The inability to change your country, and the end of my time with Square-Enix

[Hysterior]

@Hysterior and @Amberion - Thank you for that info. It shows that there are recourses out there. I just need to find the right way to reach someone who cares.

Need to push.
I could do it in the chat.
At the end she was saying my only option was to buy time card which I refuse since I am Legacy player.
So I asked her to pass my ticket to her manager or billing manager to find a way for me to use my foreign card.
They then escalate it to headquarter and few days later I could use my card.
So keep pushing otherwise you will just get templates

[Woggers]

That's awful OP, I hope you are able to get this fixed. This is a big issue and they should really get their payment system issue fixed asap! This is a pay2play game yet I see problems regarding payments on these forums all the time.
This seems like a narrow sighted way to prevent RMT account sales? Makes sense on why they would do that, but it screws over legit players more. Just my guess...

[Xystic]

You know what Xystic, I am beginning to think that you were either the supervisor or the agent I spoke with.

I understand your upset with the way things are but keep in mind that you are the one that refuses to buy time cards because you stated that their is possibility of them disappearing in the future, which is highly unlikely. Customer service offered every option that was available to them, to you, and could do no more based on the limitations you provided them and the limitations they had on themselves.

Your arguments had inconsistencies, pointing in the direction of information manipulation. I speculated you were angry with SE so you manipulated the situation to look like they wronged you and came to the forums to cause a riot because you specifically posted it in the general discussions forum, which is the wrong place.

Your above statement helps to support how you treat people when your upset. Whether customer support or anyone, I don't think many people could tolerate such comments.

Due to the fact that you are upset, I believe our discussion ends here.

Once again, due to the circumstances, resulting in you leaving FF14 ARR, good luck to you on your MMO adventures wherever they maybe.

[Pawkeshup]

So... yea...

I just had the most interesting conversation with a SE rep named Jordan R. I was prepared for a fight, to argue like Hysterior said. But, if you live in North America... you don't need to fight.

You see, I hadn't tried to change my card. The standard procedure for any credit check is to verify that the place requesting the funds has your address or other personal info. So, I had assumed that is how GlobalConnect worked. Also, from all the feedback from support, it seemed that yes, I needed someone in Canada to pay, and that my US card was worthless on my account.

Yea... not so much...

GlobalConnect is based on IP, not your account info. It doesn't care, so long as payment and IP match. Now, I know this won't help many people. You have to have a NA account for this to work, outside of there, I don't know who they use. It doesn't fix all the issues. I still don't know what will happen when I try to get a new authenticator, or use the virtual one. I am still not sure how it will work when I need to restore my account for any reason. But, yea... All because someone actually listened instead of copy-pasting a script, or telling me it's just not possible... I have my accounts back.

I wish I had better news. I wish they had let me change my country, and I think that's still a thing that needs to happen. But the news is, if you have a North American account, and have a North American payment method, you can pay. I am not sure if you opened your account in Japan, and then provided a Japanese payment method if it would allow it or not. I assume not, but then I'd have assumed (and did) that my US card wouldn't work on my Canadian account. Maybe... try... it?

Honestly, I am glad I was wrong, I don't care if I have egg on my face for not trying this sooner. At least it works.

Edit:

Also, Xystic, no one ever mentioned this in my conversation. Had they listened to why I needed to change, or understood their own systems, this would have ended there. I didn't do this to start a riot. I did it to inform people, and hopefully for one of the community reps to see this as an issue as the call center pretty much stonewalled. Ignoring issues doesn't make them go away. And I did not manipulate anything. Call the contact center yourself, lay the issue out as I did, and they likely will read you the same response. Hell, when I spoke to Jordan, he originally gave me the exact same instructions (Buy time cards or use Canadian funds), and it was all copy-paste straight from his script. Only after did he mention to try this. At the end, I told him to bring up to someone that really they need to lead with that information. It would have prevented all the trouble I was going through to get an answer that, frankly I did not 100% need. Again, there are possible issues down the road, but this fixes most.

So, obviously, there is a massive communication gap here. I don't know how it would work outside the NA market (primarily because I am not), but I can hope for their sake that somehow it works the same.

As for how I deal with people when I am upset, I said that because of how you are representing yourself, not due to any emotional response. Saying they did me a favour to suggest trying to find someone in Canada to pay my bill is not really an alternative. And they did offer that without any prompting, just as I said. I had just barely finished talking when it was told to me. It's their default script. However, it's not the truth. The truth is as my post lays it out. You have been questioning my motives and implying why I chose to come post here.

