Managing a GAME store in the UK does not make you an expert on a banks policies, lol.
… or games.
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Diablo Immortal has a big black market scene where microtransactions are bought with stolen credit cards. It was in the news recently. A LOT of the purchases made with stolen credit cards are ultimately refunded through the bank by the card’s original owner. They don’t even have to know what Diablo Immortal is. I assume it’s the same company handling game purchases and microtransactions, hence why it was blocked - people getting their credit cards stolen, then refunding the purchases made with them through their banks.
This is kinda why companies cannot show any tolerance to any black market scene and they must ban people whose accounts benefited from it. So that guy who was put $35k into Immortal debt - well, he deserved it.
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Thats like imagining running a shop that sells typewriter ribbons makes you a publishing expert.
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Maybe not lie although that happens a lot, bending the truth is very common in banking telephony departments if it helps make a call shorter and/or eases a customer’s mind. Trust me, I worked in one in my early adult life (On the phone, managing teams and training people) and fixing the issues caused by incompetent colleagues a customer had spoken to previously was an extremely common thing.
I’m going to guess that the person you spoke to over the phone for your bank has seen maybe 2-3 transactions (at most) for the Blizzard store before and has attributed it with being a common complaint. Banking fraud algorithms work on many different variables and are prone to block legitimate transactions and the agents on the phone know little to nothing about the back-end systems.
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Blizzard finance/account department is joke. For them only few country is playing wow… Even freaking diablo immortal has better pay system than wow.
Lol, the Blizzard shop charges €17 for standard shipping the Collector’s Edition, so €147 in total. Any sort of normal retailer would give free shipping. But no, Bobby’s greed has no limits.
25€ to Sweden. That’s 8€ more than you have to pay.
So basically, Swedes deserve one pizza less then than you Benico.
Damn you Bobby
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They confirmed to me through chat, all the stores are 1 company handling everything, meaning nomatter which gear store you order at, it is the same one shipping the orders.
€25 shipping for EU 
but that is not a problem. The problem is you cannot get it anywhere else…because…Blizzard…
I believe it’s Fanatics and they don’t have the greatest reputation if I am honest.
Quoting for truth, it is entirely possible it was a false positive. Quite often a card issuer will decline a transaction if it is “outside the norm” for the cardholders shopping patterns but a call to the issuer will resolve it. These “checks” that banks, issuers & acquirers do are required by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority). So the banks are not trying to be awkward, they are trying to prevent fraud and/or doing mandated due diligence.
Although a bit “Out of the box”… it could be an issue with the payment gateway’s secure payments. 3D Secure v1 is about to be retired (15th October) and replaced by SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) and it may be that the Fanatics site has already moved over to it and there are possibly algorythm issues there whilst it settles in.
It’s a bit “out there” but entirely possible and I speak as someone who works for a global card processing company regulated by the FCA.
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It is not a one time try thing, i tried several times, always with the same result.
When i contacted my bank, i actually had to wait while they looked it up.
They have opened for my card to be used there, but my issue is…all the bad reviews regarding shipping, and some even state this gear store for blizzard even AFTER deadlines cancel orders because they are out of stock, for orders made a long long time ago…and THEN they refuse to reimburse the money spend on buying for the products.
Thinking volume, how can a single store, which such bad logistics and reputation manage to be a sole-retailer for such items?
The problem here is the exclusiveness of the retailer ship of this store.
I really want the product, but i do not want to deal with the company selling it in fear i will never even get a product i ordered, or end up with a hazzle of payments.
Blizzard could at least release the CE edition to Amazon so people get their customer protection.
Boof
The only other solution I can think of for you is to use a (digital) prepaid credit card. Simply because I was in the same boat as you. Thanks to that, I was able to place an order for the CE in the Gear Store.
Don’t believe your bank. I had my sub payment blocked a few years ago due to “Suspicious” activity from the web site. Had to call them to tell them it had been fine for the last, at that point, 13 years and if they looked they would have seen the same payment every month.
why do u wanna spend 200$ on a useless box that will be collecting dust?
It also could be because Blizzard have not verified their merchant ID with Visa, so the transactions are flagged as you say as suspicious. This is entirely a Blizzard issue as you’ll notice all banks will take the same action to prevent fraud.
Never had this issue but I have encountered my bank blocking it out of “suspicious activity” despite the fact myself and parents bought from the store etc all the time…
This is the most ridiculous piece of advice I have ever heard, they’re just safeguarding your money and sometimes certain things even if you’ve been using them for a long time fail secure checks…
Honestly please don’t give advice on something you clearly don’t understand.
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No kids so I got money to burn. Games are a hobby, do you not spend money on your hobbies?
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Been using the Blizzard store for years never had an issue. Banks are overly careful of stupid things. 38 years of banking and never once had the precautions they have taken been needed.
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