102095-check-your-credit-card-statements-with-regards-to-monthly-subscription-charges

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Just today I was checking my account statements on my credit card, and lo and behold I find that I had been overcharged by whoever takes care of NCSOFT's billing for WildStar subscriptions.  Not only was I charged on May 25th (before the fraking game was even released for the head-start weekend, and completly disregarding the one month of free sub time), I was charged doubly on July 4th!  I was taken for an extra $30 of subscription time by their hack of a billing system (but hey, no wonder THAT's bugged to.. am I right?!).  My ticket is currently being processed, but the first response I got was requesting some information for verification purposes about my account (ok, so to prove I'm not trying to rip THEM off for $30). 
Here's what the e-mail read:
Brandon (WildStar Player Support)
Jul 25 22:33
Hello (Name),
Thank you for contacting the WildStar Support Team.
We can certainly look into this for you. First, please verify the following information.
--The e-mail address you used when making the purchase-- Credit/Debit Card: the last four digits (only the last four, please) of the card-- PayPal®: the invoice ID from your PayPal® payment history-- Billing zip code or postal code
We look forward to your reply.
So I respond in turn.  Should be enough since I provided the information they requested to verify that it's my account/card/etc., right?
Lead into the next response:
Denis (WildStar Player Support)
Jul 26 01:29
Hello (Name),
Thanks again for your patience.
Unfortunately, we could not verify any of the information provided by you regarding the '(e-mail redacted)' account.
WTF!? Are you kidding me?  Do I not have an account with you guys? Can't you even verify a SINGLE piece of that information?  Why can't you obtain it from your (as I'm told) third party billing system?
So I send a screen-cap of the statement of the dates/times/charges and am now awaiting the next BS response.  Hopefully something actually goes through but c'mon, some things are still bugged from day 1 and they continue to drop new content that is buggy.  Doesn't bode well for a helpful and expedient response.
 
But enough rant; what I want to get out there is everyone should be checking their statements to be sure there are the correct number of charges being made to your accounts.  Let me know on this thread about all of your troubles with them, and spread the word!
Sincerely,
Pissed Off	
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Everything is working as intended. This is the high bar that NCsoft sets for its customer support. I knew before even getting into wildstar that if I ever had a problem I'd be *cupcake*ed.
 
Things that we will never have:
Chat support
Phone support
Phone billing
in-game GM's	
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Posting confidential e-mails on a public forum is not a good idea any way you lok at it.
 
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Unfortunately, we could not verify any of the information provided by you regarding the '(e-mail redacted)' account.
WTF!? Are you kidding me?  Do I not have an account with you guys?
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Everything is working as intended. This is the high bar that NCsoft sets for its customer support. I knew before even getting into wildstar that if I ever had a problem I'd be *cupcake*ed.
 
Things that we will never have:
Chat support
Phone support
Phone billing
in-game GM's
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Did the second charge stick? Most people said it never went through for them.
 
I was ticked that updating your billing info doesn't actually matter. Six times I set updated info, and they went for the day one info. Service did offer to refund it and charge to an alternate source, so there's that. I didn't want to type it all in yet another time when it's clearly branded into my account (so much that it's auto-filled on NCSoft's end), so uh...there's that.	
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Did the second charge stick? Most people said it never went through for them.
 
I was ticked that updating your billing info doesn't actually matter. Six times I set updated info, and they went for the day one info. Service did offer to refund it and charge to an alternate source, so there's that. I didn't want to type it all in yet another time when it's clearly branded into my account (so much that it's auto-filled on NCSoft's end), so uh...there's that.
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			This all just makes me thankful I've been using credd to pay for my sub and have not given them my credit card info.  It really bugs me that they do not have phone support for billing.  If they expect me to hand over my credit card info, they need to have a way for me to actually TALK to someone if there is an issue. 	
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This all just makes me thankful I've been using credd to pay for my sub and have not given them my credit card info.  It really bugs me that they do not have phone support for billing.  If they expect me to hand over my credit card info, they need to have a way for me to actually TALK to someone if there is an issue.  
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It's Digital River.
 
Just do a quick google of them and you'll see a long history of them overcharging people and taking unauthorised payments. Why NCsoft uses them I have no idea.
 
I bought something from a place that uses Digital River a year or so ago and everything went fine. 3 months later they took about £950 out of my bank for no reason whatsoever. I'd made no purchases and they had no record of any purchases but refused to pay the money back. I had to go through my banks fraud department and small claims court. Ended up getting the money back and compensation but it took 9 months.
 
