Petition: clickandbuy the only way no,thanks.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Thats what credit card fraud protections are for,

And, again, credit card fraud protections are for customers, not merchants.

If your credit card is used fraudulently, your credit card issuer gives you back the money. Where does it come from? The merchant, who loses the money.

Accepting a fraudulent credit card payment is exactly the same as accepting counterfeit bills (a fraudulent cash payment). The merchant is out the entire value of the payment. It is exactly the same as having the merchandise stolen directly.

If merchants were protected in the way you seem to think they are, they'd have a fantastic incentive to commit the fraud themselves. And Sony wouldn't be stuck in a lawsuit with their insurance company.

[Nianny]

Hmm, I'm sorry if I'm missing it out but... where do I do the account transfer/look all these options out? Everytime I go to the information section of the english forums and click on the EU thread's link to do so, it keeps directing me to the japanese pages.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

But thats like paying a company(paypal) to pay a company(PlaySpan)

As opposed to paying a company (your bank) to pay a company (Visa/MasterCard).

It costs the merchant money to accept any form of payment that isn't cash or check (and realistically even checks come with a cost in the form of fraud). Period. End of story.

Credit card? Debit card? S-E will be lucky if they see $10 of that $12.95 you're "paying" them. Everyone who's singing the praises of PayPal, take a look at what it costs for you to accept a credit card payment.

Square-Enix is getting out of the business of accepting credit cards directly because it costs them too much money, both in the transaction fees as well as the cost of liability if they're the target of the next LulzSec attack. Going through a(nother) third-party shifts the responsibility for security to someone else as well as having the potential of lower payment processing fees thanks to aggregation. Think of it as an insurance policy and a warehouse shopping club membership in one.

As for PlaySpan and the "Ultimate Game Card," sure, Square-Enix could go through the hassle of printing up their own Crysta cards, with their own logo, etc, but that too comes with a cost: both the manufacture and distribution of the cards as well as the security costs of maintaining their own database for numbers on the card. Unless Square-Enix's online games becomem as big as iTunes, it is cheaper and seasier to let a third party deal with those headaches.

Why are things suddenly changing now? LulzSec and Sony. Why are the Japanese getting seemingly preferential treatment? I don't know, but considering how Japan's pro-business, anti-consumer legal system makes the US look like the EU, I'd wager it's because S-E is afforded more legal luxuries (protection against liability, ability to past certain costs directly onto the consumer, etc.) than they are outside Japan.

The proper thing to be doing here is complaining about the choice of third-party payment processor. Complaining that a third-party payment processor is needed to begin with simply demonstrates you have no idea how online commerce works.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Everytime I go to the information section of the english forums and click on the EU thread's link to do so, it keeps directing me to the japanese pages.

Are you currently in Japan?

Anyway, try going to your flavor of the playonline.com website. They appear to have added a big, red button towards the upper-left corner of the main Final Fantasy XI site.

[Nianny]

Are you currently in Japan?

Anyway, try going to your flavor of the playonline.com website. They appear to have added a big, red button towards the upper-left corner of the main Final Fantasy XI site.

No, I'm in Portugal which is why it makes no sense...
But that worked, thank you.

[xbobx]

"Square-Enix is getting out of the business of accepting credit cards directly because it costs them too much money, both in the transaction fees as well as the cost of liability if they're the target of the next LulzSec attack. Going through a(nother) third-party shifts the responsibility for security to someone else as well as having the potential of lower payment processing fees thanks to aggregation. Think of it as an insurance policy and a warehouse shopping club membership in one."

One flaw with your argument. SE was already using a third party for their billing.

[InsideOut]

I am quitting FFXI until they can offer me a payment method that does not have all these hidden fees like ClickandBuy. I am only posting the USA fees but the UK and EU added fees are crazy.

These are the USA hidden fees as according to ClickandBuy E-Money Account Terms of Use:
http://www.clickandbuy.com/WW_en/ter...onditions.html

Correction Fee

This fee is payable if:
(a) We receive a fund transfer with insufficient information to allocate it to the correct beneficiary ClickandBuy Account; or
(b) In connection with a withdrawal request We receive wrong or incorrect payment details or the withdrawal fails or is impeded due to any reason (other than due to Our fault).
Charges:
UK users: 0.50 GBP
EU users: 0.50 EUR
US users: 0.50 USD

Currency Exchange Fee (everytime you buy currency)
Where We are required to exchange currency in order to process Your transactions, We will apply this fee to the amount of Your monetary value that is converted.
Charges:
5.9%

Withdrawal Handling Fee
This fee is applied each time You withdraw monetary value from Your Account up until the point it is terminated.
Charges:
UK users: 1.85 GBP
EU users: 1.85 EUR
US users: 2.75 USD

Dormant Account Maintenance Fee

This monthly fee is payable if:
a) Your Account is open but Dormant for 12 months and has monetary value in it; or
b) Your Account is closed and terminated but still has monetary value in it 12 months after the point of Account termination.

Charges:
UK users: 1.00 GBP per month
EU users: 1.00 EUR per month
US users: 1.50 USD per month

Subject Access Request Fee
Where You make a ‘subject access request’ for Personal Data under the Data Protection Act, We will charge You this fee for dealing with this request.


Charges:
UK users: 10 GBP per subject access request
EU users: 10 EUR per subject access request
US users: 10 USD per subject access request

FACK YOU ClickandBuy!
FACK YOU UltimatePay!
YOU'RE COOL Playonline!
FACK YOU SQUARE-ENIX!

I'm out!

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

One flaw with your argument. SE was already using a third party for their billing.

Correct: their credit card processor. However, as a merchant, dealing with credit cards sucks, both in terms of processing fees and liability. Adding another middle man (be it ClickandBuy or PayPal) gives the merchant the chance to lower both costs, as that new middle man can make things cheaper by way of concentration and volume.

In this case, because ClickandBuy doesn't handle only Square-Enix subscriptions, they're handling a lot more transactions, a bigger volume of money, which gives them more negotiating power with the credit card companies when it comes to credit card processing fees.

And, presumably, ClickandBuy has the technological and legal security measures that Sony lacked. Even if it doesn't save S-E money per transaction, they're still able to sleep better at night without worrying about the next high-profile hacker attack.

[Vivik]

I am quitting FFXI until they can offer me a payment method that does not have all these hidden fees like ClickandBuy. I am only posting the USA fees but the UK and EU added fees are crazy.

These are the USA hidden fees as according to ClickandBuy E-Money Account Terms of Use:
http://www.clickandbuy.com/WW_en/ter...onditions.html


FACK YOU ClickandBuy!
FACK YOU UltimatePay!
YOU'RE COOL Playonline!
FACK YOU SQUARE-ENIX!

I'm out!

Don't forget the overdraft fees if you don't have money in your account when they go to charge it. Instead of you just not having service they will spank you with an overdraft charge and you wont have service.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

OK, I'm going to stop bothering with this thread, as "teh angry!" is being overshadowed by "teh stupid!"

But I do have to say one last thing:

The people who think PlayOnline was anything more than just a brand-name for Square-Enix obviously have never read their own credit card statements, and for that reason shouldn't be allowed near a credit card to begin with.

858-7907529SQUAREENIX3 08587907529 CA