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NCSoft, this is not how you should treat your legit customers

Draka

By Draka
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Draka

Draka

Posted
Posted

This gon (no pun intended) be long so brace yourself for some anger, rage and frustration.

 

A little backstory that will be relevant later on. I'm a long time NCSoft subscriber. And by long I mean since the launch of Lineage back in 1998. So it's been a good 18 years. And I've been playing every single one of their games. This particular account has been created and active for Aion back in 2008.

 

However...

 

I've been trying to buy NCoins for 3 days. And I've been getting this message:


 

Quote

 

Something went wrong on our end.
Please try again in a few minutes. (5300)

 

 

 

 

 

At first I thought it was temporary unavailable, no biggie, happened before, nothing to worry about. Yesterday I kinda started worrying. I mean I've been buying a lot of NCoins with my PayPal, my Master Pack also with absolutely no issues whatsoever until 2 days ago. So as a good chap I opened a ticket to the support. Don't worry, as a long term subscriber to NCSoft I'm well aware that their support is infamous for being notoriously incompetent. I don't know what I was expecting... And this is the drivel I got for an answer, the usual nonsensical copy/paste bs:

 

Quote

 

Hello,

To protect our customers and their billing information, we have implemented a Payment Risk Management system to detect possible unauthorized transactions or account use. After reviewing your purchase attempts, I see that they are being flagged by the Risk Management system. This means that something about your purchase attempt is being perceived as high risk by our system.

After manually reviewing your purchase attempts, I see that they are displaying characteristics that are commonly found to be associated with high risk transactions. For that reason, your purchase attempts have been determined to be high risk by our system and you will be unable to complete your purchase at this time.

The only suggestion we may offer at this time is for you to attempt your purchase at a later date.

If you have any further questions, please let us know.

Regards,

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine my surprise when I found out that I'm classified as a "high risk" because "something" about my purchase attempt was wrong. What is this "something", I suppose I will have to ask Nostradamus or any other occult seer since I will probably receive better explanation from them than NCSoft support will ever give me.

 

Well, okay, as the stupid moron that I am, I went to Steam and tried to buy something just to be sure that my PayPal was ok. Of course, there was no problem. My PayPal account, my personal email address have never been compromised (I work as a network security engineer so I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to security... duh), never had trouble with the bank and my credit card. But being the absolute idiot that I am, I contacted PayPal support too. Well, you guessed it - no problem on their end, obviously, I just purchased on Steam with the same account. So being the mind-bogglingly naive imbecile that I am, I contacted my bank, just to double... triple check. Well, you guessed it - no issues there too, what a complete shock.

 

So I asked NCSoft support again in the same ticket - what can I do, how long will it take to restore my "credibility", how can I verify my payment method, can they use an email verification, hell - I offered my personal phone for verification. Do you want my address? Will a blood test be enough for your "risk management system", NCSoft? You need my kidney or liver for proof? Anyway, this is the absolutely mind-blowing R_E_T_A_R_D_E_D response that I got:

 

Quote

 

Hello,

For security reasons, we cannot go into more detail as to why your purchase attempts are being perceived as high risk. Providing further information would reveal confidential practices we use to detect and prevent high risk and fraudulent transactions.

To tell you what causes your purchase attempt to be high risk would be to provide information regarding how to possibly circumvent the system, compromising its ability to do its job correctly. Making such information public would only make it easier for those who intend to commit credit card fraud to do so.

I'm sorry that we're not able to provide the information you are requesting.

However, the only recommendation we can offer for now is to purchase at a later date or purchase NCoins from our authorized retailers such as Amazon and Gamestop.

Regards,

 

 

NCSoft... I realize you hire complete *cricket*ing morons for your support. Especially for your NCWest team you try to hire people with IQ less than a room temperature, I realize that, everyone realizes that. If you want, you can hire me, I will write you an algorithm that will scan for key words and automatically send pointless copy/paste answers to your customers and replace the monkeys behind the keyboard busy to copy/paste pointless bs. Unless you're already doing that because no humans are that stupid?

