90708-issue-with-account-expired-despite-subscription

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Hi all,
 
We are currently working with our Support, Payment and Platform teams to investigate an issue where some users who had set up a subscription, but have not been billed and have their accounts showing as "expired".
 
We believe we may have a solution, but are currently investigating and planning our next steps. We will keep you updated as soon as we have any information.
 
Thanks for your patience and we'll try and get this resolved ASAP.
 
EDIT: One possible workaround is to try and completely cancel your subscription and then resub. Let us know if this workaround doesn't resolve your issue.
 
You should not be billed multiple times if you tried to cancel and re-sub. IF you see that you have been, contact our Support Team who can resolve the issue with a refund.
 
UPDATE from Cougar below. Go read and drink in his vast knowledge.
 
Regards,	
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I saw the message and checked my billing profile which indicated my account had expired.  Like a good lemming, I re-added my payment information and paid for my next month. 
 
1. Will I get double billed?
2. If I do what is the plan to refund the duplicate charge?	
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			I did as you suggested and received 4 emails from Wildstar, two of which inform me that I have been billed with separate transaction/order numbers. I trust you did not just double bill me. You will fix it promptly if you have.	
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I saw the message and checked my billing profile which indicated my account had expired.  Like a good lemming, I re-added my payment information and paid for my next month. 
 
1. Will I get double billed?
2. If I do what is the plan to refund the duplicate charge?
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The cancel and resub method seems to have worked.(unless the issue was coincidentally fixed at the same time of course)
Didn't look like I was actually billed on the transaction history of my account, but id receive two emails from NCsoft, so if I see anything I'll just let support know.
 
I know that Carbine recently added in a way to...give back the CREDD some people accidentally redeemed(because it was initially unclear on how to use it for selling).
Could it be related to the back end of that being made possible?Just a hunch...	
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I second @Typrop, cancel and re-sub has worked for me as well.
 
I couldn't post on the forums at first, but now that the sub has went through, all is well.
 
(This is @lightfairy287 on Twitter btw :) )	
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Temporary solution is in place. 
 
Context; our payment provider is backed up. They can only process X/Hr which isn't actually going to get everyone charged successfully today. So what happens in this case, let's run an example, is that your free time expires at 0700 UTC on the 3rd. Our payment processor has you in a queue, but it won't actually charge you for your 6 mo subscription until 2300 UTC on the 3rd. This means that between 0700 and 2300 you'd get the error message being discussed in this thread.
 
I had thought there was a plan in place to avoid this time gap, but something went awry. As of right now, we've used a cudgel to get people back in and playing the game while the payment processor keeps doing its thing. Because... and let's be honest here... the last thing we want to do is to make people upset who want to keep playing and subscribe :) So if we need to use a cudgel, we are going to use a cudgel. 
 
We'll work on getting the correct solution in place today as people start waking up, but the good news is that everyone that wants to play today is going to be able to play today and this error shouldn't pop back up. That will buy us the necessary time for the payment processor to do their thing.
 
My apologies for those that were affected for a few hours this morning.
 
EDIT: It does look like our cudgel is not allowing forum posting during the time that you are stuck in that 0700 to 2300 queue. So this is expected behavior based on the cudgel. (There is a reason I called it a cudgel and not a fix :P)	
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Temporary solution is in place. 
 
Context; our payment provider is backed up. They can only process X/Hr which isn't actually going to get everyone charged successfully today. So what happens in this case, let's run an example, is that your free time expires at 0700 UTC on the 3rd. Our payment processor has you in a queue, but it won't actually charge you for your 6 mo subscription until 2300 UTC on the 3rd. This means that between 0700 and 2300 you'd get the error message being discussed in this thread.
 
I had thought there was a plan in place to avoid this time gap, but something went awry. As of right now, we've used a cudgel to get people back in and playing the game while the payment processor keeps doing its thing. Because... and let's be honest here... the last thing we want to do is to make people upset who want to keep playing and subscribe :) So if we need to use a cudgel, we are going to use a cudgel. 
 
