Square Enix's GTC Problem - No Gift Option

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...b5c4a8036e333a

While I don't mind them cracking down on Fraud, the biggest issue is when people want to gift Time to their friends for some reason or another. If you purchase straight from the SE Store, the e-mail that you used gets tied to the GTC and its code. If someone other than you tries to use the Code, they get a strike against their account for the Fraud as listed in the post above.

So, this bears the question: How does SE fix this?

Add a Gift Option.

It's not hard to have someone link two e-mails to the card so that it can be gifted. Steam does this really well over on their side when it comes to games and stuff, why can't Square do it on their very own website? If we're going to worry about it becoming fraud like the gifting was before on the Mogstation, I don't think that'll happen when it's a literal gift tied between two service accounts.

Of course, people are free to go and use Amazon and what-not for their Gift Cards because they're more reliable and aren't as volatile as Square Enix's shop is with their crackdown. It'd just mean more money for Square if they bothered to have a Consumer-Friendly shop.

Unless I am being blind or completely and utterly dense, I cannot see anything that suggests someone will get a strike against their account if someone other than the purchaser uses the code, with the exception of the GTCs that were obtained fraudulently, e.g., through stolen credit cards or compromised data.

Legitimately obtained GTCs still seem to be OK?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Unless I am being blind or completely and utterly dense, I cannot see anything that suggests someone will get a strike against their account if someone other than the purchaser uses the code, with the exception of the GTCs that were obtained fraudulently, e.g., through stolen credit cards or compromised data.

Legitimately obtained GTCs still seem to be OK?

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Yet that happened with a friend of mine recently. They're appealing because a friend in our group gave them a GTC that they bought DIRECTLY from the Store. That tied it to their email, and when used with a different email(my friend's) they got suspended for it and a strike against their account.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

Yet that happened with a friend of mine recently. They're appealing because a friend in our group gave them a GTC that they bought DIRECTLY from the Store. That tied it to their email, and when used with a different email(my friend's) they got suspended for it and a strike against their account.

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Could you update the thread with that once the appeal has information come through? Very curious whether it was just overzealousness or whether this is something more?

If it's the latter then that's actually pretty worrisome.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Could you update the thread with that once the appeal has information come through? Very curious whether it was just overzealousness or whether this is something more?

If it's the latter then that's actually pretty worrisome.

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I will. I'm keeping tabs on it but since it's the weekend, they won't be answering until at minimum Tuesday since tomorrow I think is President's Day? Not sure if they follow that as a holiday.

So, my friend explained the issue with support - what wound up happening is that the link to that Lodestone post isn't front page anymore, and since they bumped them up to high priority, it makes me wonder if Yoshida's going to make a move on this soon to try and do a PR Statement on the Lodestone since I BET this has effected a lot of people who tried to gift things like this.

Going to keep track of it because this is ongoing.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...b5c4a8036e333a

While I don't mind them cracking down on Fraud, the biggest issue is when people want to gift Time to their friends for some reason or another. If you purchase straight from the SE Store, the e-mail that you used gets tied to the GTC and its code. If someone other than you tries to use the Code, they get a strike against their account for the Fraud as listed in the post above.

So, this bears the question: How does SE fix this?

Add a Gift Option.

It's not hard to have someone link two e-mails to the card so that it can be gifted. Steam does this really well over on their side when it comes to games and stuff, why can't Square do it on their very own website? If we're going to worry about it becoming fraud like the gifting was before on the Mogstation, I don't think that'll happen when it's a literal gift tied between two service accounts.

Of course, people are free to go and use Amazon and what-not for their Gift Cards because they're more reliable and aren't as volatile as Square Enix's shop is with their crackdown. It'd just mean more money for Square if they bothered to have a Consumer-Friendly shop.

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to be fair we used to have one sadly but like every good thing people abused it in many ways so they removed it. for the few item you can gift the person have to be in your friend list for at least 3 days

Anytime i've wanted yo gift a friend time i've just turned to ebay.
Huh. Didnt know the official store locks the gametime cards like that. If i got that right...

So, update on my friend. Apparently they filed the appeal, but SE said they're going to stick to the strike on their account and keep the rest of the duration of the ban in place. I'm like...why do you do this? You're basically keeping new consumers from being able to join the game this way outside of your stupid free trial, Square.

