Hey All, Maybe you guys can help. They denied me because of charge backs. I tried to explain that it was due to not normal circumstances. It all took place during the covid -19 outbreak. I also offered to cover there expenses. If anyone else can give me an idea on what else I can do to change their mind.
Sorry, I feel for you but no one here can help. That is their final decision if that is what they said in the ticket.
Company policy on charge-backs is pretty uncompromising because they had a spate of those a few years back that cost the company a lot of money, so when they ban for that it is normally permanent ban. The reason for that was given in this interview: Massively: Earlier you mentioned the problem of farmers with regards to Station Access. I know that's something the company feels very strongly about? John Smedley: I think the issue of farming is higher on the radar now than it ever has been. The behinds the scenes things are really frustration. A lot of these farmers are essentially stealing from us. What they do is they charge us back all the time. They use a credit card –sometimes stolen, sometimes not – to buy an account key. They use the account for a month, and then they call the credit card company and charge it back. We have suffered nearly a million dollars just in fines over the past six months; it's getting extremely expensive for us. What's happening is that when they do this all the time, the credit card companies come back to us and say "You have a higher than normal chargeback rate, therefore we'll charge you fines on top of that." We're really trying to get on top of that. We're taking our current efforts up about five notches to Defcon 1 on this issue. They bug us even more than they bug our customers, and we're definitely taking steps to implement rigorous anti-farming efforts. It's actually really amazing to sit and watch these people work. I've personally sat with them as they're tracking a farmer, and you'll see a mob spawn – this guy's got a bot that within half a second has them moving towards the creature even if it's halfway across the zone. It's a serious problem. Massively: And you can't fight the chargebacks with the credit card companies? John Smedley: No, and the reason for that is very simple. Visa and MasterCard have these rules about chargebacks, and I personally think they're antiqued. Digital delivery isn't covered by their rules very well. So if you order something from Amazon and pay thirty bucks for a book, if it doesn't show up at your house you can fight it because you can say "I never received that thing." They do not cover that with digital delivery. In my opinion the world has changed a lot and I think that needs to be addressed. Massively: Is there any sort of collaboration on that subject with other MMO developers? John Smedley: I have to say "We are in close contact with our friends in the industry."
You didn't elaborate on what the "not normal circumstances" were, so none of us can comment on that. Chargebacks have been used by a great many people to cheat companies out of many billions of income. It is theft when used to defraud a business owner. As such, you will have to chalk it up to experience and move on. P.S. Lots of folks have been severely affected by COVID. And EQ DOES have a FTP option.
Great find, Skuz. It makes you wonder how much adding Kronos have saved them on chargeback fees. You'd have to imagine that number would've crashed dramatically.
He has a second post that explains more fully - covid hit, lost job, tried to cancel but eq kept charging, so he told bank to stop. It could also be when he lost his job that the credit card was cancelled for over all non payment. That would have a better chance of getting reinstated than "couldn't cancel" As far as EQ continuing the charge, it could happen if you cancel after your bill date. Like it was due on the 4th and if you cancel on the 4th it might bill again or it takes a while for the charge to show up and you think its charging more. But its confusing cause he says in his other post that the ticket is still open and he has not heard anything but maybe this post means he did hear.
I didn't see the other post. And I do feel very sorry for folks who have been adversely effected by the pandemic. My wife and I are helping to support a relative whose job vanished due to the closure of restaurants in California. I didn't mean to insinuate that this person is a thief, but sadly, there are others out there who do use chargebacks to defraud. My aim was off in this case. Mea Culpa.
Stopping payments just means when they try to charge you for next month they cant. Thats ok. Charge back means you paid, enjoyed your month, then got your money back. Effectively its theft.
That’s a pretty aggressive stance. First, chargeback doesn’t mean you played for any amount of time. Second, theft goes both way how much has EQ historically profited from making membership purchases auto-renew. Chargebacks aren’t always a case of theft, a member can miss the renewal date and request a refund without enjoying any perks of membership.
Every bank has slightly different rules as do many companies. Thank goodness EQ in their infinite wisdom has clarified what THEY consider a chargeback: How does a Chargeback work? The credit card is charged. The card holder or the bank acting on their behalf detects the charge and disputes it. The bank reverses the charges (this results in additional fees to the merchant.) Once the chargeback is reported to us, the account is banned/suspended. Any linked accounts may be banned/suspended as well until the dispute has been resolved. https://help.daybreakgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/217994497-What-is-a-chargeback-
from a forbes article: Before telling your credit card company, “I’m not paying for that,” save your merchant and yourself some trouble: Make sure you have a rock-solid reason for seeking a chargeback. You can dispute credit card charges with your issuer for three reasons under the Fair Credit Billing Act: 1. Someone else used your card without permission. Say a fraudster charged a big-screen TV to your card. You could dispute that payment as an unauthorized purchase. 2. There was a billing error. Say the merchant charged you for two TVs, but you bought only one. You could also dispute that charge. 3. You’ve made a good-faith effort to resolve a problem with the merchant. Suppose you bought a TV and discovered that the screen was cracked. If the merchant refused to give you a refund, you’d generally be able to dispute that purchase successfully, if the purchase met certain requirements under the law. I changed my mind isnt valid. I forgot to turn it off isnt valid.
I might be on the fringe here, but I find the claim that the OP "couldn't cancel" highly dubious. Throughout my 21 years in the game I have taken several breaks and I have never, NEVER, had a problem with post-cancellation charges to my card. Let me repeat that: every single time I have cancelled my account, it works as expected. The current month paid for runs out and my accounts go to Silver status, and no more charges occur until I re-subscribe. This is my experience. YMMV, but I find their claim suspect.
As much as I empathize with forgetfulness, that's not DBG's responsibility to ensure you know when a service YOU subscribed for, willingly, will renew. That's up to you when you sign the agreement to pay month-to-month. My EQ budget comes off its own card, and know EXACTLY when the money is pulled every month. It comes down to simple budgeting and watching your own money. If someone cannot be held accountable for knowing what is expected to come out of their account each month, how can they be trusted to give an honest assessment of what does and does not construe a valid chargeback? I think the more likely case is people are wishy-washy with their bank accounts and hold out pie-in-the-sky hope that somehow their account will sustain the subscriptions they themselves signed up for. Then the account charge hits a negative balance, and they are scrambling to avoid $45/NSF fees.
First, sorry to hear about the job loss during the pandemic. However, that really doesn't mean you can issue chargebacks when you forget to cancel a subscription. That's a scorched earth approach to dealing with it, and the majority of companies out there aren't going to deal with you again if you charge back a payment. I certainly would ban you from doing business with me ever again.
In all fairness to the OP, the membership page does a really terrific job of having the cancel option hidden in plain sight. You have plain text placed next to a very large, color button option.
oh come on, there are only 2 buttons on that page - either cancel or upgrade. He had 6 accounts, how is one not aware you can play this game free. While I feel for the guy/girl to lose all his accounts, I am glad he got a job
Cancel isn’t a button, it’s text. On the plus side, I don’t have to call and go through a sales pitch to cancel accounts, but it doesn’t change the fact that Cancel is a plain text word.
Seems to me you can sub then cancel membership right away and then it will not auto renew. If someone calls their CC company and says I want a charge back because I forgot to cancel my membership I don't think they will get much help but I could be wrong. I guess they could make it more obvious but I figured it out no problem. And if the person actually logged into the game during the period they wanted canceled that would also seem problematic.
potato potahto. its a link just like a button is. But I will agree that not highlighting it makes it easier to miss.
