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Beware of Warner Brs/Turbine games
BingoBongBango
Member Posts: 24
As of yesterday Friday the 27th September all Turbine games have been charging their customers sometimes in excess of 100+ times ... a glitch in there "upgraded" billing system has caused the monthly billing to keep "re-billing" till the customers credit card or Debit/checking card is either at its limit or the bank account is completely drained .... many many customers have had their bank accounts frozen due to being alerted to fraudulent activity .... many many customers have no money over the weekend due to this happening on Friday and the "glitch" only fixed today .... On the Asherons Call Facebook page they are deleting anyone talking about this or mentioning it on there page as they are trying to cover this up ... they are going to reverse the charges but the damage is done ... especially when some accounts have been closed down and new cards sent out with a different number meaning they cant reverse the charges .... many many people are now faced with paying back upwards of $3000 .. one person had $6000 syphoned from his account that I know of, there maybe more that have been charged even more ....
The only communication is a feeble we are sorry for the inconvenience on there forums ... only 6 months ago they did an update to there billing system and just about every one got charged twice ... that was bad enough and now this ....
https://www.asheronscall.com/en/forums/showthread.php?61605-Billing-Issue-Update
hope this some how gets resolved and its not swept under the rug as Turbine really are trying to do right now
cheers
Comments
If accurate that's gonna suck not only for the individuals but Turbs PR legal & billing dept Gl to all long week next week
yea a few months back but it was limited to LOTRO only I think and didn't get #'s quite that high if I remember, plus it was during the week not the end of it.
Never mind is wasn't just LOTRO; OP is correct about when they did the billing system change about 6 mo. back some things got OOPSied.
As far as this one either,
false
not affecting LOTRO clients
LOTRO peeps asleep
actively cleansing LOTRO boards including account supt
My personal experience is with Asheron's Call and can (edit said cant instead of CAN) vouch for my account being drained and having no money for the weekend ... have food in the cupboard so not a total disaster ... its going to take 2-3 days for the money to be put back into the account. Turbine have stated this is the fault of the bank on not theirs and to call our banks for support ... I have a friend in texas that has $6000 drawn from his account .. it kept billing till there was only $3.95 in the account ... then it kept trying until his bank closed the account down
I cant personally speak for LOTR or DDO as I don't play either, but we saw multiple post on their forums that now are not there ... only VIP customers would be effected as the rest play FTP (a big majority of LOTR) and not a monthly fee as VIP member do ...
Believe it or not Asherons Call 2 is up and running 0.o.. and they are charged erroneously for that with an AC1 subscription many on those forums are reporting the same ... I know and understand that not many people care if AC1 or 2 are effected as the user base is small compared to LOTR and DDO .. although the evidence is point towards them covering up the damage to LOTR I can not 100% confirm that this is effecting them .. although the billing system (Turbine's billing system) is the same across all their games as you pay on a separate site than the game... Billing got upgrade across all games and all game servers LOTR, DDO, AC1 and AC2 went down for the "billing" upgrade ....
My intent was to at least the uncover the cover up that seams to be evident on facebook and their official forums and will leave it at that ....
Over charging and duplicate charges are one thing ... 6 months ago they already double charged most people .... this is over charging anything from $100 to $6000 ... I've never heard of a gaming company over charging by these large amount ... but I could be wrong ....
and thank goodness you are F2P .. your money is safe
I'm pretty sure the words "money", "safe", and "FTP" should never be used in the same sentence.
yea not entirely uncommon with 3rd P.s
the truly unfortunate thing (if accurate) is the timing. A weekend binge on your account like that has to be all kinds of suck.
This is why I always pay with game cards, or pre-paid gift cards...I simply do not trust these companies with my information. And, especially not Turbine.
Thing is, any one who had made an account with them - by the simple act of having Turbine's software on said users machine - had given them exoneration from this. And, from anything they might do in the future. Take a look at this excerpt from their EULA:
Now they are closing threads on the Asherons Call forums if you mentioned the billing "issue" .. and threatening bans one people that talk about it ... and they've posted a big sticky with the forum guidelines that apparently has a clause in saying we cant say anything bad against turbine .....
Great move ... sweeping it all under the carpet... oh and they don't have a third party billing company its all done in house .. they updated their software and it just kept billing over and over and over ... as I earlier mentioned till the bank closed the account or your money or credit limit ran out ...
1.) Just contact you're bank and let them know you did not authorize the charges from that company.
2.) Never leave you're credit card information on file (Always use Paypal.)
If you purchase transactions online use disposable credit-cards which allow you to change you're number multiple times in like 1-5 seconds if needed for any reason.
3.) Turbine has always been a bad company DDO sucks, LOTRO didn't like so much matter of opinion but very crappy game models.
4.) For any reason did turbine cause any automatic checks to bounce on you're account they are responsible for over-draft charges I would get a lawyer if needed and go after the company as its their 24 Charges that caused you're money to go down to the point where if likely even $1 comes out of you're account you go negative money and owe the bank a $40 fee or something.
