Warhammer Online Users Repeatedly Overbilled 216
TheSpoom writes "A screw-up in EA's Warhammer Online billing system has resulted in many players being charged upwards of 22 times for a one-month subscription, filling bank accounts with overdraft fees and the Warhammer forums with very angry players, who are discussing the issue quite vocally. EA has said that refunds are in progress and that '[they] anticipate that once the charges have been reversed, any fees that have been incurred should be refunded as well.' They haven't specifically promised to refund overdraft charges, only to ask customers' banks to refund them once the actual charges are refunded. They seem to be assuming banks will have no problem with this."
Banks (Score:4, Insightful)
ask customers' banks to refund them once the actual charges are refunded
Yes because banks are so courteous to their customers [meejahor.com].
Re:Banks (Score:5, Informative)
Okay working for a financial institution myself, I can tell you that it is very likely if the charges are on a Visa Debit Card, people do have recourse. Due to Visa's Zero Liability Coverage [visa.com], people who bank with an institution that participates in the VZL are likely to get the funds back if they file a Dispute with their bank or credit union. Fees resulting from the erroneous charges are also likely to be refunded as well. However, each institution is different and some don't fully participate in the Zero Liability Program. If you bank with an institution that tells you to go fuck yourself, it's time to switch to a new bank, or better yet, just switch to a credit union.
So to summarize, call your bank if you were one of the ones fucked over by EA and request an immediate dispute on all charges beyond the one authorized and agreed upon charges (and then proceed to cancel your subscription to Warhammer). Also, as a word to the wise, make sure to ask your bank to stop subscription charges from EA. Just canceling and getting a new debit card isn't enough. If a merchant has an authorization for subscription billing, they can still bill the card even after the card is canceled, since they have an authorization already.
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Oh, and be nice. You'd be surprised how far being a friendly and courteous person on the phone can get you, and how far being a jackass will NOT get you.
I've never had problems, and I have Bank of America. The horror stories I hear all tend to stem from someone calling them up in a pissy mood.
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I had a 1&1 subscription that I forgot about and was charged for, which resulted in an overdraft fee of $35, as well as several subsequent $35 overdraft fees on small few-dollar purchases and multiple $5 "Continued Overdraft" fees every day for almost a week. I had 1&1 cancel my account and refund what I paid minus a dollar or so, and Wells Fargo had no problem reversing every single one of those fees once the credit posted. I'm sure other banks would be the same way.
This was a purchase that was not
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Screw the bank being decent, I'm more amazed that 1&1 refunded you! Did you kidnap their VP's daughter or something?
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Screw the bank being decent, I'm more amazed that 1&1 refunded you! Did you kidnap their VP's daughter or something?
His son, actually.
But in all seriousness, I've never had a problem with 1&1 on the customer service front, and refunds are automatic when you cancel your service effective immediately: cancel.1and1.com [1and1.com]. I think they have a 30-day guarantee on new service which gives you a full refund if you cancel, but after that, you get a pro-rated refund, and you can cancel at any time for any reason.
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I'd also assume (from your tone) that you were nice about it when you contacted them.
It amazes me how people act like jerks when they contact customer service, and are shocked to find that GARBAGE IN = GARBAGE OUT.
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To be fair, I've never found Barclays in the UK to be too bad to me.
GOA (used to run European Dark Age of Camelot) continued to bill me after I'd cancelled my subscription. I spent weeks trying to get hold of them and to get them to refund me and they did. Only they billed me again after that, so I contact the bank and asked them to reverse the charge and block any future charges, and even though it was a debit card, which I was told they will not do that for, they did.
I was also double charged by a hotel (
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To be fair, I've never found Barclays in the UK to be too bad to me.
Yeah, but we have actual regulation of banks here, unlike in the US.
Lawsuit (Score:5, Informative)
3 elements of the tort of negligence:
1) Did they owe the claimant a duty of care?
Yes. By getting direct access to their bank accounts, they had to take care not to overcharge.
2) Did they breach that duty?
Yes. They charged multiple times.
3) Did that breach cause damage?
Yes. Customers were put into overdraft (and who know how many cheques bounced because of it).
