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Question about SOE billing
mccoyy
Member Posts: 80
One thing about SOE that really does bother me...if its true of course...
Ive seen alot of recent posts mostly from Vanguard that people could not cancel thier subscriptions???
Can anyone confirm if this is true or not? In my opinion SOE messing up thier games is one thing...and Im smart enough to draw my own conclusions from that....but
IF THEY ARE NOT LETTING PEOPLE OUT OF THIER SUBSCRIPTIONS THEN THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM even for the most open minded of people....
Im being very sincere when I ask if anyone knows of this happening or can shed some light if its a real concern or not..thanks!
Comments
You might want to ask this in the Vanguard section of the forums.
I have never had a problem, 9/10 its user error. There is a big "Cancel subscription" button in your account, what people get all pissed about, is when they cancel, they think it ends then, right then. DONE. This isn’t true, depending on when you cancel, you could owe one last month (As you should) so people (Children) get upset. If it was truly a problem, then just get a new card issued (New number) Cancel payments to SOE (Bank) , or just use Timecards (anonymous).
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
i also think most probelms were cause of user errors, also soe wants you to enter the answer of your secret question to cancel the account online so be sure you remeber what you enetered there (aand don't just enter any random text).
Yes, i had troubles, and if it wasnt for the fact that Sony publishes some decent games i would never return to them. Like the above person says, the problem is the security question.
The security question, in my mind, always is there for the idiots that forget their password. My password for gaming subscriptions is always the same, hence i never forget it. I am 1000% certain i will not forget my PASSWORD.
Thus what i do is i just fill in something into the field of the security question, thinking it wont matter as i wont forget my password anyway. I have had hundreds of subscriptions in my life, from newspaper to game, to pornsite, whatever, and always the password is used for identification and the security question is only for those who forget their password. But with SOE its different, the security question is actually your password and more important then your password.
And thus I was in trouble when I tried to cancel Vanguard. You see when you try to cancel they don’t ask for your username and password, like I expected. NO! they ask for your username and security question. Now that’s not the bad thing. The bad thing is if you try to recover your security question you can’t do it on their site. You have to call a U.S. phonenumber (which is expensive when you live in Europe) to ask them to reset the security question. You will also come into a line of other waiting people, so the whole affair cost me a couple of euro’s in long distance calls.
This really pissed me off, and I wrote a complaint to Sony. It is clear why they do it, it was a scheme to stop people from cancelling or at least make them pay phone costs for cancelling. Every normal company asks for username and password and only uses security question for if you lost your password. No company, except SOE, uses the security question for account management or cancelling.
Thinking about it still makes me pissed, at the time I swore fealthy never to buy a SOE product again, but since they publish so many games I don’t have much choice. The main lesson you should learn though, WRITE DOWN YOUR SECURITY QUESTION, ITS MORE IMPORTANT THEN YOUR PASSWORD AND WITH SOE ITS MORE IMPORTANT THEN LIFE!
If anyone has had to call the US number like the poster above me and is in the UK, i suggest emailing/checking out Watchdog
http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/
they've made a number of companies, including microsoft publically apologise to people.
One which was me, during the red rings of death, and microsoft having the guile to think about charging me
Security questions, though are mainly that.. there for security, shame some end up being really dumb... and lack the security you'd have thought. but meh, whatcha going to do.
I didn't have a problem cancelling from Vanguard. Just write down your security question when you sign up and no problems.
yes and no SOE has billing problems there are days when you are not able to Concel the subscription also there are cases in which ppl canceled got told they canceled and SOE stills bills those ppl. Especially Global Collect is known to have issues. If you have problems .. give up your hope to solve anything with the SOE support. Either notify your Bank or CC Service and refuse to pay anything that comes from SOE. This way SOE will make sure to cancel fpr you...... somehow i dont know of any problems that may occur when SOEs cancels for you.
/evilgrin
SOE = Source Of Evil
I as well have never had a problem with SOE billing.
-Currently looking forward to FFXIV
-Currently playing EvE and Global Agenda
You purposely entered false information as the secret question answer.
