Guild Wars 2

GW2 facebook page states they were doing some work on their billing systems so hopefully they are addressing this issue (even though they’ve never publicly acknowledged the issue!).

Hey everyone, I was able to purchase gems today. I never received a response to my support tickets but I was just able to purchase gems. I’d go in and see if you can also. Maybe they fixed the problem. Good luck!

To add insult in injury on all this RB and RB2 are DELETING posts about this problem on GW2’s Facebook page.

Here are my ticket numbers: 120904-009313 and 120831-002971

FOURTEEN days
two tickets
twenty+ posts in this thread
SIX PMs to Gaile that have been completely IGNORED
Two letters to ArenaNet CEO
One discussion with NCSoft West CFO
Multiple FB posts
Multiple Tweets

ZERO RESPONSE, ZERO ACTION FROM ARENANET!!!!!!!!!!!!

And yes I tried purchasing after today’s update and am still getting “Approval Failed!”

yukizen.4980:

SO Why am I a High Risk?? Im a big girl I can do what ever I want with MY money..Because of all the Hacking going on I canceled my card and got a new one and it still dose not work..But my husband is having no problom…If the game people do not want my money fine…but I would like to know what is going on and why I am a high Risk…

You aren’t high risk. Their system is just idiotic. My wife and I have the same problem. I’ve been blocked from making any purchases but my wife (USING THE SAME CARDS) can make purchases with no problem. Its beyond stupid.

Kaeziel.5173:

Hi *,

Your ticket has been escalated to me as a supervisor for NCsoft Account Support. I know this must be a frustrating issue.

As mentioned, there is a system-wide limit on the number of accounts you can have associated with a credit card. The error message you are receiving indicates that you have reached this limit so you will be unable to use your credit card on a fifth account. We do not have the ability to delete your other accounts or remove the previous billing information. This is not something we can override. If you wish to purchase Gems with that card you will need to either use a different credit card or use PayPal® which will allow you to use that same card to purchase Gems.

Most prepaid prepaid/gift cards can be used for purchasing gems as long as it has a Visa® or MasterCard™ logo

I should add that in the future we also hope to also have game cards available through most major retailers which will allow for another alternate form of payment for you.

We regret we are unable to assist you in the manner that you had hoped but please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you,
Tim
NCsoft Account Support Supervisor
__________________________________________________________________

So thats what they reply after 2 weeks,now i dont care i managed to get my gems somehow but this is unbelivable…Its like spitting in the face of your fan that bought ur previous game.I played aion 2 year and never had to contact support but now i realise how terrible NCsoft is and by terrible i mean,fire the entire kitten staff.

Its disapointing realy to finaly look at a game and think its biggest flaw is being under nc soft incompetance support system and fail security.

This explanation is wrong. Honesty, I think NCSoft is just making up stuff. I don’t have five accounts with NCSoft. Also, I used a brand new credit card and it was still refused.

My next step is to consult legal counsel because a business cannot arbitrarily deny services to a person. With as many people as we have with this issue we could probably achieve class action status. Since we are getting no solutions from NCSoft or ArenaNet despite repeated communications this seems to be the only avenue left.

We continue to be shocked that ArenaNet does not even ACKNOWLEDGE our problem in the game status updates!! Then again its apparent ArenaNet does not even care about us or the fact that we’ve been unfairly branded as fraud risks by its bogus payment protection system.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_status_updates

I continue to be completely stunned by the complete indifference of ArenaNet in relation to this problem.

TwilightStorm.7159:

The day has come!

---

Thank you for providing that information.

To protect our customers, we have implemented a Payment Risk Management System to detect possible unauthorized transactions or account use. This means that something about your transaction is being perceived as high risk by our system.

Although there is something about your transaction that is being flagged by our system, we have authorized your “zyvera@hotmail.com” e-mail address to complete transactions for the next 24 hours. Please try your transaction again within the next 24 hours.

Often, these issues are temporary and you will not have the problem in the future. If you have this issue in the future, please let us know. We will be happy to review your transaction to determine if we can assist you with completing it again.

Regards,
Matt S.
——

Just now I was able to buy gems, so I bought a kittenload. However, I replied with this.

