Terrible Payment System

[Nummy]

Put CC info in to ClickandBuy about 2 weeks later I had 2 fraudulent charges for a total of ~500$. Coincidence maybe, but doubtful.

[Catapult]

This is very good news, with luck they will get this all under control before FFXIV becomes P2P.

I feel bad for the XI players as I say this, but it is my hope that SE learns the implications of the SE account billing system from the XI fallout rather than our own game going pay2play and causing a 2nd corporate jaw-drop in the XIV department.

Any misconceptions or disbelief should be swept aside on September 1st when SE sees just how many XI players have decided to not migrate from PlayOnline and instead allowed their account to be cancelled.

1 month to fix, or facepalm.

[DGMart]

I'm sorry but we demand an actual answer soon. This is getting out of hand. When I first had seen it was clickandbuy I had to go through, I was so frustrated. That company is so shady and they get bad reviews everywhere. Why is it that SE can't do their own personal Payment System. Stop being lazy! I know so many people that are going to leave come P2P if they don't change their payment system out.

[Zenaku]

I won't pay a dime to click and buy and i wont use crysta due to them making me pay more up front when i really only want to pay 12.99 x2. So when this game goes p2p i guess i'll wait for better payment and i was going to return to FFXI and pay ffxiv at the same time but i guess that also out of the question.

Great job SE at picking payment types.

[Eard]

looks like i'm not the only one having problem with clickandbuy.

SE seriously need to clear this payment issues with us or else they can forget about going p2p much less fixing the game.

[Catapult]

This was a very interesting read. Quoting:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post159123
Poster is RAIST on the XI forums.

May have stumbled on something about C&B. There might actually be a specific reason why some financial institutions are rejecting them, just haven't been able to get further details as it looks like the site I was in just hit a maintenance window while I was on it.

Click&Buy is stating they are authorised and regulated by the FSA UK:

ClickandBuy International Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom. (Register Number: 454127)

http://www.clickandbuy.com/EU/en/sa/...bereich=surfer

So out of curiosity I went to pull up their reports on them, but can't get any real info on them just yet as it looks like they've started stopping some webapps for maintenance or something while I was browsing. This particular one went offline just after I pulled it up, but the first page from my search was still in my cached pages so I was able to grab at least their basic info:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/register/index.shtml
searched on firm registration number: 454127

Basic details for:
454127 - ClickandBuy International Limited

Current status: No longer Authorised
Effective Date: 01/07/2011
Tied Agent:
Undertakes Insurance Mediation:
Registered under Money Laundering Regulations:
Address: Lincoln House
137/143 Hammersmith Road
London
W14 0QL

Phone:
Fax:
Email:
Website:
44 020 7605 0670
44 020 7751 1848
No e-mail supplied
www.clickandbuy.com

Notices:
Other information: The firm now has an e-money record. Please check the e-money link for more information.

Clicked the e-money link and that's when pages started coming up as unavailable. Guess I hit it right when they were taking things down.

Interesting that their basic info states they are not authorised. Which is a little concerning as they are still claiming on their site that they are authorised.

When you go to the FSA's detail on status entries, it simply states

No longer authorised
A firm is no longer allowed to carry out certain types of business that we regulate.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Register...us/index.shtml

Which makes me even more curious about just what they are no longer authorized to do, and why. Wish I could get at the reports to get more info.

Now that's even more dodgy!

(PS edit: Yes, links in there are broken, but the link to the page I'm quoting should work - you can get to them from there.)

[Catapult]

I have not yet received a reply from SE on this topic. I am now sending the following email to the UK financial services authority:

Hello,

I am a member of an online gaming community playing the online game Final Fantasy XIV, produced by Square Enix. Being an online game, there are to be subscription fees for this game in the future. One of the prevelant payment options (and indeed the only payment option for many regions around the world) is through the company ClickandBuy based in London, which quotes the FSA registration number of 454127.

I would like to refer you to the following website:
http://www.clickandbuy.com/EU/en/sa/...bereich=surfer

In your database, this company is listed as being "No longer authorized".

If I may ask, at what point in time did this company lose its authorisation? Also, are any activities occuring in an attempt to restore the authorisation? Lastly, and presuming the worst with this question, would the continued operation of this company in financial services constitute a violation of United Kingdom law?

It is my hope that I might be able to take any feedback on this matter to my community of players, who have been receiving very little in the way of correspondance on this topic of our concern, from both the game producer and ClickandBuy itself. Any information you can provide may assist us in deciding whether or not to engage with this company in the future.

Yours in sincerity,

*my real name here*

Let's see what we can find out.

[Nipa]

How hard is it to come out with 30$ game cards? you even have little left over for mules or NPCs.

Again, no. A prepaid card must allow to pay exactly for one month (or an entiere number of month), not a single cent more. Otherwise that would mean giving millions of treasury to SE to freely play with. I don't want to be part of that.

[Zenaku]

Again, no. A prepaid card must allow to pay exactly for one month (or an entiere number of month), not a single cent more. Otherwise that would mean giving millions of treasury to SE to freely play with. I don't want to be part of that.

Did you even understand my post? 30$ card would give you two month a free money left over for NPC.

12.99 + 12.99 = 25.98 You have 4.00 left over for npcs that = two month with 4 NPC top of your 2 you get for free that pretty good deal to me.

that what i'm talking about a time card for 30$ that give you two month and give you left over money for NPC.

[Ainilome]

I've had two friends interested in trying XIV be so turned off by the archaic payment system and the need to spend a half hour on vent with me trying to figure out how to give their money to SE that they just gave up and never even tried the game.

Fix it. Fix it, yesterday.