 

Allow me to inform you, NCSoft, that your "authorized retailer" Amazon NCoin status is currently "This item is currently unavailable." and in the EU Amazons - they don't even offer it. Your other "authorized retailer" is currently "Access Denied" (apparently my country is blocked because reasons). So thanks for your helpful suggestions! /s

 

Do you realize that this is not protecting our billing information? This is frustrating us beyond any reason. And yes, I'm saying "us" because in case you haven't noticed, there has been quite a lot of people with the same issue the last few days. Because it seems that your Payment Risk Management system is complete and utter shit. It is not working. On top of that as I'm writing this, I'm seeing more and more legitimate customers being BANNED for frauds? That's a whole new level of stupid, NCSoft... You're not banning the actual frauds you're banning the legit customers for paying you too much, too often! What a crime! Btw, you're idiots.

 

So let's say it again - you're not blocking and banning bots, gold sellers, NCoin traders because you're busy blocking your legitimate customers from giving you money in a very safe and legal way? Are you serious? Do I look like a *cricket*ing bot to you or just like frustrated customer? Will a "high risk fraud and hacker" be on your forum, writing from his 8 years old account, begging you to take my *cricket*ing money? Can't you check that all my NCoins were spend on my own account on my own characters? Are you really that severely mentally damaged and incompetent to not be able to make the difference between a legal customer and a fraud?

 

I've been following Blade and Soul since the day it was announced back in 2007. I've been doing the impossible to play on Asian servers for years because I love this game. I bought a Master pack, a 365 day subscription and tons of NCoins... DO I LOOK LIKE A *cricket*ING HIGH RISK OR FRAUD TO YOU SITTING HERE BEGGING YOU SO I CAN GIVE YOU MORE MONEY?!? Idiots...

 

You may ask why I'm so frustrated that I can't buy NCoins anymore. Well, I'm not a teen at school, I'm 35 yo with 9to5 job... more like 8to8 actually. So you can imagine how much time I have to play per day. So premium, mats, pots, keys, even some RNG boxes - this helps me progress my characters so I'm not stuck doing dungeons countless times. Not that I can't, I just don't have the time. And now I'm stuck on 2 of my characters because I can't evolve my weapons since I wanted to buy moonwater keys so I don't have to run countless dungeons. Yes, I know that I can buy them from the market, but I'm also out of gold since the evolutions took all my gold. But seeing that I'm a "high risk" already, I may just *cricket*ing buy gold from the gold sellers, what can possibly go wrong...

 

So to sum it up for you, NCSoft. After giving you hundreds of euros in couple of weeks, buying the longest 1 year premium subscription, the most expensive founder's pack and god knows how many more NCoins - you're blocking my progress in the game and my attempt to prepare and buy some fancy shit in the new patch. I mean, how stupid are you people, really? Does this look like someone who is a fraud or a "high risk"? Well, I'm at a high risk of blowing the *cricket* out of something out of frustration with how incompetent you are, that's for sure.

 

Get your shit together. You already *cricket*ed up royally with countless issues with your western launch of BnS. Now you're desperately trying to block and even ban your legitimate long time paying customers? In 18 years I've never had serious complains about you. But what you're doing with BnS in the West is the most pathetic and incompetent MMO launch and support I have ever seen in any of your other MMOs. In any MMO in general. And you're ruining my fun and everyone else you label "high risk" and "fraud". Frankly, this is going beyond frustration. This is absolutely insulting and humiliating. Seriously. Get your *cricket*ing shit together and fix your stupid issues.

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SciFiGuy

SciFiGuy

Posted
Posted

I have the exact same problem as the OP.  It's affecting all direct purchases of NCoins from NCSoft.  I've been buying my NCoin from Amazon using their NCoin codes.

 

Hey, at least Amazon isn't using NCSoft's Account Risk Assessment Software.  Probably because it would KILL their business.... hint hint, NCSoft.

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Rief

Rief

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, SciFiGuy said:

I have the exact same problem as the OP.  It's affecting all direct purchases of NCoins from NCSoft.  I've been buying my NCoin from Amazon using their NCoin codes.

 

Hey, at least Amazon isn't using NCSoft's Account Risk Assessment Software.  Probably because it would KILL their business.... hint hint, NCSoft.

 

Can you give me link for Ncoin sold by amazon ? several days ago, i can find it. Now, it doesn;t seems to exist.

