I know this will get a generic response from a blue but goal is say this often and say this everywhere.
I have started a subscription at 28th July. My game was frozen for a year and i had old payment methods going back more then a decade before. So like it happened to a lot of people before my payment failed. There is nothing shows on their website. But my bank proofs that money has been sent to Blizzard. I have made like 10 tickets. They are giving same generic broken record response. Contact your bank!!! They are sending me a file to prove that they have attempted to return my payment. Without that i can’t ask for my money back. Because my bank can prove that they have sent money and other side didn’t refund it.
TL;DR
I have paid money and didn’t get the services i paid for. At the moment technically this is a fraud. In reality just an awful awful customer support.
Firstly, you only need to make one ticket. Secondly, the banking system works in a bit of an odd way, the bank reserves the money and it looks like Blizzard takes the money, but they don’t send it to Blizzard until Blizzard request it, and if there is a failure it is not sent and is returned to your account within 3-4 days usually.
So you might want to check that over the phone with your bank, not using online banking.
Just to clarify, if it was a payment that didn’t get through to us due to it failing on the banks end, we don’t provide a refund, because the money never got to us. In those cases you wouldn’t be looking at your bank statement to look for a payment “from” blizzard, instead the payment attempt will normally just be removed.
That said, it’s a good idea to speak with your bank about the payment directly and double check it all corresponds with your transaction history.
The payment to blizzard still appears in my bank logs. It has been 33 days since it happened. My bank tells me that they have sent the money and they can’t do anything. I have talked with them 4 or 5 times. Blizzard can fix this in 5 minutes. All they need to do contact to my bank with the receipt i send. But giving a better customer service is not a priority these days. Only thing i can do is file for an unlawful transaction and start a 60 day period. I literally need to file a complaint about paying for a service and not recieveing anything back. Then my bank is going to contact to you about this issue and go from there. Too bad there is not a Blizzard office in my country i can’t take a legal action. I took legal action against bank and they can prove they send the money.
I have started playing again because we some old chaps decided to get the old guild back together and start raiding. I was ready to put with dumbed down hack and slash style of gameplay and even the mobile game like mandotary grind. But this is a deal breaker, no need to say i let my game time fade away. Because of your website somehow got worse and creates problems during adding subscription i have to deal this.
More then anything this breaks my heart. I am 32. We grew up with blizzard games. We were talkign what a cool great company this is. We jumped to every bandwagon. We even accepted the destruction of WoW by non-developer executives by making the game a hack and slash mobile like bullshi. with their stupid logic of easy to play - more people will play. But this, taking someones money and failing to deliver the product and giving same generic crap answer over and over again instead of attempting to solve it. Just breaks my hearth.
I’m sorry to hear that you are still missing money on your account and I can clearly see that this is distressing for you.
I want to be abundantly clear, if we had the money for any purchase attempt we would ensure that you receive the product you were looking to purchase or provide a refund. Given that we have not been able to even offer you refund, this would indicate we were not sent the funds. Rather it seems more likely that the funds for the transaction attempt are reserved on your account by your card issuer instead.
If your bank is requesting a receipt, while we cannot contact them, we can provide you with a receipt of the transactions which you can forward to them. If you haven’t done so please be sure to do create a ticket requesting a receipt for the transactions should your bank still require them to release any funds they have reserved on your account.
Thank you very much for being the first employee trying to work for a solution. You are 12th person responding about this. I have received answers varying from “this happens don’t worry” to the “feel free to complain where ever you like”. I have asked for a paper or anything to show that you didn’t receive money but i was refused and pointed the website transaction history. Website. The website that is known for having technical issues about payments and holds no value at complaints to banking supervision board.
I am not saying Blizzard confiscated my puny 14.99 € ( twice 1 € deducted from account and those also not refunded) but all i know the money i paid, my account activity, not getting what i paid for and the fact that today i didn’t have any money for breakfast and had to wait until lunch to be served at my office.
So first you say that there is a statement on your bank account that shows money being clearly deducted and not just “held for future transaction”. Is this the case? Did you verify that the money actually left your account? Is there no possibility it was just lumped in with the other actual transactions because your bank has no immediately visible distinction between payments deducted and payments on hold?
If you are completely certain that the money left your account: is there any possibility that you paid for a different account than the one you are checking?
But let us assume that the money left your account and that it was not a payment for a different account than the one you’re looking at.
You say “Blizzard can fix this in 5 minutes. All they need to do contact to my bank with the receipt i send.”
Except it does not work that way. A regular Blizzard Gamemaster, heck, even a Tier 2 or a Tier 3 specialist (if they didn’t yet implement the MSA) would not just say “oh right here’s a legally binding document where Blizzard admits fault, I’ll just scan this, sign and fax it to a bank in another country”.