There was no inconsistencies, no manipulation. And as for posting elsewhere, where else? Feedback? That's website only? Bugs? It's not really a bug. A case could be made for the technical forums somewhere, but really it's not a technical glitch. There isn't an account feedback forum here, leaving it only in General to be posted. Anywhere else, it's not really supposed to go there. Trust me, I looked over the forums before making this post. This is the only place where it could really fit. The title is intended to prompt discussion because, as you can see, not only myself has this issue.

In all your posts, you are quick to judge me in some harsh light, and I do not see why. Again, the only reasoning I can see, since you don't know me at all, is that you either are someone I spoke with, or work within the same call center. It's the only reason why you are heavily apologetic for them, and trying to convince everyone here that somehow I abused the support staff. I called, asked my question, asked why this was, was told those answers, and asked to speak to a supervisor. I was denied that, and called back until I could speak with one to see if there were something more to be done. And in the end the supervisor stonewalled again.

That's the truth, complete and entire. I never yelled, never called anyone any names, never raised my voice. I treated the agents with respect, as I too have done my time in a call center, but I also knew there was a fix for this. There always is, and sometimes you have to push and keep asking to find it.

Now that I have, while I still feel this is an issue that needs to be dealt with, it does resolve the short-term concerns of being able to play.

[Nakiamiie]

The way I have to do it is buy crysta with the Japanese online payment methods (credit card are blocked and customer support never replied to me).
However, since my account is in America, I also get charge the crazy conversation rate.
I would like to be able to pay the same price as Japanese, without the conversation. Apparently, it's too much to ask for a big company like SE to accommodate its international customers.

The fact that I'm holding a Legacy account help reduce the surplus fee I have to pay, but I lost all monetary advantage of having a Legacy account.

I think I'll try pushing the customer service to find a solution with me, but that's just ridiculous that you can't migrate any account.

[Alukah]

It has nothing to do with defending SE's practice. It has to do with the fact that your arguments are very fishy. Its hard to agree and sympathize for you based on what you've stated.

I do feel like you're white knighting SE here, you are deviating from the main issue, which is the inability to change country, all you reply is a sort of deal with it, but dealing with it will not fix the issue.

[Rjain]

I can buy the virtual cards for FFXIV, but I just don't see a reason.

"I am perfectly capable of continuing my service with FFXIV with little to no effort involved on my part but I will choose not to even though I say I am a big fan of Square Enix and previous Final Fantasy titles, out of protest."

[Dwill]

Snip

Nice to see your issue has been solved (somehwat). It's pretty pathetic to not let someone change their country. Even if it's hard coded that way, it's hardly something challenging to change.

I do feel like you're white knighting SE here, you are deviating from the main issue, which is the inability to change country, all you reply is a sort of deal with it, but dealing with it will not fix the issue.

Agreed. Dealing with the issue without raising concerns is a sure way to get problems ignored.

"I am perfectly capable of continuing my service with FFXIV with little to no effort involved on my part but I will choose not to even though I say I am a big fan of Square Enix and previous Final Fantasy titles, out of protest."

Ever heard of the saying "Speak with your wallet ?" If issues are never brought up, they never get fixed and something like this isn't that hard to implement.

[Rjain]

Ever heard of the saying "Speak with your wallet ?" If issues are never brought up, they never get fixed and something like this isn't that hard to implement.

Says you. I'm not intending to defend the issue as obviously it's dumb and I agree it should be an easy fix, but many media companies do this. You set your region, you cannot change your region, ever. I'm sure it's also easy to allow a video stream in the US be broadcast in Canada but lo and behold nope it's a big hassle and they're "not allowed to do so due to region issues".

Just because it's easy to make a change in a database doesn't mean it's easy to make some stupid legal change which is 90% of the reason behind dumb stuff like this.

[Dwill]

Says you. I'm not intending to defend the issue as obviously it's dumb and I agree it should be an easy fix, but many media companies do this. You set your region, you cannot change your region, ever. I'm sure it's also easy to allow a video stream in the US be broadcast in Canada but lo and behold nope it's a big hassle and they're "not allowed to do so due to region issues".

Just because it's easy to make a change in a database doesn't mean it's easy to make some stupid legal change which is 90% of the reason behind dumb stuff like this.

Yes says me, though I don't know what that has to do with anything. The thing is yes it is easy and yes many companies allow it, it's not some huge legal burden.