---

Hello Matt,

Thank you for this temporary solution. I’ve seen more players get this solution. However, I believe there is something seriously wrong with this Payment Risk Management system. I have once used a credit card that was not mine (a friend) to buy the game. After this, my account got flagged. Don’t you think it’s a little too quick to flag customers like this? I don’t want to go through this entire back and forth conversation everytime I buy gems, it’s also a lot more effort on your team.

Also, if I was really a fraud, why would you give me 24 hours to continue my ‘fraudilant’ actions? (Obviously I’m not a fraud, btw)

Please, I beg you to fix this system. Just now I have been able to make a succesfull paypal purchase, I would like to be permanently able to do this. It is my account, and I will only use paypal. Please. -.-

---

It REALLY don’t want to go through all this trouble again…

Just think of the COMPLETE idiocy their solution presents. Their system flags you as a fraud risk. But they have decided to give you a 24 hour period to charge what you want. That means they obviously must not think their system works at all. But yet they are only giving you a TEMPORARY reprieve from the system. LUDICROUS!!!

Here are my ticket numbers: 120904-009313 and 120831-002971

THIRTEEN days
two tickets
twenty+ posts in this thread
three PMs to ArenaNet Reps
Two letters to ArenaNet CEO
One discussion with NCSoft West CFO
Multiple FB posts
Multiple Tweets

ZERO RESPONSE, ZERO ACTION FROM ARENANET!!!!!!!!!!!!

And yes I tried purchasing after today’s update and am still getting “Approval Failed!”

Is the billing maintenance that has been announced for 7am PT tomorrow morning intended to fix the problem for people who have been unable to purchase gems?

GaileGray.9587:

For those of you having purchase issues, still hang in there. We’re making some changes in the next few days that should make it easier to make the purchase.

Gaile, can you give us an exact ETA on this fix? For those of us who have been waiting two weeks, “the next few days” is a bit vague and we’d like to get some certainty.

GaileGray.9587:

For those of you having purchase issues, still hang in there. We’re making some changes in the next few days that should make it easier to make the purchase.

Thanks Gaile. That is encouraging.

I just spoke with the CFO at NCSoft West about this issue. He said he was not the right person to address the issue but he is forwarding the information to management within NCSoft. Hopefully, this will result in some action being taken on this. I’ll update the thread when I know more.

Here are my ticket numbers: 120904-009313 and 120831-002971

ELEVEN days
two tickets
twenty+ posts in this thread
three PMs to ArenaNet Reps
Two letters to ArenaNet CEO
Multiple FB posts
Multiple Tweets

ZERO RESPONSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lexaus.7031:

@Sangrivane, they have your money for purchasing the game, they don’t require anymore, so you may as well enjoy what you payed for initially, the gem store stuff is pretty much just cosmetic and boosts, nothing significant towards gameplay.
And as for ArenaNet, they made an MMO, and are trying to keep it clean and working as well as possible, their gonna make mistakes yes, but at least their trying.
When you make an MMO and can solve all the problems without making more, get back to me.

Agreed. However, I do not want to invest more time and effort into a game if the company is so indifferent or incompetent that they cannot address such a fundamental and experience-destroying issue as this. This is an easy issue to fix. It’d take an hour of someone’s time to clear the purchase restrictions off the people who have posted here. Instead, some of us have been waiting almost two weeks with no action. They have not even acknowledged the issue in the game status updates.

Lexaus, the inability to purchase gems prohibits me enjoying the game the way I choose to but that in and of itself would keep me from playing. What is keeping me from playing is the complete indifference on the part of ArenaNet. They really just don’t seem to care that THOUSANDS of their customers are being incorrectly tagged as fraudsters.

Lexaus, amazing – stunningly – they don’t seem to care based on their complete lack of response. I’ve completely stopped playing the game now and won’t play it again until this is fixed.

Here are my ticket numbers: 120904-009313 and 120831-002971

ten days
two tickets
twenty+ posts in this thread
three PMs to ArenaNet Reps
Two letters to ArenaNet CEO
Multiple FB posts
Multiple Tweets

ZERO RESPONSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GaileGray.9587:

Guys, you’re right. I look through this thread and I feel bad — you’re not getting as much information and you should, and I apologize for that.

