Just a little background info first. I played FF11 for a long time and never had this problem with the POL payment methods. When FF11 migrated to SE accounts were crysta was introduced the only other payment method was 3rd party clickandbuy. I guess clickandbuy was like paypal or something like that so I added my CC that way. But clickandbuy kept charging some annoying little international fee to my bank. I don't know why SE can't just use some payment method in the US.
Latter still pre FF14 an option to put in CC info with out 3rd party showed up. I was never able to change to this kept getting 601. So I kept CNB and kept getting stupid international fees.
I stopped playing FF11 a while back but still popped in some times. later i realized way back in feb CNB stopped paying SE so that account was on hold. but time I noticed it CNB was taken away as an option. But since I was in beta 14 I checked to see if CC option worked now but it was still given out 601.
Even with 3days left on the freedays this week I was still got 601. But today I was going to final give in and try this crysta thing.
I did this from the Mogstation. Clicked the bottom to start the subscription wizard. picked the 180days I wanted. then selected the crysta not CC. Then it showed how much crysta I needed since I had 0. The buy crysta then wizard asked for payment option I selected CC but the center box was blanked out (to fill in CC # date etc). So it was part of another web site so temp allowed all to "noscript" addon.
Then the same stupid CC verification popped up but this time it skipped to the end and never asked for CC and gave 401. I have never had the 401 error before.
So I gave up with crysta and went back Mogstation account page to start over and try the normal CC sub. I put in the CC and for the first time I got a little blue progress Icon that flashed really quick and the payment went.
SE payment ver is very bad never had this problem with any website before and card works all the time at BNM stores.
So to sum so try to add crysta first with CC let it fail then try the normal Sub with a CC.
Of course SE could of ninja fixed this by changing to a new verification provider in the last few days.