Is it safe to buy things off Mogstation?

I was browsing a certain FFXIV discussion site when I came across a story (however true or untrue) that a player has been banned for a month and a half (and possibly permanently) because of a mogstation purchase. They bought something twice (this was their intention). The charge showed up to his credit card company and it looked like a duplicate payment, so one was charged back. And, of course, chargebacks result in bans from the game pending whatever it is that SE does with resolving it.

I don't know if this story holds any truth in it, but I have heard of it happening before this case and it raises concern nearly forgotten about how buying things off the mogstation works. Can anyone shed in light on this issue at all?

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

I was browsing a certain FFXIV discussion site when I came across a story (however true or untrue) that a player has been banned for a month and a half (and possibly permanently) because of a mogstation purchase. They bought something twice (this was their intention). The charge showed up to his credit card company and it looked like a duplicate payment, so one was charged back. And, of course, chargebacks result in bans from the game pending whatever it is that SE does with resolving it.

I don't know if this story holds any truth in it, but I have heard of it happening before this case and it raises concern nearly forgotten about how buying things off the mogstation works. Can anyone shed in light on this issue at all?

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I've never had an issue, but my card company tends to ask first instead of doing proactive charge-backs.

I've purchased lots of stuff on the Mogstation and never had an issue.

Yes, buying from mogstation is perfectly safe. Not sure if there is any truth to the rumor you heard, but it would make some sense that if you attempt to charge back a purchase, they may temporarily suspend the account.

Either way, it's not SE's fault that whoever made the purchase charged back. It was a bank error, so just make sure you don't have a stupid bank and you'll be fine.

I've bought a few things off of the Mog Station (mostly Fantasia) and a minion I wanted and never had any issues that would cause me to get banned.

I did however have a problem with my debit card a few weeks ago. I took a very long break from the game and when I came back I paid for my sub and for some reason my bank thought the transaction was suspicious so they put a stop on my card and I had to call the bank and get in touch with the fraud team to sort it out. It was sorted in less than 10 mins.

That's the only issue I have ever had in regards to Mog Station purchases.

It is not safe to buy the same item twice in a short period of time. Many credit card companies will do chargeback wether you want it or not, and you actually signed for their fraud protection actions in contract.

I don't know how every credit card company out there handles it, but the ones I use or have used would definitely call me before they did anything like that to see if that's actually what happened and would require my input to go forward with it.

Purchasing things off the mogstation is safe ... unless you owe money to the mob or a bookie, at which point you spend money that should be going to them at your own risk.

It's not a rumor https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ity_organizer/

Unless SE does something to differentiate purchases try to not buy two of the same items one after another or you could get banned for trying to support this game. It's pretty sad the issue with that player isn't being solved, Blizzard CS would have fixed that in a matter of hours.

Thing is, every transaction should have its own transaction number, to do the differentiating. It sounds like their bank just went gung-ho without looking into it or even contacting the cardholder first.

Two transactions of the same amount may be a flag, but it should be a flag of contact the cardholder, not immediate chargeback. I would get away from this bank/credit card pretty quick.

I've had a customer at a retail store call about having 2 transactions of the same amount thinking they got charged twice, even though they had completely different items and even amounts of items.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

It's not a rumor https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ity_organizer/

Unless SE does something to differentiate purchases try to not buy two of the same items one after another or you could get banned for trying to support this game. It's pretty sad the issue with that player isn't being solved, Blizzard CS would have fixed that in a matter of hours.

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It most certainly is rumor. No proof provided in that link whatsoever. Just an anecdote and the poster's claims.

While I don't doubt there's a possibility that his second purchase was flagged as a duplicate, I find it hard to believe it was automatically charged back without the bank contacting the purchaser.

Secondly, it's pretty hard to believe they would ban him for a month and a half over it. If they did, then it was for some infraction that he's not telling us about.

You MAY get a temporary ban for a charge back, but I doubt it, since I've personally had a charge back on Mogstation (actual double purchase error) and didn't get banned even temporarily.

I lack information about how the purchase appeared in that guy's CC statement, so I wont play the "pass the blame" game with who caused it, but I can tell nothing is being done to solve it, whereas a company like Blizzard would have sorted that out in a matter of hours, waiting over a month with no proper response shows little care their for customers.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

You MAY get a temporary ban for a charge back, but I doubt it, since I've personally had a charge back on Mogstation (actual double purchase error) and didn't get banned even temporarily.

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And I definitely won't get into the "if it didn't happen to me it doesn't happen" argument.

If you think he's lying then power to you, it would make no sense to lie about the ban reason while trying to contact Kahuna when Kahuna could verify the guy is lying about the ban reason.

