Absolutely Unacceptable Credit Card Practices

Rylana · May 2014

My game time was set to expire May 23, 2014, today.

So, on Wednesday I set up a subscription plan with my credit card.

You charged my credit card 14.99.

Tonight I got disconnected at midnight EST with the popup "Your subscription has expired, blahblahblah*

So I go onto account page and it says "Payment Failed"

I go to my credit card website, and it shows a Pending Charge from you for the subscription amount.

I check my email and it says ANOTHER charge of 14.99 was declined (there are not enough funds available because youre still holding the first 14.99)

I am DEMANDING you resolve this, right now. I have put in a phone ticket and you will call me.

You pulled this crap with the box time that came with the game, now youre screwing with my credit card and possibly causing overdrafts.

You will change this practice of overcharging by 15 dollars on new setup or you are losing me as a customer immediately. I expect my account to be active when I wake up.

For the record, it is illegal in my state to double charge like this, so take that as a piece of information to keep in mind as you look into this matter. If youre going to hold funds, you USE THOSE FUNDS YOU HELD FOR THE SERVICE, NOT CHARGE A SECOND TIME.

That is all.

Sarenia · May 2014

You blame ZOS for your bank causing a payment to get stuck pending, and double charged?

Most adults would first consult their bank about something so obviously bank-specific.

Rylana · May 2014

Sarenia wrote: »

You blame ZOS for your bank causing a payment to get stuck pending, and double charged?

Most adults would first consult their bank about something so obviously bank-specific.

No. ZOS debited my CC once, and then tried to a second time with the first still pending (because the pending is an authorization charge thats still not been returned 48 hours later)

They are trying to make me pay them 30 dollars up front for 15 dollars of game time.

Grimkardinal · May 2014

they did this to me as well, I resubbed and it failed yet my bank still showed they took the money but gave me no game time, Since I wanted to play I tried again. this time I got my game time but they charged me twice for a total of 3 14.99 charges. They claimed it was just pre authorization and the charges would fall off. but that took about 5 days to happen. They will just ignore you for a couple days hoping the charges fall off.

Rylana · May 2014

Grimkardinal wrote: »

they did this to me as well, I resubbed and it failed yet my bank still showed they took the money but gave me no game time, Since I wanted to play I tried again. this time I got my game time but they charged me twice for a total of 3 14.99 charges. They claimed it was just pre authorization and the charges would fall off. but that took about 5 days to happen. They will just ignore you for a couple days hoping the charges fall off.

Eggs on their face when they discover my state specifically prohibits this practice. You must use the authorization/hold funds before you can charge a second transaction. Not a very smart accounting department decision.

Sanspoof · May 2014

Just google "eso payment failed", quite a few people have had this problem and it's a shame to see it still happening. Bugs are one thing, crappy payment system is another. The only feedback I've seen is that they're looking into lowering the pre-auth amount, which judging by your post, still hasn't happened.

Ganksalot · May 2014

I am affraid to resub my 3 accounts now. Appreciate the information and hope you get your game time and refund. Personally I think I will hold off on resubing my 3 accounts untill I can get a confirmation this is resolved. I can not afford a mistake with 3x the charges.

Rylana · May 2014

They are only screwing themselves. I went to the trouble of putting in the info to resub, had a successful authorization for the correct amount, pretty obvious I wanted to keep going with this game.

Your aggressive practices have pretty much killed my want to resub. Youve probably lost me as a customer as a result. I am not alone either. When you go to your fiscal meetings and discuss this with the board of directors that make all your financial decisions, direct them to this post.

I am a pretty hardcore gamer, I will throw money at a game I feel has treated me right and I enjoy. But I throw that money on MY terms, not yours.

Dont really give a damn about gold sellers or other fraud, thats your business to combat, but dont make it mine. We have spoken on the phone before, it is pretty obvious I am not some chinese guy sitting in a sweatshop farming gold for a website, so dont treat me like one with your silly 15 dollar pre-authorization garbage.

This garbage of trying to take 30 dollars up front for something that costs 15 has left a foul taste I may never wash out.

Really digging the game man, but your shoddy accounting decisions have killed it for me. Go ahead and call me, I doubt youre gonna get me back. I am still staring at the 15 dollars you asked the bank to authorize, that you didnt use, right there, theres the money for my sub, the money I was giving you.

Now maybe ill just go buy a dvd or something when it finally releases.

Either that or you can make this right, right now.

I am not a patient person when it comes to money, so dont expect my "patience" as you take your sweet time to resolve it, if you ever do. Youre on MY clock. I did my duty and my part two days ago when I put the numbers in to your site. This is all on you.

Jim_McMasterub17_ESO · May 2014

Took seven business days for the "pending" charge to fall off my debit card. The best you'll likely get is that ESO is looking into their billing practices, & lowering the amount of authorization requested.
It also apparently only occurs when you change account card information.

