Square Enix: The Comcast of the gaming world

[thistlechaser]

SE and Comcast: Two great companies so long as you never have to interact with them.

I decided I wanted to buy the FFXIV collector's edition -- basically $20 more for a special mount. Tried to enter my credit card. Error. Second card. Same error. Third card. Same error.

Please confirm the status of any relevant options and then try again.

How helpful is that? Went to the official forums. There is a 92 page thread of people with this issue, going back to 9/2013. Hundreds? Thousands? of people who want to give SE their money and who cannot.

Okay, forget about the CE, my account is expiring in three days, I'll just set up automatic monthly payment for that.

Same error.

SE's official solution to this? "Wait 24 hours and then try again."

I swear to god. How can a company let this issue go on for so long? It is preventing people from giving SE money. In this day and age, how can it take MONTHS for them to fix this issue? Multiple people posted about having this problem even today. I'm not alone in this.

I just don't get it. I really don't.

Edit: In the last SEVEN HOURS I've been trying to deal with this, I've:
Bought a $25 gamecard. SE errors out when it's used.
Put $20 into my Stream account. SE errors out.
Paid through PayPal ($20). SE is timing out.

Seven hours. $65. All in an effort to pay SE, which I still cannot do. Is there a worse company to deal with on the planet?

Comments

[bacchuslives.livejournal.com]

It does seem that this kind on thing would cut off their lifeblood... Strangeness.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep. You'd think, out of all the potential problems they'd have to fix, this would be the very top of their list.

[kelen.livejournal.com]

A totally arsed way to do it would be to put money in your Steam wallet and buy it that way. It's how I paid for my first month. This means loads of extra steps however.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I hate to do that, but I guess (hope!) it's an option. I bought a gamecard (which was supposed to be delivered instantly by email, it's been four hours...), but people get errors even with that.

Pain in the ass. Wish I wasn't enjoying the game so I could quit over this.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

And that errored out, too.

Five and a half hours.
Money on a gamecard.
Money in Stream Wallet.
SE keeps erroring out.

This is so frustrating and unacceptable.

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Wow.. what the hell? :P So sorry you have this trouble!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Same. Three credit cards. Paypal to buy their in-app "money". Game card. Stream Wallet. All failed. Seven hours and $65 lost so far. I suppose, if this doesn't get resolved tomorrow, I'll be forced back to WoW. My account expires on Friday and there's nothing I can do about it.

[kelen.livejournal.com]

*grah* :( I'd keep trying from the wallet since you put money in there. Hope this is resolved soon!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I guess it took hours, but overnight the paypal -> crysta -> renewing route worked. I'm good for a month. x.x

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Man, what a load of work for that. :(

[lokyst.livejournal.com]

A similar problem happened to me when I bought a copy of the ps3 version over Thanksgiving. The only thing that fixed it was waiting nearly two days between tries. Their servers are really not up to snuff when dealing with multiple people and then treats multiple attempts as someone trying to dodos them so it blocks you completely for 24 hrs.

Amateur hour, I swear.

[lokyst.livejournal.com]

Dodos ? Damn autocorrect. DDos.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Dodos made me laugh. :)

And based on what I read, you're right about the time. Enter ONE thing wrong and you're blocked out for 24 hours. Try again before the 24 hours is up and it resets your clock for another 24 hours. SIGH. And that's only ONE of the problems in the payment system!

The credit card SE said didn't work? I used it in PayPal to buy crysta to pay for a month of my account.

[adam-0oo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had a problem like this recently, I was trying to log into skype again, but couldn't. I can create a help ticket for customer service, but to do so...I need to log into skype.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

... Hahaha. These companies, don't they try the code they put into place?