I do have to open the MS browser to complete an online transaction. I'd like a better explanation if someone knows what's happening here.

I find Chrome and MS Edge to work similar. Other browsers tend to have issues.