Charging my credit card twice.

#1 - July 11, 2013, 11:07 a.m.

Blizzard has been charging me double sub fees the last two months. I canceled my account on 4/22, because i wanted to switch to 60 day cards. It should have ran out of time on 5/4 but it did not. I figured that it's just take another month to stop the sub so i just played out the month.

My credit card bill comes for may, it shows 2 charges for my blizzard sub when should be none because i canceled the account in April. I expected one charge because of the extra month of time that my account was active, but there were two.

I called customer service about the extra sub charge. The representive told me to contact my credit card company and dispute the extra sub fee that was on my credit card. I did what he told me to, and they charged back one of the sub fees to blizzard.

So I play another week or two thinking everything is fine. The account runs out of playing time one day when I log in. I expected this because I coudnt' afford to pay the sub until a few weeks later, and I had canceled the account back in April.

A few weeks later I buy a 60 day time card, and try to add it to my account. The error message tells me my account is banned and to check my e-mail. The email says i'm banned because of the charge back made by my credit card and i'll have to pay the money back to get my account back.

I called back to blizzard, and he tells me he doesn't see a double charge and if i want my account back i have to pay the the month of game time back. I dont want to lose the account so i figure well it's only 16 extra dollars whatever. He unbaned my account and i added the 60 day time card.

Then my credit card bill comes for june, and there's the blizzard sub fee for the month they had my account banned. Not only was it banned but it was also supposed to be cancled with no more charges to my credit card after 4/22/13.

I can't afford this blizzard i'm poor.

Hermf

Support Forum Agent

#29 - July 11, 2013, 7:02 p.m.

Greetings, Pinku -

From what I can see of the call history, it appears this issue was already resolved on July 1. However, I certainly understand your frustrations with payment issues, and I'd like to take a moment to clear up a few misconceptions here.

The very short answer is this: if you are continuing to see two subscription charges, your credit card exists on two accounts as a subscription method. We do not re-add cards, there is no scam; but it is entirely possible that the cancellation process was not completed successfully.

We also do not hold accounts "hostage," nor do we ban accounts as a punitive measure when a cancellation is requested. However, if you report a charge to your bank as unauthorized, that creates a chargeback. This means Blizzard had to give money back for an active game account. Since game time is pre-paid, this means that the account now had time on it that was not paid for. To prevent the use of that time, the account is locked until it is paid back. Once the account is in good standing again, 100% of the unused time is credited back to the account. This is not a hostage situation; rather it's making sure that time applied to an account is appropriately paid for. You were not charged another $16, because that $16 had already been returned to the bank.

Again, I'd like to be perfectly clear on this: your account was not banned because you asked for it to be canceled. The account was locked because the funds were returned to the bank for time that had already been applied. If you report all of these charges as unauthorized, this will happen for each account that results in a chargeback. You do not get to play for free once funds have been returned.

Regardless, the absolute best way to get this handled in its entirety is to contact Customer Support directly via the Get Help page. The Blizzard posters here are Support Forum Agents and Forum Moderators - not CS Reps. If you call, the CS Rep can search the card number to find any and all instances of its use, remove it from all accounts, and even help you keep it from being used again. While refunds are never guaranteed, it absolutely does not hurt to ask for one.

It's also worth noting that we do not assist with these issues directly over the forums. If you're looking for immediate assistance with a billing issue, your best recourse is always direct contact.

So, to recap. If you call customer support, a rep can:

Answer any questions about and provide instructions for repaying chargebacks that were created when funds were returned for a purchase that was reported as unauthorized
Search for the card being used on any account
Remove the card
Potentially refund (not guaranteed) time spent
Stop the card from being used again
This all allows continued use of the account until the pre-paid time runs out

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

------------------------------------
Have feedback? Click me!