Have you not read the Bible?
Oh, yeah, yeah... Not all of it. Actually, I'm listening to it on tape.
Don't tell me how it ends.
I want to apologize to the OP. I assumed in the back of my head that you were just Turbine bashing so I caveated my statement's with (iff accurate)
I checked the AC site and the OP is in fact telling the truth. sorry for suspicion it was the post count + the subject matter
again I apologize
Yea legally EULA's aren't nearly as ironclad as they read.
No contract or agreement can legally supplant your nations/states/province consumer protection laws or statutes. To include freedom of speech/assembly(or your regions equivalent) witch the whole defend portion of that particular EULA invalidates.
They are written the way they are for bluff purposes
EDIT
However anything in an EULA you break they can legally terminate service but that's about it. But using that clause often can make your PR dept a little too busy
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Can not find the US code number for the law "use of the internet to steal money" right now. But this may fall under that law and carries 20 years of jail time.
This is why it is just one very important reason to contact your bank as soon as possible so if they have to, they can report this to your state AG office and the Feds so all three can action to correct this.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
yea it's gonna be a long week for T billing. As far as the person talking about stealing, for that to stick you have to prove intent.
however damages on the other hand particularly if ones credit rating got jacked up after the account drain then a legit bill got missed....
No worries at all Bender ... its totally understandable to be skeptical especially with me just creating my account today ... and in all honesty I created it for the purposes of posting this information ... looking around I like the forums here so its a benefit to me now too :-)
I've been a supporter for Turbine for 14 years .... the developers that remain are great people and they have been doing a stellar job at trying to re-invent the game (AC that is) ... what other game has lasted 14+ years ? it was the fact that they (boffins above the developers) are still trying to cover this up is what bothered me and I usually am not the type of person to make a fuss of things like this but as people are saying ... over draft fees, late fees for a car payment missed due to no fund available .... closing of bank account due to 100's+ transactions from the same vendor on a weekend ... actually any time this happens is more than just a PITA .... so it really got my goat going ....
If me posting this makes people aware and perhaps some other larger gaming sites gets a hold of the info and make it public it may help people that got totally burnt by this with Turbine get some real resolution and Turbine admitting (publicly) that such major over charges have taken place and will everything in there power to compensate the people involved ... not just pay the monies they took out of the accounts ...
As for me my bank has already closed my account and I'm getting a new card with a new account number so they cant charge me any more .... but also they can not reverse the charges now so I have to dispute the charges with the bank and fight that battle ... hoping on Monday my bank will be able to help with all that ... my bank is awesome and go way above and beyond (its credit union so that makes a difference)
Sorry for being so long winded on all this .......
Even though these are boiler plate contracts, enforceability (or lack thereof), depends on the state, region, or province you are in, the court the matter is heard through, And a really good argument on either side. If you did or do any of the following:
- Pay them utilizing a line of credit not in your name.
- Install their software on a machine that you can not prove ownership of.
- Show/Have no substantial evidence of your claims.
- Agree to their ToS/EULA when not of age to legally do so where you live.
- Did not allow for adequate time according to your local laws for a resolution to the issue to be reached outside of court.
Any claim you or anyone would make on your behalf is substantially weaker. Especially if the company makes the ToS/EULA publicly available before the point of having to agree to it to proceed with use of their product (which Turbine does on their website, though it is difficult to navigate to without typing it into google).
The biggest reason that they will get away with it is because a heavy chunk of their users,are using their service illegally (or at the very least in a way that is against their explicit terms/conditions of use). If you go after them for whatever reason, they will do everything in their power to find fault with you.And, these are big boys. They won't play nice. If you have one song, movie, game or even an OS that you do not have the legal right to be in possession of or use of on your machine. be ready to go to jail soon after you start something with them.
If you start shart with a big boy...you'd best be squeaky clean to begin with. You also had best have the funds and time to commit to a very long process. Because they will draw it out as long as they can. And, you better have an air tight claim too. They have. They do. And, they will likely continue to get away with it. Because, those with the ability to hold them accountable don't care. And, those who care for the most part don't have the ability (or the drive) to see it through.
There may come a point when they mess up too badly. To where it reflects poorly on your local government to not go after them. But, I don't think this is nearly enough to get that ball rolling, when big electric, or big oil do stuff far worse then this to their customers each year and no one bats an eyelash.
It does suck, and thanks for the warning. Heck I have not enjoyed anything they have produced for sometime. And this is a final nail in the coffin for me ever playing one of their games again. And, if you got the ballz resources and ability to go after them...more power to you. But, otherwise..watcha gana do?
Damn again? This happened not that long ago you would think they would have fixed the damn problem already. Seriously it is like Turbine/WN is actively trying to kill off DDO, can't say for their other games but this is what it looks like to me for DDO and all the crappy FOS changes not to mention the enhancement pass/nerf.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
While you have a point please do not compare WB/Turbine to big oil and other huge energy related organizations otherwise the rest of your post looses all credibility.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.