City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

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

Amanita

By Amanita,
Posted on: 2010-09-01 12:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
I don't think that's a pledge for a vendetta against PlayNC so much as resignation that "I can't renew my account, so I can't play until I can solve it." But I could be reading it wrong.
He said,
Quote:
it seems I will be slowly phased out of the CoH playerbase.
Which seems to mean he doesn't intend to come back.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ki_Draken_Magus View Post
A strongly worded letter from your lawyer would have prevented 2 weeks of going back and forth with e-mails. It's one thing for a company to CONTACT me to ensure a transaction is legit, it is something else entirely reverse a payment w/o any input from you. After all, you are the customer! Heck you can even send money from Pay Pal via your cell phone! Since it took them several days to do this they should have had enough time to send an e-mail or call!
Part of my problem was that I was in Japan doing many more important things than worrying about this situation as a primary concern. Had I been home and had a little more free time I might have gotten it resolved more quickly. You have to understand from NSsoft's point of view I had screwed them out of the blue by taking my money back from them. They initially had no idea I had nothing to do with PayPal's decision to reverse my payment. It doesn't really surprise me that they had to get a senior customer rep involved. Water under the bridge and all that.

While this episode with PayPal was sad and annoying I wasn't about to get my lawyer involved in a dispute over a $9.99 transaction. Besides my account had already been banned before I could do anything about it. A letter from a lawyer might have reduced the time it was locked by a few days but not prevented it from happening in the first place. You do realize that many people around the world consider Americans to be a little "sue-happy" don't you? Lawyers aren't the appropriate answer for everything you know.

The main point to my post was that PayPal is likewise not the "miracle cure" to these kinds of things. Sure it's great for the things it can do, but there are risks/consequences that people need to be aware of. The lesson learned is that you need to watch PayPal like a hawk so that they don't things "on your behalf" you don't expect.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
Part of my problem was that I was in Japan doing many more important things than worrying about this situation as a primary concern. Had I been home and had a little more free time I might have gotten it resolved more quickly. You have to understand from NSsoft's point of view I had screwed them out of the blue by taking my money back from them. They initially had no idea I had nothing to do with PayPal's decision to reverse my payment. It doesn't really surprise me that they had to get a senior customer rep involved. Water under the bridge and all that.

While this episode with PayPal was sad and annoying I wasn't about to get my lawyer involved in a dispute over a $9.99 transaction. Besides my account had already been banned before I could do anything about it. A letter from a lawyer might have reduced the time it was locked by a few days but not prevented it from happening in the first place. You do realize that many people around the world consider Americans to be a little "sue-happy" don't you? Lawyers aren't the appropriate answer for everything you know.

The main point to my post was that PayPal is likewise not the "miracle cure" to these kinds of things. Sure it's great for the things it can do, but there are risks/consequences that people need to be aware of. The lesson learned is that you need to watch PayPal like a hawk so that they don't things "on your behalf" you don't expect.
Did PayPal have your current phone number?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by LISAR View Post
Did PayPal have your current phone number?
Yes. As I mentioned in my first post all of my information has been confirmed by PayPal and has not changed for years. I ultimately got a single automated email from PayPal telling me that they were reversing my payment, but they literally sent me that email a few hours AFTER they had done it.

I'm sorry I may be bursting people's collective bubbles about PayPal's supposed coolness and infallibility but this situation is what it is. To be fair I've used PayPal in hundreds of other transactions without any trouble so it's not like I totally hate them and everything they stand for.

Again, one more time, my main point is that don't automatically assume (as I had gotten used to doing) that PayPal is completely perfect. *shrugs*

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
Yes. As I mentioned in my first post all of my information has been confirmed by PayPal and has not changed for years. I ultimately got a single automated email from PayPal telling me that they were reversing my payment, but they literally sent me that email a few hours AFTER they had done it.

I'm sorry I may be bursting people's collective bubbles about PayPal's supposed coolness and infallibility but this situation is what it is. To be fair I've used PayPal in hundreds of other transactions without any trouble so it's not like I totally hate them and everything they stand for.

Again, one more time, my main point is that don't automatically assume (as I had gotten used to doing) that PayPal is completely perfect. *shrugs*
You were in Japan for years?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by LISAR View Post
You were in Japan for years?
What? No I wasn't in Japan for years. I'm sorry but did you even read the first post I wrote about this yesterday? It's back on the first page of this thread.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
What? No I wasn't in Japan for years. I'm sorry but did you even read the first post I wrote about this yesterday? It's back on the first page of this thread.
So your phone worked in Japan?

 

Posted

NC soft does seem to have FAR too many security measures in place this would annoy me alot its like facebook i tried to sign in on my new kindle and i couldnt verify who i was as they wanted me to name ppls tag photos i had never seen before and who were wearing masks... pointless.... on play.com and amazon i dont even need my credit card details anymore i see nothing wrong with this and i generally dont keep much money in accounts i spend online

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by LISAR View Post
So your phone worked in Japan?
Uh, yes. What's your point?

