How many are unknowingly being charged 9.95/mth?

[JamesBaker]

You can resume your membership when we recieve your past due amount.

You may continue playing until the cancelation date above.

Paying at any time before then will stop your account from being deactivated.


I considered coming back today, but considering BBMO's blatant disregard for customer service I'll stay away for good. People that haven't logged on in 6 months were charged in November. I made a brief stop in one weekend in September, but other than that I haven't been to this site since I came to consider it unsafe. Not sure why BBMO decided to bill people without credit card information, but I think most people know why. BBMO has decided to alienate yet another customer.


Good Day and Good Bye,

James Baker


Anyone who receives a bill and did not play should contact the Better Business Bureau, as I have, they consider such charges fraudulent.


How dare you, BBMO, charge someone with a free trial that has not played this game in 6 months. Your billing pratices are unethical and brings your integrity into question. I won't wonder outloud, but I'll wonder just the same -- AS HAVE MANY OTHERS.
I wouldn't trust you with my telephone number much less my credit card number.

[williethebasset]

I see nothing wrong with that practice. If someone entered their credit card number here, then forgot it is their problem. They should not be irresponsible and expect a company, WHOSE GOAL is to make money. They sent a letter to my house, which I recieved, if someone was not aware of the problem then they should have been. Oh yeah, the BBB recomends that people try mediating first.

{excuse the spelling}

[Clay Dreslough]

Well it looks like willie is sticking with us, and JamesBaker is leaving, so I guess there's not much I can add to this.

But yes, we don't go out of our to stop billing people that haven't logged in for a while. Every MMORPG out there makes a chunk of their money from folks who quit without cancelling their membership.

More importantly, just because someone stops logging in for a month or two doesn't mean they want to quit for good.

We have bugs to fix and features to add. We aren't going to waste time writing a billing system that automatically kicks people out after some arbitrary period of time.

If you're annoyed by bad customer support, send your hate mail to EA. After you get a personal response from the head of the company, forward it to me because I'd love to take a look.

:)

Clay

P.S. The Yankees don't just suck. They suck giant donkey dick.

[williethebasset]

Originally posted by Clay Dreslough

If you're annoyed by bad customer support, send your hate mail to EA. After you get a personal response from the head of the company, forward it to me because I'd love to take a look.

:)

Clay

P.S. The Yankees don't just suck. They suck giant donkey dick.

EA reference, you are owned by EA?

Yankees Suck Giant Donkey Dick:D :D :D

[Chipper_Jones]

You can resume your membership when we recieve your past due amount.

You may continue playing until the cancelation date above.

Paying at any time before then will stop your account from being deactivated.

From what I understand, he's saying his account, i.e. his username, was charged $9.95 a month as being unpaid, after his credit card info had been removed from the site. When he tried to REJOIN, he was told "you owe $9.95 times this # of months before you can rejoin."

I always thought that if you removed your credit card information, it was tantamount to cancelling. And that if no accurate information was there, you wouldn't be able to play, your account would be cancelled, and your leagues deleted. So when in May the credit card fiasco happened, and I had to cancel my card, I just didn't program in a new account.

Does that mean that if I chose to come back, I'll have had my user name charged for months I was not expecting to be a member? Like finding out that if I wanted to join in February, I'd have to pay for $9.95 from November, December and January in which no credit card was available?

If so, I can see why James was pissed. That's not right. If he had left his membership on recurring and had kept his info current, I can understand recurring billings. But to bill someone who didn't program in a new card, and then expect them to pay retroactively for months in which they weren't officially members, just so they can play now, that's wrong.

Excuse me if I'm misinterpreting.

[Chipper_Jones]

Yep! That's what it is! I just went to my account. Let me give you background:

I used to use a debit card to pay for this site. So in May, when I heard the card info was stolen, I had to CANCEL my card. I stuck around for a few months, and then when I found BBMO was charging again, I decided I didn't want to risk giving them a new credit card number. I assumed, as I'm sure MANY did, that by NOT PROGRAMMING IN A NEW CARD, my account would be closed.

Wrong . . .

November 12: $14.95 was "billed"
December 12: $14.95 was "billed"
January 12: $14.95 was "billed"

Never mind the fact that the card they "billed" didn't exist. Never mind that no one emailed me asking for a new card, or otherwise urging me to click "none" to stop the billing, something I didn't know I had to do.

Bottom line is that if I decide I want to play BBMO ever again, and register a new card, I owe BBMO $44.85 for services I had no intent to use! It's not like I just forgot to turn off billing, I HAD NO CARD ON FILE! How can you bill a card that doesn't exist, after being the reason the card no longer exists?

Makes no sense, and seems shady. And I definitely don't intend to give that money up. No way in ****.

[Clay Dreslough]

Hi Chipper,

Sorry if I misunderstood you before. The situation you describe is definitely NOT the way the billing system is supposed to work. We'll look into it and make sure that any "debt" accrued in this manner is cleared.

Clay

[williethebasset]

The way the system is supposed to work is most likley fairly simple. It was probobly not designed to work without a card so it kept charging you.

[Chipper_Jones]

Originally posted by Clay Dreslough
Hi Chipper,

Sorry if I misunderstood you before. The situation you describe is definitely NOT the way the billing system is supposed to work. We'll look into it and make sure that any "debt" accrued in this manner is cleared.

Clay

Thanks, Clay . . . I only pointed it out because it was clear to me that this was what JamesBaker had pointed out, and everyone had assumed he was making a big deal out of having his card changed because he "forgot" to remove it. When it was more that he had removed his card, and forgot to officially "cancel" and was still charged to a card that he'd removed.

Thanks for attempting to rectify it anyway . . .

Jonathan.

[Clay Dreslough]

Originally posted by Clay Dreslough
Hi Chipper,

Sorry if I misunderstood you before. The situation you describe is definitely NOT the way the billing system is supposed to work. We'll look into it and make sure that any "debt" accrued in this manner is cleared.

Clay

OK. I started by handing this problem over to Ian to try to fix the software so it doesn't do this again.

On my side, if you can give me your username, I can clear the "debt" that the system tacked on.

Thanks!

Clay

[nysteinbrenner]

Clay,

Don't know if you're still looking at this thread, but you really need a mechanism in place to take payments via other methods (checks, money orders, even PayPal). I suspect you have a lot of people who were impacted by past problems who won't even consider coming back because you've changed your policy on this.

[Chipper_Jones]

Originally posted by Chipper_Jones
Thanks, Clay . . . I only pointed it out because it was clear to me that this was what JamesBaker had pointed out, and everyone had assumed he was making a big deal out of having his card changed because he "forgot" to remove it. When it was more that he had removed his card, and forgot to officially "cancel" and was still charged to a card that he'd removed.

Thanks for attempting to rectify it anyway . . .

Jonathan.

jonathansanders is my username :) Thanks a ton!

Jonathan.

[Chipper_Jones]

Originally posted by Clay Dreslough
OK. I started by handing this problem over to Ian to try to fix the software so it doesn't do this again.

On my side, if you can give me your username, I can clear the "debt" that the system tacked on.

Thanks!

Clay

Hey NY! Glad to see you're back from your heart problems . . .

[michaelg123789]

Originally posted by Chipper_Jones
Hey NY! Glad to see you're back from your heart problems . . .
Yeah, I remember you Chipper! You joined the Independent League with Anaheim just as steiny departed last June. Anyway for what it's worth would you consider coming back to join either That league or Independent League 30? Just wondering. I know you were a pretty solid GM, and active in the forums.