Just a warning - Dark and Light Billing

[SnakeCharmer]

I received an email today from Click and Buy regarding a billing authorization I did *NOT* give.  I cancelled the game two days after it went live, and never thought twice about it.

Here is the body of the email I received:

You gave the provider Farlan Entertainment an Easy Collect authorization on 11/24/05 08:39:54 PM EST for the use of the offer 'Dark & Light'. Your ClickandBuy® account has been charged with the following transaction

Calls to Click and Buy yield options to leave a message, or TRY and speak to a Customer Service Representative (which promptly disconnected me on three tries).  The DnL forums and website seem to be a waste of time.

If you at any time had an account with Click and Buy and/or Farlan Entertainment, I suggest you double check your account history to make sure you weren't charged this fee (or any others) as well.

[Soukyan]

Third party billing can be such a bitch.

I'm not sure how well it will work, but I noticed that the Carpe Diem beta uses a third party account management company.

What always bothered me about those was the inconvenience of cancelling or making changes to your account, not to mention having to remember or store multiple usernames, passwords and sites. If a game developer wants to use a third party to handle account management/billing, they should require that the company handling accounts provides solid, stable integration with their game systems. In addition, they should ask that the billing management be integrated into their web site, or at the very least have a stylesheet for the site that makes the consumer think that they are still on the game's site. Consistency is good. Too much of the eBay/Paypal pass-off shit is starting to get annoying. eCommerce be damned... I'm off to buy a book at Amazon. ;)

[Akkori]

Heh, just 5 minutes ago I got the same email. Same deal, except for me, I never paid to play. I got the pre-order for $60, but never played it when it launched, not SOG or DnL. And I still got charged $9.99.

Log in, and navigate to the page labelled "Easy Collect". There is an active account there you need to revoke. I am now aiting to hear from them about refunding me this money.

[Cheddar]

I heard this was the game to play, where do I sign up?

[Signe]

I don't think you have to sign up.  I think they eventually just come and get you.

[Cheddar]

I don't think you have to sign up.  I think they eventually just come and get you.

ok

[sinij]

Is this 'lets see how many people we can bill before we close the shop' or genuine mistake?

[tazelbain]

I am glad to see Dark and Light is a disaster.  One of the many poke in the eye that Angelstorm deserves.

[Nija]

This is the "stupid tax" for actually buying the game.

I hope they remind you monthly for the next few years so hopefully you won't make this mistake ever again.

[HaemishM]

Is this 'lets see how many people we can bill before we close the shop' or genuine mistake?

Based on the game, probably just genetic incompetence.

[Threash]

Wow you actually gave your credit card info to this people? I would trust the puerto rican pot dealer down stairs with my cc info before the D&L guys, stupid tax indeed.

[Signe]

Wow you actually gave your credit card info to this people? I would trust the puerto rican pot dealer down stairs with my cc info before the D&L guys, stupid tax indeed.

Where do you live, please?

[Threash]

Wow you actually gave your credit card info to this people? I would trust the puerto rican pot dealer down stairs with my cc info before the D&L guys, stupid tax indeed.

Where do you live, please?

Orlando

[Etro]

Dear pioneer,

Some of the Pionner players contacted us to inform us of a deduction that has been made on their account in respect of one month of subscription for the Dark and Light game.

As a pioneer gamer, you could access to the Dark and Light game as of the 26 of May 2006.  Being a Pioneer, you have also been offered two free months at the very start of the launching of the Dark and light
game.  In addition, three free months have been granted as from the 1st of august 2006, following a decision of Farlan Entertainement.

To ease your access to the Dark and Light game during these five free months, you have been informed that your game status has been upgraded to a Master till the end of this free period. As announced, the deductions corresponding to the monthly subscriptions have started as from the 5 of November 2006.

It seems that some of the Pioneer players didn't change their game status to Master or Freedom before this date (5 November 2006).That is why a monthly subscription has been collected.

In order to satisfy most of you, the subscription collected will be immediately refunded and you will automatically become a Freedom player, at the same benefit from the free game condition offered for this package: http://www.darkandlight.com/en_store-faq.html
You can later change your status to the Master subscription as you wish.

Best Regards,

Dark and Light Customer Service

[SnakeCharmer]

I'm STILL waiting on them to allow me to reset my password.  4 emails to click and buy, and 3 requests for password with DnL have been unresponsive.

10 dollars isn't worth my time, but it's the goddamn principle of the matter.

[EngrishFun]

Dear pioneer,

Some of the Pionner players contacted us to inform us of a deduction that has been made on their account in respect of one month of subscription for the Dark and Light game.

As a pioneer gamer, you could access to the Dark and Light game as of the 26 of May 2006.  Being a Pioneer, you have also been offered two free months at the very start of the launching of the Dark and light
game.  In addition, three free months have been granted as from the 1st of august 2006, following a decision of Farlan Entertainement.

To ease your access to the Dark and Light game during these five free months, you have been informed that your game status has been upgraded to a Master till the end of this free period. As announced, the deductions corresponding to the monthly subscriptions have started as from the 5 of November 2006.

It seems that some of the Pioneer players didn't change their game status to Master or Freedom before this date (5 November 2006).That is why a monthly subscription has been collected.

In order to satisfy most of you, the subscription collected will be immediately refunded and you will automatically become a Freedom player, at the same benefit from the free game condition offered for this package: http://www.darkandlight.com/en_store-faq.html
You can later change your status to the Master subscription as you wish.

Best Regards,

Dark and Light Customer Service

Wait, tell me if I'm reading this right.  They reactivated the accounts of all pioneer players who had cancelled, and then switched those accounts to paid monthly service if the owners of the accounts did nothing?

[Etro]

yep

[Akkori]

Well, I guess is was this... There are two ways of paying... a monthly subscription, or a credit system where you pay to do certain things, like learn high level speclls, or get access to certain kingdoms, etc.. As a Pioneer, I don't think we had the opportunity to choose the pay-to-play (Freedom) method, as it was introduced after SoG launched (I hope I got that timeline right). So as a Pioneer, during the sign up, we were intending to pay a subscription. So after all the free months expired, they assumed we were actually playing, and started to charge us. Even if we have never logged in after SoG. Hell, I never spent more than 5 minutes in game due to all the CTD's for the first few weeks after SoG launched. And I never tried DnL. It was just poor setup on their part. At least they seem willing to give us the $$ back.
I still hope that in a year or so the game matures enough for me to play.

[Signe]

SoG was the same as DnL... total rubbish.  I don't even know why they called it SoG when it was just bits of DnL beta.   I snarfed up one of the freebie SoG accounts and got to fiddle with DnL after launch.  I cannot imagine how anyone could think it's okay to release a game that bad... let alone as a p2p game.  I think it's kind of amusing that they actually charged people who had cancelled and received refunds.  THAT took some hairy bollocks!