We'll work on getting the correct solution in place today as people start waking up, but the good news is that everyone that wants to play today is going to be able to play today and this error shouldn't pop back up. That will buy us the necessary time for the payment processor to do their thing.
 
My apologies for those that were affected for a few hours this morning.
 
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I have a different issue.  I was billed for a 1-month subscription despite the fact that I (after deciding I quite liked Wildstar) upgraded my subscription plan to yearly.  Since then, I have tried twice more to update to yearly and the site has not reflected the change.  Something is awry when upgrading subscription plans.
 
It seems changing your subscription settings in general doesn't work right now.	
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I have a different issue.  I was billed for a 1-month subscription despite the fact that I (after deciding I quite liked Wildstar) upgraded my subscription plan to yearly.  Since then, I have tried twice more to update to yearly and the site has not reflected the change.  Something is awry when upgrading subscription plans.
 
It seems changing your subscription settings in general doesn't work right now.
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I don't know what your cudgel is, but if you don't have a mechanism in place to assign players free time en masse, then now is the time to build that. Situations like this can't be resolved with Boom Boxes. Without knowing the details of your internal setup, the easiest thing to do in my mind is to just award players an extra day gratis and let the payment processor catch up. 
 
I have to assume the majority of players are month-to-month, so you don't want to have to deal with this situation on 8/3. If you offset people by a day by giving players who haven't been transacted yet an extra day, then their payments won't even start until 8/4. If there are any people left over on 7/4 who haven't been processed, give them another extra day and their next payment goes on 8/5. 
 
Then, just give everyone a few boom boxes as a mea culpa. 
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I'm being told that you need to cancel the 1mo and then pick a year. The concept of "upgrading" doesn't work as you are intending for it to work. 
 
I'm stoked that you are that happy with WildStar that you want to do that upgrade. Thanks SnapDragon! :)
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			I have a completely different issue. I cancelled my sub a week and a half ago so that I would not be billed, and today your system charged me anyways. Also, when I go into manage subscription in account management, there is no option to cancel, only to subscribe. I would use paypal to charge back, but I don't want NC Soft to nuke my account with them.	
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I have a completely different issue. I cancelled my sub a week and a half ago so that I would not be billed, and today your system charged me anyways. Also, when I go into manage subscription in account management, there is no option to cancel, only to subscribe. I would use paypal to charge back, but I don't want NC Soft to nuke my account with them.
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I have a completely different issue. I cancelled my sub a week and a half ago so that I would not be billed, and today your system charged me anyways. Also, when I go into manage subscription in account management, there is no option to cancel, only to subscribe. I would use paypal to charge back, but I don't want NC Soft to nuke my account with them.
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			I just got an email receipt 5 minutes ago for my sub payment.	
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Ive checked my account status and it states its active with payment due to be billed tomorrow 
I cant log into the game, Ive changed my password , however the problem seems to lay with the Google Authentication when I apply the generated code it states its invalid, I cant even remove the Google Authenticator off my account to re-apply it back on to my account. (I have send in a support ticket but if it could be sorted on here but alerting the Forum staff to alert accounts ppl Id be greatful) 	
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I have a completely different issue. I cancelled my sub a week and a half ago so that I would not be billed, and today your system charged me anyways. Also, when I go into manage subscription in account management, there is no option to cancel, only to subscribe. I would use paypal to charge back, but I don't want NC Soft to nuke my account with them.
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Ive checked my account status and it states its active with payment due to be billed tomorrow 
I cant log into the game, Ive changed my password , however the problem seems to lay with the Google Authentication when I apply the generated code it states its invalid, I cant even remove the Google Authenticator off my account to re-apply it back on to my account.
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I hope i was not charged 2 times,  do we submit a ticket for double charges.  i had a 3mo sub setup, a few min. ago it was inactive?  so i did "manage" and just did a 3mo again.  it looks as if i got charged.. AGAIN!  geeshhhh..
 