I've refused to allow Digital River access to my accounts since. I'll use game cards when my credd runs out but i'll never set up a recurring sub.	
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Wow Gomly, that's pretty serious. I'll consider removing my CC info from the account...
For now, I'll be watching the bills veeeery closely. <_<	
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It's Digital River.
 
Just do a quick google of them and you'll see a long history of them overcharging people and taking unauthorised payments. Why NCsoft uses them I have no idea.
 
I bought something from a place that uses Digital River a year or so ago and everything went fine. 3 months later they took about £950 out of my bank for no reason whatsoever. I'd made no purchases and they had no record of any purchases but refused to pay the money back. I had to go through my banks fraud department and small claims court. Ended up getting the money back and compensation but it took 9 months.
 
I've refused to allow Digital River access to my accounts since. I'll use game cards when my credd runs out but i'll never set up a recurring sub.
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I got billed for 2 months of game time at the beginning of July.
 
I had zero issues getting my money back.	
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			One of the reasons why I use a reloadable debit card for games...At best, they're getting $0.50 on the second billing.  :)	
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This is why I worried when I found out NCSoft was the producer.
 
I hate that company with a passion. If a game has hiccups, they'll shut it down fast as anything too.	
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This is why I worried when I found out NCSoft was the producer.
 
I hate that company with a passion. If a game has hiccups, they'll shut it down fast as anything too.
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having in mind that they bought some dying games and kept them going? Doubt it. 
 
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Did they?
 
Which ones, I am apparently out of the loop big time.
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when Ncsoft took over Aion, its original developers were planning to close it.
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Just a quick FYI for those wanting to make any account changes:
 
It has been officially announced that you must cancel your subscription before changing your subscription period. Once the cancellation goes through, you can then setup the new subscription period. If it is not done this way, tyour account just reverts back to the old subscription period a few days later. Based on several posts I've seen, we may very well have to cancel before making ANY changes to our accounts. Doing so without cancelling first could be what's triggering DR's questionable service to go haywire.
 
In case you're wondering, I'm not saying it's the OP's fault at all. This is obviously an issue with DR. I just wanted to make my observations known, so they might help others :)	
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when Ncsoft took over Aion, its original developers were planning to close it.
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This is off topic, but Aion was originally developed and released by NCSoft, later Gameforge took it over as free-to-play in Europe when NCSOft was about to shut it down. NCSoft are not the good guys, they're a corporation with sole interest in large profits. Even if a game is doing well and they deem it's not profitable enough, they have been known to end them. I am very nervous about WildStar's future due to this.
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That's what I thought.
 
And games like auto assault got shot in the foot from the get-go by NCSoft.
 
It didn't turn enough profit and was shut down immediately.
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Still off topic (sorry for derailing).
 
They hold games back from certain regions too.
 
Blade and Soul is being held back from NA/EU. A lot of speculation as to why but from people that have played it, there is nothing special about it so they seem to think NCsoft won't release it in NA/EU because it won't do well.
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It's Digital River.
 
Just do a quick google of them and you'll see a long history of them overcharging people and taking unauthorised payments. Why NCsoft uses them I have no idea.
 
I bought something from a place that uses Digital River a year or so ago and everything went fine. 3 months later they took about £950 out of my bank for no reason whatsoever. I'd made no purchases and they had no record of any purchases but refused to pay the money back. I had to go through my banks fraud department and small claims court. Ended up getting the money back and compensation but it took 9 months.
 
I've refused to allow Digital River access to my accounts since. I'll use game cards when my credd runs out but i'll never set up a recurring sub.
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Still off topic (sorry for derailing).
 
They hold games back from certain regions too.
 
Blade and Soul is being held back from NA/EU. A lot of speculation as to why but from people that have played it, there is nothing special about it so they seem to think NCsoft won't release it in NA/EU because it won't do well.
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It's Digital River.
 
Just do a quick google of them and you'll see a long history of them overcharging people and taking unauthorised payments. Why NCsoft uses them I have no idea.
 
I bought something from a place that uses Digital River a year or so ago and everything went fine. 3 months later they took about £950 out of my bank for no reason whatsoever. I'd made no purchases and they had no record of any purchases but refused to pay the money back. I had to go through my banks fraud department and small claims court. Ended up getting the money back and compensation but it took 9 months.
 