I’ve sent off an email to the team who is working night and day on various issues related to the BLTC and the Gem Store. I hope to be able to post more in the near future or perhaps one of their team members will post an update. But in the meantime, please accept our apologies for any difficulties you’re experiencing.

If you bought and did not get your gems, update your ticket (don’t make a new one, it slows the process) and we’ll watch for those. If you cannot purchase, we also need to look into those situations. We appreciate your interest in purchasing gems and believe me, we want to make it possible for you to do so!

Thanks, again, for your patience.

Gaile, what is the big difficulty here? Why do you “hope to be able to post more in the near future or perhaps one of their team members will post an update”? The system is clearly faulty. It is affecting THOUSANDS of people and costing ArenaNet THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of dollars. It is completely unacceptable that ArenaNet has not even ACKNOWLEDGED this problem in the status updates. I’m at the point now where notwithstanding how much I enjoy the game that this whole affair has left such a bad taste in my mouth – that ArenaNet either is incompetent or just doesn’t care – that I going to simply return my copy of the game for a refund and write the game off.

This issue requires DECISIVE action on the part of ArenaNet in a big way. Is this what you and your team spent so much time on? Developing a game so that an absurd system pushes thousands of players away? Players that want to spend money? What am I missing here?

Explain to us why ArenaNet cannot acknowledge this problem in the status updates and why its taking so long to offer solutions. Because soon alot of us are just going to write GW2 and ArenaNet as a company off.

GaileGray.9587:

Charge-backs are bad for you and for us. I strongly encourage you to wait for assistance or, if you really want to permanently close your account and receive a refund, go ahead and put in a request through our support team.

I’ve done charge-backs in the past (like for a mechanic that totally trashed my classic car’s engine — major things like that). It’s a long and painful process and your CC has a limited amount of tolerance for such procedures. The refund process, if you truly want to do this, will be less difficult and you won’t be using up your CC’s good will if you need their help in the future.

But please consider that a charge-back or a refund results in closure of the account. It’s not like you can charge-back now and add a code later. The account is forever closed, and all attributes and history — including the HoM — are lost. As a player, I fully understand the frustration of waiting. But as a player, I want you to know how serious a refund or charge-back can be, since people seem to think it’s a simple thing that doesn’t have long-lasting repercussions.

Lastly, we have an A+ rating with the BBB. It does not get any higher. I’m very proud of our stature with such an excellent organization. I respect the BBB very much, and I think it’s important to use them only for situations that are truly needful of their involvement, not as a means to try to move a support ticket up in the queue. Honestly, that’s a waste of their time and given the faster turnaround on tickets, it’s probably a waste of your time as well.

Do you think a company that unfairly and unjustifiably tags thousands of its customers as fraudsters and then takes no action to rectify the error warrants a BBB complaint?

[CONTINUED]

While I can accept that a well-meaning company implemented a faulty system, what I and many other customers have found completely unacceptable is ArenaNet’s response to this issue. For a week, there was complete silence on this issue from ArenaNet. Despite submitting support tickets, tweets, and posting on Guild Wars 2’s Facebook, I received no direct response nor was there any acknowledgement of the issue in the daily Guild Wars 2 status updates. Alarmingly, last week posts about this issue were actively deleted on Guild Wars 2’s Facebook. But the most shocking aspects of ArenaNet’s response was yet to come.

Two days ago ArenaNet opened the Guild Wars 2 Support Forum so that customers could post about issues they were having with the game. I was the first to post about this issue a few minutes after the forum opened. Additional customers flooded the thread with posts mentioning the same problem. The link to the thread is here. You can see for yourself the extent of this issue and the level of frustration it has caused amongst customers:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Gem-Store-Questions-Issues-merged/first

To my chagrin and that of many other customers, this issue has continued to lack acknowledgement in the Guild Wars 2 status updates that have been posted since ArenaNet representatives acknowledged the issue as a “serious issue” in that thread. Evidence exists that a few customers here and there are getting resolution. But the resolution is itself shocking. Customer are being told they have been flagged as fraud risks but that they can receive a “24 hour override” to the purchase restriction placed on their account so they can make purchases. That is obviously a ridiculous explanation. If a customer was actually a fraud risk then you would not lift the purchase restriction. And if you acknowledge the system incorrectly placed a purchase restriction on the customer and thus would override the system then why would you not override it completely rather than just for 24 hours?

