PlayOnline: UCS 60257 error

[Zenoxio]

I'm trying to update my credit card, but I've been getting the UCS 60257 (servers are busy or my information is wrong) error since March 4th.

I've talked to SE on the 5th and they said it's due to billing server congestion. SE also posted about it under Topics:

Mar. 4, 2011 21:00 [PST] From: PlayOnline

Registration Server Technical Difficulties (Mar. 3)

Mar. 4, 2011 23:45 [PST] From: PlayOnline

Registration Server Technical Difficulties: Follow-up

Mar. 5, 2011 01:20 [PST] From: PlayOnline

Registration Server Recovery (Mar. 5)
But as you can see, they said it was fixed on the 5th.

Also see http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/409-Dear-SquareEnix-please-re-evaluate-your-technical-billing-support

[EDIT] I fixed it! My billing address was typed wrong, I was missing a space. :/

[Lushipur]

I have the same issue (unresolved).

I have a jp pol account but i'm european, so i use an european veryfied by VISA credit card.
Since a few years, jp pol doesnt accept non-jp card and i had to use webmoney to pay my account.

Maybe your situation is similar (different nation? not verified by VISA/Mastercard?).

[Zenoxio]

I have a Visa card in the US that supports Verified by Visa.

[Weeks]

Still getting the issue here too. Whose idea was it to have the same error message spit out at you whether the info was wrong, the card was declined, or there was server congestion? If we had some idea which it was, your support staff might actually be useful instead of just advising us to try again in a week.

[Zenoxio]

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You have been connected to Agent Nehemiah.
Agent Nehemiah: Hello, x, thank you for contacting SQUARE ENIX Customer Support. Just a few moments while I review your question, please.
Agent Nehemiah: How are you doing today?
me: Good
Agent Nehemiah: Glad to hear it.
Agent Nehemiah: How can I assist you?
me: I'm trying to update my credit card, but I've been getting the UCS 60257 (servers are busy or my information is wrong) error since March 4th.

Agent Nehemiah: I see.
Agent Nehemiah: Many players have been receiving that error code in the past week due to the scheduled billing server maintenance earlier this month and the server maintenance from yesterday for the server merges.
Agent Nehemiah: This is likely the reason why you are getting that error code.
me: When will this be resolved?
Agent Nehemiah: We are working to resolve this as soon as possible.
Agent Nehemiah: I can not give a specific date but based on past experience I would bet you shouldn't have trouble come tomorrow.
me: Is there an estimated time?
Agent Nehemiah: There is no official estimated time but I think you would have better chances tomorrow.
me: Is there any reason a notice about this issue isn't posted on PlayOnline.com
Agent Nehemiah: The billing server maintenance occurs on the first of each month and yesterday's server maintenance was also announce on www.playonline.com.
Agent Nehemiah: The best thing to do if your are receiving that UCS 60257 error code is to wait and try again later.
Agent Nehemiah: Are there any other issues I can assist you with right now, x?
me: Will there be a notice posted when the issue is resolved?
Agent Nehemiah: Likely, that will not be the case.
Agent Nehemiah: Thank you for visiting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center, x! Take care and hope to see you online!
Thank you for contacting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center. You may now close this window.
Your session has ended. You may now close this window.

I honestly I don't see how last nights maintenance could have caused this, but okay.

[oliveira]

I have the same issue (unresolved).

I have a jp pol account but i'm european, so i use an european veryfied by VISA credit card.
Since a few years, jp pol doesnt accept non-jp card and i had to use webmoney to pay my account.

Maybe your situation is similar (different nation? not verified by VISA/Mastercard?).

Hi pal. You're another victim of the "UCS-60096" error, right ?

At least now we have an place where we can talk and make ourselves heard. Hopefully. :rolleyes:

[Knivesnpens]

I get the same error, I just recently bought the FFXI package on steam and I cannot even play it because I get this error when I try and input my payment info...SE What is up!

[Nadeu]

Zenoxio,

We’re sorry for the problems you are experiencing when trying to update the credit card information on an account. What you’ve been told in the past is all correct information. Generally the billing servers are congested from the last few days of the month, to a few days after the billing cycle, as that’s when the majority of players will try to update their information. Congestion can also be caused by the announcement of a new service, offer, or promotion that would lead people to want to reactivate their services, such as the server merge that was recently completed.

