Since this is going to be a bit longer, let me state clearly that, as of writing, I have not been banned yet, however I was told multiple times by CS that I am going to be. TL;DR at the bottom.
So, I'm a returning player. Played some of 1.0, some ARR and the last time during Stormblood release. Last week, I decided to hop in to FF14 again. Being from Germany, I wanted to pay for my sub via ELV/SEPA, as I've done multiple times before. For those that don't know what ELV/SEPA is: you basically punch in your address and IBAN/BIC, and the payment is withdrawn 1-2 days later from your bank account; it's probably the most common way to pay online in Germany.
I checked if I had any payment information stored before proceeding, and since nothing showed up in my account (apart from my mail and home address), I went ahead and filled out the ELV form with my bank credentials in the checkout process (as I was prompted to do). First time around, I was greeted with an error, prompting me to try again, which I did. The second attempt worked, however, the form validated and I confirmed my order. Playtime was credited as expected.
Fast forward to Wednesday, I was a bit confused that no transaction showed up in my bank account, and sure enough I was greeted by a letter from a bank where I used to have a bank account - that I canceled over two years ago. However, I definitely used this bank account to pay for my sub at some point back in the days. The letter stated that an attempt had been made to collect money from an account that no longer existed, and therefore had been denied.
Having heard the stories of account banning due to charge-backs and stuff, I immediately opened up a support ticket, stating what happened and asked how I could help resolve this (although this obviously couldn't have been my fault). I received an answer that same evening, simply telling me to talk to my bank - completely missing out on what had happened. I replied via mail, but haven't received an answer yet.
Come past Sunday, I start to get a bit anxious, doing more reddit reading and stumbling over a thread were some redditors stated that they loaded up Crysta on their account to resolve charge-back problems. I figured I might just as well do that, and offer my help to support a second time via a ticket. This morning, I receive an answer, telling me that my account is going to get banned. This mail also included instructions in what to do once this happens (charging up Crysta to my account, filling out some sort of form etc.), again ignoring the fact that I've done this preemptively, trying to fix a problem that I wasn't even responsible for.
So I go ahead and contact the support a third time, this time via chat. What follows is this:
I probably don't have to tell anyone that this is absolutely unacceptable, to which I reply that I demand a full GDPR compliant report on all data Square Enix holds attached to my account. It takes about 5 minutes to get an "ok, we'll do that" from the agent, after which I'm being told that I should now wait for my account to be banned for the failed transaction and then follow along their guidelines to get it unbanned again.
Now, with all that happened, and everything I was told by CS, I find it extremely worrisome that not only am I, as a customer, unable to see which bank accounts Square Enix stores and uses for their transactions, but also that they themselves seem to have some serious technical (and probably security) flaws on their end, with forms validating, but not using, the data that is entered. Using data for a transaction request that I did not enter into the form is a big red flag, even more so using some sort of consent that I would've needed to have given, as I learned later on. I requested a friend to try and see if he could pay with ELV/SEPA. Funny enough, when he entered his credentials into the form, he was greeted by a requested that he had to accept, granting Square permission to use the entered bank credentials for the ELV/SEPA payment system. I, however, did not receive said request (and how was I supposed to know that there should've been one?).
I'm no legal expert, and don't intend to act like one, but I'm pretty sure that more than one law is being broken here - be it due to a technical error, it really shouldn't matter. I'm looking forward to their GDPR report, and if I find any bank credentials in there. As someone who has been enjoying the game tremendously over the past week, and was looking forward to buying and playing Shadowbringers, this experience is probably one of the worst CS experiences I've ever had, and I'm not sure if I want to play, let alone pay for, a game where I might be arbitrarily locked out of my account without being actually responsible for what happened.
TL;DR: Returning player, used my current bank account to pay for my subscription, but Square Enix charged my old bank account (which doesn't exist anymore) due to a perceived technical error in their form, resulting in me being told that my account is going to get banned. All attempts to help clear the problem are being shrugged off, so I requested a fully GDPR compliant report and I'm left to sit and wait for the ban to happen.
submitted by /u/Shulo
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Continue reading...
So, I'm a returning player. Played some of 1.0, some ARR and the last time during Stormblood release. Last week, I decided to hop in to FF14 again. Being from Germany, I wanted to pay for my sub via ELV/SEPA, as I've done multiple times before. For those that don't know what ELV/SEPA is: you basically punch in your address and IBAN/BIC, and the payment is withdrawn 1-2 days later from your bank account; it's probably the most common way to pay online in Germany.
