Bank Account Being Charged?

jaschacasadiob16_ESO

Dexlord wrote: »

The question is - why I see only 24 remaining days when I'm supposed to have 54 days if I follow the logic?

You don't. What you see there are the paid days. So we all had 30. The counter will increase once you pay. Now the trick is that they check if you have the money (they call it authorization) for the next month(s), since at the end of those 30 days they will charge you even if you plan to quit playing (by agree the ToS you allowed them to do this legitimately).

So, you formally have and paid only the first 30 days at the moment. But you will buy then next 30-180, even if you wanna quit the game.

The very shady thing is that the only way to quit playing without being charged for an extra month is actually to subscribe for more than a month, else, each time a new paid month starts, you will have 29 days 59 mins and 59 secs.

Stonie

My money is still on hold and its been 7 days.
Subbed for the 180 days plan cause I really like this game but issues like these makes me regret that.
Filed a complaint but have not recieved any anwser as of yet.
This is not ok.

dragoaskani

Valwardon wrote: »

Daviiid_ESO wrote: »

Valwardon wrote: »

Daviiid_ESO wrote: »

Calistrasza wrote: »

Daviiid_ESO wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

cazlonb16_ESO wrote: »

Rhoric wrote: »

All sub based games require you to enter a subscription plan prior to receiving your free 30 days.

No, most MMOs do not actually, or did not when they still were subscription based games anyway.

This.

I would also like to add NO MMO has EVER been this broken at release. ever.

People are losing items and cannot get them back. ever.

People are being perma banned for thing they didn't do.

Everyone this happens too just please unsub, ask for a refund, and play a real MMO.

Good release compared to others imo. The game has been running smoothly (except a crash every now and then. but that's not the whole world.) You don't have to blow things out of proportion.

Actually a lot of mmo's (wow, swtor, aion included) required you to fill out your cc info before getting access to your included 30 days. Even though they didn't hold any amount as authorization, you had to fill out valid CC details or buy a gamecard.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's entirely untrue. I never had to fill out credit card info to play WoW or SWTOR. I played WoW for 2 years without entering a single credit card digit. I never even clicked on the link that would take me to that section. I played my 30 days, then bought pre-paid game cards. [Please note the order there. That is very important: I first played out my 30 days that came with the purchase of the game, then I went to a store and purchased a pre-paid game card so I could keep playing. I did not have to buy a game card first.] SWTOR I played until my free time was up, then decided I didn't like the game and uninstalled it. Not once did I have to fill out credit card information to play that game. This was long before both of those games were F2P.

Please stop spreading mis-information. If you've managed to get into ESO and play the game without issues or interruptions, fantastic. But please stop making excuses for the way this issue is being handled. Zenimax doesn't need you to be their hero. And please be respectful and understanding of the people who are still struggling with these issues, regardless of the reasons. I said this earlier and I shall repeat it now: Your good fortune does not negate someone else's bad fortune.

But it's pretty obvious that you don't know what you're talking about since you think WoW is f2p.

I think you are spreading misinformation. WoW is Free to play. You can play to a max level of 20 for free. You can do anything you want after you hit 20. Heck some even use there "free" account to Twink in level 20 bracket. Not a trial but FREE without entering ANY details. Credit Card or other wise.

So no sparky no need to "think" wow is free to play because it is.

They still use a subscription model, even though the trial is free. And my point was that they also used pre-auth at one point, before the changes in the last couple of years.

EDIT: no need to spin further on whether WoW is F2P or not, since it's off topic and not relevant to the discussion at hand.

Most F2P MMO's have subscription models. Also it is not a trial it is as long as you want to play at level 20. LOTR DnD online they all have sub models. Does that make them any less F2P? Does not change the fact you are spreading misinformation. Learn what the word trial is. A trial is when you TRY something. Wow Starter is not a trial as you can play it for however long you would like.

