If Your Credit Card Gets Double Charged, Beware the Dangers of Support

jircris11 · January 2020

All the CS hate in this thread, makes me wonder who the hell I talk to when I contact them as my issues have been solved each time with in a timely manner. Secondly the CS agent followed rules, they are not a CR (customer relations) agent, they have a set guideline and op did a charge back thus not ONLY taking back money for services granted to them, but also getting a 2nd fee sent to zos for the charge back. Yes he was double charged, but most cases where it happens to me I get that 2nd charge refunded automatically within a day. Not saying the situation is not crappy, but there us no case here. All you can do is hope Gina can help. In the end NO MATTER how much we pay, per TOS and EULA we don't TECHNICALLY own our accounts. This us from some one who's been here since beta and has spent thousands on this game. I did a charge back on wow and lost my ENTIRE account due to a triple charge for the same expansion. So least you did not suffer that.

dcam86b14_ESO · January 2020

This is the main reason they need schools to teach about credit and online business.

I see no issue other than the OP wanting that chargeback money back, which they will never see unless one of the parties caves or theirs a lawsuit.

As someone who has worked support both credit card and medical this isnt uncommon.

Most of the time the support team is given strict bylaws to follow alongside an even tighter chain of command.
The company usually uses a 3rd party to process those transactions and when the consumer does a chargeback the company takes their money and then the secondary charges the creditor.

Dusk_Coven · January 2020

jircris11 wrote: »

Secondly the CS agent followed rules, they are not a CR (customer relations) agent, they have a set guideline and op did a charge back thus not ONLY taking back money for services granted to them, but also getting a 2nd fee sent to zos for the charge back. Yes he was double charged, but most cases where it happens to me I get that 2nd charge refunded automatically within a day.

The whole point of having a HUMAN in a CS role is to handle cases where automation fails.
At the very least the CS should have acknowledged the situation correctly, explained where the complications happened, and what the best course of action is.
Not just cut and paste something useless. They already have bots to do that when a ticket first enters the system.

deadwinston · January 2020

dcam86b14_ESO wrote: »

This is the main reason they need schools to teach about credit and online business.

I see no issue other than the OP wanting that chargeback money back, which they will never see unless one of the parties caves or theirs a lawsuit.

As someone who has worked support both credit card and medical this isnt uncommon.

Most of the time the support team is given strict bylaws to follow alongside an even tighter chain of command.
The company usually uses a 3rd party to process those transactions and when the consumer does a chargeback the company takes their money and then the secondary charges the creditor.

I guess what I would say here is that if a chargeback is apparently such a big deal in the credit card community, why does my credit card company make it as easy as clicking a button in an email to start a chargeback for a double charge? I'm 35 and this is the first time I've had to deal with the mountain of crap involved in something like this. Also, I've never played an MMO before, so their practices on chargebacks is also something I wasn't aware of. So yes, I started this post to let people know because it's not spelled out anywhere by the credit card company what specifically the process will entail.

I have since learned that it causes an "additional fee" to the merchant, but again, their system did cause the problem and charge me twice, so it is their fault to begin with. At no point did they offer the information of how much that fee was, and I don't believe it was $16. I might be wrong here, but that seems crazy. So if they can show me how much it cost them and it was $16, I guess I'll shut up and go away.

Also, I spent 25 minutes on the phone with my credit card company and spoke with 2 people. At the point where I was told by ESO support that I needed to reverse the chargeback, the credit card company said there was no way to do this unless the merchant followed the dispute procedure to say the charge was valid. I sent that info to ESO support and they did not respond to it at all. They told me to buy crowns instead so they could take them away (after 13 days of silence no less).

Also, I get that support may have strict rules, but do those rules say to ignore a ticket for 7 and 13 days at a time? That is pretty messed up when the account is locked out and I'm trying to politely do what they ask but am getting stonewalled, delayed, etc.

Neoealth · January 2020

If all that is true, which I'm sure it is, then it's clearly terrible behavior from zos support. I think if that had happened to me id have uninstalled the game out of pure defiance. And never give them a penny ever again.

