[The end is dawning near; Turbine is finally taking over all servers, so Europe and America will be merged together. This has wrought some questions and worries, but it seems like they are being answered and the merger seems to be going as smooth as such a transition can be.
But a detail I have wondered about is the payment methods. I live down south of the U.S.; Mexico has still some real trouble when it goes to paying. I can remember a few months back that I was really ready to pay the game; instead I just got disheartening problems that made me wish not to pay ( I finally did):
- First off there was no way to link my card, since it seems like the third party was not able to offer a billing service.
- The banks themselves did not help. Reference numbers for the payment were from two to six (!) characters longer than the spaces the teller could fill in.
- Our 7-11 don’t had the game card they assured that they sold there (funny enough, the company removed the game card option about a month later after I checked).
- There was no PayPal option. After some frustrated attempts, I just emailed the guys. They sent me a link with payment option that didn’t match the one I had access to. Turned out it had PayPal as an option, but then said my region was not included (Mexico??? It is SOUTH of the US).
- There is a Latin American PayPal. Bankrupt, PayByCash never removed the option.
- Western Union tells me I can’t send money to companies. Now, that one was real weird…
- Only option: a card that overprices the game. I now pay roughly 45$ for a 60-day subscription.
Then comes this great moment you finally get a code to play the game as a VIP, and suddenly an error occurs and you can’t upgrade your account. After checking forums and FAQs, I get the answer: it is a long known error. Luckily I tried to upgrade on weekdays, which means I got the key activated in less than 30 minutes by the customer service.
What is the whole point of that retelling? Well, seeing that Turbine is now international and has no excuse of being “just for the US”, I think the guys at Turbine should revisit their payment options and contracts with 3rd parties.
When I wanted to subscribe to the LotRO VIP service, it was annoying the problems they had receiving my money I wanted to give to them. It is really weird I had so many problems, especially considering they need my money (and of all others in the world) to keep the business running. I wondered on how hard it was to get a subscription. The most annoying part though, was when I discovered the mistake they had receiving my code. Luckily customer service responded immediately.
Considering that now Europe, not only Australia, is going to have to pay to Turbine, I really wish for a revamp of the payment systems. PayPal should be easy to use to get my subscription fee sent over, for I know it works for many other companies. Why can’t I access it?
Hopefully the inclusion of Europe can get a look on this little issue, that is not game breaking, but I can suppose quite some have given up on their VIP account due to the troubles to paying.
Sorry for not writing much this week, I have been really busy this week, didn’t even get to play much. Also, I am changing my publishing day to Monday.
All Hail!]
No comments:
Post a Comment