Vanguard:The Saga of CC FRAUD

Shazzel

I purchased Vanguard with a gift card, thinking it might be worth playing. Turned out after trying it wasnt for me. Ok no big deal right, ive played a million games i didnt like so I canceled my account (or so i thought) using the features provided by SOE station.



Uninstalled the game and moved on with my life. Fast forward a month later and I notice my CC is being billed........



Ok maybe i did something wrong, so I quickly go back to the website and log in to my account. Thats where I see its still listed as "Active" so I use the /cancel feature again to no avail. You get a page that says you "canceled" but it doesnt change your CC status with Vanguard so it leads you to think your canceled but are in fact not......











Ok so you cant cancel with the website and it lies and leads you into thinking you can and/or did. Sounds like Fraud to me?



Next after searching for customer service you find that the number is a TOLL charge? To cancel something you never wanted to start with? Then your charged to listen to a recording tell you they are closed and to call back during PST hours mon-fri.









Great! well its FRI night im pissed and ive been worked by SOE twice today with the promise of geting screwed with the phone bill again on monday. YaY!



Needless to say ill be contacting my bank to report this fraud, ill update this post after I talk to SOE customer service to see how they "handle it".

snazzy

I had canceled ddo in the summer with no problems then just these past two months started to get charged from turbine again lol!

whitedelight

Yeah, there is a known issue going on right now.

CleffyII

Turbine and SOE are taking pointers from Farlan Entertainment in how to screw themselves over.

JJD74

Originally posted by Shazzel

I purchased Vanguard with a gift card, thinking it might be worth playing. Turned out after trying it wasnt for me. Ok no big deal right, ive played a million games i didnt like so I canceled my account (or so i thought) using the features provided by SOE station.



Uninstalled the game and moved on with my life. Fast forward a month later and I notice my CC is being billed........



Ok maybe i did something wrong, so I quickly go back to the website and log in to my account. Thats where I see its still listed as "Active" so I use the /cancel feature again to no avail. You get a page that says you "canceled" but it doesnt change your CC status with Vanguard so it leads you to think your canceled but are in fact not......











Ok so you cant cancel with the website and it lies and leads you into thinking you can and/or did. Sounds like Fraud to me?



Next after searching for customer service you find that the number is a TOLL charge? To cancel something you never wanted to start with? Then your charged to listen to a recording tell you they are closed and to call back during PST hours mon-fri.









Great! well its FRI night im pissed and ive been worked by SOE twice today with the promise of geting screwed with the phone bill again on monday. YaY!



Needless to say ill be contacting my bank to report this fraud, ill update this post after I talk to SOE customer service to see how they "handle it".

 

Ironically, I had the exact same issue with cancelling an Everquest II account.  This could turn out to be interesting.

I also figured, "no big deal" it's SOE... nothing to worry about.  I got the "account cancelled page and all.  Printed it up, saved the email... a month goes by I figure I'm good to go.  Shred the printout, delete the email.... week later... there's the bill.  Go to the site, I'm unable to cancel the account...  Call the 800 number... Operator states "you must have done it incorrectly, I'll do it manually for you, but I can't reverse the current charge".   Ironic.

Shazzel

Yea thats not ganna fly I havnt loged into the account since day two after my purchase.

SomebodyOverThere

lol yeah about 3-4 years ago i had TheStation Access (not All Access...i was playing Infantry Online). They did not have any way to automatically cancel...you had to go through customer support. Sent a ticket to customer support with the very first line saying that I am cancelling my account via the stated proceedures...then i proceeded to give the feedback about why i was cancelling (as stated for you to do in the described cancellation proceedure). A month later i was charged. It took three calls for SOE to finally reverse two months of charges (it got to a second month since they kept NOT cancelling it after each call)...their excuse was the customer support person put the request under "feedback" instead of "account cancellation" and he must have missed the cancellation at the beginning/top. This was despite the fact that they request for you to give feedback when you cancel. Anyway, in the end they didn't succeed in getting one extra penny out of me (and they ended up losing money actually...because they probably got hit with a $25 charge-back fee when i disputed the charges).

olddaddy

Well, if $OE is running the Gods and Heroes North American billing, I guess that game will be another one to stay away from.

 

 

swede2

sorry that happened to you but anytime you cancel some form of service thats coming off your creditcard you phone them and specificly tell them do not make any more payments to such and such , i know  you souldnt have to that goes for any form of monthly service not just games

rob1101

great thats just one more thing thats gonna hurt the mmo market.

xauss

Originally posted by olddaddy


Well, if $OE is running the Gods and Heroes North American billing, I guess that game will be another one to stay away from.
 

thankfully PE are handling all servers, billing, customer support etc inhouse. SOE are excellent at printing the disks - so that their job

PE ANNOUNCEMENT  28Feb2006 "This means that we handle everything internally, from hosting the game servers, to account services/billing, to technical support, and working with the community. This means that Platform Publishing will be handling retail marketing, PR, manufacturing, and our North American distribution."

Kurush

What happened to you is not uncommon.  There have been many people who continue to be charged after cancelling a game card-based subscription.  This is not an issue particular to any title.  It's a flaw with SOE.



When it happened to me, I found that SOE customer service was completely useless in resolving the issue, both by e-mail and by phone.  I eventually had to have the charges refused via the credit card company, after which SOE promptly banned my entire Station account.  It's pretty sad when an automated banning system is more reliable and efficient than the same company's account handling features.

Shazzel

Its a pretty gray area, I think they purposely charged vanguard accounts for the first month..knowing that 50-60% were going to be canceling.



I was going to call as soon as a woke up today but it seems the station cancel features are back to "working" correctly and now shows my vanguard account as canceled.



Still have to call for my refund i guess.

KinslayerX

And the moral of this story kiddies?



Whenver you cancel a recurring a charge on your credit card or bank account, make sure you also cancel the direct debit itself with the bank, instead of trusting the company involved to stop taking your money.



Still, could be worse, you could have your old landlord decide to take a months rent from your account after you've moved out as mine has decided to try and do this month

Liddokun

Lesson of the day:

Friends don't let friends play anything that has to do with SOE.

xxthecorexx

i wonder how many tens of thousands of dollars this puts in the kitty for them every month ?



wtg SoE !

druarc

Due to pass experiences and what I've seen happen to others I ring up my credit card company and tell them not to excepted any more charges from said MMO company as I canceled my account with them.



Seems to work so far.



You could always try calling your credit card company and get them to reverse the charge.