You purposely chose to not remember or record what you entered.
And that somehow is SOE's fault? The security question is there for a reason and many other companies beyond SOE use it for other things than password retrieval. This was YOUR fault not SOE's. Way to point the finger, look in the mirror my friend if you are searching for someone to blame.
kovah beat me to that one lol, anyways i love this stuff i read "omg i stubbed my toe! damn you soe!"
soe the cause of all bad things. if i was SOE i would start buying out all the new mmo's just to piss people off.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
Let me get this straight.You purposely entered false information as the secret question answer.
You purposely chose to not remember or record what you entered.
And that somehow is SOE's fault? The security question is there for a reason and many other companies beyond SOE use it for other things than password retrieval. This was YOUR fault not SOE's. Way to point the finger, look in the mirror my friend if you are searching for someone to blame.
I'm not writing Chinese am I? You can read right?
Since you don't seem to get it, let me explain it to you further. From my experience, with websites, with games, with products, with online banking, you name itthe security question has never, never been used as identification and only been used for password recovery. For the record, I have been busy buying stuff, becoming member of countless websites, mmo's, etc, etc.
What a normal company does, is to use the password and username as identification. No website or game asks the security question, and only the security question as identification.
Because i never forget my password, i dont care about the security question, hence i just put in something there. That works for every mmo, every website, every product i've so far come across except S.O.E. With S.O.E. you want to go to accountmanagement you need your security question apparently.
Now that in itself, isn't even that bad. So you want to ignore the traditional username/password method of getting to your account information or cancelling? Fine. However:
There is no way to e-mail Sony and ask them to resend your security question.
There is no button to resend the security question to your e-mail adres. Now you could argue that this method is unsecure because someone could hack your e-mail, but this argument is invalid because when i called them they resend my anwser to my e-mail adres, i could have been a hacker just as easily.
There is no european phonenumber.
When you call them you get into a long line of people. I had to wait 30 minutes. It wouldn't suprise me if the other callers where also trying to get the answer to their security question.
When I got someone online, they dragged out the conversation horribly, its no wonder that they have long lines when they take 2 minutes to finish one sentence.
Now, you could argue that its my own fault. That despite the fact that Eve.online, ff11, lineage2, WoW, eve-online, ultima online, COV, LOTRO and all other mmo's allowed for the simple use of username and password to cancel or get to your account management, that i somehow should have known that with Sony the only thing that matters is your security question and you might as well forget your password as its not needed for accountmanagement.
But guess what, I call it bad service. You know why? Because I work for an IT company that sells microsoft and citrix e-learning vouchers online, and we do a lot of online business. Now I'm in a really competitive market, but if we treated our customers like this, we would be out of business in no time. That goes a bit towards explaining why SOE isn't nearly as succesful as some other guys. That also explains why SOE billing has a bad reputation, because they do, SOE billing does have a terrible reputation, this subject and the (can't cancel) subject has appeared on this and many other sites many times.
Is it my own fault? Well you know, I still can't name a single other company, but maybe you can, that requires you to memorize your security question and only your security question to get to your account management. Every site and product i see requires your username and password. If they must be so "different" then why dont they have any options on their website to resend the security answer to the e-mail adres that belongs with the account? Especially when Europeans play your game and they can only proceed with their accountmanagement when they call an expensive U.S. phonenumber with waiting lines.
This isn't my fault. I was perfectly in my rights to assume that a username and password is what is needed to log into my account. It isn't like i stole anything, or like i destroyed something that belongs to Sony. I just didn't write down my security question, and now i have to pay a fat phonebill. Now you can call that my fault Sir, and maybe your right, but at the end of the day, I'm customer, and sorry to say it, but usually the service when it comes to billing, is much better. Which explains why you only hear of billing problems with SOE and not other brands, so I'm sure not the only one who has this problem.
