Recurring Sub payment repeatedly declined - £1.00 charge instead of £8.99??

Phlora · June 2014

I received and email last night saying that my chosen method of payment for my 30 day recurring subscription had been declined - my method is Paypal, linked to my bank (confirmed) and has sufficient funds to cover this transaction.

I went into my account just now and went through the motions of setting up the same subscription plan again, with Paypal as my payment choice. I got as far as submission of the transaction to Paypal where it requests that I input my Paypal password to proceed and I notice something strange -

The Transaction amount is for £1.00

I allowed it to process and received a confirmation email from Paypal to say that it went through and another email from ESO to confirm my new Subscription had been "successfully established".

My account page had updated to reflect that and stated that:

"You have <1 day of gametime left and your will be charged 8.99 on 8th June" - which is today

Moments later I got another payment declined email from ESO and my account went back to saying I had no Subscription plan active.

The £1.00 charge is listed as being cancelled in my paypal account. (The seller cancelled this payment, and the money has been returned to your account.)

I've opened a ticket about this: 140608-003811.

Any assistance you can give to help resolve this would be greatly appreciated

Might be helpful to note that I have been playing since early access and my Subscription plan has been set to Paypal since then and charged at least once before without issue.

Fairydragon3 · June 2014

the 1 is the new pre-authorization charge(not an permanent charge), for some reason you are not passing the actual transaction, rule one, when dealing with online transactions and things go wrong, contact both parties, the company and the bank. you will need to get both sides of what is happening

Phlora · June 2014

I note I am not the only person with this issue in the forum right now. A post from yesterday showed up when I made a search listing the same issue but I am not prepared to go and source a game time card in order to "bypass" this issue like the other person did.

Fairydragon3 · June 2014

Oh I know that you are not the only one. The preauth used to be the same price as the subsciption you chose.Everyone is having similar issues, not always the same but similar just saying if you want to know what happened only working with CS, and your card bank is going to give you the information you need. For instance, what if there is a chance that your bank is seeing these transactions as double charges, and blocking the 2nd. They might even not be getting a transaction request for the 2nd. What is happening will be very specific to what bank you are using and how you are trying to pay for the sub

Phlora · June 2014

As I said before, the subscription has been set up this way since launch and one charge of £8.99 has already been processed via that method for Mays gametime. It is only this month that I have run into any problems processing my payment this way. As far as my bank is concerned, they aren't denying any charges from Zenimax and neither is my Paypal account.

The payment request for the £8.99 doesn't appear to be making it as far as Paypal, which it goes through first.

Fairydragon3 · June 2014

if there were no interruptions from when you first subscribed, then there should be no pre-authorization. This only happens when your service is interrupted and you have to set up the subscription again. so not sure where th 1 is coming from

Phlora · June 2014

This is the problem - the recurring sub has been set up since launch in April and has never been changed. A payment went through via this method unhindered in May and should have done so yesterday but was flagged as declined and as such, my subscription method was undone within my account.

Now, whenever I try to set up the sub again via Paypal I must authorise it with this £1.00 which goes through with no problems and my account says my subscription was successful at the top of the window. Then, moments later it reverts to saying I have no plan in place and I simply get an email to say it was "declined" and I have no idea why.

My Paypal account is attached to my Bank and I use it on pretty much a daily basis. I have certainly used it on at least 3 occasions in the last week without any issues.

Fairydragon3 · June 2014

Phlora wrote: »

This is the problem - the recurring sub has been set up since launch in April and has never been changed. A payment went through via this method unhindered in May and should have done so yesterday but was flagged as declined and as such, my subscription method was undone within my account.

Edit by FD3: The above is now irrelevant since this occurred, basically it is the same result as unsubbing, and you now must deal what is happening below to start your game time again

Now, whenever I try to set up the sub again via Paypal I must authorise it with this £1.00 which goes through with no problems and my account says my subscription was successful at the top of the window. Then, moments later it reverts to saying I have no plan in place and I simply get an email to say it was "declined" and I have no idea why.

My Paypal account is attached to my Bank and I use it on pretty much a daily basis. I have certainly used it on at least 3 occasions in the last week without any issues.

I honestly can't help you, just trying to help inform. looks like yo have a handle on that now, but you will need to research this some more. Communicate with CS, paypal and bank and work with them to find the problem.

Phlora · June 2014

I've gone as far now as manually transferring the money from my bank account into my Paypal account as I noticed that the payment window shows that the funds for the £1.00 will be taken from my "Paypal Balance" and wondered if the same thing was happening with the actual subscription fee.

