Guild Wars 2

Shortly after this post I will be submitting a ticket, as I do not want to be blocked (once again) becuase of Digital River’s mistakes. It is getting to a point where I’m considering never ever making another digital purchase for gems of anything of the like for my GW2 account because it is just such a hassle dealing with these issues and creating tickets and calling to find out why every payment I make keeps getting refunded.

So here’s the full story of my frustration with Digital River, from the beginning.
I purchase two copies of Guildwars 2, one for myself, one for my girlfriend, I complete this purchase through paypal.
The payment goes through, fantastic, my girlfriend and I begin playing Guildwars 2, it’s fun.
Fast forward a day, I’m at work, my girlfriend is unable to log into GW2, her account has been blocked, no reason is given. She checks her emails, she hasn’t gotten any emails. She texts me to tell me what has happened, I check my email, no emails from Arenanet, no emails from Digital River Inc.
One email from paypal stating that I have recieved a refund from Digital River Inc.
I call Digital River’s Customer support, all they can tell me is that I was refunded because the purchase was deemed fraudulent, I inform them that I am the cardholder, I can present ID, there is no reason why this purchase should have been refunded.
They refer me to GW2 support, I start a ticket.
My girlfriend started her own ticket.
My girlfriend receives an email from GW2 support saying that her account is blocked permanently because the purchase I made was deemed fraudulent.
She’s upset, she really enjoyed playing the game and had hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.
I once again call DRInc with questions and add more info to my support ticket.
My girlfriend receives an email stating that the previous email was sent in error and that they required further investigation. I receive an email saying that they require more time to investigate
Fast Forward another day (That’s two days I cannot play GW2 because of Digital River’s refund of my purchase.)
I recieve an email fro support telling me that all I have to do is re-purchase GW2 and link it to the account. My girlfriend receives the same sort of email.
All is resolved (with not much help at all from Digital River.)

Fast forward a week, I’ve been leveling my character, I decide “hey I’ll go ahead and buy some gems… hmmm, about $20 worth should do it.”

ONCE AGAIN

I have been refunded by Digital River Inc.
I only found out this morning when I checked my email and saw that refund from Digital River back to my paypal, ONCE AGAIN with no notice from Digital River Inc. or Arenanet, just an email from Paypal stating that my $20 purchase to Digital River Inc. was refunded.

Fortunately my account is not yet blocked. Unfortunately I am going to have to create a ticket in fear that my account may be blocked once again because Digital River Inc. In all its wisdom has decided that my purchases must be refunded without notice to me, without my consent and I will be unable to play GW2 becuase of their mistakes.

I just want to know if anybody else has had to deal with similar issues or am I the only one around here who is having these issues?

It would appear that it is an issue on PayPals end more than anything. I would try communicating with them to see what is going on, and perhaps they can do something about it.

I’ve never had an issue where PayPal requested a refund, usually if PayPal had an issue with paying a company they would just prevent me from making the purchase to begin with. what I see in these emails is that the company I made the payment to (Digital River Inc.) has sent me a refund. No reason given, they just send the refund and then PayPal sends me an E-Mail notice that I have been refunded by them. Despite that, contacting PayPal and finding out if they have anything to do with it isn’t really a bad idea.

Edit: So upon looking at the Paypal User Agreement, to make sure that I wasn’t misinformed I came across these bits of information and it pretty much matches up to what’s going on, basically this isn’t an issue on PayPal’s end, it has to be DRI (which I found DRI actually has an awful reputation with some site’s average review rating for them being one to two and a half stars out of five.)

Bit#1: “When you send money, the recipient is not required to accept it. You agree that you will not hold PayPal liable for any damages resulting from a recipient’s decision not to accept a payment made through the PayPal Services. Any unclaimed, refunded or denied payment will be returned to your Balance or to the original Payment Method. We will return any unclaimed payment to you within 30 Days of the date you initiated payment.”

Bit#2: “If a buyer files a Significantly Not as Described (SNAD) Claim for an item they purchased from you, you will generally be required to accept the item back and refund the buyer the full purchase price plus original shipping costs. You will not receive a refund of your PayPal fees. Further, if you lose a SNAD Claim because we, in our sole discretion, reasonably believe the item you sold is counterfeit, you will be required to provide a full refund to the buyer and you will not receive the item back (it will be destroyed). PayPal Seller protection will not cover your liability.”

(I never filed a claim)

Bit#3: “If we determine that the funds were not delivered, we will not only refund you any fees or taxes you paid for the Remittance Transfer, but we will also provide you the option of a refund or a redelivery of the amount appropriate to resolve the Remittance Transfer Error.”

(Funds were delivered to DRI, they confirmed this when I called them.)

Source: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full

So basically there is no reason why I should have recieved my money back besides DRI deciding that my payment is fraudulent and decided the best course of action is to send the payment back without any form of notification besides PayPal informing me of the transaction made from DRI to me.

Which you know, really sucks because I would LOVE to support the people behind such a great game by throwing my spare cash their way but if the company handling their money and distributing their content can’t do that efficiently without accusing me of fraud every few times I try to make a purchase and then Anet decides to block my account because they’re not getting their payments, why would I even want to continue to purchase anything from them?

At this point, all you are doing is talking on a public forum. You really need to submit a ticket. Even the Anet employees who man the forums always ask for a ticket number to ensure it’s being handled by the correct staff.

Ellieanna.5027:

At this point, all you are doing is talking on a public forum. You really need to submit a ticket. Even the Anet employees who man the forums always ask for a ticket number to ensure it’s being handled by the correct staff.

I actually already submitted a ticket immediately after I made this post. The purpose of this post wasn’t to gain assistance any quicker, I understand that the support team is probably up to it’s neck in tickets. I made this post primarily to ask other people if they’ve experienced similar issues and basically as a warning to anybody who has plans to make any purchases, knowing that the middleman company who takes the money and distributes the content is very low rated on multiple review websites and has caused me some annoyance.

Edit: Also to inform whoever at ANet it concerns that I am dissatisfied with the way their middleman has been conducting business and failing to contact me before sending my money back to me that I don’t want sent back to me and that I am also partially dissatisfied with the way my previous ticket was handled. I mean it’s just unacceptable to tell a customer that their account is being closed permanently, by mistake.

Update: I have recieved an email from Leah with the GW 2 support team and she had this information to offer among other details.

“While we cannot accept repayment for these purchases, nor do we ask for you to return the funds in any way, no action will be taken towards your account for the refund. I’d like to also mention that there were actually three Guild Wars 2 Gem purchases that were made on your account that were refunded. These refunds occurred prior to us contacting our payment processor to clear up the issue.”

and all I have to say is Wow…
I am actually really pleased with the full email I recieved and have asked further questions. I’m really glad that Support has been so understanding about my situation and frustration.

Nice!! Yeah their customer service is awesome! (unless you are being a kitten about everything, but even then, they are still great!)

You might want to consider something like gem cards or prepaid cards, at least until whatever problem it’s is with the company gets settled. No point in risking your account if Digital River is having problems.