Oh and might i add, because I care about games more then about my pride, I resubbed to everquest 2. I took extra notice to write down the security question, and guess what. Nowhere did it mention that you needed the security question to log into your account management. From the entire page you get the impression that the only thing important is your username and password and the security question is for when you lose your password. So you get people who write down their username and password, because thats whats important right? Username and password right? And then they find out they have to make an expensive call to the United States because they didn't write down their security question (seriously, i still never write it down for other products, because im quite sure Sony is the only company in the world that does this). Bingo. Every time someone falls into that trap, Sony gets money from their expensive U.S. hotline.
Oh yeah, great billing department. Great service. And don't forget to blame the customer. After all, we all know how important that question is
.
Sorry, but im not buying that. SOE's billing department is crap. I'm excited abou Pobts. I'm not a SOE fanboy, nor a Sony hater. I will buy PoBTS if it is fun to play, and it looks to become amazing. I will write down my security question and I will enjoy the game. I'm not a disgruntled SWG refugee.
But I'm also honest, and I do recognise crap when I see it. And Sony's billing department is pure crap. No question about it. You want to call Sony the greatest company in the world, fine. You want to call them god reborn with their walkman and their playstation, and their games and their movies. Fine, I'm not going to stop you saying that, to some degrees i might even agree with you. But when talking about their billing department and methods, I'm going to tell it like it is. Crap.
Take anything good you want to say about SOE and repeat it a thousand times, I won't stop you. But their billing department sucks, and it might take 20 more of such threads on MMORPG's website before you might find out, but just because you where lucky or you seem to think the customer (i.e. me) is at fault, doesn't mean that it billing department smells any better. It still smells like crap.
Oh and by the way Sir, as an MMO addict, i've played all the games that are in your signature except (Carpe Diem(beta), the matrix and RYL:UW. None of them (except the SOE games) use the security question to log into account management. None of them.
You claim there are other companies that use the security question to log into account? You tell me, which one. Games? I'm pretty sure its only Sony. Newspapers? Tell me which one so i can test it out. Fileplanet? Uses Username and password. Tell me what company. I'm sure you won't be able to, but please, put your money where your mouth, and tell me what other company, then sony, uses the security question to log into your account, instead of password?
I'm sure you won't be able to mention even one.
This is a question about SOE billing. I don't care about PoBTS being bought by Sony. I don't care about what they did to SWG, im no disgruntled fan.
I'm no SOE hater, i think EQ2 is fine. You want to sing praise about SOE, I'm with you, we can sing praise of SOE's all day and I will sing along with you.
BUT, this thread was about their billing department, and I just wrote down my experiences. Now, I could off course just ignore my experience, and say that everything is fine and that their billing department and methods are fine. But then I'd be lying, and whom exactly does that help? Whom? Sony? Maybe, maybe Sony will get 2 or 3 customers more if I shut up, maybe not. My preference would be that they would fix their billing department, because if they did, they will become whole and then, finally then they will be the most perfect company in the entire world, beaten by no other company, unchallenged even by god, everyone will feel the shining light of Sony the magnificent onto their faces and with it they will wash away their sins.
Or perhaps not, I'll leave that to you to decide. But at least if they'd fix it, they would have a better billing department and they would perhaps finally lose that "bad image" that they have when their billing methods or department are mentioned. And that my friend, would help sony in the end. Succesful companies are companies that do their best to keep things easy and simple for their customers. That means, you dont make europeans spend 30 dollars for a long distance call, just because they forgot to write down a detail that is usually never important.
I'm sorry Conley. I'm glad that you have provided us with the opportunity to read your life story but when all is said and done YOU CHOSE to not remember information. SOE did not forget the information nor did they somehow force you to forget it.
When I changed my email address for WoW it asked me my security question.
It's your own fault man, kick and scream and cry all you want to just like my 3 year old daughter, it's still your own damn fault.
As I have both multiple e-mails and a wow account, i just tested this. On the world of warcraft website you go to account management. You click on it, and it asks for your username and password. Then you get on the page where you see you have a header called account info with your account status and account creation date, a header called contact information with your name, adress and email on it and underneath a header called billing info with information about your billing. Click on contact information, on the bottom of this pate is a big button saying change email. Click it, change your email adress by typing it and press the change e-mail button.
