No company should be able to hold in their database credit information on a closed account for more than 3 months. This should not only apply to MMOs, but to any company.
If you havent used a service in three months, you should have to re-enter your credit card information.
Not doing that just puts the data at risk to theft // hacking into the database, etc from all sides.
Thing is this should also extend to active MMO accounts -- if you havent logged into an account for 3 months on a recurring active account it should stop charging you for said. There are many times when someone might be called on for military service, had some medical emergency, the person died and it was on a pre-paid card, whatever where an account might be completely forgotten about. It shouldnt just bill and bill forever.
This should also extend to e-wallet type charges (I know with SOE they charged without notice me for jedi access until I ran out of SC -- THEN they sent me a message. It wasnt even obvious that it was going to recur when I got the jedi access with station credit for a month -- but they happily siphoned off all the SC From the account until it drained completely from an unused account)
Yes I know unused accounts are a lucrative business, as are hacked accounts in that they get that extra month or even possibly many extra months if someone hacks someones password and they do not follow it close enough and just pay their bill month to month -- but when no value is given for payment you are looking at theft.
I defiantly agree with Centin here, anyhow here is the email I received from Funcom. It looks like they decided to reverse the charges, which is nice. I wish however the tech support guy didn't give me the impression that this was "not likely" to happen. Otherwise I woulddn't have had to order a new bank card for having my bank reverse it....If, this person didn't give me that impression, and I got this email within two days, I wouldn't have thought anything negative about Funcom. I would suggest though that you remove credit card information from accounts not active in more than 3 months like suggested.
Greetings!
Thank you for Contacting Funcom Customer Support!
I have refunded the charge of $14.99 that was placed on your card. You will see this refund in the next 5-7 business days return to your form of payment. We do apologize for any issues and I also removed payment information so that if someone was able to access your account in the future, that the card can not be charged. Please make sure to update your password further in the future.
Reply to this email for further assistance if needed. Thanks.
Personally I wouldn't just clear the payment details in the account - I would ask customer support to do it for you. The reason for this, you then have written confirmation via email that your payment details have been removed.
Heh, well hell if you are playing WoW you probably got keylogged or something and somone got your AoC account info. You better change passwords on everything you do online including changing your email on the battle net account.
I tell you this because I resubbed to WoW a while back because of Catalcysm. I never ever bought any gold or anything from 3rd party websites. One day I started experiencing a ton of disconnects. Come to find out one day I logged in and I was banned from Chat due to spamming. I was later told my character was online advertising for a gold seller. That obviously explained my disconnects because someone was trying to log in while I was online. I was able to recover my account but I was so pissed off I changed, canceled everything and wiped my hard drive. Somewhere some how I got key logged. Stealing accounts in WoW happens too often it's not worth the headaches. Yea I know there is that password protector thing but I am not paying anymore plus the monthly sub..not for a game (maybe a bank account but not a game).
So lesson learned, always at random times change your passwords and the basics like scanning your hard drive with antivirus, maleware, etc. Most of all always delete any CC info from inactive game accounts.
Had the same issue twice already, but I'm too lazy and passive to do anything about it For FC I figure the only true cancellation is deleting your CC info.
I don't see how else the support could respond. ANY OTHER game customer service would tell you the same.
It's unlikely hackers stole the account to just pay for the game, it just doesn't make sense so either way the topic starter did it by accident, his brother/friend or even some hacker after getting his login&password via spy programm but that's still TS responsibility.
The only more or less reasonable solution i see is if they refund the money and cancel the subsciption.But they have no proof the topic starter just didn't made it all up, and refunding money via credit card is a painfull procedure as i heard.
After reading this I have also deleted my stored info from my old AoC account. While to my knowledge they have never tried to charge me or reactivate my account, better safe than sorry.
I will say that overall my experience with funcom has been good. I reactivated my account about 8 months ago to play AoC again for a few months and it took them 3-4 days to actually unfreeze the account, but other than that never a problem with CS or any other aspect of the game or company.
this is funny i found this a few months back i had my account magicly attempt to renew for anarchy... lucky me tho i had used a prepaid visa... that was since out of funds and un refillable
Comments
No company should be able to hold in their database credit information on a closed account for more than 3 months. This should not only apply to MMOs, but to any company.