Also it's insane that they threatened to deactivate your account permanently if you failed to pay the ransom! Reading that made my blood boil if I'm honest.

deadwinston · January 2020

I wish I still had the email from my CC company showing the "This is a mistake" button that made it seem like this was the right first step at the time. I can only find the old version of the double charge warning from them in 2017 when I bought two crown packs on sale (that time it was legitimately two charges).

Imagine this, but even easier to click and start the "file a dispute" process.

virtus753 · January 2020

Not all American companies ban for all chargebacks. In fact, most don’t, because they actually care about their customers and future business and therefore take care only to ban for actual fraud. As OP saw, credit card companies are making chargebacks increasingly automated and increasingly the norm - and, as has been said, when it’s the company’s error, they deserve the chargeback for their mistake. Otherwise we’re being asked to lie to the credit card company when they ask if we authorized the charge in the hopes that we can resolve it through the company - and then we face the risk that the credit card company says we authorized it if that doesn’t work out.

Knowing that credit card companies are sending more immediate alerts, often reaching customers before they can think to reach out to the company (especially one with a notoriously long response time) or even before they’re aware there’s an issue, companies with a blind blanket ban policy (emphasis on blind) need to rethink that - treating all chargebacks as fraud invalidates that option as a legitimate recourse and intimidates the customer base into accepting overcharges so as to avoid being banned. That kind of policy is predicated on a careless (if not illegal) disregard for loyal customers on a number of levels. It usually takes several weeks or more for a company to review the situation - provided you go to the trouble to pursue it and that they’re willing to listen to you - when they should have been the ones making sure they weren’t fraudulently charging their customers in the first place. That’s how you throw out the baby with the bath water - by having your system automatically penalize defrauded customers like fraudsters and then making them come to you and jump through all your hoops to get back into your good graces.

Is a blind blanket ban efficient? Of course. It also says you’re perfectly fine with severely punishing honest customers for your own mistakes. That’s why companies who care about their customers (even just for the sake of future business) don’t do it.

In this case that crown-and-pony show from Support is deeply disturbing on another level entirely. Hope the CMs are looking into it. If that’s SOP, that’s appalling.

SanguineMyBrother · January 2020

Wow wow wow. Suspicion and intrigue galore. OP, I hope this gets sorted out sooner rather than later. Yikes

deadwinston · January 2020

Yeah, I can't find any trace of the email digging through my messages, but deleted messages only go back through mid December. I don't think I deleted it though, but I also didn't know I would have to try to prove how easy it was to start the chargeback. Thinking about it more and more, it might have even been an alert from the app vs. an actual email from them. I may have just remembered wrong since they definitely sent email in the past. But if you look at how they worded it in the message from 2017, they made it seem like logging into the account and clicking the "file a dispute" button then was the right way to go. "We'll look into it for you right away."

jircris11 · January 2020

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

jircris11 wrote: »

Secondly the CS agent followed rules, they are not a CR (customer relations) agent, they have a set guideline and op did a charge back thus not ONLY taking back money for services granted to them, but also getting a 2nd fee sent to zos for the charge back. Yes he was double charged, but most cases where it happens to me I get that 2nd charge refunded automatically within a day.

The whole point of having a HUMAN in a CS role is to handle cases where automation fails.
At the very least the CS should have acknowledged the situation correctly, explained where the complications happened, and what the best course of action is.
Not just cut and paste something useless. They already have bots to do that when a ticket first enters the system.

When it comes to zis CS IRS the same as any, sometimes you get that "*** it all" person. Other times you get the one who goes all out, best thing to do if you get a copy paste person us to ask for escalation. The agent you speak with is typically a teir 1 fir stuff like this you NEED and always SHOULD speak with a supervisor.

Unseelie · January 2020

What I am seeing, and where the root of this is seems to be surrounding the crowns.
The part that I am not seeing mentioned here is this...apparently there was an assumption by one party that when you created the account and paid the 13.98 that you also received an amount of crowns. Now just to verify when you bought the game, did you also pay for a month of game time? Or did the original purchase come with an amount of crowns.
Every mmo out there right now (at least the big ones..WoW, FFXIV, LotRO, SWTRO) all will ban the moment that there is any chargeback. That is not anything new or surprising.

