Guild Wars 2

Hello all!

First of all, I’d like to say that I’m a huge fan of the guildwars series, and enjoyed Guildwars 2 the most. I’ve played since the beta and recently attempted to purchase gems after a long time. It was a few weeks after my birthday, so my account was full with birthday money. However, when I attempted to purchase gems, I was faced with an error. The I tried again. The same error. Then I tried an hour later. Error. The next day – error. Nothing worked. So I decided to contact support, and apparently, I’ve been stopped from making purchases for chargebacks. I want to state that I am 19 years old, I have debit card, and no clue what chargebacks are. So I had to google to find out. I am quite confused as I never went above purchasing 10 euros worth of gems (800 gems) while my account was above 100 euros to the time. I am just very confused on what’s happening, and I don’t know what happened or what to do.

Thank you for any response!

A chargeback is when a completed transaction is reversed. It’s a method to force a refund, but the merchant has to pay a penalty. Generally you would contact your bank to initiate a chargeback, however they may automatically do it due to suspicious behavior. If you’ve ever done this, your card is blacklisted and considered a risk by any merchants within the group you made the purchase from. GW2 uses Digital River for example to handle sales, so it would be them that considers you a risk.

You’ll need to continue with support to deal with the problem or alternatively, you can try using PayPal as a mask.

Healix.5819:

A chargeback is when a completed transaction is reversed. It’s a method to force a refund, but the merchant has to pay a penalty. Generally you would contact your bank to initiate a chargeback, however they may automatically do it due to suspicious behavior. If you’ve ever done this, your card is blacklisted and considered a risk by any merchants within the group you made the purchase from. GW2 uses Digital River for example to handle sales, so it would be them that considers you a risk.

You’ll need to continue with support to deal with the problem or alternatively, you can try using PayPal as a mask.

The thing is, however, I’ve never received gems for my purchases. I was faced with error codes from the start. I was able to purchase gems a few months before that, but everything seemed to work.

Dragoj.3765:

The thing is, however, I’ve never received gems for my purchases. I was faced with error codes from the start.

The transaction was blocked because your card was already considered a risk at that point. The chargeback they’re claiming would have happened at any point after your last successful purchase. Support could also be wrong about the reason or your card was accidentally flagged by something else.

Healix.5819:

Dragoj.3765:

The thing is, however, I’ve never received gems for my purchases. I was faced with error codes from the start.

The transaction was blocked because your card was already considered a risk at that point. The chargeback they’re claiming would have happened at any point after your last successful purchase. Support could also be wrong about the reason or your card was accidentally flagged by something else.

Ohh, thank you for the response, I really appreciate it. I’m quite anxious about being banned, since I’ve recently bought the physical copy of HoT, since I couldn’t buy it online because of the errors I’ve been getting. Part of the e-mail I got said “If we receive notification from our payment processor that your payments are too high risk to continue to allow, the account will be closed.”

Is there any way to have a live chat or so with the Arenanet support? I feel like there’s more I need to know, and I definitely don’t want to be banned for a mistake, or whatever happened. I spent so much time into this game already

Dragoj.3765:

Is there any way to have a live chat or so with the Arenanet support? I feel like there’s more I need to know, and I definitely don’t want to be banned for a mistake, or whatever happened. I spent so much time into this game already

You can discuss the issue with the Billing CS Team via email. Just update your ticket for more information.

Good luck.

Support can only be contacted through email. If you were going to be banned over a chargeback, it would have already happened. A chargeback is considered fraud.

It sounds like they may have already unblocked your card.

“If we receive notification from our payment processor that your payments are too high risk to continue to allow, the account will be closed.”

The quote is saying that if you initiate another chargeback against ArenaNet, you will be banned. Since GW2 isn’t a subscription game, “continue to allow” implies that they’ll accept your payment.

Thank you all so very much! I’m currently in contact with support over e-mail, but I need to wait for responses of course. Everything I sent was from the last mail I got, and I’m waiting for the next. One part of the email did say, "After reviewing your purchase history, we found that chargebacks have been received by our payment processor for purchases made on your account. " and that’s what confused me, since I’ve never done that or received any gems. Sorry, if it seems like I’m too slow in understanding this. I haven’t had much to do banks, credits etc as I’m still a student. Thank you all, once again.

Here’s the full email, by the way:

“After reviewing your purchase history, we found that chargebacks have been received by our payment processor for purchases made on your account. When a chargeback or reversal is received, our payment processor automatically permanently blocks the account from making future purchases with us.
Chargebacks and reversals will be reviewed by our payment processor. If we receive notification from our payment processor that your payments are too high risk to continue to allow, the account will be closed.
As you were informed in the previous reply, we can only suggest that you purchase gems from authorized resellers.”

