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Warhammer Online Users Repeatedly Overbilled
TheSpoom writes "A screw-up in EA's Warhammer Online billing system has resulted in many players being charged upwards of 22 times for a one-month subscription, filling bank accounts with overdraft fees and the Warhammer forums with very angry players, who are discussing the issue quite vocally. EA has said that refunds are in progress and that '[they] anticipate that once the charges have been reversed, any fees that have been incurred should be refunded as well.' They haven't specifically promised to refund overdraft charges, only to ask customers' banks to refund them once the actual charges are refunded. They seem to be assuming banks will have no problem with this."
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to rampant stupidity and incompetence. This is EA afterall.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
3 elements of the tort of negligence:
1) Did they owe the claimant a duty of care?
Yes. By getting direct access to their bank accounts, they had to take care not to overcharge.
2) Did they breach that duty?
Yes. They charged multiple times.
3) Did that breach cause damage?
Yes. Customers were put into overdraft (and who know how many cheques bounced because of it).
I probably left it in the glove compartment of my flying car.
I thought that, by now, we would have computerized bank accounts with asymmetric encryption, so that I can write a shell script and put it in a cron job to automatically send the $20 monthly payment to my MMORPG provider. The electronic pseudocheck would have a date, a recipient, an amount, and an RSA digital signature. It would prevent mistakes like this, as well as most credit card fraud.
Until we get this system (never), just don't tie your bank account to anything. Use your credit card for everything electronic, since you can always dispute the charge.
Okay working for a financial institution myself, I can tell you that it is very likely if the charges are on a Visa Debit Card, people do have recourse. Due to Visa's Zero Liability Coverage, people who bank with an institution that participates in the VZL are likely to get the funds back if they file a Dispute with their bank or credit union. Fees resulting from the erroneous charges are also likely to be refunded as well. However, each institution is different and some don't fully participate in the Zero Liability Program. If you bank with an institution that tells you to go fuck yourself, it's time to switch to a new bank, or better yet, just switch to a credit union.
So to summarize, call your bank if you were one of the ones fucked over by EA and request an immediate dispute on all charges beyond the one authorized and agreed upon charges (and then proceed to cancel your subscription to Warhammer). Also, as a word to the wise, make sure to ask your bank to stop subscription charges from EA. Just canceling and getting a new debit card isn't enough. If a merchant has an authorization for subscription billing, they can still bill the card even after the card is canceled, since they have an authorization already.
I've incurred overdraft fees based on merchant error a number of times, and every bank I have ever had has done everything they can to screw their customers out of as much money as possible. EA expecting banks to refund overdraft fees is like asking EA to ... I don't know ... behave like a company that cares about its customers.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
Not everyone has hundreds of dollars to spare for a fuckup like this - some people were charged upwards of a thousand dollars! Not everyone can afford the tens or hundreds of dollars of fees they'll be facing, not just in overdraft fees, but also fees for bounced checks, etc. There are lots of people who live paycheck to paycheck - they feed themselves, maybe their kids, they pay rent... but there's not too much left over to save up after that. Even just a few days in which someone can't pay bills can cause a great deal of carnage in someone's life.
A programmer is a machine for turning pizza into code.
Considering one subscriber in the linked discussion thread got charged 13 times for his ~$77.94 6-month subscription (which wasn't even up for renewal for another five months), for a total of $1,013.22 in charges—yeah, this sort of thing will fly under everybody's radar.
Many players probably use debit cards tied to their personal checking accounts; I'm sure they'd notice multiple charges. Even more so if they live paycheck to paycheck.
Even though EA/Mythic are allegedly working with their payment processing vendor(s) to reverse all the extraneous charges, they're still putting the onus on the customer to check with their respective financial institutions to ensure that any fees incurred are voided or reversed. I'm sure that is going to give said customers the warm fuzzies about continuing their patronage.
Total clusterfuck on the part of EA/Mythic. Heads should roll, and liberally.
Title should read "Former Warhammer Online Users Repeatedly Overbilled"
My webcomic
My point is, we can all complain that banks are evil machines not caring about people, but we're part of the problem because we treat them like machines.
Woah woah, wait... let me get this straight. I *choose* to patronize a bank, enriching them through my custom. Now you're telling me, that's not enough? That I essentially have to bribe them for good fucking service?
I'm sorry, buddy, but that's pure, complete bullshit. I am their fucking client. It's their job to please *me*, not the other way around. Now, do these employees deserve to be treated with kindness, dignity, and respect? Yes, of course, just like every other human being out there. But I am not, and should not, be obligated to buy fucking flowers for the local bank branch manager just so that I get decent service. Hell, the very fact that you believe that's necessary speaks to their rank arrogance. It's utterly absurd.
What may happen is that most of the people who used credit (not debit) cards demand a chargeback from their bank, EA gets hit with thousands of chargeback fees, and EA's merchant bank kicks them into a higher cost credit card category for excessive chargebacks.
There are Visa procedures for this. This is a chargeback code 82 - "Duplicate Processing". Likely cause: "Electronically submitted the same batch of transactions to the merchant bank more than once". See "The Chargeback Life Cycle", page 71, for an overview.
Generally, if chargebacks exceed 100 chargebacks and 1% of transactions, the chargeback penalty provisions kick in. Thereafter, the merchant is charged $100 per chargeback by the merchant's bank. The merchant is forced into Visa's "High Risk Chargeback Monitoring Program", a $5000 "review fee" is charged to the merchant for the first month, and even higher fees are charged if the problem continues.
Even big merchants have to pay. The banks have to deal individually with each customer to straighten out the mess. They charge the merchant for that.
Incidentally, "No Chargeback" sales receipts are prohibited by Visa rules and will not be enforced by banks.
EA is telling their customers to contact their financial institution before calling EA. It would probably be cheaper for EA if EA dealt with the problems themselves, but their call center may be too small.
Some users are complaining that EA charged them partway through the billing cycle, when they didn't owe EA a payment.
Anyway, EA will be getting a big bill from their bank.
Dear Valued Customer,
We are sending you this email to bring this matter to your immediate attention.
It appears that some of our customers may have been inadvertently charged multiple times for their subscriptions. If you are affected, you should start seeing a reversal of charges within 24-36 hours. We anticipate that once the charges have been reversed, any resulting fees that have been incurred on the affected account should be reversed as well. If after 36 hours, there are still incorrect charges or fees on the affected account, please follow these instructions:
* Please begin by contacting your financial institution and explain to them that you were charged multiple times and, as a result, over drafted. Most financial institutions will reverse these charges.
* If your financial institution is unable to remove these charges, you may contact our billing department for help with charge reversal by calling 650-628-1001 during our hours of operation, which are 10:00 AM EDT - 10:00 PM EDT, 7 days a week. Please have the phone and fax number of your financial institution ready when you call.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this issue may be causing you. Please continue to watch the Herald for your respective game (http://warherald.com/ or http://camelotherald.com/) in the coming days for further information regarding this issue.