If there was an allotment of crowns at the beginning was it 1500 or did you receive 3000 or 0.
If you did receive crowns did you spend them? I believe that is the impression given, that you had spent crowns that you were not supposed to have since you were getting a refund, if so those crowns would need to be replaced and hence they had you buy crowns to repay those used.

Again, just my impression from going through the information

deadwinston · January 2020

UPDATE - I have received a response offering some explanation and a refund for the $15.98 crown purchase. A real, feeling human has finally seen my support ticket.

@Nyladreas Thank you so much for getting the right eyes on this.

The Elder Scrolls Online Team response on 01/15/2020 01:05 PM
Hi There,

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team. My name is Brad and I am an Escalations Agent here with the Support Team.

I am sorry for the confusion on this matter, and that it has taken so long to resolve. I would like to try to explain.

The fees that financial institutions charge are extremely expensive. In addition to the charge itself being reversed, they charge a substantial fee. While I am not privy to the exact numbers, a cursory Google search would support the claim that they range from $20-$100 per item that is charged back. So in a case like yours, not only would we have lost the cost of the item, but we would have been charged an additional ~$50 on top of it.

For this reason, we insist that any refund requests go through us, not the bank. This could have been all handled within 24 hours if it had been done that way.

The next best solution would have been to reverse the chargeback, then have us do a conventional refund. That way, everything gets resolved, and no one gets fined.

With bank chargebacks, we get fines, the account gets banned, and the only ones that come out on top are the banks, so naturally, we'd like to avoid that at all costs, especially over something as easy to resolve as a double charge.

In regards to the idea to have you purchase some Crowns, I believe that was an attempt to work around the fact that you were unsuccessful at reversing the chargeback, essentially recharging you for something of similar value, since the original item is no longer on sale, but it seems to have gone a bit sideways. I am not satisfied with how it has turned out, especially since this all started with something outside of your control, so I have gone ahead and refunded that item.

The $15.98 from the Crowns has been refunded through a normal refund, and the $13.98 from the double charge was refunded a while back by your bank. I believe all outstanding issues have been addressed, but if I overlooked anything, please let me know.

Best Regards,

Brad - Escalations
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

1:51 PM (4 minutes ago) to Bethesda
Brad,

That is great to hear. This is the first time I've felt like a human being was on the other end of communication here. I really appreciate you reading through it and offering the refund.

I now understand the issues with chargebacks and what can happen, but nobody spells that out. If it's such an issue, the credit card companies really shouldn't make it as easy as clicking a button to get refunded for a double charge. I will never make that mistake again.

But, when I called the credit card company, they said they couldn't reverse the chargeback unless your processor followed the dispute procedure to say it was a legitimate charge. They put a note on the chargeback that I told them to reverse it, but I guess when I sent that information to support it never happened on your end. I spent 25 minutes with them trying to get it corrected. Then your support system people waited 13 days to get back to me.

So, I am happy to have the refund coming, that resolution is great and makes up for the time I've spent trying to get this issue resolved. But my feedback here would be the large gaps where there was no response on my ticket. I'm sure the only reason I've been escalated and gotten a good outcome is because of a forum post about the issue. I wish that a real person like you could have been on this from the start or it was something that I could have talked to a human being about.

If I had to grade the support I've received, your resolution handling was A+, but the support process up until today is a definite F.

So thank you for everyone involved in making this right. @ZOS_GinaBruno A thousand praises to you if you got it done. I'm not 100% sure who it was. Thanks to Brad in Escalations.

I'm finishing all this up on lunch and need to get back to work, so this is probably the last I'll say on the matter. I still think a system where a ticket can go 7 days and 13 days with no response from support is broken. Locking an account out for a total of 29 days over a mistake that is very easy to make is unacceptable. The inability to talk to a real, human person on the phone is frustrating.

deadwinston · January 2020

Unseelie wrote: »

What I am seeing, and where the root of this is seems to be surrounding the crowns.
The part that I am not seeing mentioned here is this...apparently there was an assumption by one party that when you created the account and paid the 13.98 that you also received an amount of crowns. Now just to verify when you bought the game, did you also pay for a month of game time? Or did the original purchase come with an amount of crowns.
Every mmo out there right now (at least the big ones..WoW, FFXIV, LotRO, SWTRO) all will ban the moment that there is any chargeback. That is not anything new or surprising.