It is a testament to the great game you and your team have developed that I am writing to you about this problem. If this were a lesser game I would just write the game off and choose to play one of the many alternatives in the marketplace. But the game you and your team have crafted is extraordinary. But there are limits to my patience and that of other customers. When I log into the game the first thing I try to do is purchase gems and when that purchase fails I often simply log off in frustration. You have stated customer experience must be the first priority of a MMOG company. This problem is dramatically impacting the experience of many customers and in particular customers that are eager to generate sales revenue.

I know you and your team poured your heart and soul and a good chunk of your lives into making Guild Wars 2. I attended the Guild Wars 2 presentation at Comic-Con in 2011 and demoed the game in the Exhibit Hall that year. I could feel the pride and excitement your team felt about the game even then. As a MMO veteran who has been playing these types of games since Meridian 59 I must say you have created a real gem. It would be a major tragedy if the success of Guild Wars 2 is curtailed or even precluded by this faulty system that is currently in place and more importantly an inadequate and indecisive response to the problem. I am happy to discuss this issue in more detail with you or any member of your team. I can be reached at [OMITTED] or at [OMITTED]. My account name is Sangrivane.4360.

Best regards,
[OMITTED]

Gaile, frankly I do not think ArenaNet management is aware of this issue because if they were this issue would be as high a priority issue to address as any other and would certainly warrant a mention in the game status update! Below is the letter I submitted directly to Mike O’Brien, ArenaNet CEO. I do not have any direct confirmation Mike has received the letter yet but I wanted to make you aware this has been submitted to him. If I do not receive satisfaction from him my next stop will be NCSoft management.

Mr. O’Brien,

A serious problem exists with Guild Wars 2 that is preventing thousands of customers from making gem purchases in the Black Lion Trading Company. Undoubtedly, this problem is costing ArenaNet customers and significant amounts of sales revenue. More stunning still is the apparent lack of acknowledgement or concerted response by ArenaNet to address the issue. I am a Senior Vice President at a Fortune 10 financial services company so I know something about managing a large and complex organization. I suspect upper management is not aware of this problem because if it were the resolution of this problem would be a top priority given this problem represents a significant risk to Guild Wars 2’s business model.

By my estimates, thousands of upstanding ArenaNet customers are falling victim to a faulty system intended to police “unauthorized transactions”. The system has been described by ArenaNet employees as the “Payment Risk Management System.” The apparent purpose of the system is to “detect possible unauthorized transactions or account use.” This system apparently places a purchase restriction on a customer’s account preventing them from making any purchases with real money. The purchase restriction blocks any purchase requests from reaching the credit card companies. I have confirmed this with my credit card companies as they have not received any charge requests from ArenaNet in relation to my gem purchase attempts. Further below is a link to the Guild Wars 2 support forum where you can view for yourself a number of customers complaining about this system. This group of customers is surely just a microcosm of a much larger group of customers with the same issue.

Undoubtedly, this “Payment Risk Management System” is faulty as it is inexplicably tagging thousands of your customers as possible fraudsters. My humble suggestion is to drop this system altogether. Credit card companies have robust and sophisticated systems in place to detect potentially fraudulent activities. If ArenaNet is resolved to have such a system then at least disable it until it functions in some semblance of a sensible manner.

Support ticket submitted 9 days ago – unanswered
Multiple pleas on this forum – unanswered
Multiple tweets to GW2 Twitter site – unanswered
Multiple PMs to Gaile/GW2 Forum Rep – unanswered
Letter to ArenaNet CEO – unanswered

Zytherion.8231:

[Incident: 120903-002418]

This is getting ridiculously frustrating! I just want to buy gems! Its always in the back of my mind while playing that i’m missing out on something and its dulling the experience greatly!

Well said! ArenaNet’s CEO has said customer experience of the most important thing. That is why ArenaNet chose to suspend digital sales for a time. Well this problem is DRAMATICALLY impacting customer experience!