Maybe I’m misinterpreting it, but it sounds like I’m being reviewed whether to be banned or not. Does it even make sense to buy gems then?

I would contact the bank supplying your debit card and ask them what’s been going on. Get a statement from them covering all the debits you did (or tried to do). Maybe the bank is trying to do a charge-back of some kind.
Basically, the first part of that email suggests that you’ve been buying gems or items, and then trying to get you money back after receiving them. Consequently, they are watching your account. If YOU are not initiating the charge-backs, then it must be the bank/issuer of your card. check with them urgently, before you lose everything.

I am experiencing a similar issue although the card I used had more than enough money, they suspended my account and removed HoT from it. I contacted the support team and they are basically like “we have no idea what is happening, we must investigate this further” very frustrating because all I want to do is play the god kitten game :@

Maybe this sounds dumb, but how can I get a coverage of all the debits that have been made? Do I call the bank? Do I walk over? Sorry, I’ve never done something like this in my life!

Lilshiroken.5814:

I am experiencing a similar issue although the card I used had more than enough money, they suspended my account and removed HoT from it. I contacted the support team and they are basically like “we have no idea what is happening, we must investigate this further” very frustrating because all I want to do is play the god kitten game :@

That really sucks. I hope it gets resolved soon for you

Dragoj.3765:

Lilshiroken.5814:

I am experiencing a similar issue although the card I used had more than enough money, they suspended my account and removed HoT from it. I contacted the support team and they are basically like “we have no idea what is happening, we must investigate this further” very frustrating because all I want to do is play the god kitten game :@

That really sucks. I hope it gets resolved soon for you

I hope so too, they replied to me but keep passing my ticket to different teams. I feel like they are giving me the run around and avoiding helping me. They have completely stop answering my emails now so I am really angry

Dragoj.3765:

Maybe this sounds dumb, but how can I get a coverage of all the debits that have been made? Do I call the bank? Do I walk over? Sorry, I’ve never done something like this in my life!

You need to call you bank. Have account number and other information ready to talk to person at the bank. They will need to prove it you to look at account. Most card have phone number for customer service on back. You could also go to bank. Both way should work.

Qugi.2653:

Dragoj.3765:

Maybe this sounds dumb, but how can I get a coverage of all the debits that have been made? Do I call the bank? Do I walk over? Sorry, I’ve never done something like this in my life!

You need to call you bank. Have account number and other information ready to talk to person at the bank. They will need to prove it you to look at account. Most card have phone number for customer service on back. You could also go to bank. Both way should work.

Okay, thank you. Well, yeah, I guess it’s time to do adult things!

Lilshiroken.5814:

Dragoj.3765:

Lilshiroken.5814:

I am experiencing a similar issue although the card I used had more than enough money, they suspended my account and removed HoT from it. I contacted the support team and they are basically like “we have no idea what is happening, we must investigate this further” very frustrating because all I want to do is play the god kitten game :@

That really sucks. I hope it gets resolved soon for you

I hope so too, they replied to me but keep passing my ticket to different teams. I feel like they are giving me the run around and avoiding helping me. They have completely stop answering my emails now so I am really angry

I wish there was a hotline we could call, or some livechat support service. Would really make it a lot easier, I think.

Dragoj.3765:

Lilshiroken.5814:

Dragoj.3765:

Lilshiroken.5814:

I am experiencing a similar issue although the card I used had more than enough money, they suspended my account and removed HoT from it. I contacted the support team and they are basically like “we have no idea what is happening, we must investigate this further” very frustrating because all I want to do is play the god kitten game :@

That really sucks. I hope it gets resolved soon for you

I hope so too, they replied to me but keep passing my ticket to different teams. I feel like they are giving me the run around and avoiding helping me. They have completely stop answering my emails now so I am really angry

I wish there was a hotline we could call, or some livechat support service. Would really make it a lot easier, I think.

Me too, this has nothing to do with my bank I have made sure. It is all coming from Anet.

It’s possible that the online purchases are triggering your bank’s fraud detection. Especially if this is the first time you’ve tried to buy gems, but even if you’ve bought them previously. Every year my spouse’s card gets flagged when he buys stuff at the Steam Summer Sale!

Generally if you call your bank you should be able to ask them if any transactions are being flagged, and you can let them know that those are valid transactions.