If there was an allotment of crowns at the beginning was it 1500 or did you receive 3000 or 0.
If you did receive crowns did you spend them? I believe that is the impression given, that you had spent crowns that you were not supposed to have since you were getting a refund, if so those crowns would need to be replaced and hence they had you buy crowns to repay those used.

Again, just my impression from going through the information

You don't really understand the issue at all. Go back and read the timeline in the original post. I bought Elsweyr for $13.98 which they charged to my credit card twice. Then I foolishly hit a button in an email or via my credit card app that it was a mistake which started a chargeback. During the support ticket process after my account was locked out, they told me to purchase 1500 crowns for $15.89 and then took the crowns out of my account after the purchase in exchange for unlocking the account. They have now started a refunded for that $15.89 as of 30 minutes ago due to the attention of people from this post.

daim · January 2020

This is just unacceptable. Blackmailing to buy more stuff so you can keep the stuff you bought before? What?

The company where I work we try to serve the customer and keep them happy so they will keep doing business with us. Somehow I thought this was the main purpose of CS. Sometimes even when a customer makes a mistake we take the hit financially and try explain to the customer what happened so it woulnd't happen again.

But then again the bigger the company is the worse CS you'll get.

Not saing all ZOS CS is bad. The few times I've had to deal with them, it's been fine. But nothing like this, this is just absurd.

edit: and while I typed the above the issue got fixed. I'm glad for you @deadwinston . Still the point of this thread about CS handling a case like this like they did is terrible.

deadwinston · January 2020

To make it clear, support is refunding the $16 crown purchase. They have resolved the issue

I wanted to make an update the original post with the new info, but it turns out I can't. Thanks to everyone who helped, hopefully future readers see that Brad in Escalations offered the refund and I am putting the issue to rest with my final feedback on the support delays.

Thanks again to anyone who helped.

haelene · January 2020

This is still not acceptable. The issue is Zos's fault too begin with - it was their system that overcharged, so yes, the fines they paid, however much are their responsibility and absolutely not the customers. It is not okay to try and force a customer to make good on fees that were caused by a fault on Zos's part. It does not matter how the customer went about resolving the double charge and I take huge issue with any company doing something like this on a valid chargeback. If you want to avoid these fees at all costs, then don't let them happen in the first place, zos. It is not the customers responsibility to make you whole in this scenario.

As a person who has worked in customer service for over a decade this is an absolute horror show and I'm appalled.

reoskit · January 2020

deadwinston wrote: »

The Elder Scrolls Online Team response on 01/15/2020 01:05 PM
[...]
For this reason, we insist that any refund requests go through us, not the bank. This could have been all handled within 24 hours if it had been done that way.

The next best solution would have been to reverse the chargeback, then have us do a conventional refund. That way, everything gets resolved, and no one gets fined.

With bank chargebacks, we get fines, the account gets banned, and the only ones that come out on top are the banks, so naturally, we'd like to avoid that at all costs, especially over something as easy to resolve as a double charge.

In regards to the idea to have you purchase some Crowns, I believe that was an attempt to work around the fact that you were unsuccessful at reversing the chargeback, essentially recharging you for something of similar value, since the original item is no longer on sale, but it seems to have gone a bit sideways. I am not satisfied with how it has turned out, especially since this all started with something outside of your control, so I have gone ahead and refunded that item.

Holy victim-shaming. The bolded piece is all that should matter. Period. At all. Ever. None of the rest is necessary, or should've been supplemental AFTER saying "hey, we doublecharged you". Go chronologically in the blame game, if you must go there at all.

deadwinston wrote: »

"With bank chargebacks, we get fines, the account gets banned, and the only ones that come out on top are the banks, so naturally, we'd like to avoid that at all costs"

"At all costs" doesn't apparently involve ensuring the system includes some logic to prevent doublecharging clients in the first place. Risk mitigation in the form of "blame the client and pass the financial burden" is never a good way to handle things; this problem will keep recurring. Root cause analysis: this system allows people to be doublecharged, whether that's via a doubleclick on the client end or some technological wonk on the backend.