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DeathBunny

DeathBunny

Posted
Posted

Have you ever stopped to think that right now they are so over flooded with this shit they are trying to cover their asses as well as keeping OUR finaances safe, and if that means some of us legit customers have to suffer a few days without buying coins, then so be it. And before someone jumps in my shit about customers and the likes I am a very long time customer of NCsoft as well. I understand that in this day and age these companies are bombarded with all kinds of things from hackers, gold sellers, fraudulent buyers. But hey, it's a me, me, me world out here.

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Chii

Chii

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Genocitic said:

it was said in there stream there is an issue with some people that get ncoin and there looking into it

yeah they also said they were looking into the bots and you dont see a fix for that LMAO

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Rief

Rief

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Neurotic said:

As SciFiGuy said just purchase Ncoin codes through amazon. I had an error come up once when buying ncoins and just bought a code from amazon instead and it worked out just fine.

 

link please..

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Enhance

Enhance

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, DeathBunny said:

Have you ever stopped to think that right now they are so over flooded with this shit they are trying to cover their asses as well as keeping OUR finaances safe, and if that means some of us legit customers have to suffer a few days without buying coins, then so be it. And before someone jumps in my shit about customers and the likes I am a very long time customer of NCsoft as well. I understand that in this day and age these companies are bombarded with all kinds of things from hackers, gold sellers, fraudulent buyers. But hey, it's a me, me, me world out here.

While you raise valid points, the company clearly is flooded with requests, both actually fraudulent and not, it's no excuse for such low level of billing support provided - billing! - and the sanctions against fraudulent charges should under no circumstance overflow onto legitimate customers.

 

And I also don't agree with the way tickets are handled by any person stumbling upon an open one. I notice they'd often just briefly read (I hope at least) through the previous messages, paste a related answer and drop the mic, leaving whatever later issues to the next support to grab the ticket. I believe they should have a lock to a certain support member until the issue is resolved, so at the very least they'd feel at a bit responsible for a proper resolution, and then get a direct feedback from the person they serviced.

 

6 minutes ago, Rief said:

 

link please..

I imagine it's this http://www.amazon.com/NCsoft-NCoin-1600-Online-Game/dp/B01ACNVSZ0, but it doesn't appear available.

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SciFiGuy

SciFiGuy

Posted
Posted

I don't mind you guys defending the game and NCSoft, but I can't describe how incredibly frustrating it is to try to resolve an issue in good faith and then basically get told:

 

"We can't tell you why our processor has flagged your account.  Sorry we can't do anything but give a temporary unblock to your account.  Please feel free to ask us any questions."

 

The only solution for trying to get through this issue is to find a way to pierce the wall of canned responses to someone who has a pulse and legitimate brain activity.

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DeathBunny

DeathBunny

Posted
Posted

While I can agree the customer support is lacking, as with many places of businesses these days. But I would rather have to wait a few days for them to fix this than my credit as well as others get ruined because things were rushed. Maybe just maybe they are dealing with a different kind of fraud with all of this. We do not know everything that goes on behind the scenes.

 

But yes, NCSoft you could do better with customer service!

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Rief

Rief

Posted
Posted

Kay, I understand. Thanks for the link. There's region restriction in amazon (there wasn;t several weeks ago when BnS launched). That's why it can't be searched in amazon itself. 

 

It's unavailable for people outside US.

 

NCsoft probably under attack of severe cases of credit card fraud. No Company would want to refuse customer, that they take this kind of action is probably due to massive number of gold farmers using stolen credit cards. I know, it's cliche reason, but it really happened in other games.

 

Damn it. here I am thinking of getting Ncoin for valentine outfit. *sigh* I hope I can buy it smoothly.

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Enhance

Enhance

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, SciFiGuy said:

If the link isn't working for you, then my best guess is that it's only available on NA right now.

Yeah, I don't live in the US, and the items are marked as unavailable. Checking through a USA proxy shows it as available.

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Enhance

Enhance

Posted
Posted
Just now, Conor13seconds said:

I would not try buying them tho. They may be region locked codes.

I'm not even sure if you can buy them through a proxy, I'd assume amazon wouldn't allow that, but it was just for browsing purposes to see it's indeed locked to US.

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