can someone look into this please.. my transaction history shows 2	
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I hope i was not charged 2 times,  do we submit a ticket for double charges.  i had a 3mo sub setup, a few min. ago it was inactive?  so i did "manage" and just did a 3mo again.  it looks as if i got charged.. AGAIN!  geeshhhh..
 
can someone look into this please.. my transaction history shows 2
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Yo!
We're pretty sure it won't charge you twice BUT if it does, contact our Support Team and they will refund you immediately.
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Ive checked my account status and it states its active with payment due to be billed tomorrow 
I cant log into the game, Ive changed my password , however the problem seems to lay with the Google Authentication when I apply the generated code it states its invalid, I cant even remove the Google Authenticator off my account to re-apply it back on to my account. (I have send in a support ticket but if it could be sorted on here but alerting the Forum staff to alert accounts ppl Id be greatful) 
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Sync it/make sure your time is correct
 
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Hi all,
 
We are currently working with our Support, Payment and Platform teams to investigate an issue where some users who had set up a subscription, but have not been billed and have their accounts showing as "expired".
 
We believe we may have a solution, but are currently investigating and planning our next steps. We will keep you updated as soon as we have any information.
 
Thanks for your patience and we'll try and get this resolved ASAP.
 
EDIT: One possible workaround is to try and completely cancel your subscription and then resub. Let us know if this workaround doesn't resolve your issue.
 
You should not be billed multiple times if you tried to cancel and re-sub. IF you see that you have been, contact our Support Team who can resolve the issue with a refund.
 
UPDATE from Cougar below. Go read and drink in his vast knowledge.
 
Regards,
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			I do have a confirmation email saying my subscription is active and setup, but looking at my profile here I don't see the game as having been purchased nor any subscription data, but transaction history does show the game having been purchased. Is this related to the kludge?	
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Yo!
We're pretty sure it won't charge you twice BUT if it does, contact our Support Team and they will refund you immediately.
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			thanks so much lol been trying all morning to update mine to a 3 month sub and it just wouldn't take	
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			Cancel and renew worked for me, thanks!	
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NerdEsq  your a Star !!!!!!! I didn't think to try that ( my phone's timer did mess up this morning DoH!!!) I owe you sir a Drink 
 
Thats fixed my issue :D
 
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I'm being told that you need to cancel the 1mo and then pick a year. The concept of "upgrading" doesn't work as you are intending for it to work. 
 
I'm stoked that you are that happy with WildStar that you want to do that upgrade. Thanks SnapDragon! :)
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I just canceled sub, and renewed it, and problem fixed.
 
And holy crap, while not ground braking when converted from CAD to USD my sub goes up by close to 2$ 14.99 to 16.75. I hope i see the value soon, this is the the highest per month sub i have paid. 	
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I just canceled sub, and renewed it, and problem fixed.
 
And holy crap, while not ground braking when converted from CAD to USD my sub goes up by close to 2$ 14.99 to 16.75. I hope i see the value soon, this is the the highest per month sub i have paid. 
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Ok, the cancel and renew worked for me, but since this thread has some Carbine visibility, I wanted to voice my disappointment.  As someone who has worked in customer service (at various levels) I do not like the way your customers are communicated with when they are having problems.  Often when I see problems arise in Wildstar, and there have been a few (Lag, subscribtion, and bots just to name a few), the various Carbine representatives I see begin by putting the blame on the customer or making the customer jump through the hoops from problems caused by your service or by services you contract to handle certain aspects of the game.  My expectation from a company that I pay for a service, is that when said service doesn't work or work as expected that there is more ownership taken by the face of the service I am paying for (in this case it is representatives of Wildstar).  I do understand that this is the first game launched by Carbine and I appreciate the work that has been put in, but while your communication about fixes/changes to gameplay has been open and honest, I have been disappointed by the support/service seen and experienced so far.
 
Regards,
Aldy	
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Well
 
There is some good form.
 