No matter how you chalk it up you where using disinformation to spread your propaganda like most media outlets we have today. If you are gonna argue something be sure to get your facts straight or say that you BELIEVE something is a certain way. When you go claiming something as a fact and it is very well proven your fact is wrong this now makes your whole argument less credible. So now no one is gonna listen to anything you have to say because you are spreading lies as facts.

The game didnt work this way for the first 7 years of its life though. Great that they changed it for people, but for the majority of its life wow required a credit card to get at your free 30 days.

Sarahyuki

So after 7 days of no answer to this at all i decided to cancel my subscription maybe i can get those "on hold" money back. but im pritty sure they are gona keep them and take them on may the 6th.... i have totaly given up on this after being stuck / blocked from progression and then they taking money they dont have right to im just done with ZoS crapy system... and useless support its been the worst experiance of support i have ever had even ea is better and they dont give two sh-ts about the customers.
At im billed for a game where my main character cant progress and they wont give back the money that they pritty much stole from us.

iroc57b14_ESO

I agree with MOST posts in this thread. This is obviously an oversight and instead of taking full responsibility and apologizing it seems as though they're hoping it will just go away. I'm not mad about the charge (as it will surely be reversed in time), what I'm mad about is that stuff like this is going to dissuade people from subbing, subtracting from the total population, and negatively affecting everyone that will continue playing.

What I do not agree with, are all of the whiners talking about wasting hundreds of dollar on the game.. There is an extra month sub on your card right now, that is the ONLY thing you should be talking about. It has nothing to do with the total that you actually chose to spend on the game. Any collectibles you bought (if you're that type) are still just as good as they were a week ago.

And I saw one post about spending $200 but now not being able to play because you didn't budget enough for the $15 charge, come on really? If you are spending $200 on a video game and leaving your account EMPTY, you need to rethink your priorities. This is not defending Zenimax, this is scolding you for being bad with your money. Please stick to complaining about the actual issues here.

cheeser123

iroc57b14_ESO wrote: »

And I saw one post about spending $200 but now not being able to play because you didn't budget enough for the $15 charge, come on really? If you are spending $200 on a video game and leaving your account EMPTY, you need to rethink your priorities. This is not defending Zenimax, this is scolding you for being bad with your money. Please stick to complaining about the actual issues here.

Thanks Rev. Lovejoy. Tell everybody how their life works according to your presumptions. Some people use prepaid cards -- meaning they budget for gaming, put that money on the card, then spend it. Some people don't have alot of discretionary income and do have to save up for the game. The extra hit will hurt them this month, even if it eventually pays for future months of gameplay.

Please, this is the customer support forum. If you are too narrow-minded or self-righteous to allow other people to raise their customer-support concerns without flying off the handle and writing some diatribe about how your assumptions about their life make their post sound like they are someone you would judge to be bad, then you should stay off the customer support forum. Period.

Teriosc

my so-called "non-charged preautorization' still somewhere walking and dont back to CC, i cancell sub.

OOD_Havi

I am very frustrated that this payment has still not fallen off of my account. I don't mind attaching my account to a sub. I do it with WoW, I am used to it. I am, however, very frustrated at having to monitor my spending because this charge is still on my account. Any ETA on the release of these funds? Normally, when this charge is put onto my account (for .01 or 1.00), it is released within 72 hours. Almost 7 days later, and I am still not seeing these funds released.

enubis99

Oh my touchy subject.

Seems like they are trying to secure funds, something to show the investors so to speak. Sure, this isn't exactly ethical, nor is it an act I condone. The disappointment is a lack of response to this ever growing thread that worries me more. Are they just going to ignore us and hope this uproar dies down a month from now? Cause really that'd suck hard.

Tweek

DBHAShadow wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

This.

I would also like to add NO MMO has EVER been this broken at release. ever.

People are losing items and cannot get them back. ever.

People are being perma banned for thing they didn't do.

Everyone this happens too just please unsub, ask for a refund, and play a real MMO.