A lot of things can only be purchased for one character if you want to have that item for a second character you do need to buy a second one. In the case of what you had heard the person bought 2 of the same thing and their bank/credit card company had thought it got double charged and had reversed the second purchase.

I've bought a few things from the mog station and have never had any issues. If you want to buy something for 2 characters I would say buy the first one then wait a few days or so before buying the second one.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

If you think he's lying then power to you, it would make no sense to lie about the ban reason while trying to contact Kahuna when Kahuna could verify the guy is lying about the ban reason.

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Oh, I don't just think he's lying. I'm quite confident it he is. If he was banned for a month and a half, it was for something other than a simple charge back.

Why? Because not only one claim doesn't make logical sense, but TWO claims make no logical sense. The first claim was that his bank automatically charged back without contacting him. That is not something that any respectable bank does.

The second was that he was banned for a month and a half and hasn't been able to clear it up over nothing more than a charge back. That is absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention he has no evidence of either claim.

This is nothing more than someone pissed off at SE for something and attempting to slander/libel them.

But the main point, and what the OP is concerned about, is whether purchasing from mogstation is safe... which it is.

EDIT: And finally, this:

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Originally Posted by AmalonStar

Also be careful about posts/ stories you see on whatever forum about so-and-so being banned because of this or that. Some of those ppl that have posted stories like that may have been caught for buying Gil or services from an RMT and are just mad they got caught and banned for it and are trying to make ppl quit the game out of fear they'll get banned for doing something like buying stuff from the mog station

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You should be fine as long as you don't have an overzealous bank who files charge-backs without contacting the cardholder first.

Edit:

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Oh, I don't just think he's lying. I'm quite confident it he is. If he was banned for a month and a half, it was for something other than a simple charge back.

Why? Because not only one claim doesn't make logical sense, but TWO claims make no logical sense. The first claim was that his bank automatically charged back without contacting him. That is not something that any respectable bank does.

The second was that he was banned for a month and a half and hasn't been able to clear it up over nothing more than a charge back. That is absolutely ridiculous.

This is nothing more than someone pissed off at SE for something and attempting to slander/libel them.

But the main point, and what the OP is concerned about, is whether purchasing from mogstation is safe... which it is.

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I doubt his claim about his bank not contacting him (and if is true he needs to find a new bank ASAP), but so far as I'm aware, SE can and does dole out permanent bans for charge-backs.

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

I was browsing a certain FFXIV discussion site when I came across a story (however true or untrue) that a player has been banned for a month and a half (and possibly permanently) because of a mogstation purchase. They bought something twice (this was their intention). The charge showed up to his credit card company and it looked like a duplicate payment, so one was charged back. And, of course, chargebacks result in bans from the game pending whatever it is that SE does with resolving it.

I don't know if this story holds any truth in it, but I have heard of it happening before this case and it raises concern nearly forgotten about how buying things off the mogstation works. Can anyone shed in light on this issue at all?

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That's not Unique to SE and the MogStation.

Anytime a Card company decides there has been a duplicate charge that they consider in error, they will cancel the charge. Many vendors have certain procedures for dealing with failure to pay, online stores especially use automated systems to handle these things. In this case the player - due to no fault of their own - was seen by the commerce system as failing to pay for something they ordered, and so a ban ensued.

In a world of automated systems this is fairly common. The resolution is to talk to customer services and be patient. A better solution is not to make identical back to back purchases separated by a few seconds.

Either way, the cause was the card company/bank presuming something was a false charge and cancelling the payment. That triggered everything else.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

That's not Unique to SE and the MogStation.

Anytime a Card company decides there has been a duplicate charge that they consider in error, they will cancel the charge. Many vendors have certain procedures for dealing with failure to pay, online stores especially use automated systems to handle these things. In this case the player - due to no fault of their own - was seen by the commerce system as failing to pay for something they ordered, and so a ban ensued.

In a world of automated systems this is fairly common. The resolution is to talk to customer services and be patient. A better solution is not to make identical back to back purchases separated by a few seconds.

Either way, the cause was the card company/bank presuming something was a false charge and cancelling the payment. That triggered everything else.

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But any half decent bank will contact the cardholder before they attempt a charge back.

Also be careful about posts/ stories you see on whatever forum about so-and-so being banned because of this or that. Some of those ppl that have posted stories like that may have been caught for buying Gil or services from an RMT and are just mad they got caught and banned for it and are trying to make ppl quit the game out of fear they'll get banned for doing something like buying stuff from the mog station

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

But any half decent bank will contact the cardholder before they attempt a charge back.

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And there in lies the problem. Many smaller banks/credit unions don't have 24/7 customer service reps, and lots of things are automated, including fraud protection...