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you forget the 4th one :
4) are the damages enough to realistically sue them and spend thousands of dollars in legal fees ?
No.
Re:Lawsuit (Score:5, Funny)
Aw, come on. This is a perfect example of why we have class-action lawsuits. It's not worth it for any single member of the class to pursue it in the courtroom, but banded together with sufficient legal representation, they could put the hurt on EA.
This would be perfect, I can see it now:
Court findings: For the plaintiffs, the sum of $1,000,000 to be split among the class and awarded in vouchers for three months of free play on Warhammer Online, plus lawyers' fees of $10,000,000 to be awarded in cash to the legal representation team.
Re:Lawsuit (Score:5, Funny)
Would you have to file one class-action for the wizards, one for warriors etc....
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No, these are real damages, the customers should be reimburse real dollars, not a few months of free play, especially the hundreds that will probably cancel their accounts over this.
I'm sure the customers would be fine with the lawyers getting 10 million
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Yep. Pay ~$70 to file and a sheriff to deliver the summons and you're done. Just look up EA's corporate office and whoever the CEO is. Of course the sheriff probably won't see the CEO (even though he's suppose to) but he'll march up to the secretary and they'll sign for it and I'm sure the CEO will hear about it.
I'd go for whatever the limit is for your state's small claims, 3 grand or 5 grand. Judge might see
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"I have gotten this same error, I believe the system may have done this to everyone who is currently playing that is using credit cards to pay... My fees were 13 charges of 6 month subscriptions, 77.94 X 13 = 1013.12 I didn't have this much money in my account, costing me any money that Icould possibly have to live off of..."
Wow... just wow. Having $1,000 suddenly deducted from your bank account would hurt almost any gamer
Warhammer Online requires a credit card on file: [direct2drive.com]
"This game requires a
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The real WTF is right here. Why on Earth did you give a third party the ability to withdraw funds from your bank account? What did you think would happen?
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The real WTF is right here. Why on Earth did you give a third party the ability to withdraw funds from your bank account? What did you think would happen?
Frankly, if you are doing online purchasing or paying for a game subscription, you should only use a credit card. You can get one with a low limit ($200~) with even the worst credit rating, or buy a prepaid card and pay as you go. PayPal can kiss my ass if they expect me to give them my bank and routing details. If I ever did that, it would be tied to a savings account which I deposit money into on an as-needed basis. My brother had a bad experience with them overdrafting his account because someone dispute
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With Chip&PIN we can no longer do this, the cashier never touches my card.
Where's my computerized credit card? (Score:5, Interesting)
I probably left it in the glove compartment of my flying car.
I thought that, by now, we would have computerized bank accounts with asymmetric encryption, so that I can write a shell script and put it in a cron job to automatically send the $20 monthly payment to my MMORPG provider. The electronic pseudocheck would have a date, a recipient, an amount, and an RSA digital signature. It would prevent mistakes like this, as well as most credit card fraud.
Until we get this system (never), just don't tie your bank account to anything. Use your credit card for everything electronic, since you can always dispute the charge.
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Good stuff until the FUD at the end. If it's a debit card with a Visa or Mastercard logo, the dispute rights are exactly the same as they would be with a credit card.
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With a debit transaction, you lose the money from your account, possibly incurring other charges. Then, when you learn about the improperly charged transaction, you have the charge removed. H
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Go read up some on the Zero Liability Coverage from Visa. As long as the institution participates in the coverage (which, if they don't, indicates that you need to switch banks), then you will get provisional credits on your account until the dispute is resolved either for or against your favor. Generally it isn't instant (usually takes about a week or less, depending on the institution), but it's not like you are sitting without your money for a few months as you would have people believe. Seriously, re
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You didn't say anything that disagreed with me. The debit (PIN) debit (credit card) and separate credit card dispute processes are separate. You disagreed, then never addressed my only point.
And yes, the dispute does generally result in the fees assessed as part of the disputed charges being waived as well.
The fees of that one overdraft, yes. Are you asserting that all overdraft charges from the time of that one charge until the time the disputed amount is
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When does someone pay a fucking MMO subscription with a pin-based transaction. Show me when that's ever happened, short of buying a time card at a store.
