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Warhammer Online overcharges players

Published on 9th April 2010 by Joe Martin

Warhammer Online subscribers have unhappily discovered that they have been overcharged for their subscriptions.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning players are complaining that they've been heavily overcharged for their subscriptions on the official forums (via Eurogamer), often by hundreds of dollars.

The official forum is now filling with complaints as Electronic Arts and Mythic Entertainment rush to correct the issue, but some gamers are already contemplating legal action.

"My account was charged 22 times at 14.99 that is a total of 329.78 not including overdrafts," said one subscriber in the forums. "Maybe legal action should be taken to show the seriousness of this problem."

Judging by the way that players have been overcharged, it seems as if the error is causing many smaller charges, rather than singular large transactions.

A response on the official Warhammer Online website reveals that publisher EA is already aware of the issue and seeking to correct it though.

"We have confirmed with our vendor that players who have been charged multiple times for their subscriptions should start seeing a reversal of charges within 24 - 36 hours. We anticipate that once the charges have been reversed, any fees that have been incurred should be refunded as well."

EA advises players who do not get a refund within two days to contact their bank, while players continue to demand some form of compensation to balance the mistake.

Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

16 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

Domestic_ginger 9th April 2010, 12:51

Overdraft charges are stinkers. Definately know where they are coming from.

Rather than promising the money is going to be repaid; some better explaination on what exactly happened may be nice.

Omnituens 9th April 2010, 12:57

I was once charged 12 times of an expansion for a MMO because the pay button broke, and took me to an error page telling me to retry, but it actually worked. Imagine my suprise when I checked my bank account...

eddtox 9th April 2010, 13:00

Bit of a bummer. I had a similar problem with my mobile phone provider a couple of years ago. Shouldn't be a problem getting money+costs incurred back, either from ea or through the bank, should that fail.

Unknownsock 9th April 2010, 13:39

This is why people should use their credit cards.

salesman 9th April 2010, 13:59

This is why I buy game cards, because I do not want them to have my banking information.

eddtox 9th April 2010, 14:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unknownsock
This is why people should use their credit cards.

In most cases of this nature it shouldn't matter whether you used a credit or debit card. You should still be able to claim back the full amount + any charges incurred, without any problem with either your bank or ea. The only stipulation, of course, is that if you claim for extra charges incurred you need to provide proof.

TWeaK 9th April 2010, 18:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unknownsock
This is why people should use their credit cards.

Actually, it's a bit little known but if you go into your overdraft you're covered by the consumer credit act anyway. Your overdraft is a form of credit, after all. You might have to pressure the bank a little to do it, but they're obliged to refund you the money the same way a credit card would.

kornedbeefy 9th April 2010, 19:15

kornedbeefy 9th April 2010, 19:19

World of Warcraft and Paypay made a change to their payment process a couple months ago. it used to work great. Well the change automatically charged my debit card without giving me the option to switch to credit card like I had done many times in the past.

Long story short it cost an overdraft and the bank charged me a $25 fee. The bank all but laughed in my face when I asked a refund stating websites were at fault.

Even sadder not one of the companies would step up and do the right thing and refund the $25. I contacted Blizzard and Paypal as well and they either passed the buck or just replied with some lame excuse of why they couldn't refund the money.

eddtox 10th April 2010, 11:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by kornedbeefy
World of Warcraft and Paypay made a change to their payment process a couple months ago. it used to work great. Well the change automatically charged my debit card without giving me the option to switch to credit card like I had done many times in the past.

Long story short it cost an overdraft and the bank charged me a $25 fee. The bank all but laughed in my face when I asked a refund stating websites were at fault.

Even sadder not one of the companies would step up and do the right thing and refund the $25. I contacted Blizzard and Paypal as well and they either passed the buck or just replied with some lame excuse of why they couldn't refund the money.

That sucks. I would keep on their backs and threaten to cancel your subscription. Even if they don't refund you the 25 bucks, they should at least credit it to your account.

Vash-HT 12th April 2010, 05:48

This happened to me, I was overcharged 5 times over. Luckily this didn't cost me any overdraft fees, and they reversed teh charges within a day so it didn't end up being that big of a deal for me.

sp4nky 12th April 2010, 08:44

There's some peeved people on their forums. http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=p2psupport&thread.id=15916&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

MonkeyTurnip 12th April 2010, 09:59

it should be easy to get the money back, people who have been over charged need to look at the date and time of all the transactions processed, ie if there is 5 transactions on the same second for the same amount to the same company, or with in a minute. i had a similar issues with the national lottery, they charged me 4 times in 4 seconds for the same amount, which put me over drawn. i contacted my bank ( i have a premium, paid for account) and they refunded my money plus charges then persued the national lottery to get their money back.

if there are numerous transactions within a short space of time the bank will help, but you "may" have to persue the other company for any refund of account fees occured

sp4nky 12th April 2010, 23:26

What worries me about this is the company involved is BioWare Mythic, who are developing The Old Republic. I really want to play that game when it comes out but this incident makes me very nervious about the prospect of handing my bank details to them. I understand from the WAR forums that this is the second such "banking error" where multiple charges have gone through and, while people believed Mythic the first time, that it would never, could never, happen again, it seems the trust has gone.

Will my billing details be safe in the hands of BioWare Mythic? Can I afford the risk?

B1GBUD 13th April 2010, 08:18

HA HA.....

Krynn01 13th April 2010, 09:28

They operate through a third party to handle the payments. It's the 3rd party that is at fault, not them. Anything Mythic pays out will just get reimbursed to them from whatever 3rd part vendor they use.