I've refused to allow Digital River access to my accounts since. I'll use game cards when my credd runs out but i'll never set up a recurring sub.
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Wow Gomly, that's pretty serious. I'll consider removing my CC info from the account...
For now, I'll be watching the bills veeeery closely. <_<
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It's Digital River.
 
Just do a quick google of them and you'll see a long history of them overcharging people and taking unauthorised payments. Why NCsoft uses them I have no idea.
 
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Well, that question might answer itself... try doing a Google search on "NCSoft complaints"... quite a few pending BBB and other reports/issues floating about out there as well. :ph34r:
 
EDIT: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ncsoft+complaints
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This is off topic, but Aion was originally developed and released by NCSoft, later Gameforge took it over as free-to-play in Europe when NCSOft was about to shut it down. NCSoft are not the good guys, they're a corporation with sole interest in large profits. Even if a game is doing well and they deem it's not profitable enough, they have been known to end them. I am very nervous about WildStar's future due to this.
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			Makes me glad I've already canceled my auto-renew, and documented it from both ends. Not interested in having to go to small claims court because NCsoft's payment service can't keep their hands out of peoples' pockets, eesh.	
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			Will I find Digital River on my statement?  	
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Paypal user living on CREDD here; no issues yet with billing. It looks like the people who got into the game earlier than I did are the ones that are having the most hiccups with their payments.
 
I'll keep my fingers crossed in regards to my own transactions' continued smooth sailing, but I can definitely understand the frustration of dealing with double-charges for game subscriptions, been there with TERA (it was fixed pretty quickly, though), which had similar issues in the first few weeks after launch, and waaaay more when it went Free-To-Play.	
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Reminder: never give a gaming company your credit card information. Always pass through a middleman such as paypal.
 
This isn't even the first time gaming companies have done something so blatantly illegal: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/09/warhammer-online-billing-error-results-in-overcharge/
 
Gaming companies need to be held to the same standards other companies are. Because we don't we instead get shady companies with terrible security and terrible systems performing illegal things every single day shoving incomplete MMOs out the door so they're destined to fail.	
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Makes me glad I've already canceled my auto-renew, and documented it from both ends. Not interested in having to go to small claims court because NCsoft's payment service can't keep their hands out of peoples' pockets, eesh.
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Good for you! Proper and thorough documentation is jurisprudence's #1 axiom. If it actually was NCSoft's payment gateway service then you might have a greater than zero chance of sticking it to NCSoft and WildStar, which post history indicates is your intent. But it's not NCSoft's payment gateway service. Digital River is their own separate operation like PayPal or Authorize.net, so you'd be firing blanks in the wrong direction.
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I think you misunderstand, and are being needlessly defensive about it while pushing some kind of grudge.
 
Digital River is who NCsoft is using, correct? So they are handling NCsoft's payment service, the company that NCsoft has an agreement with, correct? So they are NCsoft's payment service, correct?
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Digital River operates as the remote cashier who rings up the sale and takes the customer's money, correct. Digital River operates as the remote cashier who rings up the sale and takes the customer's money, correct. Digital River operates as the remote cashier who rings up the sale and takes the customer's money, correct. My business uses Authorize.net, which is why I included them in my previous post. I understand perfectly, thank you.
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			I am completely puzzled by the entire Carbine thinking.  WHY spend all that energy making a game of this caliber and put the worst possible CS in place to run it.  I know for a fact that horrid CS and caused players to quit before even getting started.	
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I think you misunderstand, and are being needlessly defensive about it while pushing some kind of grudge.
 
Digital River is who NCsoft is using, correct? So they are handling NCsoft's payment service, the company that NCsoft has an agreement with, correct? So they are NCsoft's payment service, correct?
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Shut up fan boi. 
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That's like saying it's Amazon's fault if FedEx damages merchandise in shipping. Granted, chances are Amazon would try to fix it, but it's not their fault or obligation to fix it.
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Did Amazon give you a choice of which carrier to use, or did they decide for you? If you chose FedEx, it's not on Amazon. if Amazon chose FedEx, yes, you can be angry at Amazon.
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See that thing that just flew over your head? That was the point.
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That's like saying it's Amazon's fault if FedEx damages merchandise in shipping. Granted, chances are Amazon would try to fix it, but it's not their fault or obligation to fix it.
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Hi Folks,
 
This discussion has run its course, as such I'm locking it. 
 
Thank you for your feedback.
 
- team WildStar 	
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