Payment Method Registration Errors [Error Code 401 and 601]

[Bogmali]

Decided to do a chat with the U.S. customer support team and this is the transcript (I waited 1.5 hours on queue btw):

Agent Josiah L: Hello and thank you for contacting SQUARE ENIX Customer Support. Just a few moments while I review your question, please.
Agent Josiah L: While I look over your ticket information, may I have your first name please?
You:........John......Error 401s and 601s are what I am getting every time I try to pay and renew my subscription.
Agent Josiah L: Okay, John, I see.
Agent Josiah L: So, first of all, does your credit card information coincide with your SQUARE ENIX account information?
You: Yes
You: I've used 2 different cards that are under my name with no success
Agent Josiah L: Hm, I see.
Agent Josiah L: Are you currently in the country?
You: No, I am currently in a different location. Duty calls!
Agent Josiah L: I see. Are you on a vacation, or something to that effect?
You: Employment
Agent Josiah L: Okay, I see, I see. Hold on for a bit. . .
Agent Josiah L: So your ticket mentioned that you have tried paying through various means, and it's always rejected, right?
You: Yes via traditional Credit/Debit means, using Crysta, and Ultimate Pay through PayPal.....All have been rejected
Agent Josiah L: I see.
Agent Josiah L: Ultimate Pay should be more easy-going on the error possibilities than SQUARE ENIX, so if you continue to have errors, it might be a good idea to contact them about it, and ask why the account is having trouble
being paid for.
You: Well the charge will go through from PayPal and then get cancelled a second later by Square-Enix
You: and I have contacted them and they pointed it back to Square-Enix who does the declines
Agent Josiah L: Okay, I see.
Agent Josiah L: It might be a good idea to try purchasing Ultimate Game Cards, which can be purchased digitally, to pay for Crysta. If PayPal pulls from the bank, then the bank itself might be canceling the charge if it isn't letting the
charges through for SQUARE ENIX / gaming related measures.
You: Nope, my bank is not even seeing the charges go through so how can they cancel it?
Agent Josiah L: Was the money for the Crysta on the PayPal account?
You: That was the first thing I did was to check with my financial institution
You: The Crysta was using Credit and PayPal
You: No dice!
Agent Josiah L: So was there money actually on the PayPal account for the Crysta to use?
You: Yes, it pulls it from my savings account
You: automatically
Agent Josiah L: Okay, so PayPal pulls from your bank.
File attachment upload has started.
The file PP.jpg (165.17KB) was received.
You: See attached screen shot
You: the last two are from playspan which are ultimate pays
You: the last one that was accepted was for another game subscription that I have
You: so the problem cannot be coming PlaySpan
Agent Josiah L: Unfortunately, I won't open links here on my terminal, but if the issue doesn't seem to be on PlaySpan's part,
Agent Josiah L: then I'm not sure about this particular case, and what could be a solution.
Agent Josiah L: The problem may be in part that you are out of the country, with your information indicating that you're in the US.
You: So I wasted 1:30 hrs on queue and another 30 minutes conversing with you just to get nowhere on this issue?
Agent Josiah L: I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but this particular issue seems rather difficult to deal with,
Agent Josiah L: especially since you're having issues with different methods of payment.
Agent Josiah L: You're going to probably have trouble paying on SQUARE ENIX's site if you're out ofthe country, so paying through Ultimate Pay would be the most likely means of getting through.
You: Am I talking to someone that is in the U.S or someone outside of the U.S. (call center)?
Agent Josiah L: However, if you're still having issues even paying through there, then you could try paying with an UltimateGameCard, or contacting PlaySpan to ask about. I'm in the US call center, here.
Agent Josiah L: So error 601 and 401 would be your main problems for SQUARE ENIX's side, and those errors indicate a couple of different problems.
Agent Josiah L: The solution to one may be to wait some time, while the solution to the other could be a couple of things. That's why it's generally advised that if you're having trouble paying through normal means,
Agent Josiah L: then it would be advised to try paying through UltimatePay with Crysta.
You: Not sure why this seems to be a hard issue to deal with for the US customer support when there is about 60 plus pages about this problem on the FFXIV forum website. If I have to wait longer then I will just take my gaming
elsewhere!
Agent Josiah L: Or with an UltimateGameCard.
Agent Josiah L: That's understandable, and I appreciate that a lot of people seem to be having these kinds of issues.
Agent Josiah L: Like I've mentioned, the main solutions you would be looking into would most likely be to wait a bit if you've tried to pay many times on the same SQUARE ENIX account,
Agent Josiah L: and try Ultimate Game Cards (which are digital), or try calling / contacting PlaySpan about the issue.
Agent Josiah L: It's odd that none of the payment methods are going through, unfortunately, so it seems like it might be best to ask them about it.
Agent Josiah L: Our error code 401 and 601 is generally somewhat vague, so it makes it hard to troubleshoot on our end here.
You: Well, that pretty much does it for my faith with Square-Enix
You: Thank you for all your help
Agent Josiah L: I'm sorry about that. Hopefully this issue will get some clarity / ironed out in the future. Are there any different issues I can assist you with right now?
You: Nope that is it
Agent Josiah L: Okay, then. Thank you for visiting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center! Take care and hope to see you online

