ClickandBuy - Why Do People Hate It?

I tried to sign up for CB and it wouldn't go through. I don't know what happened but there was an error and after all I have read, I will pay the extra few dollars a month for Crysta and get a "free" month every now and then.

I am really angry with SE for doing this. There was no reason for it and then I find out that their "favorite players" get to keep the old way and I am even more angry. Between anger and disappointment that SE would make us go through all this and use a company that has enough complaints to be blacklisted on a good handful of banks.

And people saying "It's just one bank", if that bank is owned by a company that owns other banks, most likely all their banks have it blacklisted.

So while it will cost me more, I am ensured I won't be doubled bill.

So apparently.. the day after C&B billed me for my services.. someone tries to steal my card number but didn't have my pin .. The woman at my bank says some company (she wont tell me for some reason.. kinda pisses me off) tried to charge 20$ to my card number which thankfully my bank canceled it (and now my card too but meh)
Nothing else was used on my card before this except C&B so who knows.. but I do know I'm canceling CB and buying crysta using the other method.

I think they're nickel and dining me, if you scroll back some you'll see that there was least 3 email notifications saying I been charged 13.95, but when I check my bank statement :


CLICKANDBUY INTL CLICKANDBUY INTL LTD GB
$14.06

Where'd the extra 11 cents come from?

And course there is still about 17$ funds on hold so will have to wait to see if thats from them as well or not.

Cuz even when I log into C&B I shows : 13.95 USD as the amount charged.


EDIT: IT's the international nature of the payment, bank charged a "Cross Border Assessment Fee" of 11 cents... figures. Leaving the above in case someone comes across something similar and wonders why

Did anyone else register their ClickandBuy account on the SE website and get a message that they needed to call ClickandBuy to activate it? Called the number and it seems that they are only open 9-4pm Eastern...

I just did the id transfer thingy. Are we getting shafted on this? For payment options, I haven't seen the one that let's you pay for exactly what your characters cost you.

i sent a email asking to unlock my account i had just made and got a email saying i had to send a utility bill for proof of address

so i called to close it and just went to my paypal account to buy crysta instead

tho i do have to buy crysta separate for my 2 chars rather then SE just billing my card 2x >.>

Thanks! My best guess is that they blocked the account creation because I entered my current address (I recently moved) rather than the billing address my credit card company has on file. If they make me send a statement I may just go with Crysta myself ><.

No, it has to be a card issued from a Japanese bank to a Japanese mailing address, and be 3D Sercured to be accepted. If you have a JP account but aren't located in Japan, you can't pay directly with credit card anymore (they actually blocked non-JP cards from being added or updated to JP accounts at the end of 2008). The only option is Crysta, which can only be bought with WebMoney, the only source outside of Japan I know of being SuToCorp, which charges a markup. To use Crysta on any SquareEnix Account, you have to have a mailing address within the region of the account registered to the account, so you can't enable Crysta on a JP account without giving a fake JP address, which might flag you as an RMT and get you banned if they start verifying addresses. Add about $6 US to the monthly fee if you buy the small WebMoney cards to pay one month at a time.

Also note, on the official forum in the FAQ, they said you could link POL IDs from any region to SE Accounts of any region, and it would convert them to the region of the SE Account. However, you were boned if you had already linked to the same region when Security Tokens were released, as you can't unlink. After 3 weeks of the new system, a few importers with JP accounts that were still unlinked had reported success linking them to NA and EU SE Accounts, and then the server has been coughing up errors ever since, not allowing us to do the link, and the forum thread was locked for "not being a technical issue"/

I am now locked out of my JP account unless I want to risk a ban, and support has not responded in 7 weeks about my inquiry about a region change, after escalating it higher, or so they claimed. America support simply tells me to take a vacation to Japan (not in the budget) to get a Japanese mailing address such as a PO Box.