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My point is that the lack of zero liability with pin-based transactions doesn't apply in this case. No one is paying for Warhammer with a pin-based transaction.
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The fees of that one overdraft, yes. Are you asserting that all overdraft charges from the time of that one charge until the time the disputed amount is credited to the account will also be covered? That's the assertion you'd have to make for me to be wrong, and you have been asserting that I'm ignorant without addressing the comments I made. Address the comments or quit insinuating that I'm wrong.
I don't know who the hell you bank with but you need to run, and run fast. I bank with an institution that not only gives a provisional credit during the dispute (as per guidelines by Visa's Zero Liability Policy) but also for the fees themselves until the dispute process is COMPLETE. I guess if you are with some crummy bank like Bank of America or something like that, than yeah, you are probably out of luck. I'll just thank my lucky stars I actually do business with a good institution.
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So, you are saying, "you are correct 100%, I'm wrong, and and the protections are as you say, not as I say." That you'd try to find someone that doesn't do it that way is irrelevant to the point you've never disputed about what the dispute process involves. Whether your institution does something in addition is completely irrelevant to the specific topic of what must happen for the dispute process.
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More FUD. Go read the laws on the books. The US Government does not distinguish between Credit Cards and other EFT Transfers. It's all under the same law. The dispute process you are referring to is something set forth by Visa, not the Federal Government. The Federal Gov't just dictates what the financial institutions can and cannot do.
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No. Still run through your bank, and you still have to beg your bank.
If I filed a dispute with my last credit union over a Visa transaction on my debit card they would terminate the card and make me wait 2 weeks for a new one to arrive. I closed my account with them.
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Mmmm, isn't that how a debit card works?
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Here in Australia, every bank I've been with offer similar services. You can setup automatic deposits into any other Aussie bank account, or to any service provider that provides billing through a system called BPay (all relatively-large companies do). These payments can be once-off, or recurring, and do not incur transaction fees.
Granted, I can't do it via cron with a shell-script, but I can do it. I generally don't give direct debit access to any company; I either automatically pay via this system (majori
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Here in Australia, every bank I've been with offer similar services. You can setup automatic deposits into any other Aussie bank account, or to any service provider that provides billing through a system called BPay (all relatively-large companies do). These payments can be once-off, or recurring, and do not incur transaction fees.
Granted, I can't do it via cron with a shell-script, but I can do it. I generally don't give direct debit access to any company; I either automatically pay via this system (majority), or use a direct debit card (which uses the VISA network, and is identical to a credit card in its disputation rights, but uses actual cash rather than credit).
Same with Swiss banks. And, as a matter of fact, it's the same with my American bank. I think the GP needs to get out of the basement once in a while.
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Computerised bank accounts are normal.
Shell scripts are not needed. A simple online form is all that is needed. We call them Standing Orders.
A Chip'n'Pin reader (encrypted), password, PIN, and customer number (not bank account number) provide more than enough authentication.
Welcome to the UK.
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I can just tell my bank to conduct a given electronic money transfer every month, no shell scripts needed. But then again, I live in Finland, not USA :p.
No offence, but for such a large econ
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it's called automatic bill pay.
Re:Where's my computerized credit card? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the cash is held in suspense until the dispute is resolved, meaning you'll still be left with no cash and a rash of bank charges if the sum held in suspense prevented you from having sufficient funds for clearing items.
No thanks.
Debit cards are bad, bad juju if you give someone else the authority to initiate charges against them.
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And what if you had not noticed the error until other debits bounced?
Debit cards suck for automatic charges in comparison to credit cards. Your excuses and rationalizations do not make this untrue, they merely point out the obvious, that yes, debit cards suck for automatic withdrawals.
Re:Where's my computerized credit card? (Score:4, Interesting)
Two weeks? You were without your own cash for two weeks and think that is perfectly acceptable?