Fix this issue at the source and we'll never hear about how we, as clients, should inherently know your expectations on how to handle your system not working properly. Remember, it's our banks that contact us when we're doublecharged, not you. Of course most people are just going to say "hey, that's not right; thanks for letting me know."

OP, I'm glad your situation is handled, though it seems you only got the appropriate assistance after going public. Thanks for bringing it to light.

Edit: spelling

xxthir13enxx · January 2020

haelene wrote: »

This is still not acceptable. The issue is Zos's fault too begin with - it was their system that overcharged, so yes, the fines they paid, however much are their responsibility and absolutely not the customers. It is not okay to try and force a customer to make good on fees that were caused by a fault on Zos's part. It does not matter how the customer went about resolving the double charge and I take huge issue with any company doing something like this on a valid chargeback. If you want to avoid these fees at all costs, then don't let them happen in the first place, zos. It is not the customers responsibility to make you whole in this scenario.

As a person who has worked in customer service for over a decade this is an absolute horror show and I'm appalled.

I support this statement 100%

Mistakes happen...but the end result is the companies problem to fix. Sure it could of been fixed in house by ZoS with no fees...(they SHOULD of caught the double charge right away and reimbursed before the CC company got involved) that was not the path that ended up being followed... Still not the customers fault.

Elsonso · January 2020

deadwinston wrote: »

ZOS:
The fees that financial institutions charge are extremely expensive. In addition to the charge itself being reversed, they charge a substantial fee. While I am not privy to the exact numbers, a cursory Google search would support the claim that they range from $20-$100 per item that is charged back. So in a case like yours, not only would we have lost the cost of the item, but we would have been charged an additional ~$50 on top of it.

This is why the financial institutions make it so easy to charge back. $$$$

jircris11 · January 2020

deadwinston wrote: »

UPDATE - I have received a response offering some explanation and a refund for the $15.98 crown purchase. A real, feeling human has finally seen my support ticket.

@Nyladreas Thank you so much for getting the right eyes on this.

The Elder Scrolls Online Team response on 01/15/2020 01:05 PM
Hi There,

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team. My name is Brad and I am an Escalations Agent here with the Support Team.

I am sorry for the confusion on this matter, and that it has taken so long to resolve. I would like to try to explain.

The fees that financial institutions charge are extremely expensive. In addition to the charge itself being reversed, they charge a substantial fee. While I am not privy to the exact numbers, a cursory Google search would support the claim that they range from $20-$100 per item that is charged back. So in a case like yours, not only would we have lost the cost of the item, but we would have been charged an additional ~$50 on top of it.

For this reason, we insist that any refund requests go through us, not the bank. This could have been all handled within 24 hours if it had been done that way.

The next best solution would have been to reverse the chargeback, then have us do a conventional refund. That way, everything gets resolved, and no one gets fined.

With bank chargebacks, we get fines, the account gets banned, and the only ones that come out on top are the banks, so naturally, we'd like to avoid that at all costs, especially over something as easy to resolve as a double charge.

In regards to the idea to have you purchase some Crowns, I believe that was an attempt to work around the fact that you were unsuccessful at reversing the chargeback, essentially recharging you for something of similar value, since the original item is no longer on sale, but it seems to have gone a bit sideways. I am not satisfied with how it has turned out, especially since this all started with something outside of your control, so I have gone ahead and refunded that item.

The $15.98 from the Crowns has been refunded through a normal refund, and the $13.98 from the double charge was refunded a while back by your bank. I believe all outstanding issues have been addressed, but if I overlooked anything, please let me know.

Best Regards,

Brad - Escalations
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

1:51 PM (4 minutes ago) to Bethesda
Brad,

That is great to hear. This is the first time I've felt like a human being was on the other end of communication here. I really appreciate you reading through it and offering the refund.

