Is SOE Still Billing?
UPDATE: The contents of this article have been removed until such time as we can verify that credit cards have been charged after May 2nd, the date of the outage.
SOE has e-mailed me to indicate that their Billing system was taken down at the same time as all other Account services. Thus, any charges would have already been authorized or pending prior to that time.
We are attempting to verify that cards have been charged after this date. If you have been billed by SOE after May 2, 2011, please Contact Me.
Tags: account security
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Comments (39)
Rob A
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This just goes to show that Sony doesn’t care about it’s customers.
The outage is simply to keep their ability to accept credit cards and not have to deal with contractual and federal law violations.
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Marvis
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Keep getting billed while not being able to access the game for over a week and without any known timeframe is just horrible PR since you feel cheated as a customer. Clearly, they should have suspended charges until the game is accessible again.
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Illygirl
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I personally found it to be in my best interest to cancel my debit cards since I had two active account and 2 banks accounts to which I was using to pay for my service. I did not cancel my cards to show SOE or anything to that effect. I did this on the very 1st day that servers went down because at that time I was not sure if information or whos had been stolen. /Agrees with “Better safe then sorry”. I had been wondering about the make it right thing if my account was closed due to non payment but at this point what they are planning to give us is of no concern to me as long as my way of living is safe and untouched. I am still waiting patiently for my game to return and when it does I will be purchasing game cards from now on to pay for my accounts.
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Illygirl
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Also /agrees with Marvis. They should have suspended ALL departments.
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Dharvane
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I’m “still” laughing over the fact that the entire Sony empire is basically crippled and yet… they can still charge people’s cards in a timely manner.
Go SOE! 🙂
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isest
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i canceled my cards becasue they are dirrectly attached to my bank account. Sorry did not want to give anybody an open end into my cash supply.
This entire mess of not knowing what was going on it was the only way to be srue that I was not charged for anything.
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Steve S
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So if I stop payment on SOE’s billing, I’m the bad guy? Yet SOE can take down a service I pay for with no advance notice, with no estimate of when the service I pay for will be restored, while they continue to bill me for a service they don’t allow me access to?
Other than publishing, (on Twitter, of all places), a tersely worded statement at the end of each day stating the obvious, that the game is clearly, and obviously not up, what are they going to do?
At this point, of SOE decides to cancel my account, for their screw up…oh well.
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Nercissa
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Why wouldn’t Sony bill them? They didn’t cancel there account. The same as with people that pay for multiple months.
If sony didn’t bill them that would be unfair practice to people that pay for multiple months
.
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Feldon
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Sony shouldn’t be billing ANYONE for the next 40+ days, if they are going to uphold their promise of 30 days free service and 1 day for every day they’ve been down. What’s the alternative? Try to credit us for 40 days? Some people are on regular account, Station Account, 90 days, 180 days, annual. There would be no reasonable way to try to calculate how much money each person should get. Trying to calculate reimbursement would be A) impossible B) complicated C) expensive for SOE D) cost them a ton on angry e-mails and phone calls arguing about the amount of copensation.
Much smarter to just stop all billing for 40 days. If you already paid several months in advance, your renewal date would simply be pushed out by 40 days.
Also, someone didn’t believe me about Chargebacks vs. just changing/cancelling your card info being different. A CHARGEBACK is a legal process. It is a dispute between the customer and the vendor that brings the card issuer into it. It reflects badly on the vendor and may affect their credit rating. If a company triggers too many chargebacks, they get fees, and possibly fined by the credit card processor, or get dumped altogether.
Merely changing your credit card info or cancelling a card simply triggers an error code when SOE tries to auto-bill your card. No harm no foul and they just deactivate your account. It doesn’t cost them anything to try to bill your card if it bounces.
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Feldon
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By the way, I’ve heard from at least 2 customers that SOE is no longer allowing people to cancel their accounts or stop billing. Chargebacks may end up being the only option if SOE doesn’t get their sh*t together. Not allowing customers to cancel a forthcoming recurring payment for a product they can’t deliver is probably illegal.
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Kalako
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Thankyou for your continued updates and information Feldon. This is (and probably always will be) my first website to look at for updates.
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alan`
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Umm,
4 accounts in my house..
1 due the day the servers went down so far no charge whatsoever for this months sub,
2 was due on the 6th of may and once again no charge on the card
3 &4 dur in the next few days..unknow of course.
It’s a shambles,as usual from SOE got to love them.
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Nercissa
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Yes, thank you Feldon on the great work on keeping us informed on what is going on.
Eq2wire is always the first place i look for updates! RSS feeds 🙂
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Hal9000
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SOE is going to be buried in lawsuits if they think they can stop people from canceling.