The worst that happens with a credit card is it hits a credit limit and won't accept more charges. Maybe some automatic charges are denied because of this, but you can probably put them on a different card in the meantime and not really lose anything but some hassle. Meanwhile you dispute the bogus charges and the merchant loses and gets a black eye with real financial encouragement to do better: they pay more for credit card purchases due to their lousy track record, and if their lousy track record gets too lousy, they lose all ability to accept credit cards.
Contrast this with a debit account, where your own money is gone, you are guilty until proven innocent, and the merchant's only incentive to not do so again is losing your business.
Now maybe you are the kind of anal freak who checks your checking account balance and transactions every hour; you might catch malfeasance quick enough to undo most of the damage. But most of the rest of us only check it when we withdraw cash from the ATM or make a deposit. Once a week if we are lucky, once a month when the statement comes otherwise. That's a long time to not know about missing cash.
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Chargebacks (Score:2, Informative)
Were I on the receiving end of these charges, I'd just call my bank and have them process a charge back. Let EA handle the fees from that.
Also, teach you a lesson of never, ever putting things like this on a debit card that can pull money straight from your account.
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This is one of the things that really makes me want the inconvenience of having to buy monthly time cards like those sold for WoW and some other MMOs. Better to have to go to the store each month or buy a batch of these cards and input the codes once a month than to go through such a problem.
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Were I on the receiving end of these charges, I'd just call my bank and have them process a charge back. Let EA handle the fees from that.
Well, they can retaliate by cutting off your account access.
As an example of another company with similar issues, Square Enix's has a lot of problems with charge-backs due to a combination of a glitchy billing system and account jacking problems. Enough that they may have gotten themselves on the problem list with CC companies. Doing a charge-back, however well justified, will typically get you perma-banned, are successful appeals are uncommon.
On a related note (Score:2)
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Banks in the UK notoriously operate a catch-22 procedure:
If your account is allowed to go overdrawn:
1. You are charged for processing of the debit that takes you overdrawn.
2. You are then charged for being overdrawn.
This amounts to around £65 of charges for going overdrawn.
If you instruct the bank not to let your account go overdrawn:
1. You are charged for the rejection of a debit that would have taken you overdrawn.
2. You are charged again every time the debit request is repeated, which may be each d
AND THIS DUTCH PEOPLE IS WHY WE NEED POSTBANK (Score:2)
And to all dutch people reading, this is why the disappearance of the Postbank is a really bad thing. We forget just how good we got it as consumers when the government used to run the cheapest bank around.
Pin charges, used to be free but still an insignificant amount compared to Credit Card charges.
None of the penalty payments like the above. If you can go in the the red, then you just pay the reasonable loan rate over the amount borrowed. There are no penalties. If you are not allowed to go in the red (
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Catch-22 implies a dilemma; that you're caught by one horn or the other. Not true - there's a third way.
It's a little known tactic called not going overdrawn. It requires some advanced mathematics called managing your money properly.
Having said that, it's not much use in this situation - when some other bastard chooses to grossly mismanage their[1] cash.
[1] Not a mistake. I mean it used to be yours...
Re:On a related note (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. My wife had an issue with a US Bank credit card that she almost never used, with only a $500 credit line on it. She was late, got a fee which overlimited her, and got a subsequent fee for that. They reversed both, told her to make a payment, $x. Turns out $x was a little small and three days later she was reassessed those fees, as the computer didn't view $x as the minimum payment.
US Bank's credit card department wouldn't entertain the error as being even worth investigating. In their mind, the fact that they had "courtesy waived" fees previously meant that they wouldn't again. They wouldn't accept that we weren't asking for a courtesy waiver, but that although we appreciated it, we were asking them to investigate their error (and had it been shown that my wife was in the wrong, would have accepted it).
No dice.
Even our local branch manager spent 90 minutes on the phone with them with us in her office, but she held no sway.
My wife said "fuck it, we'll pay, and close the account".
I told her I had one last trick... I wrote a letter explaining this, explaining our frustration, the goodwill it had destroyed, years of loyal, though small customer... I had my wife sign the letter, and I addressed and mailed it to US Bancorp's Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer. My wife? "What's the point? They won't care."
Two weeks later, she got a phone call from him, apologizing, offering to reimburse all fees and give her account a $200 credit as a gesture of regret... very little to them, but they could have done a lot less...