If you havent used a service in three months, you should have to re-enter your credit card information.
Not doing that just puts the data at risk to theft // hacking into the database, etc from all sides.
Thing is this should also extend to active MMO accounts -- if you havent logged into an account for 3 months on a recurring active account it should stop charging you for said. There are many times when someone might be called on for military service, had some medical emergency, the person died and it was on a pre-paid card, whatever where an account might be completely forgotten about. It shouldnt just bill and bill forever.
This should also extend to e-wallet type charges (I know with SOE they charged without notice me for jedi access until I ran out of SC -- THEN they sent me a message. It wasnt even obvious that it was going to recur when I got the jedi access with station credit for a month -- but they happily siphoned off all the SC From the account until it drained completely from an unused account)
Yes I know unused accounts are a lucrative business, as are hacked accounts in that they get that extra month or even possibly many extra months if someone hacks someones password and they do not follow it close enough and just pay their bill month to month -- but when no value is given for payment you are looking at theft.
I defiantly agree with Centin here, anyhow here is the email I received from Funcom. It looks like they decided to reverse the charges, which is nice. I wish however the tech support guy didn't give me the impression that this was "not likely" to happen. Otherwise I woulddn't have had to order a new bank card for having my bank reverse it....If, this person didn't give me that impression, and I got this email within two days, I wouldn't have thought anything negative about Funcom. I would suggest though that you remove credit card information from accounts not active in more than 3 months like suggested.
Personally I wouldn't just clear the payment details in the account - I would ask customer support to do it for you. The reason for this, you then have written confirmation via email that your payment details have been removed.
yep one big reeson i used either prepaid credit card .once they emptied it they cant get anymore.and say ho sorry its an error.
To the OP,
Heh, well hell if you are playing WoW you probably got keylogged or something and somone got your AoC account info. You better change passwords on everything you do online including changing your email on the battle net account.
I tell you this because I resubbed to WoW a while back because of Catalcysm. I never ever bought any gold or anything from 3rd party websites. One day I started experiencing a ton of disconnects. Come to find out one day I logged in and I was banned from Chat due to spamming. I was later told my character was online advertising for a gold seller. That obviously explained my disconnects because someone was trying to log in while I was online. I was able to recover my account but I was so pissed off I changed, canceled everything and wiped my hard drive. Somewhere some how I got key logged. Stealing accounts in WoW happens too often it's not worth the headaches. Yea I know there is that password protector thing but I am not paying anymore plus the monthly sub..not for a game (maybe a bank account but not a game).
So lesson learned, always at random times change your passwords and the basics like scanning your hard drive with antivirus, maleware, etc. Most of all always delete any CC info from inactive game accounts.
Had the same issue twice already, but I'm too lazy and passive to do anything about it
For FC I figure the only true cancellation is deleting your CC info.
I don't see how else the support could respond. ANY OTHER game customer service would tell you the same.
It's unlikely hackers stole the account to just pay for the game, it just doesn't make sense so either way the topic starter did it by accident, his brother/friend or even some hacker after getting his login&password via spy programm but that's still TS responsibility.
The only more or less reasonable solution i see is if they refund the money and cancel the subsciption.But they have no proof the topic starter just didn't made it all up, and refunding money via credit card is a painfull procedure as i heard.
This is how cybercriminals steal you money, otherwise they are trying to improve there financial report by this act.
This remind of this old, but legendary thread:
Funcom credit card scam, watch out
Link: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/193410
After reading this I have also deleted my stored info from my old AoC account. While to my knowledge they have never tried to charge me or reactivate my account, better safe than sorry.
I will say that overall my experience with funcom has been good. I reactivated my account about 8 months ago to play AoC again for a few months and it took them 3-4 days to actually unfreeze the account, but other than that never a problem with CS or any other aspect of the game or company.
this is funny i found this a few months back i had my account magicly attempt to renew for anarchy... lucky me tho i had used a prepaid visa... that was since out of funds and un refillable
thanks for heads up b---stards charged me for feb 2011 when my last sub was July 2010. really ppp'd off