That's a pretty negative way to state things, if people like you were listened to when WoW was released it wouldn't have been what it is. I seem to recall WoW being fairly buggy, and having a fair number of emergency maintenance shutdowns.

I was buggy but nothing like this and the issue were resolved quickly. WoW would not allow a bank/inventory bug that wipes your items out in the game.

Then to top it off blizzard(WoW) wouldn't tell the customers it's fixed after they give you a vanity pet...even though you just lost everything you earned in the last two weeks(which you will never get back btw).....this game is setting it's sail's for epic fail.

My friends lost over 50K gold and a bunch of mats for crafting...plus a whole bunch of their equips due to some weird bug, and after the fact it took them three days to get an "escalated" response from the customer support team after which the support team gave them a pet and said to continue playing.....they never got their stuff back so they just quit yesterday morning. We all play MMOs and they said this was one of the worst launches yet.

I also played WoW early on and I was pretty vocal about issues I observed, although there was not as many. Fanboys here would tell you otherwise though.

"It seems Thieves Guild is in the game after all, it's called Zenimax." - Could not have said it better myself.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO

enubis99 wrote: »

Are they just going to ignore us and hope this uproar dies down a month from now? Cause really that'd suck hard.

Guess you've got a point there
Somehow, I guess they have built systems that economically rely on this shady marketing strategy and they simply can't change it.

Valwardon

Tweek wrote: »

DBHAShadow wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

This.

I would also like to add NO MMO has EVER been this broken at release. ever.

People are losing items and cannot get them back. ever.

People are being perma banned for thing they didn't do.

Everyone this happens too just please unsub, ask for a refund, and play a real MMO.

That's a pretty negative way to state things, if people like you were listened to when WoW was released it wouldn't have been what it is. I seem to recall WoW being fairly buggy, and having a fair number of emergency maintenance shutdowns.

Then to top it off blizzard(WoW) wouldn't tell the customers it's fixed after they give you a vanity pet...even though you just lost everything you earned in the last two weeks(which you will never get back btw).....this game is setting it's sail's for epic fail.

My friends lost over 50K gold and a bunch of mats for crafting...plus a whole bunch of their equips due to some weird bug, and after the fact it took them three days to get an "escalated" response from the customer support team after which the support team gave them a pet and said to continue playing.....they never got their stuff back so they just quit yesterday morning. We all play MMOs and they said this was one of the worst launches yet.

I have been straight up Robbed twice since I been with WoW since the beginning. It was always fixed in a couple days a GM would mail everything back to me and I would even get "extras". First time I got an item that was not even on the drop table. Another time I got a free vanity pet. WoW was always nice about recovering lost or stolen items.

Khazaad

Calistrasza wrote: »

Daviiid_ESO wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

cazlonb16_ESO wrote: »

Rhoric wrote: »

All sub based games require you to enter a subscription plan prior to receiving your free 30 days.

No, most MMOs do not actually, or did not when they still were subscription based games anyway.

This.

I would also like to add NO MMO has EVER been this broken at release. ever.

People are losing items and cannot get them back. ever.

People are being perma banned for thing they didn't do.

Everyone this happens too just please unsub, ask for a refund, and play a real MMO.

Good release compared to others imo. The game has been running smoothly (except a crash every now and then. but that's not the whole world.) You don't have to blow things out of proportion.

Actually a lot of mmo's (wow, swtor, aion included) required you to fill out your cc info before getting access to your included 30 days. Even though they didn't hold any amount as authorization, you had to fill out valid CC details or buy a gamecard.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's entirely untrue. I never had to fill out credit card info to play WoW or SWTOR. I played WoW for 2 years without entering a single credit card digit. I never even clicked on the link that would take me to that section. I played my 30 days, then bought pre-paid game cards. [Please note the order there. That is very important: I first played out my 30 days that came with the purchase of the game, then I went to a store and purchased a pre-paid game card so I could keep playing. I did not have to buy a game card first.] SWTOR I played until my free time was up, then decided I didn't like the game and uninstalled it. Not once did I have to fill out credit card information to play that game. This was long before both of those games were F2P.

