NC Soft Security Measures makes it impossible for me to keep playing CoH

It's been a nice six years, and unfortunately it looks like it is going to be cut short for me.

In the last months I kept having problems purchasing boosters, due to the security measures in place in the account management website, and finally since my CC expired, I can no longer update the billing info on my account management page with my new credentials as I seem not to pass the security measures.

Its quite simple really. If you are a Citizen of Country A with Baning in Country A but live in Country B for XYZ reason, the current system will classify you unsecure. Since when you live in a country like country B and are using bank accounts from country A, you must be a dirty criminal.

Last time it took me two weeks to get authorization from NC Soft support staff, after they verified I was really me... by asking obscure questions which did not have actual answers for 90% of them since my account was older than most of their security measures. Finally I was allowed to spend a few bucks to buy an in game booster pack.

Now it seems I have to jump through all these hops again to renew my billing info or even to purchase GR. Since I have, uh had, four accounts that would probably take like a month to actually get done at their speed, so... it seems I will be slowly phased out of the CoH playerbase.

Sorry if this sounded like a rant, not meant to rant but I AM upset since stopping the game was not from my choice. Unfortunately jumping through hoops and answering Call Center draft questions for weeks kind of outbalances the fun I get out of gaming.

I just wanted to post this out there to notify the situation which I thought was quite ironic, and see if maybe anyone on the same boat as me found some other means of continuing to play.

If not, it was fun, and enjoy GR, I know I would have.

You couldn't solve this entire issue simply by opening a second bank account in the same country that you live in? This seems like it would be a fairly easy way to solve the problem.

have you considered prepaid credit card gift cards ? visa & mc have more than a few flavours through various banks. i tend to use them in long term accounts to limit any account compromising headaches. anywho, i'd be surprised if you couldn't find a place selling them within driving distance.

I think you can even buy them online and have them shipped to you... which might also apply to Time Cards for CoH... not sure on that seeing as how I don't have any of these weird "not in that country 'for real'" issues.

I know for a fact that you can purchase off the PlayNC store via PayPal, so you could probably start with this. I don't believe you can run a subscription through that, however. Can you use Game Time Cards for the time being, instead?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I use Paypal on both my wifes and my account works great, and you can have Paypal linked to a bank account or credit card.

Now the next thing to do is start seeing some old junk on Ebay to get some cash in my Paypal account so it would be like playing for free(well not technically free but close enough)

For some reason, it declined my new credit card when I tried to use it to pay my subscription. So I went to Paypal and added my new card, which it accepted no problem.
And now I use paypal to pay my CoH account, and buy booster packs.

As a worker in financial services, any transaction on an account either debit or credit in a foreign country is classified as high risk and rightly so as a high proportion of these are fraudulent, even more so where the internet is involved. All NC soft are doing are trying to protect themselves and the card holder

I understand how frustrating it is and that the majority have to suffer for the actions of the minority but as I have seen so many people be victims of this I have to agree with NC Soft. As others have said Paypal is your friend for this kind of transaction

It's kinda like having a horridly burnt face you normally cover with a ski mask.

You are going to have to take off that mask to bank in person.

I just like the idea of a person getting mad he can't wear his ski mask to the bank.

O.o

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I hate to rain on PayPal's parade (because it's normally pretty good overall) but I feel compelled to let everybody here be aware of a recent problem I had trying to use PayPal and this game. I bring this up mainly because the OP is specifically having trouble paying for this game internationally and that's exactly how PayPal shot me in the proverbial foot.

I live in the United States and have had a confirmed PayPal account and house address with them for years. However a couple of months ago I was on a long business trip in Japan. I decided (foolishly in retrospect) to use my PayPal account to pay for the recent Mutant Super Booster Pack. Despite having a confirmed US address and sending money to a US based company PayPal apparently decided that since I initiated this transaction from Japan that it was a "suspicious" activity. A few days later (when I long thought everything was perfectly fine with it) PayPal unilaterally decided to reverse my payment to NCsoft without any effective warning. NCsoft reacted to that action instantly by banning my CoH account (which up until that time had been active without interruption since April 2004).

The net result is that it took me about 2 weeks of back-n-forth emails across 12 time zones to NCsoft to get a senior support person to unlock my account. Paypal cost me almost 2 weeks of playing (and Vet credit) just because they were "looking out" for my best interests.

Now in the greater scheme of things I guess I should be glad PayPal was being proactive enough that it kept my account safe from even ME using it. Better safe than sorry I guess. But this experience has annoyed me enough that I will refuse to use PayPal to pay anything to NCsoft again, regardless of where I am physically located in the world.

Caveat Emptor, and all that...

So you won't open a bank account in your new country because you won't be there very long, but you're never going to play again because you're cut off for that short time?