Account address issue has STILL not been acknowledged by Square.

[SweetContext]

It is highly unacceptable, and unprofessional of a company to tell players to just abandon their account, and rebuy the entire game in the relevant region. That is a slap in the face -- why would I want to fork out money again after being told to just forget all my hard work and earn it again? Players can have tens of thousands of hours logged in this game, and rightfully, shouldn't be told to abandon that because of a poor choice to not update their own systems to support current transaction requirements. I understand why a payment method would need the correct address to match the card info, but please, update your own, outdated system, to be able to handle this issue.

Square Enix, as far as I am aware, is the only major MMO and/or major company to not allow you to simply change your address, including country. I don't mind having to show a proof of address (like Blizzard has in the past) or whatever, but I should not need to open a bank account to pay for 1 subscription in a country I do not live in anymore. For now, there are some ways around this for buying crysta in only some countries that allow paypal etc, but for how long will this last? And again, not all countries support paypal or the other still currently valid remaining payment options; gamecards on amazon are being driven up in price far exceeding their value, or just aren't even available for purchase any longer.

I will note that there are certain countries that are not even listed for the address, and that is because of their local laws around these kinds of purchases. I cannot delve into ins and outs of support for them because that contains complex laws that I do not fully understand myself.

However, countries like Australia, which must register to European accounts (to the best of my knowledge) are now being locked out because surprise, their address is "European" but their payment is not. And as Myou says, EU GDPR has the "right to Rectification", which means they have the right to update and fix any inaccurate or incomplete personal data; and square is in violation of this. This is one of many other examples of the issue of their system simply not being up to date with current standards is causing.

I moved from Canada to the US almost 8 years ago, I refuse to abandon my account. Edit: Not to mention I moved within the same region. There are plenty of WoL that have also mentioned that they have moved countries and regions, and now we're just being left to flounder? I also got married 8 years ago, and I cannot update my maiden name to my married name. Will that be next on the chopping block because my card name doesn't match my account name?

We just want some answers. Acknowledge that this is a problem, that something is or will be done about it and what steps are being done. We've had transparency in the past, so where is that transparency now?

[Menriq]

Square Enix, as far as I am aware, is the only major MMO and/or major company to not allow you to simply change your address, including country. I don't mind having to show a proof of address (like Blizzard has in the past) or whatever, but I should not need to open a bank account to pay for 1 subscription in a country I do not live in anymore.

This is mostly correct, however Blizzard doesn't let you change region. I.e. if your account is EU, and you move to US, your Blizzard account will always be EU and you can't change it. However, inside that region, you are correct in that you can change country.

[SweetContext]

thanks! It's been a while since I had to change stuff (last time I had to was to update my battle.net to be able to play diablo II lol) I just vaguely remembered changing something about my address with them!

[MyouRi]

This is mostly correct, however Blizzard doesn't let you change region. I.e. if your account is EU, and you move to US, your Blizzard account will always be EU and you can't change it. However, inside that region, you are correct in that you can change country.

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.

The company solution of 'just abandon your account' and buy a new one is still so shocking. How can anyone in management have okayed that approach?!

Please acknowledge the issue that you've caused and is adversely affecting your customers Square.

[Absurdity]

This is mostly correct, however Blizzard doesn't let you change region. I.e. if your account is EU, and you move to US, your Blizzard account will always be EU and you can't change it. However, inside that region, you are correct in that you can change country.

I have no idea if this has changed in recent years but with Blizzard it was a weird case of your account being entirely locked to that region, not just in terms of payment. If you for example had an EU account you couldn't even access the US servers.

[Sgt_Thud]

I think the region is locked in FFXIV because game keys are locked to that region. If you could just rebuy the game and expansion for your new region it would be annoying but preferable to simply being forever locked out by no longer being able to match your account region if you move from say, the USA to England.

And even below that, people are getting screwed if they move within their own region. Changed country within EU? Sucks to be you, start a new account because you can’t update country of address.

[MyouRi]

And even below that, people are getting screwed if they move within their own region. Changed country within EU? Sucks to be you, start a new account because you can’t update country of address.

This is my exact situation, woohoo!
The way the servers are set up in FFXIV is great, anyone and can play on NA, EU, Asia or Oceania datacenters. So I don't think there would be much appetite or need for changing your account region.

Although I will say that I had moved to Asia for a few years and accessing the EU mogstation was stupidly tricky. Initially I could access with a VPN in order to renew my sub (with a local asian bank card, oh the good ol' days), but then that was eventually blocked and I could only access through my phones mobile browser? Make it make sense Square.

Anyway, just let us change our countries of residence on your account system OR let us pay with a payment method from any country.
If there is some reason that neither of these simple fixes would work for them, they should at least have the decency to explain why to their customers.

Fun reminder that if your sub isn't active you aren't able to post on the official forums, so the majority of people this affects can't even say anything.

[Sgt_Thud]

Fun reminder that if your sub isn't active you aren't able to post on the official forums, so the majority of people this affects can't even say anything.

This right here is exactly why we need to keep making noise. The people affected literally -can’t- and need the rest of us to stand up for them. We can’t just sit here going “screw you got mine”.

[Myrany]

I have no idea if this has changed in recent years but with Blizzard it was a weird case of your account being entirely locked to that region, not just in terms of payment. If you for example had an EU account you couldn't even access the US servers.

It's been years since I played but as a NA player I never had a problem rolling a toon and playing on the Aus/OCE servers. I legit cannot remember about EU. I know in one guild we have a Scottish gentleman who had no problems being on NA servers. So it might well have changed.

[Kamatsu]

However, countries like Australia, which must register to European accounts (to the best of my knowledge) are now being locked out because surprise, their address is "European" but their payment is not.

Just wanted to confirm this fact, unless changed since I registered - Australian accounts are classified as European. This has meant we get charged in Euro, or at least have been up till now at least - my last sub payment went through and was charged in Euro, not Au$ or US$.

I have to admit, this whole address drama hasn't hit me yet... but I'm sure it's sadly a matter of time till it does. I have stayed off buying anything from the store due to this having not been resolved yet... and dread every time my recurring sub payment comes up for renewal, cuz I'm sure one of these days it'll say "Payment failed" and I'll be locked out due to account address issues.

Yes, this also means I have not pre-ordered DawnTrail either. Why would I give them $60 Au$ I sadly feel like I'm likely to lose my account due to their changing payment processors? Pffft, sorry... I'd rather wait a few months to see if they ever resolve this before buying it (assuming it is fixed).

As for the whole buying the game yet again - nope, not going to happen. As much as I like the game (~3.5K hours played, and who knows how much spent on the shop)... I will not be buying the game again if my account gets nuked due to the new payment processor having issue with my address. I will not give them any more money, knowing there's likely a chance it'll possibly happen again... so yeah, pffft to that. I'll just remember all the good times I had... rather than trying to catch up to where I am now, with everything I've done... and all the stuff that I wouldn't be able to get again either.