I checked if I had any payment information stored before proceeding, and since nothing showed up in my account (apart from my mail and home address), I went ahead and filled out the ELV form with my bank credentials in the checkout process (as I was prompted to do). First time around, I was greeted with an error, prompting me to try again, which I did. The second attempt worked, however, the form validated and I confirmed my order. Playtime was credited as expected.
Fast forward to Wednesday, I was a bit confused that no transaction showed up in my bank account, and sure enough I was greeted by a letter from a bank where I used to have a bank account - that I canceled over two years ago. However, I definitely used this bank account to pay for my sub at some point back in the days. The letter stated that an attempt had been made to collect money from an account that no longer existed, and therefore had been denied.
Having heard the stories of account banning due to charge-backs and stuff, I immediately opened up a support ticket, stating what happened and asked how I could help resolve this (although this obviously couldn't have been my fault). I received an answer that same evening, simply telling me to talk to my bank - completely missing out on what had happened. I replied via mail, but haven't received an answer yet.
Come past Sunday, I start to get a bit anxious, doing more reddit reading and stumbling over a thread were some redditors stated that they loaded up Crysta on their account to resolve charge-back problems. I figured I might just as well do that, and offer my help to support a second time via a ticket. This morning, I receive an answer, telling me that my account is going to get banned. This mail also included instructions in what to do once this happens (charging up Crysta to my account, filling out some sort of form etc.), again ignoring the fact that I've done this preemptively, trying to fix a problem that I wasn't even responsible for.
So I go ahead and contact the support a third time, this time via chat. What follows is this:
- I'm greeted by a CS agent, telling me that even charging Crysta on my account preemptively will not circumvent an impending ban; however, I should be able to use those Crysta in the unbanning process
- I state that I find this rather regrettable, however, I want to know why I'm held responsible for an obvious technical problem on their end, and how the "old" bank account data ended up being used by Square Enix in the first place, as no one answered that question in my tickets
- I'm being told that only bank account data that I entered myself was being used, and that I should look up which data was present in my account (which I already did a week ago). If any problems arise, I should contact my bank
- I state the whole problem again, and this time am prompted with a step by step instruction on where to find the bank account data present in my account. I follow these instructions again, only to find that, to my surprise, no data is present in my account at all, apart from my mail (IBAN, BIC, Name, etc. are all blank). Not even the bank account I entered during the payment processs
- Following this, I'm being told to "deregister" my payment data, try again, and that - in the event of another attempt of Square trying to collect money from a bank account that doesn't exist anymore, get a written confirmation of said bank and contact Squares' finance department so that they can look into it
I probably don't have to tell anyone that this is absolutely unacceptable, to which I reply that I demand a full GDPR compliant report on all data Square Enix holds attached to my account. It takes about 5 minutes to get an "ok, we'll do that" from the agent, after which I'm being told that I should now wait for my account to be banned for the failed transaction and then follow along their guidelines to get it unbanned again.
Now, with all that happened, and everything I was told by CS, I find it extremely worrisome that not only am I, as a customer, unable to see which bank accounts Square Enix stores and uses for their transactions, but also that they themselves seem to have some serious technical (and probably security) flaws on their end, with forms validating, but not using, the data that is entered. Using data for a transaction request that I did not enter into the form is a big red flag, even more so using some sort of consent that I would've needed to have given, as I learned later on. I requested a friend to try and see if he could pay with ELV/SEPA. Funny enough, when he entered his credentials into the form, he was greeted by a requested that he had to accept, granting Square permission to use the entered bank credentials for the ELV/SEPA payment system. I, however, did not receive said request (and how was I supposed to know that there should've been one?).
I'm no legal expert, and don't intend to act like one, but I'm pretty sure that more than one law is being broken here - be it due to a technical error, it really shouldn't matter. I'm looking forward to their GDPR report, and if I find any bank credentials in there. As someone who has been enjoying the game tremendously over the past week, and was looking forward to buying and playing Shadowbringers, this experience is probably one of the worst CS experiences I've ever had, and I'm not sure if I want to play, let alone pay for, a game where I might be arbitrarily locked out of my account without being actually responsible for what happened.
TL;DR: Returning player, used my current bank account to pay for my subscription, but Square Enix charged my old bank account (which doesn't exist anymore) due to a perceived technical error in their form, resulting in me being told that my account is going to get banned. All attempts to help clear the problem are being shrugged off, so I requested a fully GDPR compliant report and I'm left to sit and wait for the ban to happen.
submitted by /u/Shulo
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Continue reading...