Imagine reducing your payment options as a corporation makes you more money

I bought BfA expansion with my bank app and a debit card from my bank.

Now I wanted to buy a faction change and a server change, guess what?
I have to link a Credit Card or a PayPal to my account to do so.

And I couldn’t buy Shadowlands either the same way I bought expansions before. Thankfully I still had a bit of gold left and I bought it with tokens.

What is actually the corporation tactic behind limiting payment options? I really don’t get it at all. You guys are reducing payment option and as a result, I am simply not going to buy a faction change and a server change as a result.

but you can just make a new character

Sadly Blizzard removes so many stuff from the game every expansion that I would be crazy to just leave behind those characters that have deleted recipes, gear, items, etc.

I really hate you guys. Worst company ever in terms of Customer service.

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I am not sure why you need to link PayPal or a Credit Card in order to use these services. I am still using the same debit card, admittedly renewed a few times, as I did when I first started playing and nothing has changed for me.

Are you sure this is a Blizzard thing and not a change in your own countries laws with regards to debit and bank accounts?

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They force long-term payment e.g. 6-moths one so when something goes wrong the company doesn’t lose tens of millions simply because people unsubbed for few months.

It doesn’t seem like the opening poster’s issue is with game time cards it is the fact that he can no longer use his debit card to pay for the game. This sounds like a bank issue not a Blizzard issue.

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It’s the Actizzard who decides what type of payment you can use so it’s not a bank issue.

But it’s not as I can still use a debit card for my payments so therefore debit cards are still accepted payment methods.

This is the opening poster’s bank not allowing them to use his debit card for online purchases anymore or their country changing the rules on using debit cards for online purchases. Neither of which is a Blizzard problem.

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I think you can use debit cards if they are like the Visa or Mastercard debit ones. Regular debit cards I have never really seen any online retailer take this.

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That is your country and bank not Blizzard fault some of the EU laws are very puzzling ,you can blame blizzard for a lot of things but not this .

There is still options to pay per month but just less of them .

We in the UK have had this since November forced upon us , we can not even gift friends play time anymore now either .

It depends on the type of debit card it is, when I first started playing blizzard didn’t accept my debit card so I went with PayPal then my bank changed my card to one blizzard do accept. Blizzard still don’t accept maestro cards, I always figured it was due to them being an American company because plenty of other places online accepted it at the time.

It’s similar to a lot of places not accepting American express outside of the USA because the fees are just not worth it for the retailers.

Blizzard may have changed their payment options if certain card types were costing them too much in transaction fees but in most cases you can link the cards to a PayPal account and use that which is just as viable as all you need to do with each purchase is use an email address instead of card details.

I was aware that Maestro wasn’t accepted by Blizzard but as far as I was aware they have never allowed that as a payment form so it isn’t something that has just happened as the opening poster indicates.

The opening post states that they have always used this payment method up until now which is why I think it is more likely to be a bank/country issue than a Blizz issue. They have changed the options for store bought game time but not as far as I am aware changed any of their methods of payments.

There used to be two types of Debit Card

The debit cards not allowed to be used online were Maestro (mastercard) and Switch(visa), tho I think both those cards are no longer used in the UK unless I’m mistaken, and now Bank current accounts automatically give the base Visa Debit cards.

I know, but that’s not what OP is talking about.

I just used maestro as that’s the card I used to have, no idea what card OP has and if it has been removed as an option. It is possible that he had a card that was accepted but the fees were too high on blizzards end so they stopped accepting it.

Yeah I had a maestro card which wasn’t accepted so used PayPal then my bank moved to debit MasterCard. I still use PayPal though lol.

I could use my maestro card online for some places but maybe they were UK based and that’s why, was a long time ago to be honest.

But back to OPs issue, it isn’t out of the realms of madness that he had a card that blizzard have stopped accepting if fees are too high for them, after all we don’t know where in Europe he is or what type of card. He just needs to do it through PayPal which is the same as using his debit card for each transaction anyway he just used his email address instead of card details each time.

I just think that if it was a payment method that they had suddenly stopped accepting they would have announced it a la the change to game time. Hence why I mentioned the change to method in my post, not that I thought that was what the OP was talking about.

I’ve been using debit cards for payment for a long time and still using it without any problems. Blizzard has changed nothing.

This is the Blizzard FAQ about accepted payments:-

Heads Up! Some Payment Methods Can’t Be Used for Subscription Payments

Updated: 8 months ago

Article ID: 180094

Relevant Products:

Common Problems

Error: Heads Up! Some Payment Methods Can’t Be Used for Subscription Payments

World of Warcraft recurring subscriptions can be paid with:

  • Credit Card
  • Debit Card
  • PayPal

Additional payment methods are accepted in some countries:

  • Direct Debit (only in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain)
  • Virtual Visa (only in Rouble currency)

Blizzard Balance cannot be used to set up recurring subscriptions. If you want to use Balance, you can buy Game Time.

In the UK I can certainly use all the listed WoW recurring sub options. Paypal is very easy to set up if you are struggling and that can just take money from your bank account as and when needed.

I have seen some issues raised in the Customer Service forum where players have issues with their banks not allowing payments but I do not know any details. It would seem odd that a payment method you used for a subscription in the past would no longer work.

The shop has it’s own FAQ as well for payments:-

Should be mentioned that Paypal is out of the question for Maestro users.

Blizzard doesn’t care how much you actually have on your Paypal account.
Won’t work with Maestro.

According to Paypal, this is on Blizzard’s end, and nothing Paypal can do about it.

It’s weird yes.

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