Please stop spreading mis-information. If you've managed to get into ESO and play the game without issues or interruptions, fantastic. But please stop making excuses for the way this issue is being handled. Zenimax doesn't need you to be their hero. And please be respectful and understanding of the people who are still struggling with these issues, regardless of the reasons. I said this earlier and I shall repeat it now: Your good fortune does not negate someone else's bad fortune.

I agree. If people are going to enjoy themselves they should do it quietly. it's inconsiderate. if you must say something, jump on a complaint bandwagon and support it. Better yet, you should break your comp in protest. just stop being selfish.

Leeta

Sarahyuki wrote: »

So after 7 days of no answer to this at all i decided to cancel my subscription maybe i can get those "on hold" money back. but im pritty sure they are gona keep them and take them on may the 6th.... i have totaly given up on this after being stuck / blocked from progression and then they taking money they dont have right to im just done with ZoS crapy system... and useless support its been the worst experiance of support i have ever had even ea is better and they dont give two sh-ts about the customers.
At im billed for a game where my main character cant progress and they wont give back the money that they pritty much stole from us.

I got them back after 7 days so you will probably have them back by monday. They will get you the money back so cancelling was not needed.

mechsoldiersalvatorenub18_ESO

After a week of going back and forth with customer support, Richard of the Support team provided me with an entertaining response and a 1-day code to activate my free 30 days. Below is a bit of information to the situation and I hope you guys get your's resolved soon, too.

Hello Christian,

This is Richard from the Elder Scrolls Online Support team. I completely understand your frustration with the pre-authorization holds. We aren't charging or pre-billing for the subscriptions, but the subscription service contacts the payment service to verify that the billing information is correct and that no fraud is taking place. This causes a hold because the banks and credit companies think we are requesting a payment at that time. Our billing and technology departments are working with payment vendors to try to make that process more congenial and less painful to our customers. It's not necessarily our fault that holds are being applied as it has to do with financial companies protecting themselves from the Thieves' Guild and the Dark Brotherhood, but we are accepting some of the responsibility and have some powerful mages working on wards to clean up this process.

With that being said I do have a one-day subscription code for you that you can apply to your account after you apply your game registration code. Applying this will then start your 30-day free subscription.

(deleted this line for obvious reasons)

Again, I do understand and I apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused you.


Thank you for your support of our game. I really hope that this billing issue doesn't detract from your enjoyment.

May all your hits be Critical,

Richard--*Critical Flail*--


This was my message before that:

To whom this may concern,

As it stands, there are over 2,200 posts in your forums by users who have experienced issues with their accounts having withheld money, or in some cases having their money withdrawn. This entire situation has stemmed directly from this "preauthorization check". However, there are two major flaws to this system.

These being what payment method customers are aiming for. A considerable portion of the customer base falls into a category that simply cannot set up an electronic transaction to "verify" their payment method. This can stem from multiple reasons itself which are all completely reasonable. This can range from a customer not being old enough to obtain a credit card, debit card, or a e-payment method (such as paypal) to those with banks that have either extended holds on their money or the money has been actually charged to their accounts. Even in the case in which they are able to obtain these a large portion of these customers cannot afford to have an entity pre-charge for something as customers tend to plan around their paycheck. A good number of these customers would then be relying on prepaid cards. That leads on to the next problem. Retailers have yet to even adopt the wholesale purchase of these prepaid cards yet, which has put people such as myself between a rock and a hard place.