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

I doubt his claim about his bank not contacting him (and if is true he needs to find a new bank ASAP), but so far as I'm aware, SE can and does dole out permanent bans for charge-backs.

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Permanent bans for charge backs are incredibly rare. They are for the cases where people are committing fraud or attempting to force a refund they are not entitled to.

You will never get permanently banned for an accidental charge back that you explain to CS.

I've never heard of banks doing automatic charge backs, I have heard them blocking charges but that totally different then a charge back.

if it makes you feel safer just buy crysta beforehand and pay with them.

at any rate, while we can't really say what happened or not happened in this particular case, from personal experience square isn't nearly as bad as the linked thread makes them out to be about this.

An ex member off my fc paid for the digital collectors upgrade, got charged back. he told the customer support, they told him to charge up crysta, they will deduct them to balance everything, he simply did as told and could play again two days later. Same guy, automatic playtime renewal got charged back 3 weeks later, ticket to the support team, making sure they got theyre money, and lo and behold he was free to play again. My own Girlfriend had the exact same thing happening once (with the difference that she proactively contacted square when the payment was charged back), same reaction, oh well mistakes happen, charge up some crysta, we will deduct them later, took them like 5 weeks but she didn't even get a temporary ban during that time. i mean that's just as anecdotal, but it's what happened in this cases, so from my own experience square won't simply permaban your account and tell you good luck.

Every now and then this problem pops up, and we hear about a player losing an account. It's a patten, and as a result I am thinking about canceling my monthly subscription, in favor of game time cards. It's rather tedious, but I do not want to run into any problems. I've been playing FFXIV since 2015, and I've spent a lot of money on this game, including the upcoming expansion. I do not want to quit the game.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Oh, I don't just think he's lying. I'm quite confident it he is. If he was banned for a month and a half, it was for something other than a simple charge back.

[snipped]

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Clearly you've never seen the amount of absurdity that can happen when the stars align just right, and then have the issue passed around thereafter to largely apathetic people or those that were just handed the case with no context at all. Freak cases like this ARE possible.

(As an aside, the amount of white knighting on these forums is insane, and I say this as a former moderator of a different MMO that actually DID see legitimate crap like this happen among a far more toxic community overall. One case I can probably share is that there was someone that got banned for 2 weeks from said game by an automated system, and nobody knew why he was even banned in the first place nor was the issue even resolved for so long, until our group figured out that the ban was actually our fault in the first place - a server hiccup caused him to disconnect, and upon logging in, the game said he was still in-game but actually wasn't, so we force disconnected his character and moved him to a town. Except said town was a higher level town and the character's level was too low to even access the place legitimately, so the character got immediately flagged and banned, through no fault of the player themselves.

Now, that was two weeks. What happened in the meantime? That player's reputation got destroyed because his political enemies were frothing at the mouth for an opportunity to say that he was a liar/cheater/gold buyer/other crap, and last time I checked with that particular player, that crap still persists today. "He got banned for two weeks, he only got released because he got his rich Chinese lawyers to harass the company, demanding his account be released!")

I've heard another rumor, that buying an item on the mogstation causes other items to mysteriously stop appearing in the game. :3

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

I was browsing a certain FFXIV discussion site when I came across a story (however true or untrue) that a player has been banned for a month and a half (and possibly permanently) because of a mogstation purchase.

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That story seems unlikely.

As you stated, chargebacks are taken very seriously and SE like all on-line game services (and most others I expect) do close accounts for which a chargeback is done, however it would be highly unusual for that to be only a temporary 'ban', certainly in every case I've ever read about it was a permanent closure of the account.

Oh I've seen people banned for this. One of my friends swore off SE products after this happened to him.

I think banning someone because of a simple misunderstanding is beyond ridiculous. They really need to get with the times and realize people make mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Oh I've seen people banned for this. One of my friends swore off SE products after this happened to him.

I think banning someone because of a simple misunderstanding is beyond ridiculous. They really need to get with the times and realize people make mistakes.

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Thing is, they usually do understand simple mistakes. They would usually reinstate the account after the appropriate payment was recieved. That is hasn't happened leads me to believe other things are going on that they haven't said.

To the OP, honestly I've heard of banks flagging SE as an untrustworthy company for being foreign, doing charge backs on the monthly subscription and causing players to get banned permanently. If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen wherever you use your card. This is why, if you're concerned about it, crysta and game time cards are the better option.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

One case I can probably share is that there was someone that got banned for 2 weeks from said game by an automated system,

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I'm not sure I understand what a story about a toxic player community destroying a player's reputation over a temporary ban has to do with white knighting.

Yikes, it would suck to get banned for the mistakes of your bank. It's probably the safest option to just pay for some Crysta every now and then. That way you avoid duplicate charges even if you buy multiples of the same thing.