It is done. No security question is asked in WoW. At no point, not for entering account management and also not for changing e-mail adress.That's means your talking bull. You're lying and every single person with a WoW account can now go and test this and also see that youre lying.
Now please, give me one example. One company aside from SoE that asks for your security question instead of username and password, to reach their account management page or to do anything else for that matter. The only thing when its used, is when you lost your password. That's what the security question in wow is for. And in basically every other product. If you don't lose your password, you usually never use your security question. Except with SoE.
Hmm. I promise I don't go out of my way to make up stories to beef up my point of view. I know for a fact that when doing something with my WoW account besides changing the password they asked for my secret question. I thought it was chaning the password, obviously I was incorrect and I'll retract that.
I'm not going to go through the effort of figuring out what exactly it was because it is irrelevant. You forgot your secret question, actually as you stated, you never intended to remember it. That was your choice, not SOE's. Sorry Conley, I still stand by my position that this was not SOE's fault and you are being bitter with them for your own mistake.
This was a problem some of us had in the first month. Had nothing to do with a security question it just wouldnt cancel the subcription. We would go through the process to cancel it... it would post a message saying "You have successfuly canceled your subscription" then when I would check the status it still said ACTIV E. Fortunatly they fixed it before my next billing date because I didnt want to call them.
Okay okay, so I'm bored at work and I dislike being called a liar, though apparently I was it was an honest mistake. Anyway, here ya go:
Taken from: http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl02008p
"To initiate a transfer between two accounts where you are the subscriber, you will need to specify the account name associated with the account you wish to transfer a character to, and answer the 'secret question' for the destination account. Without this information an account to account transfer will not be possible."
It was when I transfered my woman's char off of my account to her account way back when that I encountered this not when I was changing email addresses. Again, sorry for saying it was the the latter.
I have had precisely zero problems with SOE customer support or billing.
Better than WoW. The "cancel subscription" option isn't even on the account management page anymore. It's all tucked away under like three menus of subscription management. /rude Blizzard
Come on Conley! Called ya out and nada???
Did some more digging on the web.
http://www.americafirst.com/help/verified_access_faq.cfm
Yeah, it's a "Challenge Question" but still, same dif and used for a different reason aside from password retrieval by a Bank.
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=425 - Equifax uses a secret question to identify you.
I also thought of one more that I have encountered. My account at INGDirect.com ask's me a "secret question" everytime I login.
So, there's more than one company that uses such technologies to identify that people are who they say they are. Again, YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT. Get over it.
Yeah, it's a "Challenge Question" but still, same dif and used for a different reason aside from password retrieval by a Bank.
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=425 - Equifax uses a secret question to identify you.
I also thought of one more that I have encountered. My account at INGDirect.com ask's me a "secret question" everytime I login.
So, there's more than one company that uses such technologies to identify that people are who they say they are. Again, YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT. Get over it.
Sword of the New World open beta requires a separate identification number (license, student id, whatever) for your account....Any sort of account that handles financial transactions is getting cookies, security images and challenge questions -- I think because of Sarbanes-Oxley but am not positive.
Anyway, I'm behind Kovah on this. It's one thing to blame SOE for goofing up billing so that the cancel button doesn't work and you can accuse them of lack of consideration for not creating a european customer service number (assuming VG was intentionally being marketed in Europe and you [Conley] didn't decide to up and use a US account) but the fact is that you [Conley] neglected your responsibility to maintain your question and password. Holding that against SOE is just unreasonable.
Oh, and Conley, post #13 seemed like an extreme response. Ease off the caffiene. ( ' :
I cancelled my Vanguard account on the 4/5th day of playing it and didn't have any problems asides from the game being, in my opinion, rubbish.
I also accidently reactivated my SWG account a little while ago, or let it overrun when they were trying to bring vet's back and I asked if SOE could refund me and they did.
Asides from the complete lack of decent games on SOE I've never had a problem with the billing system
From EQ1 through SWG,EQ2 and finally VSoH, I've never had a problem with the billing system of SOE. I've cancelled, re-subscribed,upgraded and downgraded 2 different station accounts with nary a problem.