The practice of preauthorization on a payment method is archaic at best and is the cause of the problem itself and some action should be taken to change said system. What customers simply want, and I highly doubt they are being unreasonable, is access to the free 30 days that were marketed with the purchase of the full game without this roadblock. It simply isn't needed. The NORMAL business practice would be to attempt to charge at the end of the free 30 days they were promised on purchase. In the event that a payment method is invalid then game time would simply be denied to them. I hope this has been taken into consideration. That said, ESO is a fantastic game, and I hope these issues get resolved soon so that users, like myself, can go back to exploring Tamriel.

Vladish

It amuses me when newbies make comments about a game that has been in service for ten years (Wow), and comments about it's last two years or so... How about focusing on it's first two years instead? It was COMPLETELY different game back then (actually fun), and it was way bugged as hell. Over years they dumb it down and fixed most of the the major bugs. Blizzard had many years to polish that game. Yes, Zenimax should have taken a closer look at other mmos and then they could have avoided some of the basic mistakes they made, but still, comparing any game to a ten-year old giant is ridiculous. They one thing they should have learn from Blizzard though, if anything, is the company's integration with the community. Mods are very active for a game of this size, and company itself keeps updating people on regular basis. Communication is the key.

If you're gonna compare it to something, compare it to some other, newer games instead... unless your extent of mmo knowledge revolves around that one game and only it's last few years, then that's no knowledge at all. So sick and tired of hearing of wow this, wow that... not everything has to be a wow clone to be good.

Vladish

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

enubis99 wrote: »

Are they just going to ignore us and hope this uproar dies down a month from now? Cause really that'd suck hard.

Guess you've got a point there
Somehow, I guess they have built systems that economically rely on this shady marketing strategy and they simply can't change it.

That is the biggest problem. It would have been a lot easier to be understanding and patient with them if they owned up to their mistakes and apologized, as well kept us posted on what they are doing, what they are working on and what sort of solutions they are thinking on.

Vladish

Valwardon wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

DBHAShadow wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

This.

I would also like to add NO MMO has EVER been this broken at release. ever.

People are losing items and cannot get them back. ever.

People are being perma banned for thing they didn't do.

Everyone this happens too just please unsub, ask for a refund, and play a real MMO.

That's a pretty negative way to state things, if people like you were listened to when WoW was released it wouldn't have been what it is. I seem to recall WoW being fairly buggy, and having a fair number of emergency maintenance shutdowns.

Then to top it off blizzard(WoW) wouldn't tell the customers it's fixed after they give you a vanity pet...even though you just lost everything you earned in the last two weeks(which you will never get back btw).....this game is setting it's sail's for epic fail.

My friends lost over 50K gold and a bunch of mats for crafting...plus a whole bunch of their equips due to some weird bug, and after the fact it took them three days to get an "escalated" response from the customer support team after which the support team gave them a pet and said to continue playing.....they never got their stuff back so they just quit yesterday morning. We all play MMOs and they said this was one of the worst launches yet.

I have been straight up Robbed twice since I been with WoW since the beginning. It was always fixed in a couple days a GM would mail everything back to me and I would even get "extras". First time I got an item that was not even on the drop table. Another time I got a free vanity pet. WoW was always nice about recovering lost or stolen items.

Yes, if there is one thing every company should learn from Wow, it is their customer service/costumer interaction, and the fact they treat their fans with respect. Or so at least it felt like to me.

killedbyping

Same problem here. My money still on hold. wtf ? FAQs says authorization suppose to be INSTANT !

zshadez_ESO

killedbyping wrote: »

Same problem here. My money still on hold. wtf ? FAQs says authorization suppose to be INSTANT !

It was instantly authorized, the funds weren't instantly freed up by your bank afterwords.

killedbyping

zshadez_ESO wrote: »

killedbyping wrote: »

Same problem here. My money still on hold. wtf ? FAQs says authorization suppose to be INSTANT !

It was instantly authorized, the funds weren't instantly freed up by your bank afterwords.

