Cancelling Final Fantasy XI
Basically, I had a bitch of a time canceling this damn thing. Long story
Over the past two days, I've had one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had trying to cancel an account for a MMORPG. The game of complaint would be Final Fantasy XI (for the PC). I had received a free disc a while back and decided to give it a go. The disc came with a free trial but of course asked for your credit card to be charged when the trial was up. I played for a little while and decided that the game was a bit too happy-go-lucky for my taste. I thought I might go back to it at some point so I left the account active for a few more weeks. I still haven't gone back to it (and the computer it was installed on crashed), so I finally decided to cancel the account.
Now, Final Fantasy accounts (also called "Content IDs")are managed through Playstation's proprietary software which is tied to a website both called "PlayOnline". Since it was tied to the site, I figured I could just login and cancel the account.
This was not the case.
After logging into my account through the website and finding no cancellation button, I searched the FAQs for canceling an account. This is what it told me:
To cancel each Content ID through the PlayOnline Viewer:
1. Log into the PlayOnline Viewer
2. Navigate through Service and Support' --> Membership' --> Content ID'
3. Select Cancel'
4. Follow the onscreen instructions
5. Please note that all billing will cease only if you cancel ALL Content IDs.
* Please note that you will need your PlayOnline ID and PlayOnline password to complete the process.
In other words, you have to login to the PlayOnline viewer to cancel the account, meaning, you have to have the viewer installed on your computer in order to use it.
Fine.
Being that my laptop crashed and I didn't have a DVD ROM drive in the computer I'm currently using and there was no legal way to download the PlayOnline viewer from Sony, I installed the program on my girlfriend's computer. Luckily, I didn't have to install the entire game, just the viewer/account manager.
After searching for my content ID in my email (which I had to save because the ID is nothing memorable, just a string of random characters) I fired up the viewer, only to find that because I had an older disc, the viewer itself had to download updates.
After screaming in annoyance, I proceeded to download the updates. 15 minutes later, I finally login to the software with my account and password. I navigated to the account cancellation screen and pushed the cancel account button only to find this message:
"Our account management server is currently down for maintenance. Please try again later." I think I also tried the "unsubscribe" feature which also didn't work.
In other words, the server that is required to cancel my account is fucking down!
I read the server status messages and found that the server will be down until 6:00 PST on 12/2/2008.
Now keep in mind that my credit card is regularly charged on the 3rd of each month. I was trying to do this on the 1st so it wouldn't get charged.
After this failed, I proceeded to the second way to cancel my account which involved calling tech support. I called the number and was immediately greeted with the friendly message of:
"Your wait time may be greatly increased due to an unusually high call volume". I decided to navigate through the phone menus anyway and see how long it would be. Unfortunately, I only have a cell phone which means the longer I'm on hold, the more minutes I'm wasting. The help desk is only open from noon until 8:00 PM EST M-F.
I waited for about 10 minutes on hold and finally hung up. I didn't feel like wasting my minutes on this. I decided to try the third option; online chat help.
I went to the chat site, typed in my info along with my problem and logged in and of course:
"We are currently experiencing a higher than normal call volume. A representative will be with you shortly."
Although I expected something like this, I figured that the online chat people might have less to do than the phone people.
I left the window open for about 40 minutes before finally closing it. It just kept saying someone would be with me over and over again as the window refreshed, but no one ever did.
At this point, I said the hell with it and decided to wait until today to take care of it.
After I got to work, I logged in to check my bank balance.
Guess what got charged on the 2nd and doesn't actually go through until the 3rd?!
So at this point, I'm now waiting until noon so I can try to call tech support again (from my work phone) or try and snag someone online.
I know this is probably just bad timing as the server apparently was scheduled to be down this week, but still, you shouldn't have to install an application to cancel your account when you can log into it via a website.