Glad that the EU issues were able to be resolved and I find it funny that the option to send in a pic of the CC was never even mentioned in my chat

[RyukoM]

Just dropped by to add one more confirmation that the game card / time card "solution" (more like a workaround) works. And another solution (at the "BTW" section below).

Account: Europe / other regions
My location: Israel
Location of the store I bought the card in: UK (at least according to the URL)

I gave up and went to the site someone mention a few pages back (game.co.uk) and got me a 60-day card using paypal (which is nice, because square don't let me pay with paypal... or at all for that matter).
First try failed with error -24202, but I guess it's because I had the mog station page opened for too long and my session ended.
Second try was a success! I'm in game now and can play with my brother again

BTW, my brother paid with a credit card he purchased from the local post office, that you can load money in it and pay on the internet (I think it's called a debit card). I'm not sure if there's something similar in other countries. He paid for a renewal of 30 days the regular way.

[NGdraconoss]

Still nothing, no email recived, no error launched and no technical support, when i bought the game the credit card charge was taken days after i got my licence, so i dont know if the bank is still procesing my purchase, i dont want to try again and finally paying twice for the service. How many days i must wait until you SE puts hands to work a resolve this FREACKING ERROR ! ... i pay for a game i cant play even dont let to pay for play?! c'mon you suck!

[Imoye]

Still nothing, no email recived, no error launched and no technical support, when i bought the game the credit card charge was taken days after i got my licence, so i dont know if the bank is still procesing my purchase, i dont want to try again and finally paying twice for the service. How many days i must wait until you SE puts hands to work a resolve this FREACKING ERROR ! ... i pay for a game i cant play even dont let to pay for play?! c'mon!

The issue has been around since september and they've done nothing so far.

I'm also unable to play. I advice to you use your money on another game. Usually companies would take matters such as this one very seriously, but SE doesn't seem to care.

[RedAntares]

Snip

That's nice to know but that method only works with accounts in EU it seems.

I've already talked with SE via chat support and they told me that since I've only had error 401 I should wait 48hrs and try again with Crysta using PlaySpan, which I doubt will work since that method fails every time for me, but let's see how things go in 48hrs. :C

[Pucks]

Got the same canned response from SE. I have two $1 pending charges on my cc. I can't log into my account because it says I have no subscription attached to my account and my character is not attached to my account anymore. Pretty much ready to say f it.

[RyukoM]

and my character is not attached to my account anymore.

It should be. On the main page of the mog station it sometimes say "no characters" but if ,for example, you select the "enter game card option" (forgot the actual name) it will say how many characters are on the account. That was the case for me anyways.

[InoriYuzuriha]

So almost 4 days in this forced withdrawal...
When will we get a SE reply?
and srysly WHY can't you guys be like other p2p games?
example WoW.. payments are so EASY in Blizzard

[Imoye]

It should be. On the main page of the mog station it sometimes say "no characters" but if ,for example, you select the "enter game card option" (forgot the actual name) it will say how many characters are on the account. That was the case for me anyways.

It bugs sometimes and says 0 characters.

[Smokron]

Got the same stuff happening but I'm trying to pay with a Pre-paid $50 Mastercard. This stuff usually works with all my online games. Would it be a waste of time to call SE through their phone support? I'm pretty certain I'm locked out for 30+ days =/