At least that is what Mythic would probably wish at this point. For myself, I logged into my debit card website last night only to discover that I had been charged 4 extra times by Mythic Entertainment for reasons passing understanding. I quickly contacted them about the problem and then saw this post on the Herald…
We are aware of the current issues that players are experiencing with being billed multiple times for their subscriptions. We are currently in contact with our vendors to have these charges reversed as soon as possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing and are aggressively seeking resolution for this issue.
Ouch…not exactly the best way to tell your customers that their financial information is in safe hands. Some people have been reportedly charged over 44 times!! That’s 44 charges of $14.95 and when you count the overdraft fees that will most definitely occur then it gets even worse. I’m not exactly sure how something like this can happen, but it could end up being much more than a minor inconvenience for some people. Mythic has updated the Herald with the following statement…
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. If after 36 hours, there are still incorrect charges or fees on your account, please follow these instructions:
- Please begin by contacting your financial institution and explain to them that you were incorrectly charged multiple times and, as a result, over drafted. Most financial institutions will reverse these charges
- If your financial institution is unable to remove these charges, you may contact our billing department by calling 650-628-1001 during our hours of operation, which are 10:00 AM EDT – 10:00 PM EDT, 7 days a week. Please have the phone and fax number of your financial institution ready when you call.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this issue may be causing our players. Please continue to watch the Herald in the coming days for further information regarding this issue.
Now I have to agree with Broken Toys here, who discussed the same issue in a recent post.
http://brokentoys.org/2010/04/09/mythic-decides-billing-people-is-fun-cant-stop-doing-it/
Just saying, “Sorry for the inconvenience”, doesn’t exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Some people could have missed out on paying other bills while waiting for charges to be reversed and that’s much more than a minor problem. I would suggest that Mythic should reimburse some of their customers for this whole debacle straight away. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Just ask Southwest Airlines after they tossed Kevin Smith off of a flight for being too fat. He ripped them a new one afterwards, exposing their double-talk to anyone who would listen and giving them a PR nightmare to end all PR nightmares.
nightwreath
I’m not an MMO player at the moment – taking a break for a little while, as I do every so often – and I never played Warhammer Online or Dark Age of Camelot (both of which are tentatively crossed off my ‘to play’ list). However, I’ve been following this out of sheer curiosity. It seems there are some other aspects to this that make things so much more worse.
From what I’ve read (and bear in mind I don’t have as much information as some), there are some people on six-month billing cycles, paying somewhere around $85. Now imagine these people were billed 44 times for that amount. And then imagine the overdraw fees on top of all that – which, apparently, is not being refunded by some banks (‘they can not reverse overdraw fees due to another company’s financial errors’ or some such thing). Mythic is likely going to be liable for reimbursement.
On top of that – some people have been hit for a second round of multiple billings. Ouch. I’m not saying they should have ultimately fixed the problem by now – it would be nice, but these things can take time – but at the very least, they could have put a halt on transactions, just to ensure it doesn’t happen all over again.
And then there are the ex-players – people who played the games and have since unsubscribed. At least some of them have suddenly found their game accounts reactivated and bank accounts billed multiple times. Shouldn’t their financial details be purged from the system long ago?
All in all, Mythic is screwed, and I think it’s unfair on them. This was the vendor’s mistake, but I’m guessing that Mythic is going to take the fall and the massive loss in reputation, not to mention the loss of money and players. Honestly? I hope they survive the fallout, and as long as they (and EA) find themselves a new billing company, I’ll happily sign up to check out the games at some point. But I’m not risking something like this happening again.
Yes, it does look like it was the mistake of the vendor and not Mythic. But most people will not realize that when they throw judgment down upon them. But the good news is my charges have already been reversed (posted about it), and Mythic has given customers a number to call if they have been severely inconvenienced. This is so Mythic can work with them on an individual basis to make it right. That’s all they can do in my book, and I hope others will start to see their charges reversed just as I have.