Reading and understanding the legal ramifications of what you want them to provide to you (or by extension your bank) exceeds five minutes and their duties as an employee by a long mile. Trust me, I know. If they were to be confronted with something like that, they’d have to escalate it from Billing to (likely) legal department and there it will sit until the legal contacts employed by Blizzard have also checked the document.
You also say that the website (I assume your Blizzard account) is “known for having technical issues” and “holds no value at complains to banking supervision board”.
Why do you think the website was “known for having technical issues”? I have not yet encountered any technical issues on the Blizzard website with my past payments. Very old payments - more than 8 years ago - might have been purged at some point, but that is not relevant to your case. Did the “banking supervision board” actually say to you “the Blizzard account website is known for its technical issues and is not a valid source for information about external payments”? This would sound very fishy on part of the bank.
I have not heard of a bank requiring a paper statement to prove anything in years. Have you - or your lawyer, see below - actually tried with the statement from the website as advised by the Game Master or do you just assume they would not accept the digital statement from the website?
You say you have taken “legal action against your bank”. Legal action implies a lawyer. Once the lawyer gets involved, Blizzard people don’t tend to respond to you anymore but will likely refer you to the legal department contacts. You say that the transaction itself happened 33 days ago, so you are saying that you started legal process against a bank and it was resolved in the bank’s favor within less than 33 days? This again sounds fishy on part of the bank at the very least.
You say that Blizzard did not render the services you paid for, yet money was taken from your account. You say that you could start a 60 day process for a fraudulent transaction. Why would you not start this process? You claim to have lost money and you say there is no proof of the transaction in your Blizzard account, so what do you stand to lose from initiating this process immediately?
The 1 Euro “deductions” you see are called test markers and described here:
These too are not actually taken from your account and then sent back to you (which would incur costs to Blizzard that would likely exceed the charge), they are just marked as “held for transaction” and then released within 24 hours. Those are very normal balance and validity checks. The money does not leave your account. If your bank claims that the money left your account, they are not telling the truth.
Google does this https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/6224192?hl=en
As does Stripe https://support.stripe.com/questions/unexpected-1-charge-on-customers-bank-statement
As does Amazon, as does Apple, as does every merchant that uses digital payment for goods. Please double check if the money was actually taken from your account.
And lastly, as a statement from one soul who was once in your situation to another: when you’re so far overdrawn that a single WoW payment prevents you from having a meal - please do not make World of Warcraft your priority. I assume you paid for your game time another way and are distressed because you paid double? Because if not, how would Blizzard giving you the game time you believe you paid for provide you with that breakfast?
As excepted cavalry arrived in defense. I will be happy to answer your all questions even tho your tone is like talking down to someone.
Yes money has left my account. I knew the amount i had before and the amount i had after and the amount i had all the days coming to this one. I can see my account activity and money has left my account. I talked with bank multiple times and they are not saying money is being held but money has been sent to other party. I asked repeatedly if money is stuck or not and they always gave same answer that they sent money.
I checked multiple times that if it is right account or not. It is right account and Blizzard answers me that transaction failing so there is no chance of game time being loaded to wrong account.
Yes Blizzard can fix this in a short time. Gamemasters , their tiers, their responsibilities doesn’t concern us consumers. The service we receive is our concern. Duties of employee are being dictated by company. Blizzard can make a better procedure about failed payments and money being stuck. Customer provides their receipt and bank information, game master checks if service provided or not then an e-mail to bank with my information and with a statement from company is enough to solve this. This is how things handled when you refund a product you bought online. To reduce workload on their end Blizzards policy is to make customer contact bank. When the bank proofs money has been sent and not stuck what can you do?
You not encountering a problem or never hearing of it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Here is the official link of support page https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/32529 . You will be asked to clear cache, delete cookies, not use Chrome, delete old payment methods etc. Also if you can do a quick google research about this issue you can find many people in my position. There is a guy trying to get back his 6 months worth of subscription and he made a forum post knowing it won’t help but just to let people hear the issue, same as me.
Banking Supervision Board is not a body that says things. The name might get lost in translation but it is the body that you file a formal complaint to banks. If i claim bank is holding my money then i need a document from other party- Blizzard - to show that they do not have my money. Website transaction history doesn’t qualify as that document.
Legal action not always implies lawyer. It means applying to governing bodies. It doesn’t have to be court and a lawsuit. You don’t need a lawyer to apply for consumer rights court but i do have a lawyer, my sibling. She is one of the representitives of biggest bank in the country and can be named a high profile in her field. It is not advised to run to the courts and file a lawsuit at these issues. First you go to the consumer rights court which i did. I complained about bank and they returned to me proving that money has left them. Second step Banking Supervision Board and for complaints to that place i need said document from other party. Another reason not to file a lawsuit is , if this is not banks fault then i won’t get anything and i need to cover court expenses. If Blizzard had an office in my country that can be held responsible , i would be filing a lawsuit and responsible party had to cover expenses and some more.
