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Cancelled before it even began (billing issues)
cynon
Member UncommonPosts: 42
If you see my other thread, I had a trial account from about a year ago that I tried to upgrade today. At about 10:30am pacific time i purchased the Tortage adventurers upgrade which should have reactivated my account and let me spend the rest of my weekend in the world. six hours later i have two charges pending on the account (one for the original 24.99 and a 19.99 upgrade to the unlimited trial...whatever that is). I STILL cant access the forums (because my trial account is frozen) and have had an email into tech support for about 5 hours.
I can not speak for the game itself, especially after the expansion. But their billing system and customer support system is total trash.
This really is not WoW/EQ where Gear makes the man. Here in eVE, the man with biggest balls, willing to risk the most, will win. It is risk/reward here- not always wear best items 24/7 and beat the crap out of all else.
-PatchDay
Comments
I had a similar issue last night.The pending payments do take a while.I had a couple last night take a while and until all the payments went through my account was flagged frozen.Finally after waiting over an hour the charges processed and i could get on.Not sure what the issue is.It could be a lot of people are subbing back in for a month just to check things out and maybe they were overwhelmed.I didnt try getting my account reopened til around 10pm and it still took some time.Who knows.....
The Funcom billing sytem has be a mess for 2 years now, and they still haven't been able to fix it.
This is probably the oldest bug AoC has.
Every single time I have reactivated my account I had this problem and needed to go through customers service to fix it. They tell me everytime they are going to correct their billing system, but you (and a several others I have seen posting here) are the living proof that it still doesn't work as it should.
And seriously, what is this crap about "pending"??? Can't they have a normal system in 2010 that works instantly like everyone else? Guess they still have someone pulling the switch manually. Hilarious.
When people say " who cares how many other people are playing the game as long as you are having fun"... this is the answer.
Mike (the one guy who works in the billing department) also is in charge of new graphics and ingame support. It will take him time to get back to the computer that has the billing stuff.
Unless I am mistaken the tortage pack is an upgrade pack to the game and I think it was an addon for the expansion so I not sure you can use it on the trial hence being billed for the game. I not quite sure how they are treating the digitial expasion but it may not included the original game hence $24.99 for the expansion and $19.99 for the orinial game Also as for tech support I Imagine that there are swamp with all the problems from adding an expansion. Sucks about your billing but I guessing that that it wont be quick response from tech support
Well for those that were interested or having the same problem looks like there is no fix for this. to be clear heres the full situation.
about a year ago i got a 2 week trial, played it and let it expire out. with ROTGS i was willing to give the game a full shot and upgraded my account via the 'upgrade my account' button.
the reply i received from the tech support guy was that 'without a valid account in an unfrozen status payments cannot be processed' which essentially means that short of me buying the retail box and using that code my account will forever be stuck in a limbo process. the GM was kind enough to ask me to renew the subscription for a month and then the payments for the full game would be processed...that was nice of him.
i went out and opened a new account and started playing yesterday. im on cimmeria and my character is Cynon the ranger if your intersted.
This really is not WoW/EQ where Gear makes the man. Here in eVE, the man with biggest balls, willing to risk the most, will win. It is risk/reward here- not always wear best items 24/7 and beat the crap out of all else.
-PatchDay
Great. I'm Katsuro on CImm. I'll send a message tonight. Would be nice to have someone to adventure with. The majority of my time on White Sands Isle was spent hiding from a lvl 17 Bear Shaman who was absolutely wrecking a lvl 18 assassin that zoned in.
-tal
OP should have just purchased the Rise of the Godslayer retail box. It comes with the original game, the expansion, 30 days play time, and the Tortage Survival Pack for about $30.
why do people jump the gun, they will get around to it soon... they just had an expansion, it wouldnt worry about it, people rage quit over the dumbest things , just its annoying I hate similar issue, I wanted a few days and they emailed me, I paid for teh expansion said approved then the day of it wasn't//
I was able to play the game but not the expansion until they got it right, which was fine, but I did preorder it weeks before like teh first day it came out..