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With the passage of CARD Act and the accompanying Fed rules related to penalty fees customers are no longer opt-in, but automatically opt-out by default. Unless you specifically opt-in for overdraft protection your debit card will be declined if there are insufficient funds or the in the case of a check it will go NSF. This is the reason you should never have a recurring charge set against your debit card. A debit card has significantly restricted rights when it comes to chargeback. Chargeback is VERY, VERY
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With the passage of CARD Act and the accompanying Fed rules related to penalty fees customers are no longer opt-in, but automatically opt-out by default. Unless you specifically opt-in for overdraft protection your debit card will be declined if there are insufficient funds or the in the case of a check it will go NSF.
The banks promptly reacted by charging fees every time they declined a transaction, something the CARD Act foolishly neglected to ban. Yes, really.
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Doing a chargeback on your credit card is probably a violation of the EULA.
Banks Refunding Fees (Score:5, Insightful)
Credit Union (Score:4, Informative)
There is literally no reason whatsoever to give your money and soul to Citibank or Chase or BoA these days.
If they're that good (Score:3, Insightful)
If they're that good, then mention the company's NAME! Seriously, we're quick to jump on and tell about BAD companies, I would love to hear which ones are considered good in case they're available in my area.
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Sometimes there are some banks that treat their customers right. While the one I house my money at is labeled as a bank, it acts very much better than even the best credit unions, and I like credit unions. True overdraft protection without fee, with your own money, handled automatically! A policy of deposits before charges when processed in batch. I've had as of yet absolutely no complaints with my bank, had no fees charged yet with them, and in fact the one time they were well within their right to charge
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AND has a policy of a) crediting all deposits before withdrawals, b) giving 24 hours grace on any overdraft, and c) assessing all withdrawals during a day in a "smallest to largest" format, to minimize the number of overdrafts generated (although, on the tw
Tip for those wanting fee refunds (Score:4, Funny)
Many banks see you as just a number with some cash tied to it. The more cash you have, the more valuable your business, but unless you have tens of thousands of cash at a branch, most banks don't care. So, in lieu of having a bunch of cash, you'll have to cash in (bad pun intended) on the human element to get human treatment.
For me, I make sure I go into the branch every now and then to make deposits, and stop by my banker's desk, ask her how her day is going, and so on. These five minute conversations are important, because they re-enforce your presence to them, and they show that you care. Once a year, for Christmas/New Year's, I buy her a small gift and write her a card (expensive isn't important; under $20 is perfect). I make sure to thank her for everything, wish her a great year, and so on.
So, for a bit of attention and a
My point is, we can all complain that banks are evil machines not caring about people, but we're part of the problem because we treat them like machines. But if we make that effort to treat them as a company run by humans, we might make some headway towards being treated as humans in turn.
(Disclaimer: YMMV of course. I left BofA because no one there gave a shit. I'd had luck with both WF and WaMu)
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"So for a bit of attention and a..." was supposed to go:
So for a bit of attention and a $20 gift per year, you can have someone who will fight for you and treat you like a human being within the huge bureaucracy of a bank. Case-in-point: Earlier this year I had over $400 worth of overdraft fees applied to my account because of an oversight by me. I appealed to my banker, explained my situation, and she was happy to reverse the ch
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This says you're wrong. [fdic.gov]
Read the 'exceptions' list. Exception (a) applies to your situation (father giving you a gift), and exception (f) applies to both your situation and the grandparent's banker's situation (Christmas gifts). For your situation, there would be no value limit on such a gift (exception (a) places no limit on value), and for the grandparent's situation, $20 would certainly be 'reasonable' (the limit on exception (f)) for a Christmas gift.
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I'm guessing you are not a lawyer, and therefore I can argue with you (not that it would stop me anyway, I suppose).
Quoting from a random bank code of ethics found online:
No gifts, regardless of value, are to be encouraged or solicited by employees in connection with the
Bank’s business or responsibilities. However, employees, as expressions of courtesy and appreciation
may accept gifts in kind such as fruits, flowers or candy so long as their monetary value is minimal and
does not represent a “sub
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I'd had luck with [...] WaMu
[Parse error]
Re:Tip for those wanting fee refunds (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is, we can all complain that banks are evil machines not caring about people, but we're part of the problem because we treat them like machines.