I didn’t start 60 day period yet because it is the last resort and longest option. I was more focused on getting my money on short term. Also that period is not 60 days. It is minimum 60 days.
The 1 € amounts are taken from your account. Next time check it minute by minute. It gets deducted then after transaction gets completed it gets refunded. My transaction never got complete and the two 1 € billings has not been returned yet. The money LEAVES your account. You can’t use the 1 € until it gets refunded.
And lastly, I am a family man have a son and trying to make it on my own for 15 years. I know my priorities. Each month i pay my rent my bills put money to my savings accounts for my son , leave a bigger chunk to my wife -as a rule for happy marriage- and take a small amount for myself for my personal needs and entertainment. I am working at a tourism company and during this epidemic trying to make it work with huge paycuts. When this happened i expected money to return in 3 days so i bought game time from a 3rd party. Never i thought i won’t be getting my money back for a month and at the last day of the month i ran out of money and skipped breakfast because of bad customer service.
Alright, so you just want to rant and not concern yourself with any proper procedure. I am not “the cavalry” because I disagree with some of your points. Despite your very belligerent tone, I’ll adress your response. In short, I believe you just want to put onus on Blizzard where they do not have any.
The money would not be “sent by the bank” but requested to be withdrawn by Blizzard (a SEPA mandated direct debit transaction). If the money is requested and not claimed, it is put on hold and does not leave your account. See below for a detailed explanation of how direct debit works.
What reason does your bank give you for not taking this response coming from a Blizzard representative as indicative of the transaction being faulty? Instead of emailing the bank directly, they send the above to you in an email (response to your ticket) from an official Blizzard address with a timestamp and everything you need. Print out this email and take it to your bank. On what premise would the bank reject this? Would they claim that you faked the email over 15 Euros?
This is a very unrealistic view of the timespan it would take to implement such a procedure.
Not once in the history of my 20+ years of shopping online has any company ever “emailed my bank” to resolve a payment dispute. I don’t know what country you live in but emailing a bank to resolve a customer chargeback is not something that a company would ever do. Who would they even email? Sending out confidential payment information via email, the most unsecured way of sending anything?
You provide the above proof that the Game Master responded to you with that they did not receive the money and that the bank must have made a mistake in clearing a transaction to a mandated payee that they indicated to the payee as declined.
The article you quote regards the actual payment, not the transaction overview that the Blizzard representatives likely asked you to use with your bank. The article states that if the payment fails, these are the steps that you need to take to try the payment again, not that the account overview would be faulty in regards to transactions.
If you have no transaction showing on your Blizzard account overview, the support article states that “If there is no order, it means your payment attempt was immediately rejected by your payment provider.” and to clear the cache before attempting to pay again. It does not say in any way that the payment overview, which you were asked to produce for your bank, was affected by this.
Why is that?
You can’t just redefine words to mean what you want them to mean.
The definition of legal action is “the act of using a lawyer or a court to help settle a disagreement, etc. that you have with a person or an organization”.
Your sister being a lawyer and you complaining to a consumer complaints board does not constitute legal action and you should not represent it as such.
Once you bring forward actual legal action to an independent arbiter (be it a judge, a court or whatever) there is a process called discovery where both parties bring forth their evidence. Your bank will say “money left the account”, you can then say “the requesting party said the transaction was declined” and then a decision is made. Your evidence can very well be the (many, as you say) ticket responses - which produce emails that are timestamped and can be used in court - that the transaction was declined by your bank.
From your previous posts you claim to have exhausted all other options, including legal options.
There seems to be a language barrier and a severe misunderstanding on your end on how banking works.
Funds do not leave your account when they are transaction tested, they are put on hold and then that hold is released by the bank after the vendor has not claimed the held money. It is true that you can not access the money that your bank puts on hold by merchant request until your bank releases that amount. The money does not leave your account at all. Your bank puts a marker on that amount saying “this is intended for future payment”.
In international banking, there is no “moving money from one account to another within a minute”. The intra-merchant fees alone for actually debiting and then refunding a single Euro in an international transfer on an account-by-account basis exceed 1 Euro by a significant margin.
In the case of an auth hold (which are the 1 Euro charges), the bank needs to revert them. They are a standard method of checking for account validity.
Please read up on what an authorization hold is and who is responsible for clearing it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_hold
The entirety of flourish story around this is irrelevant to the topic at hand. You bought a service that you did not receive and then bought the service again without making sure that you have the money back.