I don't generally keep any funds in my Paypal account as it has a debit card and my actual bank account verified and tied to it.

Unfortunately, that idea has been fruitless as the exact same thing happened (Declined) even with enough funds in my Paypal account to directly pay the fee without the need to go through to my bank. Yet the authorisation fee is processed and goes through with no problem.

I'm still waiting for a response from CS or a ZOS staff member so other than the info provided here I can't offer any more insight.

Phlora · June 2014

Had a response from CS who are now going through the motions to discover what the issue with Paypal is.

I have now managed to successfully complete the transaction via my debit card, which is the same card that is tied to my Paypal account. (Though I would have much preferred to keep Paypal as my preferred method!)

Had no problems at all processing the authorisation fee of £1.00 or the actual sub fee when using this method.

Fairydragon3 · June 2014

Phlora wrote: »

Had a response from CS who are now going through the motions to discover what the issue with Paypal is.

I have now managed to successfully complete the transaction via my debit card, which is the same card that is tied to my Paypal account. (Though I would have much preferred to keep Paypal as my preferred method!)

Had no problems at all processing the authorisation fee of £1.00 or the actual sub fee when using this method.

glad to see that worked. hope your paypal issue gets resolved

Zeeed · June 2014

Well i am stuck on same boat as you.. I got 30 pounds on my paypal for wow + eso + ventrilo and gues what ??

Wow and vent no problems. Eso wont take money.
They dont want me playing anymore?? Their loss i guess. Was working fine last month.

byroneastridge_ESO · June 2014

Got a notice saying payment was declined, my bank never received the charge.
switched to paypal
$1 dollar was charged thru paypal, bank even paid it.
next I get a notice that payment was again declined, checked bank again and they were refunded the $1 but not charged for the monthly fee.
Something funky going on on ZMax's end

Phlora · June 2014

byroneastridge_ESO wrote: »

Got a notice saying payment was declined, my bank never received the charge.
switched to paypal
$1 dollar was charged thru paypal, bank even paid it.
next I get a notice that payment was again declined, checked bank again and they were refunded the $1 but not charged for the monthly fee.
Something funky going on on ZMax's end

According to the CS response I just got the problem is NOT on their end...

"I am very happy that the transaction was successful. I checked your billing history and there is nothing wrong on our side. Please contact paypal to find out what is causing this issue. If you need any more assistance don't hesitate to ask !"

We both have the exact same issue.

byroneastridge_ESO · June 2014

third time is the charm, went thru on my cc this time.

paypal lists the charge as having been cancelled on Zmax's end

weritisb16_ESO · June 2014

Charge is being cancelled on zenimax's end, a user in the german customer support section pointed out that that was the response he got from paypal, and Paypal also confirmed that there was nothing wrong with his paypal-account.

I am having the same issue now, and it is annoying as hell. A company not taking their customers money, that they are willing to give? Seriously, that is quite grave.

kiralia · June 2014

We tried different cards and paypal all with the same result. They can try to blame it on our particular banking institution but its pretty obvious the problem has to be with their system.

Also there should be no need for a preauthorisation on a subscription charge. Seems totally pointless.

garyljwb16_ESO · June 2014

I've had exactly the same problem! I use Paypal as well, and everything was fine last month. Received an email yesterday saying my payment had been declined, so reset up the subscription using Paypal and got the £1 charge and emails saying everything was successful and then a minute later another email saying the transaction had been denied.

The only way I could get my subscription to go through was to give my cc details to ZOS and not use Paypal (which I'm not happy with, but I didn't have a choice!).

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · June 2014

Sounds like ZOS have twiddled with their use of PayPal and screwed it.

Had similar problems with FFXIV and PayPal, never did get to the bottom of it but PayPal said the seller canceled the payment and the PayPal history showed that, just like seems to be happening here; and just like here the message I got from Square Enix's system insisted it was declined by PayPal when PayPal were clear it wasn't them!

I'm, just glad I took out a 6-month sub so I won't get kicked out of the game till I'm probably done with it anyway.

Phlora · June 2014

My guess is that the problem lies in the way they process the Paypal pre-auth.

When I set the sub up via my bank, they actually take out the £1.00 and then the £8.99 and the £1.00 is not cancelled.

When I try to set it up via Paypal, I notice that the payment method for the pre-auth is limited to "Paypal Balance" and is requested and then immediately cancelled. I suspect that is where the problem lies. They are cancelling the pre-auth rather than taking it out/putting it back and the "Temporary Hold" lapses before the rest of the transaction can finalise.