I have it now funny thing is , they still havent taken there money yet, but i'm able to play, they are lucky i,m honest I let them know that they need to take there cash and they said thanks I could of ripped them off , but i,m not that way , so stuff does happen there human..
The game is going smooth so I give them respect for doing wellw ith the expansion they will get your billing straight give them a few days befor eyou get all bent out of shape, its a part of playing MMO's and I knwo as I been gaming for 15 plus yrs..
well it is kinda frustrating. I am waiting as well ...
This system is soooo retarded I can't even believe it. If you for example click on wrong icon you get payment pending and untill you remove this you cannot play the game. The catch is - that you cannot remove it yourslef, only funcom can do that. So I am waiting for them to remove my previous requests so I can play the game. Retarded. speccialy since I am waiting for last 3 hours for response. They should have live support feature available all the time
In reply to the above post. the problem isnt that i could play the game and didnt have access to the expansion, the problem was that i could not play the base game (it had nothing to do with the expansion.)
as someone mentioned, i just went out and purchased the exp for the base game and the tortage pack, was well worth the 30 bucks since i would want it eventually anyways.
This really is not WoW/EQ where Gear makes the man. Here in eVE, the man with biggest balls, willing to risk the most, will win. It is risk/reward here- not always wear best items 24/7 and beat the crap out of all else.
-PatchDay
You had an expired trial account. this means you did not even own the original game. You then bought an expansion to the original game which you never bought in the first place. Then you got irate because you were going to be billed for the original game plus the expansion.
That's like getting pissed because you bought DLC for a game without owning the actual game and wondering why you can't play it.
There was nothing wrong with the billing or customer service. The fault was entirely your own and you have no leg to stand on for complaining.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Funcom has a really bad account management website.
We see you your website first so it better work.
* It better be a step-by-step process with no chance of fail.
*Everything needs to be explained in detail.
*If the customer using your website has a question an option should be listed for customer service 24/7 live chat with a normal text-based chat box if the consumer does not have a mic.
*Each button we press should give a warning 'Are you sure?" what you are about to do = "such and such will happen". This is of course if any sort of financial transaction could happen by pressing said button or clicking some option.
*Learn from Mythics recent issue and handle billing in-house with enough people to handle the flow of customers. Supply GameStop and BestBuy with more game time cards!
Consider this: Your game has very low numbers. So if any consumer is willing to visit your site they should feel welcomed. The site should be damn near perfectly intuitive easy on the eyes and well-rounded.
I hate to use Blizzard as An example, but if they do anything well it's the website.
It's easy and looks nice. Every financial process goes step-by-step.
We as gamers hate it when other game publishers/developers copy WoW.
However when, it comes to a website By all damn means learn from what works!
Don't flame me for this I'm tired and currently "miffed off" about my experience with the Funcom account management site.
Been dealing with my issue for hours now. If the game-play wasn't at least half decent I would not even consider dealing with this. I like the game enough to put up with it but how many are like me? You know.. people who like pain;P
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Agreed. I've never had a problem with the billing system, or the way the site is layed out. It's all in plain English and easy to follow and understand. If the OP did, in fact, upgrade a trial account to the expansion, then the fault lies with him or her.
If you own a credit or debit card, then you really should be together enough to read the very simple instructions on FC's account management and billing pages.
Funcom billing is definately not the easiest around. I also got tempted by the expansion and after checking the endless trial out and finding my class I decided to give the game another go and resubscribe and buy the expansion.
The normal Godslayer expansion wasn't even showing up for me to buy at the account management website. After several attempts I decided to try and buy the €9.99 Collectors Edition Upgrade (what can go wrong for €9.99? right?). I got taken back to the pending payments screen and surprisingly it added the Godslayer expansion (€24.99) as well as the Collectors Edition upgrade for €9.99 (even though I only wanted the Godslayer expansion).
I fullfilled the payment for my gametime and the expansion, which resulted in one pending payment left over (the CE upgrade). With this pending payment open my account stays Frozen, this is because the items from the CE edition were already granted to me in my account management page.