If someone wants to gift a code? They have to use Steam. Steam at least allows this crap whereas SE's store? NO GO. If anything, unless it's for personal use, DO NOT USE THE SE STORE FOR TIME. GET THAT SH*T SOMEWHERE ELSE.

It's a pretty massive screw-up to do this, and not allow the appeal just because it was CONFIRMED by both sides when asked whether the information was correct, and that they were gifting. And in case you think this is an outrage post, this is real.

So, I'll state it again for those in the back:

https://images3.memedroid.com/images...838d7fe0f.jpeg

square enix making bad decisions? say it isn't so

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

So, update on my friend. Apparently they filed the appeal, but SE said they're going to stick to the strike on their account and keep the rest of the duration of the ban in place. I'm like...why do you do this? You're basically keeping new consumers from being able to join the game this way outside of your stupid free trial, Square.

If someone wants to gift a code? They have to use Steam. Steam at least allows this crap whereas SE's store? NO GO. If anything, unless it's for personal use, DO NOT USE THE SE STORE FOR TIME. GET THAT SH*T SOMEWHERE ELSE.

It's a pretty massive screw-up to do this, and not allow the appeal just because it was CONFIRMED by both sides when asked whether the information was correct, and that they were gifting. And in case you think this is an outrage post, this is real.

So, I'll state it again for those in the back:

https://images3.memedroid.com/images...838d7fe0f.jpeg

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This is getting ridiculous now.. More 'solutions' that come at the absolute detriment of players that consume a product in a perfectly reasonable way.

How long is their ban duration?

So SE got money for card and banned the player to actually use that money? How nice

isn't the ban permanent if not explain and fought against?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

This is getting ridiculous now.. More 'solutions' that come at the absolute detriment of players that consume a product in a perfectly reasonable way.

How long is their ban duration?

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They had the 10 days treatment, they’ve got a couple days left on the ban but it’s certainly a problem they’re going to have to face eventually because anti-consumer practices suck, even if they’re trying to crack down on the fraud that may actually be happening.

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Originally Posted by Nero-Voidstails

isn't the ban permanent if not explain and fought against?

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No. I suggest you go look up the slides that Yoshida used back during Stormblood(the ones talking about the “three strike rule” to get an understanding of how they police their game. I can’t look it up right now because work, but I’ll try to dig for it this afternoon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

They had the 10 days treatment, they’ve got a couple days left on the ban but it’s certainly a problem they’re going to have to face eventually because anti-consumer practices suck, even if they’re trying to crack down on the fraud that may actually be happening.

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10 days?!?

Isn't that near enough an indefinite ban?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

10 days?!?

Isn't that near enough an indefinite ban?

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No - but it’s definitely strike 1. I think strike 2 is a month and 3 is full on account ban.

Yeah, it sucks that they've resorted to this, but it's because of stolen credit cards that they tied them.

What was happening was:

* Someone hacks a Lodestone account that isn't being used with email and password because they did not have 2FA
* Someone uses that Lodestone account to purchase the time cards using a stolen credit card
* Those cards are then sold on the black market for a discount price
* The person whose CC was stolen notices the fraudulent charges and issues a charge back against SE
* The CC company is forced to refund the money, and SE is left holding the bag AND gets a nastygram from the CC account
* Only the RMT hackers/thieves profit off this

SE's solution to this was to tie the email accounts on the Lodestone together with any purchased time cards.

OP is right though. Another solution is to add gift card time as a direct option on the Lodestone. My understand why the gift options were already limited to certain items and limited to friend's list only was specifically so friends could continue to occasionally gift each other things on the Mogstation, but RMT hackers could not buy items in bulk to resell. (Minions, mounts, outfits, etc were popular RMT sales options.) Since a character can have multiples of, well, time cards, there isn't any reason to lock it out. Maybe for direct time card purchases, limit it to friends that have been on your list for more than 90 days, to prevent RMT from adding people to the hacked account's friends list.

In the meantime, OP, you're better off sending a friend a straight up Visa gift card in physical mail and telling them to use that to purchase their own game time using their own account.

You don’t need Lodestone account to buy a time card. It can be purchased without login from SE store…
That’s why the situation is ridiculous. Their systems got triggered as the code was used for account with another email than the one which was used for the digital code purchase delivery.