Click&Buy is flagged by CHASE and Bank of America as a fraudulent company, and they nuke any cards they see get billed by them, so you have to call and unlock the card every month, or wait for a new card to be reissued (up to 2 weeks). American banks also charge an international transaction fee since the company is in the UK, so you pay extra every month because you are paying outside your region. The fee has effectively gone up for American accounts.

Crysta (outside of Japan) is company scrip that you cannot convert back to real currency or give to another account, and you cannot buy in increments matching your monthly fees. Japan can buy in 1 point increments. If you only have one Content ID on an NA account, it's 1295 Crysta per month, but you can only buy in 500 point increments, so you'd have to pay for 100 billing periods, 3000 days, to reach a zero balance. Meanwhile, SE is collecting interest on investing that pocket change leftover from you and every other Crysta user that had to pay extra, and making a very sizable sum, while you get no benefit for paying for multiple months at a time, and being forced to buy more than you are spending at once. For these reasons, Crysta is not not allowed to be used in some countries (until their laws get changed by lobbyists) because their governments can see the obvious abuse of customers in the system.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/6978/detail.html

You've Spoken and We've Heard You
You, the community, have clearly expressed your dissatisfaction with our billing system transition—and we are listening. We now understand that the options we presented you did not meet the level of service you have come to expect from Square Enix, so we have been working hard to address these concerns.

Accordingly, we will be extending the transfer cut-off date until we are able to implement the following improvements:
- New credit card payment options for Crysta [Available Now]
- The ability to specify exactly how much Crysta you want to buy [Early Fall]
- New recurring payment credit card options [Mid Fall]

We hope these steps show our ongoing commitment to you, our fans. It is our goal to make the FINAL FANTASY XI experience as fun and rewarding as possible.

Also in the days to come we'll reveal details for new offers and incentives to help ease your transition to the new system.

We sincerely thank you for your continued support of FINAL FANTASY XI.

Yasu Kurosawa
FINAL FANTASY XI North American Online Producer

Looks like a victory for NA subscribers. If they start giving discounts for paying ahead, it may offset the extra expense for having a JP account and having to import WebMoney. We'll see what else they do. I'd still much prefer a region change, like their FAQ describes, so I can just go back to using my card directly again.

Sweet so I just got to deal with C&B's crappy reputation. /on phone with CC company.

cause its garbage!

on topic,i have used crysta with that ultima pay crap and it was faultless for me,no way am i going near that click and buy crap.

Ok... I went ahead and transferred my ID's to SE's new management system. To prepare for the process I opened a Click and Buy account and input my credit card information. I then received a notice from C&B that I needed to contact them (see above) I waited until I could call them during their <sarcasm>highly convenient</sarcasm> 9-4 EST business hours (I live in MST so that's 7-2) only to be told I could now proceed to verify my credit card account (I guess they just wanted to know I was a live person?)

I logged into their website and went to verify the account. The verification process entails two charges made to my major credit card for $1-$2 each, which I then confirm by telling them exactly how much those charges were. (This is similar to verifying a PayPal account except there it was my using my bank account and they gave ME the money.) The charges took a few business days to actually show up but when the process was all done the amounts were credited to my C&B account.

With my account verified I proceeded to transfer my ID's to SE's web system only to get to a poorly cropped (ie. the entire right side of the frame is gone) page asking to confirm my C&B credit card payment method. My verified major credit card is listed there with a huge red 'X' covering the usual radio button to select it. Not knowing if this meant that it was selected or invalid I clicked continue. The same page came up again, no new marks, no help text, so I presumed I was missing something in the cropped area. I tried to open the frame in a new tab and the "transfer successful" screen showed up. Weird, but it seemed to have worked. I then transferred my second ID without any problem and so I figured that everything had to be fine (after all, with POL it wouldn't let you move forward if there was a problem).

Then this afternoon I get an email from SE saying "due to a processing error with your payment method, all continuous options for my FFXI account have been cancelled." I log into the management site and click to reactivate my characters as described in the email. It takes me to that infamous C&B frame with my successfully charged and verified credit card account listed but with the red 'X' next to it. I try everything I can think of: logging into my account on C&B's website, searching the SE FAQ's and announcements, even spending an hour waiting to chat with SE's live support rep only to be told to contact C&B to find out what the problem is.... It's now after 5pm and a holiday weekend so I guess it will have to wait till Tuesday.