I now understand the issues with chargebacks and what can happen, but nobody spells that out. If it's such an issue, the credit card companies really shouldn't make it as easy as clicking a button to get refunded for a double charge. I will never make that mistake again.

But, when I called the credit card company, they said they couldn't reverse the chargeback unless your processor followed the dispute procedure to say it was a legitimate charge. They put a note on the chargeback that I told them to reverse it, but I guess when I sent that information to support it never happened on your end. I spent 25 minutes with them trying to get it corrected. Then your support system people waited 13 days to get back to me.

So, I am happy to have the refund coming, that resolution is great and makes up for the time I've spent trying to get this issue resolved. But my feedback here would be the large gaps where there was no response on my ticket. I'm sure the only reason I've been escalated and gotten a good outcome is because of a forum post about the issue. I wish that a real person like you could have been on this from the start or it was something that I could have talked to a human being about.

If I had to grade the support I've received, your resolution handling was A+, but the support process up until today is a definite F.
So thank you for everyone involved in making this right. @ZOS_GinaBruno A thousand praises to you if you got it done. I'm not 100% sure who it was. Thanks to Brad in Escalations.

I'm finishing all this up on lunch and need to get back to work, so this is probably the last I'll say on the matter. I still think a system where a ticket can go 7 days and 13 days with no response from support is broken. Locking an account out for a total of 29 days over a mistake that is very easy to make is unacceptable. The inability to talk to a real, human person on the phone is frustrating.

Escalation team aka tier 2 or supervisor. That's why I said, make sure to request a supervisor when handling these.

Royaji · January 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

deadwinston wrote: »

ZOS:
The fees that financial institutions charge are extremely expensive. In addition to the charge itself being reversed, they charge a substantial fee. While I am not privy to the exact numbers, a cursory Google search would support the claim that they range from $20-$100 per item that is charged back. So in a case like yours, not only would we have lost the cost of the item, but we would have been charged an additional ~$50 on top of it.

This is why the financial institutions make it so easy to charge back. $$$$

Then it sounds like a really good incentive for the company to be very sure what they are charging the customer for.

Acrolas · January 2020

It may not directly apply to the original post, but if you are attempting any online purchase and the transaction does not process immediately, do not click any button on that purchase page again. Clear your cache and wait as long as you can to retry. I recommend 12 hours as any highly lagged purchase should either process or cancel itself out given that amount of time.

That's the single best way to avoid duplicate charges.

Also keep in mind that PayPal recently changed their policy and will no longer refund fees in the event of a canceled order. Different entities are going to handle that differently, but just a general head's up. What you get back these days is no longer necessarily what you initially put in.

With all transactions errors, patience is the best mediator. It's better to have an extra charge sit on your account for a weekend than to rush a resolution. Your seller needs time to figure out how the online payment system - most often handled by an entirely different company that is not your bank - messed up the transaction.

No need to drag or vilify support over it. A lot happened in this particular case before support even knew there was an issue.

ZOS_GregoryV · January 2020

Greetings all,

We are glad to hear that the issues has been resolved! With that being said, we have gone ahead and removed some posts for Baiting, Bashing, and a few others for discussing Legal Action, as such posts only yield negative responses.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

Nyladreas · January 2020

deadwinston wrote: »

UPDATE - I have received a response offering some explanation and a refund for the $15.98 crown purchase. A real, feeling human has finally seen my support ticket.

@Nyladreas Thank you so much for getting the right eyes on this.

The Elder Scrolls Online Team response on 01/15/2020 01:05 PM
Hi There,

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team. My name is Brad and I am an Escalations Agent here with the Support Team.

I am sorry for the confusion on this matter, and that it has taken so long to resolve. I would like to try to explain.

The fees that financial institutions charge are extremely expensive. In addition to the charge itself being reversed, they charge a substantial fee. While I am not privy to the exact numbers, a cursory Google search would support the claim that they range from $20-$100 per item that is charged back. So in a case like yours, not only would we have lost the cost of the item, but we would have been charged an additional ~$50 on top of it.

For this reason, we insist that any refund requests go through us, not the bank. This could have been all handled within 24 hours if it had been done that way.