The first time I knew anything was wrong PayPal had ALREADY reversed my payment and NCsoft had banned my account. At that point it didn't really matter what PayPal had done because the real "damage" that I had to fix was getting NCsoft to unlock my account.

Sure I called PayPal, but at that point they effectively said "too bad for you because we did the right thing by keeping your account safe from what we thought was a suspicious transaction". They were essentially zero help in this situation.

After contacting NCsoft and having to wait several days for my case to make it to the desk of a senior customer service rep they finally pulled the first Super Booster Pack code off my account and unlocked it. The day they finally got around to doing that I rebought that Super Booster Pack with a credit card and have had no trouble since.

I hope that explains the situation to your satisfaction.
As I said before because of this I will not use PayPal with NCsoft again.
It's pretty much as simple as that.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
Uh, yes. What's your point?

The first time I knew anything was wrong PayPal had ALREADY reversed my payment and NCsoft had banned my account. At that point it didn't really matter what PayPal had done because the real "damage" that I had to fix was getting NCsoft to unlock my account.

Sure I called PayPal, but at that point they effectively said "too bad for you because we did the right thing by keeping your account safe from what we thought was a suspicious transaction". They were essentially zero help in this situation.

After contacting NCsoft and having to wait several days for my case to make it to the desk of a senior customer service rep they finally pulled the first Super Booster Pack code off my account and unlocked it. The day they finally got around to doing that I rebought that Super Booster Pack with a credit card and have had no trouble since.

I hope that explains the situation to your satisfaction.
As I said before because of this I will not use PayPal with NCsoft again.
It's pretty much as simple as that.
I was just covering the bases, it seems strange to me that a financial institution would take action on a suspicious charge without contacting the account holder. Every time I hear about PayPal's security policy I am confused by it. They do not seem to be a very customer orientated group.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by LISAR View Post
I was just covering the bases, it seems strange to me that a financial institution would take action on a suspicious charge without contacting the account holder. Every time I hear about PayPal's security policy I am confused by it. They do not seem to be a very customer orientated group.
Well I agree I would've thought they would try to contact me BEFORE taking that kind of action, especially since they waited for several days after my purchase. As it was the first hint that they were going to do anything about it came in the form of an automated email sent to me AFTER the fact. Even if they could not reach me by phone they could've have sent me an email days before the reversal to comfirm it. I have no idea why that didn't happen and the folks at PayPal couldn't give me a good answer either.

Prior to this I've used PayPal for years from my home. I have even used it while travelling domestically in the US without trouble. I think this might have been the first time I tried to use it from a location outside the US so I assume that's why they flagged it as suspect. But since I had used it for years from many locations I was never led to believe my physical location outside the US was going to be a problem in this case. Obviously in retrospect it was.

The OP was trying to figure out ways to pay for his NCsoft CoH account from a foreign country. I just mentioned my PayPal situation as a public service warning to everyone that apparently PayPal has some "gotchas" with dealing with international transactions.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
Hm. Looks like you're the next one in my sig.

Typos FTW!
T'was a typo, but also true in both ways.

"The Hamidon is a what what of what?" - Brian the mission guy.

 

Posted

I've been having a similar problem. I got a new card; same number new expiration date. I wanted to change the expiration date so it could bill properly in a few days for the monthly auto-renewal. I got a transaction error that billing is calling risk mangement security. I didn't have this problem in 2009 when I had to update my card on file. So, it must be something new. I've been dealing with this for 4 days now back and forth and my account is supposed to renew tomorrow. My bank however, is 5 miles from my house. So, it's not even a high risk type situation as the OP had mentioned.

 

Posted

This is what I use when ever I have a problem. 1-512-225-6359 NC-Soft's CS Phone Number.

My Lego Models http://www.flickr.com/photos/30369639@N07/ lemur lad: God you can't be that stupid... I'm on at the same time as you for once, and not 20 minutes into it you give me something worth petitioning?
Lady-Dee: Hey my fat keeps me warm in the winter and shady in the summer.

 

Posted

Robo,

How long of a hold time do you have with them?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by manben View Post
Robo,

How long of a hold time do you have with them?
It varies. Sometimes it'll take an hour or two or other times it'll be a matter of seconds/minutes.

My Lego Models http://www.flickr.com/photos/30369639@N07/ lemur lad: God you can't be that stupid... I'm on at the same time as you for once, and not 20 minutes into it you give me something worth petitioning?
Lady-Dee: Hey my fat keeps me warm in the winter and shady in the summer.

 

Posted

Cool. Thanks. I may give them a call. I hate to have my account lapse just because some Risk Management security feature flags me for trying to update my cards expiration date. The online support even tried saying they couldn't give time frames for how long the Risk Management lock would stay in place. I'll give CS a call.

 

Posted

Thanks to Robo's suggestion to call CS this issue was resolved. I spent no more than 40 mins on the phone (wait time included) and successfully have my info updated now. =-)

 

Posted

Game time cards.

Cheaper than subscribing, no hassles with NCSoft security.