Billed for month of April

Hi,

Yet another post in regards to the billing for this month.

I use a Visa debit card specifically for online purcahses and services such as FFXI so if there is any detail theft, they cannot spend money on an empty card. This does require me to put money on my card previous to when I am going to be purchasing / getting billed for anything online.

Due to the server downtime and the assurance that we were not getting billed for this month - I did not bother putting any money on this card.

When trying to login this morning, I got the "You did not pay your bill" message, and when proceeding to the next screen and logging in - it stated that I owe 15 euro for the month of April.

To my understanding, this month was not going to be billed - hence the reason I did not put money on my card (and will leave it that way until next bill period). Why was my account charged 15 euro when it was supposed to be an unbilled period?

Now of course I cannot login until I pay for this "free month" that obviously I am not going to pay.

I have read the posts regarding the similar issue that players cannot reactivate their account - however I also cannot get past the billing screen without filling out my card details and paying 15 Euro.

I am usually a loyal and happy customer, however this did not make me impressed. Please just restore the services for all accounts that got billed and get this problem resolved instead of beating around the bush.

Regards,

Alderin

true but it is hard for them to admit they messed up on the other hand they probably don't know wth is going on and to ashamed to tell us lol

They should refund you then charge you for making redundant posts on the forum. There is another thread concerning this already.

As a matter of fact, you posted in it. What was the point in making this one? Are you that desperate for attention?

There were conditions for the fee waiver. Did you meet them?

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Originally Posted by Cream_Soda

They should refund you then charge you for making redundant posts on the forum.

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.....lmfao

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Originally Posted by Cream_Soda

They should refund you then charge you for making redundant posts on the forum. There is another thread concerning this already.

As a matter of fact, you posted in it. What was the point in making this one? Are you that desperate for attention?

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Do you seriously camp on these forums and pick out little things to flame on? Get a life.

My problem is different to that of what other people have posted. GFY & troll somewhere else. This is the support forum not the general discussion.

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Originally Posted by Alhalnelem

There were conditions for the fee waiver. Did you meet them?

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I didn't see any conditions anywhere - do you have a source for this? but no I don't see why I would not be elligable.

My account was active, and has been active for a long time, this includes the 2 weeks the game was down, it also includes the month of March..

Those are the only conditions I would assume there would be? Unless for some strange reason I got cheaped out on this one for something I'm unaware of?

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Do you seriously camp on these forums and pick out little things to flame on? Get a life.

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Lol the RL card pulled from someone who is on the forums whining because they can't play a videogame.

Good one; well earned pat on the back.

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Originally Posted by Cream_Soda

Lol the RL card pulled from someone who is on the forums whining because they can't play a videogame.

Good one; well earned pat on the back.

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I am on the SUPPORT forums, requesting technical support due to the fact that services I am paying for on a regular basis aren't being delivered, and promises aren't being made.

Go flame somewhere else. This isn't the discussion board.

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and promises aren't being made.

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They're not obligated to promise you anything?

If you activated mid month of march you were billed regularly, read what they had to say about fee's waived

They are the only conditions?

Then I was billed by mistake then. I have been activated for months.

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Originally Posted by Cream_Soda

They're not obligated to promise you anything?

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As quoted by SE themselves - April billing period will not be charged due to the downtime in March. If I am not mistaken - that is a promise. One that was not being met in my case.

According to the "conditions" I am elligable for the free period.

Downtime in May? I hope you mean March. In any case if you didn't bother to have a buffer for such a situation And there is very likely they do remove €1 to ensure the account is in good standing. To be honest I am suspecting that there are things you are not telling us. I can understand using a debit card. Don't understand why you left drop below €50. You may also owe the bank some amount if they decided to fee you.

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Originally Posted by Laraul

Downtime in May? I hope you mean March. In any case if you didn't bother to have a buffer for such a situation And there is very likely they do remove €1 to ensure the account is in good standing. To be honest I am suspecting that there are things you are not telling us. I can understand using a debit card. Don't understand why you left drop below €50. You may also owe the bank some amount if they decided to fee you.

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Yeah sorry, meant March.. thanks for the pickup.. My head was a fuming with this one.

