Account address issue has STILL not been acknowledged by Square.

[MyouRi]

This is a universal problem with all US-based payment providers. Because of the requirements to charge taxes in other countries, service operators that operate outside the US are required to charge the local taxes, and hence make horrible decision that you must have an address in the country of the currency you use.

So I am in EU and I've moved from the UK to Mainland Europe. By not allowing me to update my country address, I am not able to be charged in local taxes as I should be.
Before the payment system update I had requested to at least swap my subscription to Euros from GBP, (which will actually cost me more) but was told by customer service that this is not possible either.

The reason for not being able to change the address is largely the same reason why you can't on Steam, Nintendo, Apple. Payment providers don't allow non-US addresses when they are in USD.

I can't speak to Apple or Nintendo as I don't use their account systems but you absolutely can update you country of residence in Steam and I have done. I have also had no issues using multiple bank cards on steam, ones in GBP, Euros and Hong Kong dollars. Even when my listed country of residence did not match the account at the time.
Maybe you're unable to change your country of residence on US steam, this is only my experience as a non-US user.

But this is all just to say that online international payment systems are not impossible in 2024 and Square need to do better.

[KisaiTenshi]

I can't speak to Apple or Nintendo as I don't use their account systems but you absolutely can update you country of residence in Steam and I have done.

You can't freely do so, so if you move every year to another country, or travel for business purposes, kiss your steam purchases goodbye. Apple, and Nintendo lock your purchases behind the "region" your card is. I used a prepaid card on an iPad while I was in the US, just because I needed ONE US app, and when I went back to Canada I had to switch it back.

I think the majority of players would be happy enough to keep the same region that their account is tied to.

All we want is to be able to update our address correctly pay for our game subscriptions.

That's the problem. Because the payment processor refuses to accept US dollar payments unless the card has a US billing address. That's what I've been saying. Even awful Paypal does this. God help you if you have USD bank accounts outside the US, the payment processor will be "nope, you are in the EU, you pay in Euros" or "nope, you are in Canada, you pay in Canadian Dollars". That's the purpose of this "feature". It's likely that they even use different banks in different regions to minimize the currency exchanges.

All Square Enix has to do to fix this is allow users to use any payment card they have, and select the currency to charge it in. That solves everything. Ignore address verification as long as the name, card number and expiry is correct. When people go into a physical store, they are not asked to verify their address with the cashier/self-checkout. If it's the same payment card they've been using for the last 14 years, why the sudden incompetence? Did "Square Enix" get a better deal from another payment processor, who happens to be sorely incompetent (see the VISA Debit issue), or is it simply they are trying to "protect" accounts from using stolen credit cards/gift cards/prepaid cards from foreign countries?

There is no reason to tell players they need to make a new account.

[MyouRi]

That's the problem. Because the payment processor refuses to accept US dollar payments unless the card has a US billing address. That's what I've been saying. Even awful Paypal does this. God help you if you have USD bank accounts outside the US, the payment processor will be "nope, you are in the EU, you pay in Euros" or "nope, you are in Canada, you pay in Canadian Dollars". That's the purpose of this "feature". It's likely that they even use different banks in different regions to minimize the currency exchanges.

I'm actually not sure that that is the only problem, in EU at least. I've seen some say that they have had issues with the new payment processor even when they've tried to use Euro currency bank card from country Y after registering euro currency-using country X.
Additionally there a quite a few countries in the EU that do not use Euros (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Poland) etc. that are not charged in their local currency, but in Euros by Square.
So I would not be surprised if the currency issue that you have in NA is not applicable to EU, or at least not applied unilaterally.

All Square Enix has to do to fix this is allow users to use any payment card they have, and select the currency to charge it in. That solves everything. Ignore address verification as long as the name, card number and expiry is correct. When people go into a physical store, they are not asked to verify their address with the cashier/self-checkout. If it's the same payment card they've been using for the last 14 years, why the sudden incompetence? Did "Square Enix" get a better deal from another payment processor, who happens to be sorely incompetent (see the VISA Debit issue), or is it simply they are trying to "protect" accounts from using stolen credit cards/gift cards/prepaid cards from foreign countries?

Yes, if they want to use address verification as a 'security' feature then they have to not implement it so half-heartedly. I'm still shocked that no one that was even a little bit familiar with their account management system couldn't see that this was going to be a huge problem. Was nobody consulted?!

There is no reason to tell players they need to make a new account.

100% agree. Absolutely shocking customer service and such a disservice to the people that have supported the company for so many years.

[Sgt_Thud]

This topic needs to stay pushed to the top. We are weeks from an expansion release and SE still hasn’t even acknowledged this issue or given any hint they’re trying to resolve it.

Players shouldn’t have to give up accounts with a decade+ of play just because SE can’t be bothered to allow change of country. Especially when this wasn’t a problem until a month and an half ago. I’m sure people like me have friends unable to play and this is probably the absolute worst time to suddenly lose your partners in play.

GMs or community managers or someone needs to get this in front of Yoshi-P because after how transparent he and the devs have historically been it’s utterly baffling and frankly infuriating that they have said nothing.

[Zarkovitch]

It call a company who do not want money. That's good for SE.