Payment Method Registration Errors [Error Code 401 and 601]

[Minkaa]

I got this message from the Email support ticket I submitted after hours when this first started happening:

If you attempted this method of payment multiple times with a failed result, there is a possibility of a longer block being placed on the account. This block can last 30 days.

So since I tried multiple times, not having been informed of the consequences, I guess I get to go a whole month without. It sure would have been NICE if they had actually put that kind of warning IN the error message. "Don't try again for 24 hours, or we'll permaban you!" .. yeah, that would have been pretty neat.

It's so awesome that the lock is UNKNOWABLE too. Am I locked out for 24 hours? a month? 2 years? Nobody knows! But, if you try to reactivate before the unknowable timer runs out, we'll refresh your lockout, just because we love you!

It's crystal clear that they don't want anybody playing their games anymore.

Unbelievable.

[MCAshe]

I got this message from the Email support ticket I submitted after hours when this first started happening:



So since I tried multiple times, not having been informed of the consequences, I guess I get to go a whole month without. It sure would have been NICE if they had actually put that kind of warning IN the error message. "Don't try again for 24 hours, or we'll permaban you!" .. yeah, that would have been pretty neat.

It's so awesome that the lock is UNKNOWABLE too. Am I locked out for 24 hours? a month? 2 years? Nobody knows! But, if you try to reactivate before the unknowable timer runs out, we'll refresh your lockout, just because we love you!

It's crystal clear that they don't want anybody playing their games anymore.

Unbelievable.

Awful service... i'm now trying to pay my moth but in mog station appears a message error 601... if i keep trying may be i will see the same as you... block for a moth that's incomprehensible and absurd... better when they cheked crysta with paypal... good one square... :/

[Minkaa]

Tried again today. Another error 401. I guess I really am blocked for 30 full days. It might be less, but since I don't know how long the block will last (and neither does Square Enix, apparently), it's not worth trying before mid November because if I attempt it before the 30 days is up, they might just renew the block for another 30 days. Amazing!

Call me naive, but I would have guessed that "receiving money" would have been a little higher on their priority list.

[Lownrusty]

I also tried and I didn't know not to try 4 times. You guys just lost a customer.

[Tachion]

FFXI players are going through the same thing, only they can't use game cards to pay for their subscription. Their only option is to pay with credit cards, which SE will not accept, so the FFXI players who get this error are just shit out of luck and can't play at all. It's really absurd that this problem has persisted for so long with no recent response or fix from SE.

Thread for reference
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...yment-problems

[Vashzaron]

Got both these errors when trying to use 2 separate cards. Thing is one of which was what I used last month to sub without a problem. ???

Though I see they place a hidden 24 hour lockout if you get any of these errors, yet meanwhile I got enough authorization charges to pay for a month of gameplay.

Well, waited 24 Hours+ and tried again with the initial card that I've always used in the past first instead of another and it worked. So I assume I was under a 24 hour ban before for using my other card first that wasn't accepted for some reason.

Good luck to others that are seemingly can't get their card accepted regardless of lock outs.

[mosaicex]

The absolute lack of respond from SquareEnix staffs is really impressive.

I guess they really hate money THAT MUCH.

[Bluevann]

This just happened to me as well. Thankfully my XIV payment went through a couple days ago, but today my XI subscription was supposed to bill and instead I got deactivated. My last CC's operation was paying for the Fan Fest premium Live streaming. Wonder if that is somehow connected.

EDIT: It turns out I was right. The errors 401 and 601 on the account management were caused by the fact that the CC was already in the process of being locked by my bank for suspected fraud, and the transaction that raised this suspicion was the TwitchTV subscription to the Premium streaming for the FanFest.

[siverstorm]

So I made 12 failed payments when I originally received this error (I did not know about the blocks at the time but I did keep track for my own purposes). After waiting 14 days I tried again with another failed payment, waited 3 more days and got another failed payment.

I'm literally at a loss here. The "solution" mentioned before seems to only apply to EU accounts. I've contacted support yet again for either confirmation of that solution or for an NA solution but considering my previous responses from them I doubt they'll be any help still.

I've verified no issues with my financial institution about 3 times now (no issues with card, all of the $1 verification charges were authorized, etc) yet the payment processor still fails for no reason. So now my last plan is to wait until November 19th to try again before my game card sub runs out, since who actually knows how their system works anyway? Fuck me for wanting to pay SE and play a game with my friends right?

I'm also waiting to hear from support again (probably just to tell me that the credit card whitelisting service doesn't exist on the NA side).

EDIT:

Is there anywhere we could make posts about this issue that could actually be seen by SE? It's painfully apparent that they're not exactly acting on these (i.e. reading the forums) if the problem has been persisting since XI. While working on adding a paypal solution is great and I will end up using it at this rate, the main problem is their horrendously buggy payment processor. I don't even know the internal workings of the system but for a company as large as SE the fact that there are so many problems that add together to make a significantly larger problem is incredible.

I don't know why my card originally failed, maybe there actually was a legitimate reason for it. SE doesn't track errors or keep records of failed payments according to their support so we never actually know. But because of this my card still has issues processing and they don't even keep a record of how long the block is on our account (which I deem impossible, there's a block that exists and that data is kept somewhere).

[siverstorm]

So they ignored 90% of the content of my message but ultimately said exactly what I expected regarding the solution about emailing SE a picture of your credit card:

Dear Customer,

Regarding your request for account support. Please find your answer below.

Unfortunately that service is not available at this time. Suggestions from our customers are always valued. While we cannot guarantee implementation we will surely pass this on to the developers.

...

The rest was a copy paste auto reply of what we already know (with continued blame pushing on my bank lol). And the suggestion that I should effectively give up on my extra retainers, and continue to pay more than the standard for subscription fees using game time cards until this magical paypal solution becomes a thing.