I’ve posted my letter to ArenaNet’s CEO to Reddit. Please consider voting it up. Perhaps we can get some action on this issue that way.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/zk5ac/thousands_of_gw2_customers_unfairly_tagged_as/

GaileGray.9587:

Everyone:

This is a serious issue, and we’re sorry you’re having this problem. Can you edit your post to include your ticket number, please?

Gaile, this is a serious issue but yet virtually none of us have yet to hear from anyone at ArenaNet on our individual tickets? And the problem has not even been mentioned in the game status updates? And no one from ArenaNet has provided any updates in this thread?

Zytherion.8231:

Seriously? 465 responses later and they haven’t addressed the problem as a whole. Maybe they will email some of us (including me, which they seem to have no idea of the bigger picture), but not one Admin, Moderator or Support staff have a response with the slightest attention to our problem.

All i want to do IS SPEND MY MONEY, this is getting frustrating and making the game lose its spark for me. Great game, LOVE it, it is flawed in this fact only, and since day one it has had this flaw unresolved, its starting to bother me.

120903-002418

I completely agree. I have pleaded in PMs to the ArenaNet staff to provide us with something and all we have gotten is silence. I have contacted ArenaNet’s CEO directly on this issue. I am hopeful we will finally see decisive action on this.

tamaru.3684:

I have been unable to purchase gems since the release date. And from the looks of it most if not all of us posting here have gotten the issue resolved. I don’t feel like opening up a ticket for an issues that is still apparently not being worked on. I do wish I could buy more bag space and open up more character slots. Is there any new updates on this? Called my cc’s and they say it’s not on their end. Would at least like to know whats going on. Thanks :/

This is NOT correct. Most of us have not been assisted AT ALL with this issue. Most of us have not even been contacted by ArenaNet about the issue.

I’ve elevated this directly with ArenaNet management. Let us see if we can get some sensible response to this issue now.

The issue of thousands of people not even being able to purchase gems was not even MENTIONED on the game status update!!!

Gaile, the issue affecting the most people on the Gem Store thread is being unable to make purchases because people are randomly and unjustifiably being tagged “fraudsters” by ArenaNet’s clearly fault “payment protection system”. That issue was not even mentioned in the email! WHEN is that issue going to be addressed?

My prior message was deleted within 2 minutes of posting on this topic. The main topic of this thread was not even addressed in the mass email. Can we get some acknowledgement by ArenaNet that they are aware of the issue that many people have posted about in this thread? And that something is going to be done and when we can expect it? We are all upstanding customers that want to spend money with ArenaNet. The problem itself is frustrating enough. Being ignored is adding insult to injury.

What is even more frustrating is you can see ArenaNet reps responding in the forums today to other issues but they are completely ignoring this issue which is affecting thousands of people!

Have you cleared out old mails? There’s a limit to how much mail can be in your inbox at any point in time.

Hamrammur.7528:

This is very odd I have checked with the bank and VISA where I live and they say there is nothing wrong with my card, even when I asked them if it was possible that the card was flagged as possible fraud they said that it was a long way from that happening. I feel like I am being threaded as an criminal. I give them one more week to fix this, after that I will quit playing GW2 and they will never get a single penny from me again PERIOD

Same here Ham. My credit card companies (including the one I work for!) are not even SEEING the charges reach them because ArenaNet and their absurd “payment protection system” has concluded that I (along with the rest of us) are fraudsters or some sort and are not sending the payment through. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE!

If we do not get action soon on this I’m inclined to go directly to NCSoft management on this. I’m quite sure Teak Jin Kim (NCSoft CEO) and Jaeho Lee (NCSoft CFO) would be alarmed to learn that the game they just funded with millions of dollars based on a micro-transaction business model is prohibiting likely thousands of customers from engaging in micro-transactions!!!

NNC.2086:

120905-010083

Same as tons of other people: Unable to use my Paypal, Debit or Credit card to purchase gems.

P.S. Please disable this dumb Payment Risk Management garbage permanently. My financial institution, Visa, Paypal and myself are all perfectly capable of handling this stuff on our own, and we have for years.

