Die ClickandBuy!!!!

OK, so prepare for this wall-of-text guys.... I apologize in advance.

Here goes, for two days already I have been trying to reactivate my Square-Enix (FFXIV) account after it was deactivated, apparently because my ClickandBuy account has been blocked. Here's some background info so you pretty much know what's going on. First, I live in Venezuela and don't have a credit card with $$$!! So my great brother who does live in the U.S. decides to loan me his CC info to register on ClickandBuy and pay for my FFXIV account. All is great up until now... All of a sudden I get an e-mail from SE telling me that my account has been deactivated because of an issue with my payment form, being "ClickandBuy". When I try to log in to C&B, it tells me my account has been blocked because of too many incorrect inputs of my birth date... >.> By whom, who knows... I never touched that account again after I activated FFXIV. In this error message, it gives me a toll-free number to dial as the ONLY way of reactivating my account. Which when i dial it, seems to be disconnected.

So now, with the new option of being able to "Register/Update" a credit card directly on SE's site, I try this option with hopes of reactivating my account. So after all the steps finalizing in inputting my bro's CC info, I receive an error that says "An error has occurred. Please confirm the status of any relevant options and then try again. For details, please contact the Square Enix Support Center. (Error code: 601)" Ok, SE. Let's try to contact the "Square Enix SUPPORT Center"... After turning that cluster**** of a support site by yours truly (SE) inside out, I somehow manage to get into a chat room (don't even remember exactly how i was able to) where I had to wait nearly 15 minutes staring at a message that reads "You are number 1 in the queue, you will be attended in approximately 0:04 seconds. Average response time 0:22 seconds" LOL >.> ...

Ok so it turns out that this person (Agent Nic G.) that gets to show me some great SE Customer Service tells me the reason I am getting this error is because the address on file with the Credit Card is not the same as MY address (Wow!, that error message sure is accurate!! Please see said error message as mentioned above). Ok, so that's obvious (we're in different countries!!). This is SE's great fraud prevention system at work!! Fair play, I understand this. So I ask my buddy Nic G. what other option good ol' SE offers me to give them my bro's money so I can play FFXIV. I ask him how can I buy some crysta directly from my account page to credit said account. He tells me to go to this website Ultimate Pay.com and utilize their services to purchase Crysta via Paypal (great!). As he's telling me this, I'm looking into the page and registering. At this, Nic G. asks me "if there's anything else he can help me with"... Ok I get it you're telling me shoo-shoo!! Go away cry-baby customer!! He tells me I can contact them again tomorrow during their business hours. Fine, whatever.

So after I finally register on this website UltimatePay.com, I start looking for anything related to FFXIV or purchasing Crysta as a virtual currency. To my surprise, there is absolutely NOTHING that even RESEMBLES FFXIV or even MENTIONS SE or being able to purchase Crysta on this website!!! So thanks to Nic G. for giving me this useless FALSE information just to get rid of a loyal SE customer who's been playing FF games since III on SNES!! In closing, I don't know who was the goon over at SE that decided this terrible thing called "ClickandBuy" was a good idea to partner up with to process your member's payments!! Now, patch 1.21 is released in one day and i'm sitting on a dead account who knows for how much longer. Oh btw, i tried to post this on FFXIV Official Forums but it seems you need an ACTIVE account to post on there!!! LOL. If anybody would be so kind as to post this on official forums to see if I'd get ANY kind of response, it would be greatly appreciated.

Again, I apologize for this giant wall of text and hope you didn't have to begin cutting yourself as you tried to read through it. Kthxbye

Once you have registered with UltimatePay you then add Crysta through them on your SE account management page.

You cannot necessarily do this with your brother's credit card, though. Paypal also matches the IP address with the CC bill address. I am in Germany right now with a US CC, and the only way I could buy Crysta was by having my GF buy "UltimateGameCards" in US supermarkets and send me the codes.

Also, do not input your brother's CC too many times. The "Direct Payment" option goes through UltimatePay/PaySpan. This is what they told me after I got the same message about half a dozen times.

Anyway, if you have your brother enter it from the US after a week or two it might work. Or it might not. I waited a month with mine and it still doesn't work, so I guess the fraudulence points take a while to decay.

Ok, thanks for the input guys

Horror story!! I have had issues when I switched banks before. But just took a day to clear up.

You can also use Square's Direct billing method. It should be available for you.

UltimatePay took me, literally, 5 minutes to add Crysta (with reading through all the details and typing in all my info) without any hassle and straight from my SE account... After the 3 hour hassle I had to deal with, from ClickandBuy. (charged me before and after verifying my card and never issued my Crysta, horrid card authorizing process that is forcing you to pay them to verify your card, and the utterly abysmal lack of customer service quality)

Is there a reason SE still has them as an option? Hasn't it become painfully obvious by now that they are shady? I mistakenly went through the non-sense only to find out UltimatePay was so much easier (I was thinking UltimatePay would be the same run-a-round as ClickandBuy, before actually trying it). IT IS NOT!

Also, SE's direct billing IS available... But I am to understand that is only for people committing to reoccurring bill-cycles. (you give them card number and they bill you whether or not you are playing) While handy and all, you would be paying for the time (even if you take that month off) and I imagine if you can't pay up, you have to go through the whole process again (retype info, reauthorize card, etc... like POL). Which may be more of a hassle for people who frequently have to take extended breaks.

I'm in the pay as you go boat and UltimatePay has worked flawlessly, so far.

i do ultimatepay for ff11/ff14 had to deal with customer support for them to activate my account -.- but otherwise has gone well

Ok, so after more researching it seems Crysta has not been approved for all countries worldwide. Apparently, my country (Venezuela) is one of those, which is why it also gives me an error when I try to purchase Crysta through my account management page. Also, direct billing is not an option for me seeing how the credit card I'm trying to use is not under my name, instead my brother's. It detects that as fraud and rejects the card. So it looks like my ONLY option is to use my BLOCKED ClickandBuy account, for which I'm given a toll free number to call to unblock my acct., which appears to be disconnected... hooray way to go SE!

Same thing happened to me, I cannot buy crysta or use CC options and the support person I talked to on phone was possibly the rudest man I have spoke to. Perhaps hes having a bad day but he wouldn't let me talk and just kept blaming it on my cc, who i talked to prior to support and assured me no one was trying to use a 1 cent charge. This phone call was possibly the last straw. I love this game, loves XI but this is crap. Every other game in the world seems to offer web support (Se used to it took three hrs to connect but they dont even offer this anymore) I had to fill out a forum just to get a ticket number -call- SE , wait for a agent who basically cut me off and even exasperated sighed at me and put me on hold. If this is the rigarmaroo I have to go through to give -you- money then I may keep it and spend it on something else. Good day.

P.s I must assure you I am a very easy going person to talk to! I am never rude to agents, and I did not deserve this attitude.