In regards to that - no I don't keep money on this account unless I know I am going to use it, due to security reasons. My balance on this account just have a couple of left over dollars from previous cycles, and I keep it that way until I need to purchase goods & services online. My account is not in the negative as bank fees, direct debits, etc do not come out of this account, they come out of my master. So unless they charged me for this month (or tried to), or did as mentioned - withdraw $1 from the account, (in which was not stated, therfore should not have happened), my account should still be active.

All in all, no there is nothing I am hiding from this - my post states my situation as it is.

My account is inactive due to "unpaid fees" from a month that was not meant to be charged, even though going by what previous people have said - there is no reason why I should not have been elligable.

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Originally Posted by Cream_Soda

They're not obligated to promise you anything?

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However they did hence, deliver.

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Originally Posted by Alderin

As quoted by SE themselves - April billing period will not be charged due to the downtime in March. If I am not mistaken - that is a promise. One that was not being met in my case.

According to the "conditions" I am elligable for the free period.

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You obviously don't know the definition of promise. I'm going to school today.

That doesn't mean I promised to go to school.

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Originally Posted by Cream_Soda

You obviously don't know the definition of promise. I'm going to school today.

That doesn't mean I promised to go to school.

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Promise is just the word of the day, in actuality they've overruled their own ToS with a modification statement. It really is more of a contract of agreement than a promise.

We SE agree to not charge you for April's fees since we will be unable to provide services during the month of March.

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Originally Posted by Cream_Soda

You obviously don't know the definition of promise. I'm going to school today.

That doesn't mean I promised to go to school.

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Your right somewhat , but when a business claims they are going to do something they usually have to follow through with it, they don't HAVE to but that would lead to alot of complaints and bad rep on them.

It's like a promissory note you give to your neigbour if you borrow 20 bucks, it states that I <name> will pay you back in the amount of 20 bucks.

SE did the same thing so legally speaking they do have to follow through.

But I agree that whining about it in a thread ... is not going to do anything, your best bet is to either chat support or call them and just let them know that you had some charges that went through, and leave it to them to either fix it, or tell you to go away.

Did you pay for March? That seems to be the first determining factor, and the second that you also be active during the April billing cycle:

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Due to the temporary suspension of the FINAL FANTASY XI game service, customers with active, paying subscriptions as of March 2011 will not be charged monthly FINAL FANTASY XI subscription fees ($12.95 + $1.00 per additional Content ID) for the April billing cycle. Below is a list of important notices for affected customers.

[Important Notes]
* Only customers who paid subscription fees for March 2011 are eligible. Customers registering new accounts or reactivating accounts in April are not eligible.* Fees for any additional Content IDs purchased from April 1, 2011 onwards will not be waived.
* Any charges aside from monthly subscription and additional Content ID fees (e.g., expansion purchases, etc.) will not be waived.
* Customers who closed their accounts during March will be eligible. However, you must reactivate your account before the end of April; since subscription fees are only being waived for the month of April, we recommend you reactivate early in order to reap the full benefits of this offer.

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I've paid for February, and March. At no point in time did I cancel my account. I was still charged for the month of April, and I, too, have found myself in the same situation. Stop defending SE.. We were told that the fee would be waived, and they need to follow up. We were all told that it would be waived, and many people planned accordingly. I'm sure it will be fixed, but you people who are saying SE can basically do whatever the **** they want, and we'd better take it with a smile on our face or gtfo need to seriously figure it out.

It appears that due to a billing system limitation, they have to bill for April, and then they refund the payment a few days later. I've been told the Japanese front page for FFXI mentions this, and those of us on WebMoney payment had to pay for the waived month before it could be reversed. From what I'm seeing on forums, the charge happened to everyone and then SE is reversing the charges once the server sees a successful billing to keep the accounts active.

They reverse it fast enough that you may not even see the charge on your card, but the funds get held until the reversal, so if your card has insufficient funds, the billing server fails to reactivate your account for the month. You still have to have the money, it just ends up not coming off the card.

Yeah, I saw SE reserve a few dollars on my debit visa for a few days, then I got them back without getting charged.

Alderin,

As noted in the general forum rules, this forum is for the discussion of technical issues, and we are unable to assist with any account-related issues. This includes questions regarding the billing of PlayOnline accounts. For assistance with account-related issues, please contact us directly through the SQUARE ENIX Support Center and we will be happy to help.

The SQUARE ENIX Support Center can be found at this link:
SQUARE ENIX Support Center for North American accounts
SQUARE ENIX Support Centre for European accounts