/rant

Me and My Buddy haven't had any problems yet.

Bitching about 39cents ? .. what about peoples who's gonna pay 30-40% more for the same month of play do to the USD --> EU forced switch ?
means playing with an NA pc version but playing in EU

To me, it's the same thing. I can afford it no problem, just the fact that they're charging me more than last month for the same game makes me want to rage.

Funny thing is, i check with my credit card company and there was a fee of $2.40 not a $0.39 charge. But if u select Crystal purchase and still use click and buy they dont charge u a fee, but u have to load your account every month w/crystal.

I'm actually fine with the new payment system, since I found someone who sells $20 game cards for $17, so I don't have to pay as much as I did before. Works for me.

Ok, quick question here. Hearing stories about people being locked out and all, so I wanted to know...

I totally forgot to switch over my account. Expected to get das boot, but still played up until about 5pm CST today (before work) with no problems. And SE still charged my account as usual.

Should I be expecting something soon?

***took like 20 seconds to set up, and errone say "omg how i do dis :("

Well, me personally am not having an issue doing it, it's just I get to the point where I put my credit card information on there, then it says "Invalid credit card information, blah blah" ...when I quadruple check for any errors and there is none, so I get this face.

Did you make sure to do the Verified by Visa or w/e thing?

I thought I remembered doing it a few months back, ...but in all honesty that kinda slipped my mind, I'll probably give that a shot tomorrow and see how my luck pans out. I'm so /derp ~.~

getonit

If you have a product priced at £9.61, you give me £10, and I don't give you your change, I'm basically stealing from you.

By being apathic to this, you're basically saying it's OK for a company to overcharge you for a product. This ***should not fly. Ever. It's not the amount people get upset about, it's the principle.

As for the region specific thing, it's entirely up to you whether you feel the increase is worth it. I believe NA POL accounts had to be linked with NA SE accounts, though?

SE have basically said the transfer isn't required until they implement the new, improved payment options in the Autumn.

You should be alright on the old system for now.

F**k click and buy, their service is deplorable, their customer service is scurrilous and incompetent. Seriously, after dealing with them I felt violated.

What really sucks is going to cancel your account at the end of the month, and being forced to sign on to one of those payment methods, it wouldn't just let me cancel my content ID's.
I had to run through that C&B sign up crap, which I didn't feel to safe using them and about midway through the window I closed out and searched for the company's reputation, at the time I noticed a lot of "SCAM" and other unsettling information through google about the company.
Then I searched for it through the BBB and given that it was not there a common rule of thumb is, if the BBB doesn't recognize it (yes BBB is based out of the US, however several international based companies do happen to be on it) don't use it. Surprisingly Square Enix managed to pull its score up from a C- to an A+ in the last few years. The BBB had them down as an unsatisfactory company not to long ago.
Long story short I hit the crysta button. didn't have to sign up for a C&B or paypal account. So I'm assuming I won't be charged. c_c
They did a real sloppy job on the payment transfer imo. But ever since the merger between Squaresoft and Enix co. the quality and level of the work they produce to me has seemed less than professional.

I hate that my bank charges me a fee for it because its from London....

I like Click and Buy.
Thanks to them, I was never able to pay to play FF14, because apparently I registered with them before that game was released, and they demand you use a password with a symbol and number in it...

No idea what the weird unrememberable password I chose was, and I hate unsecurity questions that make it easy for people to get into your account, so I have no idea what random string of letters I put for that either...

Other than that, I probably would be paying for FF14 right now, even though I almost definitely wouldn't ever be playing it.

Kinda sucks paying for FF11 with that weird Crysta stuff with some random "UltimatePay" company, but atleast it works most of the time.
Missing POL handling payment already. It was so much simpler and less hassle... :/