Payment Method Registration Errors [Error Code 401 and 601]

[VaidaVoss]

I tried and they are aware of the problem. They said they would contact SE on the issue & on my behalf and assured me it is absolutely not on their end (blocking cards).

It's not Global Collect or my bank in the first place. Why would SE issue us a 401 error the first attempt if there is no issue with them.

Another thing, they 'block' your account from using any sort of payment methods for 30 days if you try multiple times. And I was scolded by Danielle for trying to pay more than once. When you get the 401 error, the error message DOES NOT SAY "STOP! DO NOT PROCEED WITH PAYMENT AGAIN, CONTACT SE SUPPORT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE OR TRY AGAIN IN 24 HOURS." Stop and 24 hours being key. What it DOES say is "Try again later"...

I cannot believe there is not a person I can talk to at SE that can unblock my account or let me verify that it is me (anyone at SE should be able to see my card I provide is ok, I've used it to pay my subscription since 2010).

I guess I will call SE twice a day, every day till I can get this resolved.

[ManweSulimo]

So I contacted SE on Monday and they got back to me today. This is what they said:


Dear Customer,

Regarding your request for billing support. Please find your answer below.

Error 401/406/601 means that there is a security block preventing the transaction from going through. It may be an issue with the bank, incorrect billing information, or too many rejected attempts. Once the Error is triggered, it will place a 24 hour hold on the account. You will need to wait 24 hours before trying the card again.

Keep note, if you keep trying before the cool off period is over, it will reset the clock. So please refrain from trying until the 24 hours have passed.

Thank you for contacting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center.

Here is my reply:

Hello and thank you for your response!

I know it is as important to you as it is to me that Square Enix continues to thrive and produce great games that people want to purchase (maybe even moreso to you since I merely enjoy the experience as a customer whereas you make a living off of it ). I am concerned that the current billing system is driving many people away from this game, some just temporarily and some permanent. Customers whom are willing and in most cases even eager to pay for your services are being road-blocked by this billing system. Because of this, a significant amount of your revenue is being lost. I know you guys are doing everything you can to increase revenue so the business can be successful, and updating this billing system would definitely have a direct positive effect. These revenue increases may even enable SE customer service representatives to have more frequent pay increases! Can you put in word to your management that some reforms to the billing system are much desired by the community? There are a great deal of people having this problem. Please take a few minutes to skim over this thread:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...de-401-and-601

Note that this has been going on for over a year. Most people for the past year were able to get around this error by simply using ultimate pay. However once that dropped off this past month, now credit card is the only option. I think I heard that you guys are adding Paypal as an option which is very exciting and would also act as an alternative band-aid to ultimate pay for this ongoing issue. Billing system updates might already be a priority for you guys but I just want to give you some customer feedback so that hopefully it can be prioritized higher or possibly even first since once you are able to fix this then you will recover a great deal of lost revenue.

Here is a summary of some recurring suggestions that I saw in that thread based on roughly 1000 people having this issue:

1. Add Paypal as a payment option
2. Show all of the data being sent to the global collect company. I noticed that when we input information it does not require us to put our name, but only our credit card info.
3. When there is an error, include in the error message that there is a 24 hour hold*. Most people are going to try again a few times if it doesn't work right away.
4. *Change the 24 hour hold to something like 5 or 10 minutes. 24 hours is a little steep. And the 30 day hold for multiple failed attempts is extremely unforgiving at best.

I'm sure there are other good ideas as well but this seems like a great start that would at least fix this issue. Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to seeing your updated user friendly billing system!

Regards,

[LandSlideXIV]

Just as an fyi... I had this ridiculous issue myself. I tried my card, which is verified by my bank to have not been declined on their behalf, and I got error 401. I then tried my wife's card, who was also 401. I called my best friend who plays, and he tried his card which was then 401. We called our other friend who plays, he tried his Capitol One card, it worked...

I tried my card 5+ times in a 20 minute time frame, then my wife's card 3 times within 30 minutes of my first attempt, my best friend tried several times within an hour and our third friend got it to go through his first attempt before 2 full hours passed. I can't even begin to speculate what the actual problem is, but that's how I got around it. We tried VISA, American Express and Master Card... didn't make a difference. Capitol One was the only one to go through and I have no idea what that means, but passing the info on to you guys.

