Chargeback Concerns With PhoneBill Pay Method

[Update - 08/05/2009]
As part of our accounting review process, we identified prior payment reversals resulting from chargebacks issued by the local telephone companies among a small percentage of World of Warcraft accounts whose monthly subscription is paid via the accountholder's local telephone company bill. Due to the missing payments, we temporarily suspended these accounts.

The communication that was provided to the players affected by these temporary suspensions was unclear -- we want to take this opportunity to clarify that these problems are not the fault of PaymentOne, which acts as an intermediary between the local telephone companies and Blizzard Entertainment. Note that the chargebacks were issued by the telephone companies and not PaymentOne. We regret any confusion over this issue and will be reinstating all of the affected accounts while we conduct a further investigation.

Please note that those affected players who recently sent in payments have had their World of Warcraft accounts restored, and no further action is required. With regard to the accountholders whose accounts still show missing payments, we will be contacting them directly to further address any outstanding issues.

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Good morning, everyone—

Due to the recent concerns many players have expressed regarding chargeback issues with PaymentOne, we’d like to provide you all with some additional information.

If access to your account has been disabled due to a filed chargeback for a telephone payment, this means that your telephone company has withdrawn funds already paid to Blizzard Entertainment via PaymentOne. This chargeback may have happened for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to: non-payment on the associated phone bill, a delinquent phone bill account, a requested refund via the telephone company, or a disputed payment.

If your chargeback (or the amount owed) happens to be less than your original subscription fee, this means your telephone company was able collect part of the payment using your available funds, but not all of it. This sort of "partial payment" can occur if your telephone company attempts to pay its own fees first and then the fees to outside companies, such as Blizzard Entertainment. If the payment you provided to your telephone company could cover your phone bill, but only part of your subscription fee, your chargeback will have only been for the amount of the subscription fee which was not covered.

So, for example, if your subscription fee was $14.99 and your phone bill was $50.00, your telephone company will attempt to pay off the $50.00 phone bill first. If you provided your telephone company $60.00, $50.00 would immediately have gone to cover your phone bill and only $10.00 would have gone towards your subscription fee. This means the amount owed to Blizzard Entertainment at this time would only be $4.99 USD.


If you have any questions regarding why these charges were withdrawn, please contact the telephone company which was used at the time the now-withdrawn payment(s) were applied to your account. If you have any concerns related to the retrieval process or what options may be available to you at this time, then please feel free to contact Billing & Account Services at your earliest convenience.

Billing and Account Services

• Email: billing@blizzard.com
  
• Web form: http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml?gameId=11
  
  Live Representatives Available Mon-Fri, 8am to 8pm PDT
  For phone assistance please call: 1 (800) 592-5499 || 1 (800) 59-BLIZZARD
  
  • Players in Australia should call 1-800-041-378
    
  • Players in Singapore should call 800-2549-9273
    
  • Players in Chile should call 1230-020-5554
    
  • Players in Mexico should call 001-888-578-7628
    
  • Players in Argentina should call 0800-333-0778
    
  • All other international players should call: (949) 955-0283

I understand how deeply frustrating this must be for many of you and I do not fault for wishing to express that frustration. Please accept my most sincere apologies for any grievance this situation has caused you.

With that said, I ask that you please remain civil while posting within this thread. Tensions are high, so I urge to you be mindful and respectful of each other's contributions.

Please note that any off-topic posts which violate the Code of Conduct will be deleted.

I would like to remind everyone to keep on topic if posting in this thread and to keep things civil. For those claiming that fraud has been committed in some fashion, we ask that any brash conjecture and conspiracy theories are left out of this discussion so as to ensure that the issue is addressed appropriately.

As originally stated, the chargebacks filed for an account means that the your Telephone Company withdrew funds that were paid to Blizzard Entertainment. Speculation about this statement being untrue or witch hunts for scrupulous dealings as cause for the chargebacks are presently unfounded and come off as very negative. Essentially, PaymentOne is simply a "Middle Man" which provides a service between Telephone Companies and other service providers to allow for additional payment options.

This can be a confusing situation for someone who actually received a chargeback, as they have found their account locked, and providing multiple alternative theories for why they got a chargeback in the first place is not helpful to them getting this sorted out.

If you are experiencing this issue with a payment dispute regarding a previous phone bill, please feel free to contact the telephone company you used at the time of the original subscription charge.

As part of our accounting review process, we identified prior payment reversals resulting from chargebacks issued by the local telephone companies among a small percentage of World of Warcraft accounts whose monthly subscription is paid via the accountholder's local telephone company bill. Due to the missing payments, we temporarily suspended these accounts.

The communication that was provided to the players affected by these temporary suspensions was unclear -- we want to take this opportunity to clarify that these problems are not the fault of PaymentOne, which acts as an intermediary between the local telephone companies and Blizzard Entertainment. Note that the chargebacks were issued by the telephone companies and not PaymentOne. We regret any confusion over this issue and will be reinstating all of the affected accounts while we conduct a further investigation.

Please note that those affected players who recently sent in payments have had their World of Warcraft accounts restored, and no further action is required. With regard to the accountholders whose accounts still show missing payments, we will be contacting them directly to further address any outstanding issues.