However: if what you say is true, your bank is playing you for a fool.
Here’s how this works:
Blizzard’s merchant handler (Global Collect) puts authorization charges on your account.
Authorization charges are never actualized and drop off within a set time limit. This is your bank’s job. Your bank sets this limit. Auth holds of 1 Euro are a standard banking instrument (see above Wiki link).
Blizzard does NOT say “we don’t actually want this money”. This is just not how this works. It is the bank’s responsibility to make the charge drop off your account once the sensible hold time has expired.
Blizzard (though Global Collect) now knows that this is an account it can do business with.
Blizzard (through Global Collect) requests money to be put on hold for a transaction on your account. This is your monthly payment.
Blizzard (through Global Collect) then requests to take the money out of your account (a direct debit SEPA transaction, meaning it is initiated by the payee).
The bank then says “we do not authorize this charge” or “you can take this held amount of money”.
If the latter, Global Collect books this transfer, informs Blizzard and all is well. It is only at this point that money actually leaves your account.
If the former, Global Collect can not take money out of the account. The money would not be “sent by the bank”. This is a giro transaction (initiated by payer) and is not what Global Collect would be able to work with in their system.
If the story you’re telling is true, you have on your hand
a company (Blizzard) that requests a hold as per usual procedure (see above Wikipedia link)
versus
a bank that does not drop off Auth holds within a sensible time frame
claims that a denied direct debit was “sent” regardless
does not show enough customer skills to immediately release a hold on a transaction when the customer requests such and have their fraud and internal revision departments figure out the details over a tiny amount of money (15 €)
In short: your bank is at fault here, sounds sketchy as heck and you should as a consumer take a step to find a bank that does not play its customers for a fool.
Wow. I can’t spend another hour answering to everything. Way too tiring. Links from dictionary etc. Applying to consumer right court happens online and usually enough to settle small disputes. Taking legal action doesn’t mean hiring a lawyer and running to courts hand in hand. Pardon me if my talk is not on par with cambridge dictionary. Bank responded me in 24 hours after i applied to court and accused them to not returning money on hold, claimed there is no money waiting in between but i will keep pushing them.
I know money is not being sent but requested, I know that the transactions problems etc is not being handled by simple e mails i know those 1 € is not going to Blizzards pocket but put on hold. I am trying to tell something in a simple way that i can. We are not lawyers ironing out documents. Enough with technical corrections. Also money is being put on hold or not , if it is not my account then it means i can not use it.
None of this would happen if Blizzard services were working properly. I had payment methods dating back to 2009 or something at website and it is one of the reasons Blizzard says the cause of failed payments.
Anyway i don’t know what you are trying to do taking your time to write all of these. Nitpicking words and going to technical details about what is legal action or not sigh. Thanks for teaching me that there is no real money moving in international banking Most companies would assist resolving these kinda issues. A company that lays off 10% of their staff while having a record year, most probably won’t have enough resources dedicated for great customer support.
All you want to do here is push your narrative that “Blizzard = bad”, despite sourced evidence that your bank is at fault. You insist on customer service that no reasonable company would be able to provide (contacting your bank, refunding without a transaction on Blizzard’s side).
Blizzard is not holding your money, your bank does. However, your bank probably doesn’t have a forum where you can be the victim by means of hyperbolic stories.
Is this seriously happening? God. Now you are insulting my ability to understand. Are you just trolling or is this really happening? How many times you had an issue where you paid for something online and system of service provider failed. Are you trying to get hired by blizzard or were you just trying to satisfy your ego by talking down on me with your technical knowledge. Just find yourself some other amusement. None of this would happen if system of Blizzard were working properly. If i have delete all my cookies, cleared my payment history and used some other browser then Chrome before subscribing this would not happen.
Check my first sentence of this thread. I am here to rant. I am here to make some voice. If more and more people voice their discontent and not be a fanboy cavalry like you maybe blizzard will be forced overhaul their payment services and these failures won’t happen or they can provide better support for failed payments and stuck money.
Blizzard can fix this by notifying my bank that they were not able to collect their payment. That is what a good customer support would do. Anyway. I am still amazed by this conversation. I talked to bank again and they again just say money has left us. I filed a formal complaint to Banking Supervision Board will see what will happen.
If it was not for imperfect services of Blizzard this issue was not going to happen. If they provided better customer support this issue would be resolved. You are here telling me what seriously? Find yourself something better to do.
The information being discussed is very valuable as context, but unfortunately the tone of the thread has changed to unconstructive. I’ll be closing it as a result.
Most companies would assist resolving these kinda issues. A company that lays off 10% of their staff while having a record year, most probably won’t have enough resources dedicated for great customer support.