I also tried Square Enix online chat support, to which I had the most frustrating customer service experience of my life. I asked to speak with a supervisor or anyone that I could escalate my issue to and the response was, they aren't interested in hearing about it. I was told to wait until next month and try again, then kicked out of the live chat after explaining this to them. Like literally, the chat closed out while I was trying to get help. Unreal. I hope Agent Jordan gets paid minimum wage.

[Frapp]

To everyone still experiencing 401 issues, I may have isolated a workaround you can try.

Most people nowadays (especially us net-savvy folk) use a combination of alternate browsers, No Script, Ad Block, Ghostery, Do Not Track, et al. Security settings are nice and tight. After speaking with a chat agent, I was informed that the back end error (for me) was "Null Value not allowed for expiry date". Something in part of my security cocktail was forcing that to happen.

1) In your preferred browser, try to white list or turn off security settings for Square Enix, Global Collect, Mog Station, etc.
2) Failing that, use a basic browser such as Safari or Internet Explorer (IE ended up working for me on the first try. Went straight to Mog Station, no browsing elsewhere).

[MorbidAngel]

To everyone still experiencing 401 issues, I may have isolated a workaround you can try.

Most people nowadays (especially us net-savvy folk) use a combination of alternate browsers, No Script, Ad Block, Ghostery, Do Not Track, et al. Security settings are nice and tight. After speaking with a chat agent, I was informed that the back end error (for me) was "Null Value not allowed for expiry date". Something in part of my security cocktail was forcing that to happen.

1) In your preferred browser, try to white list or turn off security settings for Square Enix, Global Collect, Mog Station, etc.
2) Failing that, use a basic browser such as Safari or Internet Explorer (IE ended up working for me on the first try. Went straight to Mog Station, no browsing elsewhere).

Thank you for this. Was getting 601 error when trying to renew from Firefox (No Script and Ad Block Installed, disabled both) , switched to Chrome and went right through.

[siverstorm]

I've tried that before to no avail. I just tried again to see if I get lucky but nada. I can't buy anything from the cash shop lol. sigh.

[DarkStaoneDragon]

I can't buy anything from the cash shop lol. sigh.

same here I hope they add paypal soon. I need to pay for my sub 7 days left. I would also like to buy some cash shop items but, no paypal payment option to pay with.

[ShirKirakira]

To everyone still experiencing 401 issues, I may have isolated a workaround you can try.

Most people nowadays (especially us net-savvy folk) use a combination of alternate browsers, No Script, Ad Block, Ghostery, Do Not Track, et al. Security settings are nice and tight. After speaking with a chat agent, I was informed that the back end error (for me) was "Null Value not allowed for expiry date". Something in part of my security cocktail was forcing that to happen.

1) In your preferred browser, try to white list or turn off security settings for Square Enix, Global Collect, Mog Station, etc.
2) Failing that, use a basic browser such as Safari or Internet Explorer (IE ended up working for me on the first try. Went straight to Mog Station, no browsing elsewhere).

THANK YOU.

I have an account, my husband was making his own account this morning and his payment kept getting rejected. What the??? We both use the same credit card, in fact my current subscription is being paid with it. I switched over to basic Internet Explorer and was able to process the payment through that web browser. (Before I was using Firefox with security add ons, which I did try disabling first, to no avail).

[siverstorm]

After speaking with a chat agent, I was informed that the back end error (for me) was "Null Value not allowed for expiry date". Something in part of my security cocktail was forcing that to happen.

It's actually funny that you mention this now that I think about it. All my support agents kept telling me they couldn't view errors or anything of the sort.

[Fonou]

I am really sick of this issue.
I move recently from France to the USA and I used to have an automatic payment in place.
Then it was going to be renewed like yesterday and this has been blocked error 401 because I tried to buy an item with my card in the cash shop.
I contacted SE USA by chat and then they told me that it's EU account so they can't do anything.
I have contacted SE EU and now they told me yesterday it was fixed... Tried again today and now I'm getting error 601 instead of 401... (great...).

Now they're asking me to send a photo of my card + ID card...

Basically, they said that I need to pay in the country where my credit card has been issued... So how do I do when I'm moving to another country...
On top of that, the SE NA chat operator told me that they can't move my account from EU to NA...

This lesson taught me one thing: I won't buy anything anymore from the cash shop when it's back...

This is the worst banking checking system ever. I never had this in other MMOs....

Square Enix, PLEASE CHANGE YOUR METHOD TO VERIFY THE PAYMENT METHOD !!!