Woah woah, wait... let me get this straight. I *choose* to patronize a bank, enriching them through my custom. Now you're telling me, that's not enough? That I essentially have to bribe them for good fucking service?
I'm sorry, buddy, but that's pure, complete bullshit. I am their fucking client. It's their job to please *me*, not the other way around. Now, do these employees deserve to be treated with kindness, dignity, and respect? Yes, of course, just like every other human being out there. But I am not, and should not, be obligated to buy fucking flowers for the local bank branch manager just so that I get decent service. Hell, the very fact that you believe that's necessary speaks to their rank arrogance. It's utterly absurd.
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I'm sorry, buddy, but that's pure, complete bullshit. I am their fucking client. It's their job to please *me*, not the other way around.
They see you as a piggybank.
For every dollar you have sitting in your checking/saving account, they invest or lend 8~12 dollars.
Managing your deposits is usually a very small part of what banks do.
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My point is, we can all complain that banks are evil machines not caring about people, but we're part of the problem because we treat them like machines.
Woah woah, wait... let me get this straight. I *choose* to patronize a bank, enriching them through my custom. Now you're telling me, that's not enough? That I essentially have to bribe them for good fucking service?
I'm sorry, buddy, but that's pure, complete bullshit. I am their fucking client. It's their job to please *me*, not the other way around. Now, do these employees deserve to be treated with kindness, dignity, and respect? Yes, of course, just like every other human being out there. But I am not, and should not, be obligated to buy fucking flowers for the local bank branch manager just so that I get decent service. Hell, the very fact that you believe that's necessary speaks to their rank arrogance. It's utterly absurd.
I seriously doubt that anybody's contract at the bank says "Be sure to please Abdc1234." You have a contract with the bank, and the bank has contracts with its employees. Some, who take similar attitudes to contracts as you, think that they only have to do the bare minimum in order to get by, and that doesn't include kissing your rear end.
Now, as you mentioned, they do happen to be people. The fact of the matter is that people respond well to those who treat them well. If you were to "buy them flowers", the
No offense, but that's one thing I hate (Score:4, Interesting)
No offense, but I _hate_ people who stop to make conversation with a clerk while 20 people queue behind them with other problems. I remember spending an hour in line when I had an actual problem, because half the people in front of me were trying to chat up the clerk about the weather or about their kids. And half of those didn't even have any reason to clog a clerk's time instead of using the ATM in the hall.
And then there are those who'll try to chat up the cashier at a checkout line at the supermarket. Usually even I can tell that that cashier isn't interested, and is just spewing more mono-syllabic responses than the stereotypical husband, but some old lady just won't shut the fuck up with trying to start a chat anyway.
I always figured out that those must be just some lonely people, but if it's just trying to treat a corporation like real people... here's a thought for them: see those people behind you? Those are real people too. Just a thought.
Dark Age too... (Score:2)
I'm not sure why people are surprised, this isn't the first time there's been a billing issue: See here [warhammeronline.com]
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Yeah, got hit for $450AU more than I should have, meh, just wait for them to reverse it, I won't lose sleep and it won't dissuade me from running my 2 groups around agramon this weekend trying to nibble zergs and backdoor 8-mans :)
If a few hundred dollars extra can overdraft a credit card, you are probably using it wrong.
In all honesty though, if your in the shit with this, print it all out, go to your local bank and ask to speak with a loans person and raise your CC limit for a month.
Title correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Chargebacks for Visa have consequences (Score:5, Informative)
What may happen is that most of the people who used credit (not debit) cards demand a chargeback from their bank, EA gets hit with thousands of chargeback fees, and EA's merchant bank kicks them into a higher cost credit card category for excessive chargebacks.
There are Visa procedures for this. [visa.com] This is a chargeback code 82 - "Duplicate Processing". Likely cause: "Electronically submitted the same batch of transactions to the merchant bank more than once". See "The Chargeback Life Cycle", page 71, for an overview.
