Pre-Order Payment Issues Warning!!

#0 - Oct. 29, 2010, 7:28 p.m.

Hello Fellow Gamers!!

I just wanted to give a warning to everyone out there who has or uses Pre-Paid Credit Cards. After 14 hours of trying to figure out why my payment was not being processed and after working with Blizzard Customer Support as well as the issuer of the Pre-Paid Credit Card (Mastercard, in my case), I was finally told why it is not working.

Blizzard upper management has decided that NO PRE-PAID Credit Cards will work for the Pre-Order of Cata. Which leads me to conclude the following:

1. Players who do not have access to a regular credit card will have to purchase Cata from a retail store only.
2. Players who have to purchase from a retail store will be at a disadvantage to the players who were successfully able to purchase the Pre-Order by playing live @ 12:01am December 7th, when the live servers launch.

I just want to say to Blizzard that this decision is extremely unfair, and as a long time player (3+ years now), I have to say that I am utterly devastated at this decision.

I can understand that Blizzard is attempting to prevent fraudulent transactions, however, there has to be some kind of accommodation put in place here. I went through hoops with the pre-paid credit card company to add the security options to my pre-paid card to make sure that the battle.net authentication process could verify that my card was a legitimate card. However, despite all my efforts, unfortunately the system is not accepting pre-paid credit card payments, nor will they for pre-orders of Cata.

So I wanted to give a fair warning to all Pre-Paid Credit Card users:

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PURCHASE THE CATA PRE-ORDER!! it will not work.

Thanks for reading

Harlsoco

#4 - Oct. 29, 2010, 8:10 p.m.

Q u o t e:
… I was finally told why it is not working.

Blizzard upper management has decided that NO PRE-PAID Credit Cards will work for the Pre-Order of Cata.

I am curious to know who told you this, Nbkpicard. I have done a bit of digging into the situation and would like to clear up some potential confusion. Not just for you, but for other players who are trying to use a prepaid credit card as well.

A player is able to use a prepaid credit card to make a purchase, however it is not always guaranteed the transaction will go through. Our system requires a zip code or postal code to be entered for address verification purposes. Most prepaid credit cards will need to be registered through the company’s website before they are able to be used to make online purchases. If the issuer of the card notices an online purchase being attempted on an unregistered card then the transaction will generally decline.

Pre-orders for Cataclysm can only be made through the website at this time. I show you have contacted Account Services 3 times regarding this issue. And while we would like to be able to assist you with the purchase over the phone we are unable to do so at this time. That is no way indicates that prepaid credit cards will not be accepted.

I am not sure what “hoops” you went through with the credit card company; however you would want to ensure at this point that the credit card has been registered with the appropriate contact information. Once the issues with the bank have been resolved you are more than welcome to attempt the upgrade again.

Harlsoco

#6 - Oct. 29, 2010, 10:51 p.m.

Q u o t e:
The last Customer Support person I spoke with told me that despite registering my pre-paid card with the issuing credit card company ( in my case Vanilla Pre-Paid Mastercard) no pre-paid cards will be allowed for the Cata pre-order. The CS's name was Byron.

I apologize for the misinformation, Nbkpicard. This is indeed not the case. There may be other underlying issues that are resulting in the card not being accepted. As I stated earlier, prepaid credit cards are accepted. Our system has no way of knowing during the authorization process if the card being used is an actual credit card or a prepaid credit card. Each type of card has the same chance of the charge going through or declining.

Q u o t e:
Each CS rep I spoke with (at Blizzard) advised me that they cannot manually process any pre-orders at this time.

At this time this is indeed the case. It has not yet been determined if representatives will be able to upgrade accounts to Cataclysm before launch.

Q u o t e:
Byron told me that only CC's that are attached to bank accounts etc would be accepted as payment.

My apologies once again for the relay of incorrect information. To clarify, cards that are attached to bank accounts are debit cards, meaning the funds are withdrawn from a bank account when that particular card is used. Both debit cards and credit cards are acceptable.