But ultimately what’s happening is that the authorization attempt that we’re making against the credit card information you’ve provided is not going through, and so the card does not appear as a valid card. The best bit of advice that we can give is that if you are receiving one of these errors, you contact your financial institution directly to ensure that they are not blocking any transactions from SQUARE ENIX.

When speaking with your financial institution, be sure to determine they are not specifically blocking our transactions from going through. Financial institutions do have the capability to block specific transactions based on their own rules or procedures. This would mean you would be able to use your card at the local convenience store since it’s valid, but it still doesn’t update through the PlayOnline Viewer due to your financial institution blocking our transactions.

As for yesterday’s maintenance adding to this problem, it’s due to the fact that the PlayOnline servers were unavailable yesterday due to said maintenance. This means that everyone who would have updated their credit card information yesterday was forced to wait until today, extending the congestion.

[Zenoxio]

Hi Nadeu,

Thanks for replying.

I've used the same card on various other services like Steam without an issue. My bank has never blocked any transactions and I would expect them to tell me to contact SquareEnix if I contact them.

If they do tell me they aren't blocking anything and to contact SquareEnix, what then?

[Weeks]

In my case, POL insisted I use my permanent address attached to my bank account and not the billing address attached to my check card. But for a week I was told it was server congestion and given a run-around, told to set up port forwarding, re-try on my Xbox 360, and to try again next week. Neither I nor anyone I could reach at my bank or at POL support had any indication of the true issue because all it gives is the generic error code. This doesn't happen with any other company I purchase from online, and it is a ridiculously obsolete system that needs to be overhauled.

[Knivesnpens]

Have there been, or has anyone created a new playonline account in the last 2 days, cause I cant make since it still has the same error but its not the card cause my gf made her account using the same card

[Nadeu]

Zenoxio,

Unfortunately if the authorization doesn’t go through when you attempt to update through the PlayOnline Viewer, then we will not be able to charge that card. In a situation such as that, we can only recommend that you use a different form of payment. There would be no way to force that card through, since any update to the account is dependant on that authorization being approved, and we cannot force your financial institution to approve the authorization request.

[Knivesnpens]

Can you use the same card twice, like to pay for a friend/ boyfriend ect? Will that affect the card not going through?

[Nadeu]

Knivesnpens,

A question like that is one you’d want to pose to your financial institution. As SQUARE ENIX is not a financial institution, we wouldn’t have any control over whether or not your form of payment goes through, and we would definitely have no control over it going through, or being denied on, multiple accounts.

[Knivesnpens]

Hmm alright thanks then

[Aphugel]

Sorry, not true!
You are simply assuming that all banks CAN and WILL do this verified by Visa bit. Mine WON'T!
I spent hours on the phone trying to convince them, I spent hours trying to get the bozos at SE help desk to actually HELP me. No chance.
The bank clearly and loudly states that SE is at fault, and actually is acting AGAINST the visa agreement.
SE has, according to my bank the DUTY to verify my card with the bank, nad not rely on VBV, if the bank does not provide it.
Not that SE would be bothered by such a simple thing as acting against their merchant agreement with visa.
Or be bothered by shitting on their loyal players....

In short:
It is not the bank BLOCKING the transaction, it is that SE assumes that the VBV service has been universally implemented by all banks,and that is clearly not the case.
For the moment I've left the game (after 5 years close to full time playing).

[pheare]

Sorry, not true!
You are simply assuming that all banks CAN and WILL do this verified by Visa bit. Mine WON'T!
I spent hours on the phone trying to convince them, I spent hours trying to get the bozos at SE help desk to actually HELP me. No chance.
The bank clearly and loudly states that SE is at fault, and actually is acting AGIANST the visa agreement.
SE has, according to my bank the DUTY to verify my card with the bank, nad not rely on VBV, if the bank does not provide it.
Not that SE would be bothered by such a simple thing as acting against their merchant agreement with visa.
Or be bothered by shitting on their loyal players....

In short:
It is not the bank BLOCKING the transaction, it is that SE assumes that the VBV service has been universally implemented by all banks,and that is clearly not the case.
For the moment I've left the game (after 5 years close to full time playing).

My bank doesn't do Verified By Visa either, yet I went to walmart to get one of their $3 prepaid cards and that works just fine. Walmart charges you a $3 a fee per month plus $3 any time you add any money to your account but it's been working decent for me.