(which also unfortunately for me also occurs when your card's expiration date lapses.)

Even if replaced by the card company in a timely enough manner to not interrupt service..The info changes, your card is double-tapped.

Rhoric · May 2014

The first charge was a pre auth, which can take up to 45 days to be released depending on your card issuer. For mine it is 2 weeks. Second charge failed cause you didn't have the funds for it.

Rylana · May 2014

They are dreaming if they think I am putting another 15 bucks into the account on top of what was already there. Sorry, I gave you 15, thats what you cost, thats what you get, and not a penny more.

Sharee · May 2014

Am i the only one who usually keeps more than 2x15 bucks on my credit card?

Rylana · May 2014

Rhoric wrote: »

The first charge was a pre auth, which can take up to 45 days to be released depending on your card issuer. For mine it is 2 weeks. Second charge failed cause you didn't have the funds for it.

And in my state they are required by law to use the pre-auth for the actual transaction before they send any other request. Its held for their use specifically so this never occurs.

Main reason I dont normally deal with electronic money and just use cash, you cant screw me when its face to face.

Rylana · May 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Am i the only one who usually keeps more than 2x15 bucks on my credit card?

I dont normally use plastic, besides, they asked for 15 dollars, not 30. Its not my job to keep 30 bucks in there for them to feel good about the transaction.

Money was there, they messed with it, now they didnt get my sub because they played games with it.

born2beagator · May 2014

The sub cost is 15 dollars. If they charged you 30 then they robbed you.

Hope this works out for you, and honestly in just one night I've gone from a loyal fan of this game, to on the fence. Zenimax better get its crap together

Rylana · May 2014

Here ill explain what is happening.

Go to the store. You go to buy i dunno, a cheese pizza. It is listed for 5 dollars.

You go to the clerk, they scan your pizza, and ring up 5 dollars.

The clerk takes the five dollars but also takes the pizza.

She says, sir, I need you to give me five dollars for this pizza.

I just paid you the five dollars for the pizza.

No sir, that five dollars was so I knew you had five dollars, please give me five more so I can give you the pizza, then I will give you the other five dollars back.

But I only had the five dollars I gave you.

I am sorry sir but I cant give you this pizza then, oh and the five dollars you already gave me will be given back to you by my manager in a week.

What... the.... hell

born2beagator · May 2014

When you put it that way, I'm sorry but I busted out laughing.

GossiTheDog · May 2014

This has been going on since May 8th, there's a very long thread about it but ZOS sunk it. They said the authorisation charge would be changing to $1 in the very near future, rather than the current full subscription again as authorisation charge. Unfortunately the very near future appears to mean 2024.

Rylana · May 2014

born2beagator wrote: »

When you put it that way, I'm sorry but I busted out laughing.

Yeah and in the meantime, person in said story starved for a week when the stupid clerk shoulda just put the five dollars in the register and gave him his receipt and pizza.

Not really a difficult concept.

Virescent · May 2014

Okay, ZOS should definitely fix this. I'm not arguing that. But to be honest, your histrionics are kinda hilarious. You put a recurring charge on an account that didn't even have twice that amount of money in it? How can you afford $15 a month when $30 is apparently a huge amount of money for you?

Rylana · May 2014

GossiTheDog wrote: »

This has been going on since May 8th, there's a very long thread about it but ZOS sunk it. They said the authorisation charge would be changing to $1 in the very near future, rather than the current full subscription again as authorisation charge. Unfortunately the very near future appears to mean 2024.

What bothers me isnt even the authorization charge itself. Fine be 15 dollars, BUT USE THAT. Dont charge me again and then return the auth, just use the auth.

Not a hard concept, as seen above with Pizza.

Rylana · May 2014

Virescent wrote: »

Okay, ZOS should definitely fix this. I'm not arguing that. But to be honest, your histrionics are kinda hilarious. You put a recurring charge on an account that didn't even have twice that amount of money in it? How can you afford $15 a month when $30 is apparently a huge amount of money for you?

Its not, I put money on things when I need to put money on things. Im not poor, I just wont be finagled. I miss the days where it was only cash and check if I am honest.

Iago · May 2014

Cash is the best way to handle things there is less room for error

GossiTheDog · May 2014

Rylana wrote: »

GossiTheDog wrote: »

This has been going on since May 8th, there's a very long thread about it but ZOS sunk it. They said the authorisation charge would be changing to $1 in the very near future, rather than the current full subscription again as authorisation charge. Unfortunately the very near future appears to mean 2024.

What bothers me isnt even the authorization charge itself. Fine be 15 dollars, BUT USE THAT. Dont charge me again and then return the auth, just use the auth.

Not a hard concept, as seen above with Pizza.