After contacting a GM ingame and filling in several customer support forms they withdrew the pending payment for the CE edition, withdrew the items that were granted to me and finally my account wasn't frozen anymore and I could enjoy the game once again. Account management of AoC is definately not the easiest, but at least they got their own communication right. After this little incident I'm still quite happy with the customer service (and the game as a whole).
EDIT: It took them about one day to get this solved. Not the quickest but definately not the slowest either. The game is amazingly beautiful if your computer can handle it.
You can be rude all you want my point is valid. Holds merit and is just smart Business.
Also the way you read & understand things seems childish and well sad.. Just because something is well thought out, logical and easy to use, its then only meant for retards or morons?
You sir might just be what you mentioned above if thats the case.
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Just so you know the 9.99 Collectors is supposed to be an upgrade on top of the 24.99 expansion
If you are adding the 9.99 only then I am not suprised something when wrong.
This sounds spot on, though to be fair, Funcom's upgrade system and messaging on the account page is awfully confusing, even for those of us who knew what they were trying to sell through it.
elusivex is right - if someone is confused with the account mgmt site it should be looked into if there is any way of making it better. The possibility for errors should be minimized and the easy of use maximized. It's not about how good or bad the status quo is, but if it can be changed to the better.
Edit: On the other hand I don't understand people who go into a complete hissyfit because they made an error due to their inability to read...
Sorry but you guys complaining about Funcoms billing system have got to stop, my sides are still aching from all the laughter.
Ok so things aren't clear, heck you should try being a EU player who has had to move game accounts around from US servers to EU servers once new services are offered, such as from NCSoft when they opened an EU service for CoH/V, I can't tell you how pissed off I was finding I had reactivated my old US CoH/V game when I meant to reactivate my EU one, now THATS bloody frustrating.
Or think of those poor sods who have been overcharged by Warhammer by upwards of $500, or the ppl who are complaining about Mortal Onlines pre-order fiasco.
I personally have not had any trouble reactivating or purchasing anything from Funcom, but I know billing system could be streamlined a bit, just like nearly every other billing system out there.
As it is the OP got in the game at the end after some confusion.
But it is very clearly laid out and easy to understand, so they don't need to change it. If the vast majority of people had issues navigating it, then they might think of changing it, but there's really no need for them to do so. Seriously, if someone can't manage to read the plain English and simple directions on the billing website, then they shouldn't be allowed a bank account in the first place, and should make all their transactions using M&M's as currency.
JJOneway But it is very clearly laid out and easy to understand, so they don't need to change it. If the vast majority of people had issues navigating it, then they might think of changing it, but there's really no need for them to do so. Seriously, if someone can't manage to read the plain English and simple directions on the billing website, then they shouldn't be allowed a bank account in the first place, and should make all their transactions using M&M's as currency.
Still feel my points are valid... Sorry I just do.
I also don't think I had a hissy-fit lol. I simply made a statement based on my opinion of course about company's and the need to make that first impression good.
Also you keep insisting on insulting me and others who may have liked a better website.
If its so damn good why is the game so damn un-populated? The game is good..
The website is not that great at all...
I feel that website probably turns away many people who consider playing the game.
The above is a response to some post edits from others and JJ not just JJ ~
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Lol, I hope my post didn't give the impression that I'd thought you were having a hissy fit! Of course, your opinion is perfectly valid, no need to apologise for it.
My own opinion is that the billing/account area is already very easy to understand, and it sounds like the OP either missed, or didn't read something properly and got himself into a pickle. We all have different tastes when it comes to style and formatting etc.
I can never find anything on my company's website, and I've been there 12 years now, but everyone else seems fine with it.
The hissyfit comment wasn't directed at you. You made a very clear, consise, and valid ctitizism. I haven't had any major issues with it that didn't stem from my mistakes, but I agree that it should be fool proof.
The comment was aimed at the "acct mgmt suXX0rz - game's sux, dont play it" complainers which pop up readily after having powerclicked through where they should have been reading and comprehending
Ahh thanks for setting me straight bro and I appreciate your input.
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
No.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-