Thanks for the tip on cancel and re sub.  That worked not that I should have had to do it.
 
You guys at carbine need to pull your finger out.  This will happen every month for a while unlesss its fixed.
 
By the way somebody needs a fire lit up under his chair for this basic FAILURE.  I could rave on,  Better get the boom(less) box'es out again	
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			I was another one affected by this.  I had a year-long sub, and I was logged in and playing fine today.  Then I logged off and did family stuff for a few hours, like ya do.  Came back to log in, and "Your account is expired."  Wha?!  I checked, and of course it said I was on a 12-month subscription, but it also said inactive.  No transactions in the transaction history, and I checked my bank and no money had been taken out.  I figured something had gone wrong with billing, so I came to the forums, found this thread and did like everyone else (cancel and re-sub), and was back up and running in minutes.   Over all, not a terrible thing, but I think you guys should have had a message in the patcher, not make people track down a relatively obscure note in the forums.	
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			I cancelled I resubbed I spent <1 minute doing so. Fixed, I don't see why people get huffy over it. They'll fix it. It happens. Meh.	
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I had trouble last night around 1000PM Eastern time. Judging by the email timestamps, it look like it took 30 minutes for the payment processor to eventually get through all the attempts I tried, and I think I was billed only once. I received the bulk of my account update affirmations after trying the unsub/resub trick, waiting 5 minutes, and then being able to login. PayPal seemed to fail entirely, silently. 
 
The longer story was that my impression of account services was that it was broken and unhelpful, and it was 45 minutes of trying crap, waiting, and wondering if I was getting screwed as the system failed to provide notice of failure or the necessity to wait. It doesn't sound like a lot of time, in hindsight, but the quality of that time was extremely negative.
 
I did see the "known issues" bulletin about long processing times, which helped, but I am still going to have to check various accounts now to make sure I wasn't double-billed. It doesn't help that I still am not sure what happened to the 30 days of "included" game time that I never received as part of the game purchase. I had to enter my credit card as soon as I applied my code. When I applied my purchase code, A side effect of the unsub/resub trick is that my previous transaction history is now gone in my account.
 
TL;DR is every interaction I've had with WildStar's automated billing has been negative, and while I have sympathy and patience for the team as they work out the kinks, I am still having to manage some internal rage that I reserve for my cable and phone company, and I now have to double-check that my accounts have been properly billed. 
 
Blah blah. I guess I am just venting. 	
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Well this is frustrating that on a holiday, my wife has been unable to play since she tried to log in at 9:30 am est.  She has tried the work around but that has not helped either.  Does not look like Digital River has their act together at all.
Really regret signing up for another month yesterday, the whole process has far to many bugs in it to be fun on a consistent basis.	
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guys, your cudgel fix isn't working for everyone.
 
My guild leader is unable to log into the game right now, has been all day, and I'm worried he might not be the only one. Since he's unable to post on the forums, there may be more people still affected by this that aren't heard because they have no way to contact you guys outside of the ticket queue (which I imagine is pretty long today). 
 
He tried everything suggested here, cancelled and resubbed, but in his case it simply hasn't worked at all, so please, I just want you (operations people) to be aware of this issue...	
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Over all, not a terrible thing, but I think you guys should have had a message in the patcher, not make people track down a relatively obscure note in the forums.
 
The above statement is a great example of what I was writing about earlier. The information should be made more available by Carbine, and the leg work should be done on Carbines side also, not the customer.	
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this is definitely a first world problem, but when you work a lot and look forward to doing something together that you both enjoy, it is disappointing.  And it adds a little salt to the wound when it the company at fault when you are trying to give them money and support a product you like.  It has now been eight hours and I expect that due to the holiday that there will not be a fix until tomorrow at the soonest.  Also the people with inactive account can't  post to the forum.
 