Here's an example of what I mean:

Order Description:
30 Day Subscription - C6KXML7R9E9N55N
Invoice ID: 813607087199
Date: 8 Jun 2014
Time: 14:32:30 BST
Status: Cancelled

The seller cancelled this payment, and the money has been returned to your account.

8 Jun 2014 Temporary Hold Placed ... -£1.00 GBP

Invoice ID: 813607087199
Date: 8 Jun 2014
Time: 14:32:30 BST
Status: Placed

8 Jun 2014 Temporary Hold Removed ... £1.00 GBP

Invoice ID: 813607087199
Date: 8 Jun 2014
Time: 14:32:33 BST
Status: Removed

Literally 3 seconds later.
When requesting it from your bank account it floats around in the system for much, much longer.

I am pretty sure that when I set up the initial subscription, Via Paypal, that the billing option included my "Backup funding source" which would be my bank and I think that option needs to be put back.

jlxsolutionseb17_ESO · June 2014

in the same boat here didnt accept the CC either

stumpy999 · June 2014

Yeah, I had the same issue both CC and paypal failed after the original re-sub failed.

I ended up having to go through fraud control and sit through a credit verification at the bank before I got progress after the declines set off their fraud tripwires.

After 4 years of paying for EVE online I never expected to have problems giving a company my money.........

Phlora · June 2014

stumpy999 wrote: »

Yeah, I had the same issue both CC and paypal failed after the original re-sub failed.

I ended up having to go through fraud control and sit through a credit verification at the bank before I got progress after the declines set off their fraud tripwires.

After 4 years of paying for EVE online I never expected to have problems giving a company my money.........

Did your sub ever get the go ahead when setting it up again after going through the verification process with your bank to show the requests were valid?

I wouldn't have thought the bank itself would be a relevant thing in all of this, since I was actually able to pay for my sub with my debit card with no problems.
However, in the interest of getting this resolved for everyone, my account is held with Lloyds Bank, previously known as Lloyds TSB before they split into a separate bank and building society earlier in the year.

stumpy999 · June 2014

It wasn't the authorisation that caused the issue is was the fact that the same source requested payment twice in short succession that triggered the warning

Evergnar · June 2014

I (like many) had major issues trying to sub.

Three suggestions:

Do not use debit/bank account of any kind or anything tied to one.
If your credit card is rejected do not try it again.
If you try a second payment method or credit card and it still gets rejected forget about it and get a time card.

In my case I had two credit cards get rejected and funds held for literally weeks. One of these cards was the same one I purchased the game with through Zos/Beth as well as collectors edition items. Same one I do all my online purchases with and never had a problem up until these guys.

I finally just went and got a time card as I won't let Zos touch any of my accounts from here on out.

Fairydragon3 · June 2014

Evergnar wrote: »

I (like many) had major issues trying to sub.

Three suggestions:
Do not use debit/bank account of any kind or anything tied to one.

If your credit card is rejected do not try it again.

If you try a second payment method or credit card and it still gets rejected forget about it and get a time card.

In my case I had two credit cards get rejected and funds held for literally weeks. One of these cards was the same one I purchased the game with through Zos/Beth as well as collectors edition items. Same one I do all my online purchases with and never had a problem up until these guys.

I finally just went and got a time card as I won't let Zos touch any of my accounts from here on out.

Prepaid credit cards also bad, those cards are set up so they can't do any recurring subscriptions

stumpy999 · June 2014

none of my cards are pre-pay

this isn't a pre-pay card issue. It's that the behaviour Zenimax want is considered fraudulent by a lot of financial institutions, they look like trouble, so they get labelled as trouble etc....

Fairydragon3 · June 2014

stumpy999 wrote: »

none of my cards are pre-pay

this isn't a pre-pay card issue. It's that the behaviour Zenimax want is considered fraudulent by a lot of financial institutions, they look like trouble, so they get labelled as trouble etc....

chill man we get that, @Evergnar, and I were just trying to inform others, not all things on the thread will be about your issue. there are other people who will come here, and it would be good if they learned a bit about card/ account transactions

stumpy999 · June 2014

I chill :P

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · June 2014

Used my bank card 10+ times yesterday without issue.
Got home to find my sub had expired so used the same bank card to resub
The same bank card I'd used to pre-order, sign for 6 months recurring, then cancel and resign for 1 month at a time (twice) unsubscribing immediately after paying for the next month.
This time it was rejected.

I put in a ticket.

Today MY BANK CARD DOESN'T WORK ANYWHERE....

o.0

ticket #140610-000097

grrrrrrr......

Arkath · June 2014

Having this same problem this morning. Called ZOS support, was pretty much told to contact my bank about it. Not really sure I'm going to bother.