The next best solution would have been to reverse the chargeback, then have us do a conventional refund. That way, everything gets resolved, and no one gets fined.

With bank chargebacks, we get fines, the account gets banned, and the only ones that come out on top are the banks, so naturally, we'd like to avoid that at all costs, especially over something as easy to resolve as a double charge.

In regards to the idea to have you purchase some Crowns, I believe that was an attempt to work around the fact that you were unsuccessful at reversing the chargeback, essentially recharging you for something of similar value, since the original item is no longer on sale, but it seems to have gone a bit sideways. I am not satisfied with how it has turned out, especially since this all started with something outside of your control, so I have gone ahead and refunded that item.

The $15.98 from the Crowns has been refunded through a normal refund, and the $13.98 from the double charge was refunded a while back by your bank. I believe all outstanding issues have been addressed, but if I overlooked anything, please let me know.

Best Regards,

Brad - Escalations
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

1:51 PM (4 minutes ago) to Bethesda
Brad,

That is great to hear. This is the first time I've felt like a human being was on the other end of communication here. I really appreciate you reading through it and offering the refund.

I now understand the issues with chargebacks and what can happen, but nobody spells that out. If it's such an issue, the credit card companies really shouldn't make it as easy as clicking a button to get refunded for a double charge. I will never make that mistake again.

But, when I called the credit card company, they said they couldn't reverse the chargeback unless your processor followed the dispute procedure to say it was a legitimate charge. They put a note on the chargeback that I told them to reverse it, but I guess when I sent that information to support it never happened on your end. I spent 25 minutes with them trying to get it corrected. Then your support system people waited 13 days to get back to me.

So, I am happy to have the refund coming, that resolution is great and makes up for the time I've spent trying to get this issue resolved. But my feedback here would be the large gaps where there was no response on my ticket. I'm sure the only reason I've been escalated and gotten a good outcome is because of a forum post about the issue. I wish that a real person like you could have been on this from the start or it was something that I could have talked to a human being about.

If I had to grade the support I've received, your resolution handling was A+, but the support process up until today is a definite F.
So thank you for everyone involved in making this right. @ZOS_GinaBruno A thousand praises to you if you got it done. I'm not 100% sure who it was. Thanks to Brad in Escalations.

I'm finishing all this up on lunch and need to get back to work, so this is probably the last I'll say on the matter. I still think a system where a ticket can go 7 days and 13 days with no response from support is broken. Locking an account out for a total of 29 days over a mistake that is very easy to make is unacceptable. The inability to talk to a real, human person on the phone is frustrating.

WOOHOO WE DID IT!!! AMAZING!!!

I'm so happy it worked out for ya, buddy.

Hellvlad · January 2020

deadwinston wrote: »

Hi There,

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team. My name is Brad and I am an Escalations Agent here with the Support Team.

I am sorry for the confusion on this matter, and that it has taken so long to resolve. I would like to try to explain.

The fees that financial institutions charge are extremely expensive. In addition to the charge itself being reversed, they charge a substantial fee. While I am not privy to the exact numbers, a cursory Google search would support the claim that they range from $20-$100 per item that is charged back. So in a case like yours, not only would we have lost the cost of the item, but we would have been charged an additional ~$50 on top of it.

For this reason, we insist that any refund requests go through us, not the bank. This could have been all handled within 24 hours if it had been done that way.

The next best solution would have been to reverse the chargeback, then have us do a conventional refund. That way, everything gets resolved, and no one gets fined.

With bank chargebacks, we get fines, the account gets banned, and the only ones that come out on top are the banks, so naturally, we'd like to avoid that at all costs, especially over something as easy to resolve as a double charge.

In regards to the idea to have you purchase some Crowns, I believe that was an attempt to work around the fact that you were unsuccessful at reversing the chargeback, essentially recharging you for something of similar value, since the original item is no longer on sale, but it seems to have gone a bit sideways. I am not satisfied with how it has turned out, especially since this all started with something outside of your control, so I have gone ahead and refunded that item.

The $15.98 from the Crowns has been refunded through a normal refund, and the $13.98 from the double charge was refunded a while back by your bank. I believe all outstanding issues have been addressed, but if I overlooked anything, please let me know.