If people are pissed and want to chargeback and further stick it to SOE, go for it. We have every right to be angry if our cards are being charged for something we have no access to and have no ETA. The customer service has been deplorable, with very little information being given to customers about when to expect services to resume.
People are angry and I don’t blame them one bit, if this ends up killing EQ2, so be it.
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Dharvane
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GD Feldon. That sounds shady as shit. Jesus…
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Hal9000
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Here’s our “reward”
EverQuest II and EverQuest II Extended: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Guild XP, Loot Bonanza, and City Festivals
Ya, I see a ton of people coming back for these rewards… /sarcasm
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Hal9000
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From : http://www.soe.com/securityupdate/recentupdates.vm
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Trip
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Really?! You guys are surprised by this? There CS is the worse. I redeemed a $25 SC card on a 2X weekend it went through but never credted to my account I even waited a few days becasue they where closed for the X-mas and New Years. I called they said they would creit it back plus credit for the 2x weekend. Guess what, Still waiting for it. So this does not surprise me at all.
I’m sure there motto is “The hell with them! Let’s get them for what can now and sort it out later.”
It just really upsets me to see them piss “all over” a really good game. QFE
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SteveT
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Well my card was changed so it would have bounced. I’m just hoping that it still counts as active and gets the free time. They need to do it based on accounts open when it happened not accounts still open at the end.
Also I’ve got first day vet rewards so far wonder if this will count as inactive days on my account.
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Zapphod
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I haven’t cancelled my accounts but I have cancelled and replaced the card attached to those accounts because I have no desire to take the risks involved when they said that personal and credit information had possibly been compromised.
If the servers come up before the 21st then I will probably enter the new information and my accounts will remain active, after the 21st then I guess they will close the accounts either way no one will be spending up large so that SOE can profit from their own screw up.
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Zapphod
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I also think anyone that thinks people were going to wait around while SOE investigated the issue to see which information had been compromised is out of their mind, the second I read that my CC info might have been stolen I rang the bank and cancelled the card.
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T0ran
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I’ve changed cards several times and SOE has never once brute forces a charge like described above. They just suspend your account until you re-sub nothing more. They know people canceled their cards and pretty much told you to in not so many words.
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Mike
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Casuals will have a game to come back to, but raiders? It’s going to be interesting to see what unfolds whenever they bring the servers back online. I’ve seen an awful lot of “screw this, half my guild has gone to Rift, I’m done” posts as of late.
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Steve S
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Uh…so, since SOE continues to work around the clock, (excluding weekends, holidays, and outside the hours of 9 am to 4 pm), if/when they manage to get their little pile of blocks in order, I can expect an ‘event’ to reward me for my ‘patience’?
Attn: SOE
Patience is given, not forced. Honesty is rewarded with loyalty, (you might have to explain that to the lawyers you’re hiding behind).
You’ve been carefully threading your way around specifics for far too long, and some SOE unspecified ‘event’ is not, at this stage, convincing.
Worse, the service I continue to pay for is unavailable to me, SOE refuses to tell me when it will be up, and SOE has the audacity to thank me for the patience I haven’t given them.
/boggle
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Grump
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I fully endorse charge backs if you are not planning to come back or they do not suspend billing or cancel your account over the phone.
“Not allowing customers to cancel a forthcoming recurring payment for a product they can’t deliver is probably illegal.”
Now, I am no lawyer, but In the USA, this would probably be a violation of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act. Also laws vary from region to region If you do have questions I would consider contacting a lawyer.
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Linda Carlson
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Guys,
There should have been no ongoing billing charges, as our billing server was also physically taken offline during this downtime. Have any of you *personally* experienced this? Feldon?
If you have personally experienced a billing issue, please contact our CS department at 1-858-537-0898 (10:00am – 7:00pm PST, Monday through Friday, except holidays.)
Sincerely,
Linda Carlson
Director, Global Community Relations
Sony Online Entertainment
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Fluck
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Anyone who hasn’t cancelled their CC should chargeback immediately. The larger the deluge of chargebacks SOE has to deal with, the less likely they will be to try and pull this crap again.
It’s unfortunate that most smart people would have cancelled their credit cards because the shitstorm that would result from a mass of chargebacks would certainly make them revise their greedy policies.
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Hechada
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@ Linda
I had a £20 debit on 4th May- although the transaction date was 29th April (when I purchased the SC) – which I’m assuming was when the call for funds was made. I wonder if the people who are stating that debits were taken post offline time are talking about transactions which were already pending and then subsequently processed.
I have no issues with the above, I bought the SC, it was available immediately, and that there was a lag with my bank processing the charge is of no concern to me.