Little bit more expensive but a workaround if your bank doesn't support it. :\

[Diamoness]

My bank does not and will not support VBV. I have been using the same credit card for the last 6+ years for FFXI on at least 2 accounts (currently now 5 accounts) during the 6+years. The last time I had to update the expiration date of this same card it was rejected through VBV. I called SE and asked them to update the expiration date which they did manually on the accounts without hesitation. To this day I have been playing XI on all 5 accounts without any issues.

The card will again expire in 2012 and will call SE again to update the expiration when and if I need to use VBV again to update the expiration. Hopefully I will get someone to simply update the year.

Just FYI the card I use is through a major national bank throughout the USA. I only use 1 credit card for anything and everything and will never want another credit card from a different financial institution.

[Aphugel]

Tried this just now. No go! One of the many problems is of course that the help ctr. ppl. are pretty uninformed, uninterested, and unimaginative ( and several other words starting with un). My card is not issued in the USA, but in NZ. There is no help ctr. for me. If you are not in Europe, Japan, USA, u are fucked, it seems.

[NightDagger]

My brother has/had the same problem. His credit card was not Verified by Visa. So i let him use my card (which I also use on my account) to get his account active, he then called SE to change his information over the phone. They accepted his non-verified visa over the phone and his payments have now been coming off that.

i do not know if you have a relative or someone who will let you use their card for this, but it works and is easy enough to do.

Hope this helps at all.

[oliveira]

I'm a old time customer which had the luck of sneaking in a updated credit card on the account one month before they implemented changes on the billing server. I'm user of a Japanese account. Now the said card expired and I am locked out of the game.

The issue is:

When they instated the 14 day trial system in 2008 (which is the REASON AND SOURCE OF ALL THE PROBLEMS WE HAVE CURRENTLY WITH THE BILLING SYSTEM) RMT trash started to exploit it to obtain fresh accounts for their sordid gil making purposes.

The whole problem arises from the fact that the RMT trash were using STOLEN credit cards to activate the trial accounts. And when the accounts got their bill for the first time the credit card owners requested refund for fraud. Resulting into actions by Square Enix on the line of shielding itself against such fraud.

The results are:

International customers using Japanese accounts are obligated to migrate to Webmoney.jp service to fund their accounts as the billing service has been reworked to artificially fail on the use of non Japanese issued bank/credit cards (the point of this fix is understandable but they could instead remove the 14 day trial or use another method for distributing the 14 day trial accounts instead of using their game website).

For US and European service they deemed that such solution would have a wide impact the user population so they instead of fully block international purchases they used the Verified By Visa (VBV) system and completely removed the 14 days trial offer from the USA and European FFXI game sites. For US/EURO they now use STEAM (Valve Software online retail service to distribute the game and trial accounts).

This is a real source of problem to a minority of the players of the game. I nearly lost my hopes of playing Final Fantasy XI again with my almost nine years old account. :confused:

And no, if there's something I won't do is start over. :p

I feel being treated like trash. Besides this issue and the lack of contact with the company (now this forum serves to at least alleviate that issue) I had a very good business relation with Square Enix (until 2008) and I do not put the blame completely on Square Enix co.

I just am a bit sad for suffering damage on my game from their way of dealing with the RMT trash. :(

Honestly I'm not too eager to procure webmoney.jp credits to fund my account at almost 25% higher price than paying directly with credit card.

I can suck it up and leave the game if I can't get it fixed.

[NightDagger]

My brother has almost the same issue, we fixed this with 2 methods. i used my verified by Visa credit card to activate his account. he called them & then got it switched to his non verified Credit Card.

the other option is the pre-paid Visa's. they allow you to create a Verified account & then can just reload it every month ^^.

[Zenoxio]

Hi all & Nadeu,

I've fixed the UCS 60257 error. I called my bank and they told me they weren't blocking anything.

I remembered POL was really strict about billing address, so I verified it with the bank. It turns out my address with my bank had a space in it, and I wasn't typing in that space.

[Aphugel]

OOOKAY,,, finally found an SE agent who knew what he was doing. Agent Paul actually was able to update the expiration date on my visa-card. I had been up to a next lvl agent before who plain refused to help me.
So, my thanks to Agent Paul, u are a corker, mate.
And thanks to Diamoness who suggested a working solution.