Sry, but i dont understand the meaning of this.
Arent instant authorization suppose to mean that my money should come BACK ?

damien.vandermeulenrwb17_ESO

Just to help some people simmer down. The authorisation for my subscription has come through and the funds have been released in my account. So Zenimax did not "steal" from me (or any other person whose funds were placed in authorisation).

I still shake my head at some people in this thread and want to beat my head against the desk repeatedly. Every... single... person... who has claimed that Blizzard, SOE, NCSoft or pretty much every other company that has released MMO's has not done authorisation checks on credit cards simply did not play the games before they were either f2p or had trial accounts. Fullstop. I played WoW on release, Everquest 2 on release, Aion on release, SWTOR on release (and other games I really cbf mentioning), and EVERY SINGLE ONE of those games required me to enter in credit card details and authorisation of said credit card prior to claiming free time included with the game (or a game card). EVERY SINGLE ONE.

I will, however, agree with those that say having the full subscription (in my case 180 days) held as authorisation is over the top. I don't disagree at all on that point (and for those that are saying they have been charged that amount and arguing with the fact that ZOS said they would not charge anyone until after the 30 days is up... take a look at your account after the authorisation funds are released and see if you can find a charge from Zenimax on your statement... hint: there isn't one, because there is no charge :P).

All in all, aside from the silliness of charging the full subscription fee as an authorisation charge, the game's launch has been pretty smooth. I haven't experienced any memory leaks like some are claiming, had an occasional desync from server and fallen through the world twice, but compared to most other MMO launches, this has been pretty well done. I hope those of you still having issues are able to get them sorted soon and into the game to have some fun.

mechsoldiersalvatorenub18_ESO

The issue entirely isn't Zenimax's to blame. The reason accounts are having withheld and withdrawn money is because the financial businesses believe they're trying to charge them. That being said, they ARE trying to get the issues resolved.

Tawara

I played WoW on release, Everquest 2 on release, Aion on release, SWTOR on release (and other games I really cbf mentioning), and EVERY SINGLE ONE of those games required me to enter in credit card details and authorisation of said credit card prior to claiming free time included with the game (or a game card). EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Why cant you just stop spreading this wrong information. Only because you did not verify what actually happened all this years back, that doesnt mean, that your memory is the truth.

You could always and still can, start setting up a subscription in WoW and before finalizing it (doing the authorization), cancel the Set Up and start playing without having a credit card attached to the account. And if you set up the Sub fully, it is attached to the account but not charged, not even one cent before the end of the free time.

Same for SWToR, Rift and Tera, none of them charged/got hold of my bank account for the full amount before the 30 days went off.

Setting up the sub is okay and a valid method, charging/holding the full amount directly is not.

xondk

well...
its monday, and the money are still reserved, just....sad.

Sarahyuki

Only me who have the feeling they dont care about anything anymore except getting craglorn out.
Thousends of people cant progress been like that for 2 weeks now due to "messeges across tamriel" and real money are getting "Reserved" and ZoS Support just dont answer tickets anymore...

How about they fix the issues they have already before throwing out new ***... even after canceling the sub the money dont return.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO

Sarahyuki wrote: »

Only me who have the feeling they dont care about anything anymore except getting craglorn out.
Thousends of people cant progress been like that for 2 weeks now due to "messeges across tamriel" and real money are getting "Reserved" and ZoS Support just dont answer tickets anymore...
How about they fix the issues they have already before throwing out new ***... even after canceling the sub the money dont return.

They probably can't fix THIS problem because they probably cant change their marketing strategy. And if this is the case, they certainly cant come here and tell you this. But they are not making any resistance to whoever asked for a total refund. In that sense, costumer care agents are doing their job pretty weel.

ZaegaZ

Bought a Game Time Card so can play atlast

Alphashado

ZaegaZ wrote: »

Bought a Game Time Card so can play atlast

From who? Was the code delivered via email?

Nebthet78

ZaegaZ wrote: »

Bought a Game Time Card so can play atlast

Did you have to put your DOB in in order to redeem the code on it so you could play?