Is it possible to charge an authorisation fee? They don't set an expiry window during the transaction, so the bank can clear it at any time. My authorisation cleared next day.

Sev · May 2014

Virescent wrote: »

Okay, ZOS should definitely fix this. I'm not arguing that. But to be honest, your histrionics are kinda hilarious. You put a recurring charge on an account that didn't even have twice that amount of money in it? How can you afford $15 a month when $30 is apparently a huge amount of money for you?

Not ridiculous at all when you consider that many people use pre-paid credit cards with a small amount of funds on them for things like this. Not everyone wants to use their main credit card for online transactions. Some people are also using this method because some glitch in Zenimax' billing system is causing it to reject certain cards.

Personally, I use game time cards bought from a local online retailer. I buy a card off them, they e-mail me a scan of the code, I enter the code on the account page. Zenimax never directly gets their hands on my money or credit card details, so they have no chance of screwing it up.

Iago · May 2014

Sev wrote: »

Virescent wrote: »

Okay, ZOS should definitely fix this. I'm not arguing that. But to be honest, your histrionics are kinda hilarious. You put a recurring charge on an account that didn't even have twice that amount of money in it? How can you afford $15 a month when $30 is apparently a huge amount of money for you?

Not ridiculous at all when you consider that many people use pre-paid credit cards with a small amount of funds on them for things like this. Not everyone wants to use their main credit card for online transactions. Some people are also using this method because some glitch in Zenimax' billing system is causing it to reject certain cards.

Personally, I use game time cards bought from a local online retailer. I buy a card off them, they e-mail me a scan of the code, I enter the code on the account page. Zenimax never directly gets their hands on my money or credit card details, so they have no chance of screwing it up.

Honestly if they wanted $29.98 a month they should have just said so

dinges · May 2014

You could be the queen for all i care. Come to my company like this and I will not help you. People aren't dogs and stuff can go wrong.

Stuff in a support ticket and get it resolved, for a guy that owns a CC i can't imagine your world ends and you are unable to buy food because 2 x 15 dollars was taken off your CC

Rylana · May 2014

dinges wrote: »

You could be the queen for all i care. Come to my company like this and I will not help you. People aren't dogs and stuff can go wrong.

Stuff in a support ticket and get it resolved, for a guy that owns a CC i can't imagine your world ends and you are unable to buy food because 2 x 15 dollars was taken off your CC

Implying that this isnt entirely their fault, and has, from a bit of research now, been an issue for over a month.

UrQuan · May 2014

Rylana wrote: »

GossiTheDog wrote: »

This has been going on since May 8th, there's a very long thread about it but ZOS sunk it. They said the authorisation charge would be changing to $1 in the very near future, rather than the current full subscription again as authorisation charge. Unfortunately the very near future appears to mean 2024.

What bothers me isnt even the authorization charge itself. Fine be 15 dollars, BUT USE THAT. Dont charge me again and then return the auth, just use the auth.

Not a hard concept, as seen above with Pizza.

I'm guessing you're not overly familiar with how credit cards actually work. There's absolutely no way for a credit card company to match up a specific authorization (which is not the same thing as a charge) with a specific charge when that charge goes through on a later date.

It's not that the technology doesn't exist to have that happen, it's just that the credit card companies (and I'm not talking about your particular bank here, I'm talking about the parent credit card companies that the banks go through for credit cards to supply to their clients) don't see setting up a system like that as a high enough priority for them to spend money on it. As a result, there's no infrastructure allowing it, so it is completely impossible for ZOS to do an authorization in advance, and then use that exact authorization for the charge that they put through.

Evergnar · May 2014

Happened to me as well with two separate cards. One I bought the game with, no problems. 4 pending transactions. Took over a week to get the two back on the one card. Other is still pending.

The worst is all transactions were declined. Again, same card I always use online and bought this game with.

TryynityB · May 2014

This has happened to both our accounts in our household, with a total of 4 debits (2 to each account) Mine because I was subbed but I could not log on once my freeplay had ceased. Thinking I had to authorise it I went to my account and resubmitted all my info. I was told the payment processed. Looking at my account there are two pending, so the first one was my subscription coming out (pending) but the account not being shown as being paid. The second charge was my manual payment (which did work).

The two days later my son's freeplay expired and it didnt renew like mine and so he did what I did and re-entered his details and was told it was successful but then he could not log in and he got a message in his email saying the payment had failed. So he tried another card and same thing.

We spoke to ESO they said:
"The bank is holding up the payments."
We spoke to our bank and they said:
"Pending means the bank has made money available to the company and their end is not receiving/taking funds."

I used to work in a bank and the bank is correct, there is a problem with their billing systems.

Eventually we will get the funds back (7 days) meanwhile our money has been in limbo.

At least ESO did give my son 3days pass while they tried to find out what the problem was, that has expired now and we are still waiting to hear from them.

:'(