Re: the downtime etc. Whilst missing it like crazy, and being disappointed that it won’t be up this weekend,I don’t think it makes SOE the devil incarnate. No company would wish to have this service interuption, they’ll be working to have it back as soon as is safe, and they are hurting more than we are (lost revenues, lost customers, reputation hit).
The ‘make good’ offer seems fair (though like similar posters I do hope that the double XP times are of a sufficient duration to make tem accessible to all play styles/schedules). That said whatever they do someone will find it not good enough…..
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The EQ2 Wire » Still Billing? Looks Like I Got Trolled! -- EverQuest II News & Commentary
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[…] went with the story that billing was still happening based on direct comments in the #eq2 chat, comments on the SOE Facebook wall, and of course some […]
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Dharvane
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Linda Carlson = WRONG.
People “are” being billed after your servers went down. Shianne and I have both been billed after 🙂
Please don’t spread misinformation unless you actually have good information to back it up. I realize you were probably just told by higher ups that this was the case but they are either lying to you or just plain giving you bad information to spread so the company doesn’t look as bad.
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Aeyri
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@Fluck Or it would cause Visa and Mastercard to just stop accepting SOE charges, causing further headaches for all of us…
What many people don’t seem to get is that causing headaches for SOE just causes headaches for us in the long run. If SOE receives lots of lawsuits, chargebacks, government inquiries etc., that end up costing them a lot more money, it will likely trickle down to us. They may not raise their prices, but I could see more layoffs or budget trimming in other ways. In addition, the people who will have to deal with these messes are likely not even the same ones who caused the security hole (if any) in the first place.
I am sure they are working their butts off to get the game up and running, because every day they are down just hurts them further. I’m sure heads are already rolling that this happened at all. Their ‘make good’ plan sounds fair, and I’m sure identity theft protection for millions of people doesn’t come cheap. They have received their punishment, and I’m willing to give them the chance to learn from their mistakes, rather than cause further grief.
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Lempo
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At least some people get it…
Good comment Aeyri.
Again, no one has any justification for a chargeback whatsoever until you attempt to resolve it with the company that made the charge.
And all the retards that are calling for class action lawsuits you are going to get a few shells off of the peanuts and make a law firm a lot of money. Then it will increase the cost (or cause a reduction of the level of service) for you (if you remain) and everyone else.
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Lempo
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and Dharvane again makes a baseless comment with no date of the charge, after it has been explained how it could happen.
THE DATE YOUR CC BILL SAYS DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THE CHARGE WAS ISSUED ON THAT DAY.
It is clear that you are only attempting to detract.
At this point to have any credibility you need to scan the CC bill, block any personal info and put it on photobucket for all to see.
OTHERWISE IT DIDN’T HAPPEN, end of story.
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Grump
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After speaking with a lawyer here in NY who specializes in online fraud and adult entertainment (She’s a porn lawyer, cool huh?) She said that if SOE billed after May 1st, that SOE could be violating Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, among other laws.
BUT and this is a big BUT, they would not be violating it, if your card was pre-athenticated prior to May 1st, but not charged or posted until after May 1st. Also, remember May 1st was a Sunday banks will not post until the next buisness day ends, and some banks and processors may take even longer.
For example it takes up to a week for one of my local bars charges to be seen on my account.
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Dharvane
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Sorry, Lempo. I have no need to prove anything to you. Anyone who plays on my server knows I don’t lie about anything. I’m a prick but I’m a straight shooting prick. So… whether you believe me or not doesn’t really mean anything to me. I’m just telling all the people that aren’t fanboys like you that SOE is wrong on the not charging people thing.
It makes sense for them to spindoctor stuff. God knows enough of their playerbase has already quit due to the treatment we’ve been getting recently.
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Grump
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Dharvane, I would contact both your bank and SOE to see when the charge was athenticated, It could have simply have been athenticated, but not posted until the banks opended back up for buisness.
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Lexxie
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Linda (SOE)
As you are Director of GLOBAL Community Relations, may I respectfully ask that you don’t just post the US telephone number?
Thanks.
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Judders
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I’m obviously miffed that I can’t play but it has allowed me to catch up on Guild Wars.
In regards to the welcome back incentive, I am of the opinion that the double exp should be per account ie, a set number of hours applied to the account… not just a weekend.
Perhaps by giving double exp potions (a large amount or, 200% exp for 1 hour x 10 or something), I don’t have to worry about it getting in the way of my real life by adhering to the exp schedule laid down by SoE.
Thanks
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Feldon
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I’ve posted a followup article:
https://eq2wire.com/2011/05/13/soe-billing-stopped-may-2nd-credit-authorization-process-caused-later-charges/
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