Generally, if chargebacks exceed 100 chargebacks and 1% of transactions, the chargeback penalty provisions [terminalve...essing.com] kick in. Thereafter, the merchant is charged $100 per chargeback by the merchant's bank. The merchant is forced into Visa's "High Risk Chargeback Monitoring Program", a $5000 "review fee" is charged to the merchant for the first month, and even higher fees are charged if the problem continues.
Even big merchants have to pay. The banks have to deal individually with each customer to straighten out the mess. They charge the merchant for that.
Incidentally, "No Chargeback" sales receipts are prohibited by Visa rules and will not be enforced by banks.
EA is telling their customers [warhammeronline.com] to contact their financial institution before calling EA. It would probably be cheaper for EA if EA dealt with the problems themselves, but their call center may be too small.
Some users are complaining that EA charged them partway through the billing cycle, when they didn't owe EA a payment.
Anyway, EA will be getting a big bill from their bank.
Official EA Letter (Score:5, Informative)
We are sending you this email to bring this matter to your immediate attention.
It appears that some of our customers may have been inadvertently charged multiple times for their subscriptions. If you are affected, you should start seeing a reversal of charges within 24-36 hours. We anticipate that once the charges have been reversed, any resulting fees that have been incurred on the affected account should be reversed as well. If after 36 hours, there are still incorrect charges or fees on the affected account, please follow these instructions:
* Please begin by contacting your financial institution and explain to them that you were charged multiple times and, as a result, over drafted. Most financial institutions will reverse these charges.
* If your financial institution is unable to remove these charges, you may contact our billing department for help with charge reversal by calling 650-628-1001 during our hours of operation, which are 10:00 AM EDT - 10:00 PM EDT, 7 days a week. Please have the phone and fax number of your financial institution ready when you call.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this issue may be causing you. Please continue to watch the Herald for your respective game (http://warherald.com/ or http://camelotherald.com/ [camelotherald.com]) in the coming days for further information regarding this issue.
Some banks provide protection against this (Score:2)
At the bank that I use, I can generate "temporary" credit cards in which I can specify a credit limit and a expiration date. If I want to use it for reoccurring charges, like my gym membership, I can specify what the max that can be charged each month, in my case $45. Therefore if my gym screws up and tries to double charge me one month, the credit card company won't let them due to insufficient balance.
I can't believe people provide debt card/checking account numbers to anybody as there's very little pro
Re: (Score:2)
And many merchants specify that they will not accept Visa Electron cards (the type of card that is). Just as a merchant can specify they will not accept business cards, or debit cards, or prepaid cards. They can be pretty granular.
I'd suggest moving to a country where more than just the fucking account number is needed to direct debit a bank account (in NZ, a signed form sent in to the bank is required).
And I thought I was just paranoid, other ramblings (Score:2)
Whenever I play an mmo I'll buy a time card if I can, IRL if possible, through a reputable online site if it's not, and I also make it a point to remove my cc info from sites I buy stuff from as soon as a transaction I requested is finished. I don't use any online store or site that doesn't give me the option to remove my info...
you'd think they would have some kind of safeguard on the system before the transactions are sent to the cc companies, like if they just had someone verify a total each day before t
This is incredible (Score:2)
Prediction: EA outsourced to the lower bidder (Score:2)
-1 Redundant (Score:3, Funny)
Blizzard had the same issue with WoW (Score:2)
I remember that Blizzard had this very same issue with WoW, back in either Vanilla or early The Burning Crusade times.
I believe it was a mistake by the company they had outsourced the billing to.
Can You Say Class-Action Law Suilt? (Score:2)
Its sounds as if this is not the first time this billing issue has happened, and since these companies (in some cases) will only allow Credit Cards to be used, then I would believe that those players over billed excessively have the ability to protect your good name. I hate our litigous society, but to be recharge up to 22 times in a month and no one at the company realized the extra $$$ coming in? BULLSHIT! The accountants know what to expect.
Banks may forgive one or two overdrafts if you haven't had pr
It all depends (Score:2)
In the name of the Emperor. . . (Score:2)
Finish This!
Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean.