This is SPOT ON! Banks have far more sophisticated ways to detect fraud and are an adequate protection. ArenaNet needs to stick to developing games and NOT try to develop “payment protection” or whatever this idiotic program is called.

Given the number of people this is affecting and the lack of any updates from ArenaNet I am beginning to doubt they are even reading this thread or care that this is a problem. We got some response earlier in the thread that they viewed it as a “serious problem” and would get focused on it but I’ve seen no evidence this is the case. My ticket was submitted on this on August 31! And I’m still unable to purchase gems. I am a BANK EMPLOYEE for crying out loud and ArenaNet thinks I (along with apparently lots of other of their customers) am some kind of fraudster. I charge around $30,000 per month on my AMEX and they decide on their own to block my attempt to charge a measly $50????" You’ve GOT to be kidding me.

My wife encountered this issue trying to send gold to me from her account to mine. Yet another absurd limitation ArenaNet has put in place.

ArenaNet, we need some very specific and detailed communication from you. We don’t need general platitudes about you are aware of the issue and will make it right. As you can see, some people are basically being told “Too bad” and that is obviously unacceptable. If the culprit is your “fraud protection” system then you need to discard it immediately because its a “business killing” system. Your system actually appears to be biased AGAINST long-time NCSoft customers! That’s insane!.

Here’s what we need:

- Acknowledgement from ArenaNet that you are aware of the issue and confirm you understand WHAT the problem is.
– Clear description of your intentions and plans to fix the problem in short order.
– Clear description of the ETA for the fix.

Firestorm.8605:

Update: I still haven’t received a response from Customer Service. And it has now gotten even worse. I can’t even receive ANY in game mail whatsoever. My main worry still lies with the fact I bought something with my money and still haven’t received what I paid for. Please may I get a response.

Reference: 120830-000815

In case this might be helpful re: mail, you may want to check and see if your mailbox is full. You may need to delete old emails to make room for new ones. I wasn’t receiving mail for a day or so and realized I hadn’t deleted old mail. Once I deleted the old mail new mail that people had sent me starting showing up!

To add to this – the complete absurdity of a purchase restriction being placed on my account is I am a Bank of America employee! Further, my wife has, with the same AMEX account, been able to purchase gems. We need some sanity injected into this issue quickly.

I am completely shocked that this issue which by evidence of this thread is impacting ALOT of customers did not get acknowledged in the latest game status update posted to the GW2 wiki page. This bug is purely caused problems at ArenaNet, is dramatically impacting customers ability to enjoy the game, and perhaps most importantly is dramatically impacting the amount of money ArenaNet can earn from the game.

The solution here is simple. Remove permanently the purchase restrictions from everyone in this thread who has submitted a ticket, and do NOT apply new purchase restrictions until you have an anti-fraud setup that behaves sensibly.

The absurdity of these anti-fraud procedures is one thing. The lack of any official acknowledgement of affirmative action being taken to correct the issue is quite another.

Its obvious the “one of more of your systems that is meant to detect and prevent fraud” do not work AT ALL. They are preventing people with legitimate intent to purchase goods with THEIR cards from doing so. Can we get a reasonable and informative status update from someone at Arena.Net?

Any updates from ArenaNet on this issue? Clearly alot of people have the issue. I tried buying gems again today and still no luck. Can you give us a status? Have you identified the issue? Any ETA on a fix?

Sorry I did have another number. 120831-002971

I guess I did submit multiple tickets. Sorry!

Gaile, Thank you for responding! Here’s my ticket number: 120904-009313 . I can’t remember if I submitted multiple tickets or not. That is the only number I have.

Well all I know is we want to give them our money, microtransactions are an important part of their business model, and (1) there’s an issue preventing us from giving them our money and (2) no one seems to care because they aren’t offering solutions – or even posting in this thread to acknowledge there is an issue!

LadyLozza, so if you get a new card that would fix your problem? Or is your account tainted now so even if you get a new card that won’t fix your issue?

Same issue here Elle. My wife has used her Amex and been able to make some purchases though others were inexplicably refused. However, I have not been able to make any purchases and keeping getting “Approval Failed” every single time. I’ve been trying since August 25th and no luck!