*update*
After spending another 10 minutes on hold via phone AND online chat at the same time, I finally got someone on the phone to cancel the account with no problems. :)
Over the past two days, I've had one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had trying to cancel an account for a MMORPG. The game of complaint would be Final Fantasy XI (for the PC). I had received a free disc a while back and decided to give it a go. The disc came with a free trial but of course asked for your credit card to be charged when the trial was up. I played for a little while and decided that the game was a bit too happy-go-lucky for my taste. I thought I might go back to it at some point so I left the account active for a few more weeks. I still haven't gone back to it (and the computer it was installed on crashed), so I finally decided to cancel the account.
Now, Final Fantasy accounts (also called "Content IDs")are managed through Playstation's proprietary software which is tied to a website both called "PlayOnline". Since it was tied to the site, I figured I could just login and cancel the account.
This was not the case.
After logging into my account through the website and finding no cancellation button, I searched the FAQs for canceling an account. This is what it told me:
To cancel each Content ID through the PlayOnline Viewer:
1. Log into the PlayOnline Viewer
2. Navigate through Service and Support' --> Membership' --> Content ID'
3. Select Cancel'
4. Follow the onscreen instructions
5. Please note that all billing will cease only if you cancel ALL Content IDs.
* Please note that you will need your PlayOnline ID and PlayOnline password to complete the process.
In other words, you have to login to the PlayOnline viewer to cancel the account, meaning, you have to have the viewer installed on your computer in order to use it.
Fine.
Being that my laptop crashed and I didn't have a DVD ROM drive in the computer I'm currently using and there was no legal way to download the PlayOnline viewer from Sony, I installed the program on my girlfriend's computer. Luckily, I didn't have to install the entire game, just the viewer/account manager.
After searching for my content ID in my email (which I had to save because the ID is nothing memorable, just a string of random characters) I fired up the viewer, only to find that because I had an older disc, the viewer itself had to download updates.
After screaming in annoyance, I proceeded to download the updates. 15 minutes later, I finally login to the software with my account and password. I navigated to the account cancellation screen and pushed the cancel account button only to find this message:
"Our account management server is currently down for maintenance. Please try again later." I think I also tried the "unsubscribe" feature which also didn't work.
In other words, the server that is required to cancel my account is fucking down!
I read the server status messages and found that the server will be down until 6:00 PST on 12/2/2008.
Now keep in mind that my credit card is regularly charged on the 3rd of each month. I was trying to do this on the 1st so it wouldn't get charged.
After this failed, I proceeded to the second way to cancel my account which involved calling tech support. I called the number and was immediately greeted with the friendly message of:
"Your wait time may be greatly increased due to an unusually high call volume". I decided to navigate through the phone menus anyway and see how long it would be. Unfortunately, I only have a cell phone which means the longer I'm on hold, the more minutes I'm wasting. The help desk is only open from noon until 8:00 PM EST M-F.
I waited for about 10 minutes on hold and finally hung up. I didn't feel like wasting my minutes on this. I decided to try the third option; online chat help.
I went to the chat site, typed in my info along with my problem and logged in and of course:
"We are currently experiencing a higher than normal call volume. A representative will be with you shortly."
Although I expected something like this, I figured that the online chat people might have less to do than the phone people.
I left the window open for about 40 minutes before finally closing it. It just kept saying someone would be with me over and over again as the window refreshed, but no one ever did.
At this point, I said the hell with it and decided to wait until today to take care of it.
After I got to work, I logged in to check my bank balance.
Guess what got charged on the 2nd and doesn't actually go through until the 3rd?!
So at this point, I'm now waiting until noon so I can try to call tech support again (from my work phone) or try and snag someone online.
I know this is probably just bad timing as the server apparently was scheduled to be down this week, but still, you shouldn't have to install an application to cancel your account when you can log into it via a website.
*update*
After spending another 10 minutes on hold via phone AND online chat at the same time, I finally got someone on the phone to cancel the account with no problems. :)