Re:Great Business Plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or what can be attributed to a crappy API. Even on a stable, well proven app, a shitty API (Like Paypal's payflow pro) will make your life misserable. I'm not defending EA here, those guys are worse than microsoft, just stating a technical fact, and a possible theory of how this happened.
It's happened to me before. You have a working app, paypal or your bank or someone else decides to change something on their side without previous knowledge, and they only test it with their official SDK (most of the times
Re:Great Business Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Shitty API still falls under incompetence, does it not?
Re: (Score:2)
This is EA afterall.
Oh, so you're saying it was malice?
(j/k standard disclaimers apply)
Re:Great Business Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
This is EA afterall.
Oh, so you're saying it was malice? (j/k standard disclaimers apply)
It's both. Malicious incompentence, two words that describe much of the industry.
Re:Great Business Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering one subscriber in the linked discussion thread [warhammeronline.com] got charged 13 times for his ~$77.94 6-month subscription (which wasn't even up for renewal for another five months), for a total of $1,013.22 in charges—yeah, this sort of thing will fly under everybody's radar.
Many players probably use debit cards tied to their personal checking accounts; I'm sure they'd notice multiple charges. Even more so if they live paycheck to paycheck.
Even though EA/Mythic are allegedly working with their payment processing vendor(s) to reverse all the extraneous charges, they're still putting the onus on the customer to check with their respective financial institutions to ensure that any fees incurred are voided or reversed. I'm sure that is going to give said customers the warm fuzzies about continuing their patronage.
Total clusterfuck on the part of EA/Mythic. Heads should roll, and liberally.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone know how these multiple charges occur within the system? I would think it hard to write a billing system so it could accidentally charge people dozens of times.
Ask Dreamhost - the company that billed a few years in advance.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone know how these multiple charges occur within the system? I would think it hard to write a billing system so it could accidentally charge people dozens of times. Even if it had some glitch to try to repeatedly make charges, there should be some check to see if the account it up to be billed again. This isn't the first (or will it be the last) time I've heard of this kind of problem, so this must be a bigger problem than I would be inclined to think.
Disk space filled to capacity? Poorly written algorithm that doesn't take it into account because programmers don't think about hardware issues most of the time?
while true, do the following:
Read records 0 to End; for every record do the following:
is something owed and has a bill not been sent/money been siphoned from an account? then send a bill/transaction request for $X
mark account record to state that a bill has been sent or money has been siphoned. !!!ERROR, Could not write to disk!!!
if money
Re: (Score:2)
That's a bit heavy-handed. It's just money, inconvenience, and credit score that will be harmed. No real damage to life and limb.
This is Warhammer, after all -- they could have unleashed a few Dwarven Berserkers on their customers to "encourage" multiple subscriptions or something.
Re:Insane (Score:4, Informative)
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If you're living paycheck to paycheck then the last thing you should be doing is having an MMO subscription.
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As forms of entertainment go, MMOs are actually relatively cheap...
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The key part was "Of all the ways they could screw up". And for many, not being able to buy groceries for 2 weeks is pretty damned bad.
I suppose they could have accidentally mailed fliers laced with ricin and DMSO, but that's a bit of a stretch.
Re: (Score:2)
The key part was "Of all the ways they could screw up". And for many, not being able to buy groceries for 2 weeks is pretty damned bad.
I suppose they could have accidentally mailed fliers laced with ricin and DMSO, but that's a bit of a stretch.
Yeah, only Ubisoft does that to their customers.
Re: (Score:2)
Frost bank recently sent me an update of their overdraft policies:
"We will charge you a fee of up to $30 each time we pay an overdraft.
There is no limit on the total fees we can charge you for overdrawing your account."
the bold $30 was as they printed it and the phrase "no limit" was underlined by them.
luckily i don't play Warhammer, but i wonder if this notice was related...
My friend, the management of Frost Bank sounds like a cold-hearted bunch. Luckily for them, they'll be able to take your hard-earned fees and distribute them to their various boat payments. The warmth of the Caribbean will no doubt make up for months of freezing in Manhattan--or wherever you and Frost Bank live in the world :-)