Best Regards,

Brad - Escalations
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

1:51 PM (4 minutes ago) to Bethesda
Brad,

I noticed something really disturbing here. I am working closely with the Executive Escalations departments of my company that deals specifically with type of "crisis" complaints like the one you addressed. Typically these are anything coming from company directors, celebrities, social media influencers, and anything related to legal threats. The aim of such department is to defuse a difficult situation with a customer in the best way possible to avoid a higher negative impact for the company in terms of financials, brand image or court fees.

Your case clearly made it to this level and indeed you have this Brad who spend some time (usually around 30 min) working on your case and try to resolve the situation in the best interests of ZOS.

The way his answer is articulated is based on strict guidelines and any detail is not there randomly, but for perfectly good reasons.

And this is where I'm really shocked. Not once Brad has offered an apology in ZOS' name for the ordeal you had to go through to resolve a simple matter of double charge. And not only that, he also "educates" you that you should never use the chargeback option from the big bad banks as it costs so much (around 50 USD, surely unaffordable for a billion dollars company). This without even recognizing once that if their front office agents would have been honest and done their job properly from start you would not have to had to resort to such measures.

Overall, it's not cherry-picking for little details I'm doing here. This shows what the ZOS corporate culture is.
It basically tells you that asking you to cover the fees you generated in a chargeback (chargeback you had to do because ZOS charged you twice without authorization) is accepted and encouraged.

Acrolas · January 2020

Hellvlad wrote: »

It basically tells you that asking you to cover the fees you generated in a chargeback (chargeback you had to do because ZOS charged you twice without authorization) is accepted and encouraged.

"As the Account holder, You are responsible for all charges incurred on Your Account, including, but not limited to, applicable taxes, and the fees for all purchases made by You or anyone that uses Your Account, including, but not limited to, Your family or friends."
https://account.elderscrollsonline.com/terms-of-service

As per TOS, you can be personally held accountable for a chargeback fee. Nobody has to do a chargeback. OP specifically said "credit card" so it was just two instances of borrowed money instead of one. Let it be the bank's problem until support cancels the duplicate order.

le_spy · January 2020

thing is, whilst they did mistakes in handling the case and communicatiing, you're not supposed to chargeback through credit card company ever before contacting whoever charged you first, this is pretty much also written within TOS, because chargeback is kind of a reporting of a fraud to credit card company, this is no ordinary procedure, addiitonally credit card companys can keep your assets on hold for 30 days without any questions, even if the service market it for refund for credit card company.

if you took this case to e.g court you'd have lost because you violated TOS of not 1 but 2 companys

Isaura · January 2020

Oh so ZOS is actually trying to make customers pay for the chargeback fee they received from banks, when customers makes a chargeback, because ZOS screwed up.
This is very interesting.
I'm taking screenshots of this thread because I have a feeling it's gonna be erased very soon

Tigerseye · January 2020

Obviously, they have to protect themselves from unfair chargebacks on digital goods you, more-or-less, instantly receive.

However, if they are the ones responsible for the mistake, via them double charging you, it is totally reasonable that you would ask your credit card to do a chargeback on the duplicate payment.

That is not the same as someone doing a chargeback on the original payment and should not be treated as such by ZOS.

As for the fee - ZOS messed up, by double charging you, so they have to take the loss on that and not try to pass it on to you.

Yes, it's harsh on them, as the fee may be as much or more than the payment - but, again, they messed up, so they have to take the loss.

Tigerseye · January 2020

Also, what they should have done, at the very start (in one email), is:

1. Apologise profusely.
2. Admit complete responsibility for the error.
3. Politely request that you reverse the chargeback, explaining why this would be the ideal scenario for them (i.e. the high bank fee).
4. Offer a full refund for the overcharge and perhaps, also, a few free Crowns, as an apology and a form of recompense for the inconvenience (to be delivered after you reversed the chargeback, obviously).

Then, almost certainly, you would have seen the predicament they were in (and the free Crowns!) and you would have complied.

However, even if you had refused their offer, they should have still reopened your account (minus the free Crowns).

As they were the ones who made the error; not you.