So, not a terrible thing, but a stupid frustrating thing that no one is available to fix the issue, and no one planned ahead on the subscription side either.	
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			Hello guys my friend has been stuck with this problem for the last 36 hours he has paid been charged but he can not play. This problem has affected our ability to play and level. He has tried everything you guys have come up with and yet no solution is working. I have to say this is a complete and utter failure when you pay for the game you should be able to play.... This is a first for us... Someone failed hard.	
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Ok I fixed my account easily. For some people, canceling the subscription and then setting up a new subscription has worked but, for some it does not. What I did was bought a 30 day game pass from gamestop online and used the serial code and was able to play right away again. The pass costs the same after tax as the subscription cost.
 
The other bad thing about this problem is if your account is not active you can not post in the forums, so it is impossible to communicate.
 
It might be a nice option to leave forums active for people.	
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			Is this still an ongoing issue as a friend of mine cannot sub and I'm wondering if something else is now causing his issues?	
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Need fix on this problem, my friend has not been able to log all weekend, hope its fixed today...
Not even getting response on ticket.
 
why not just give free play time till problem is fixed... 	
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My GM also can not get on the game
Her account got hacked on the 4th of July she changed her password and put on authenticator etc as suggested by you guys customer service then suspended her account, eventually suspension was lifted yesterday to find her subscription had supposedly run out when she checked her bank statement, it is not due to run out till the 10th of July. She has tried multiple times trying to renew it by the method mentioned here but to no joy, even worse she is not even getting a reply from customer service again this affects us.
 
Someone needs to get in touch ASAP, this is ridiculous	
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			This is apparently still not resolved for some people so bump. This is an income issue I'm really surprised it's not corrected yet with my experience in the corporate world. 	
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			I friend of mine had this trouble and he couldn't play throughout the weekend from the 4th to the 7th of July.He tried the unsub-resub workaround but it didn't work. When he tried to buy a CREDD, a failed transaction error occurred and his credit card ended up being blocked. It was until day 8 that he finally got the issue fixed while trying to subscribe again using another card.I don't know if this is gonna fix the problem for anyone else, but I thought about sharing it just in case – given that there hasn't been an official respone or update to this issue since it began, and those who are being affected are unable to post in the forums.	
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I will post this again and it works!
 
What I did was bought a 30 day game pass from gamestop online and used the serial code and was able to play right away again. The pass costs the same after tax as the subscription cost.
 
Did anyone read my post above on this same page? It is a fix that works!	
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			Yes, unsubscribing and using a game pass works. But I don't have to pay taxes when using direct pay. I should be able to pay another month quickly and issue-free. This is a basic pay-to-play function that was full of bugs and since it was the way they make money, aught to be the best working thing in the system.	
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I will post this again and it works!
 
What I did was bought a 30 day game pass from gamestop online and used the serial code and was able to play right away again. The pass costs the same after tax as the subscription cost.
 
Did anyone read my post above on this same page? It is a fix that works!
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I will post this again and it works!
 
What I did was bought a 30 day game pass from gamestop online and used the serial code and was able to play right away again. The pass costs the same after tax as the subscription cost.
 
Did anyone read my post above on this same page? It is a fix that works!
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Oh my god this is finally working ?! First of all YES ! There is still a bug with the subscribe thing. I have been unable to play since the 3rd and as usual sending tickets havent helped at all ( waited 3 days just to get " We will contact you soon " )
 
Still have friends who cant sub to the game nor have gametime cards available near them. I somehow managed to buy a CREDD, even though i got the same error message when trying to buy a monthly sub.
 
Please Carbine cash in that " Devs are listening " and start actually informing people what's happening. There is nothing posted here nor twitter about this problem being looked into. Or is this "monthly sub" just a scam and you really force people to buy CREDDs so they can keep playing ?	
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I read your post Thunderpeel and went out to purchase but the cards haven't been distributed where I live yet as none of the EB Games had seen any yet (city with surrounding area population about 1 million people), also are unavailable online in Canada as far as I could tell. My issue has been resolved through support so it's happening but I still know a few people who are having problems getting their accounts subbed and are unable to post on the forums.
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