Credit Card Payment Issues

Introduction

Some of you have issues with Credit Card payments.

These are due to a strengthening of our security measures. We are trying to solve the problems encountered on a case by case scenario via Ankama Support. However, it seems useful to give you some information by looking at specific examples.

You will find below explanations of the problems you may encounter depending on your profile or actions that you make (or not, or incorrect actions which can also explain some other issues).

Different Scenarios

1) You usually buy subscriptions or purchase Ogrines for several accounts.

We try to identify these accounts concerned directly, but we encourage you to contact our support team in order to identify yourself. We set up exceptions for you, but in fact, because we do not store your credit card number, it is possible that we could not identify all of your transactions. Let support know who you are so we can make sure you’re not under the default payment rules.
We also invite you to review the other scenarios presented below, since your problem may be a combination of several factors.

2) You live in French overseas territories or states.
We have had problems in late December, but we have taken appropriate steps to address this concern for the French DOM-TOM.
If you live in a state or country other than French overseas territory and you are receiving an error message related to French territories, please contact support to identify yourself.
If you live in a French state outside of the Metropolitan France area or a French overseas territory, the problem being solved. We invite you to renew your payments and, where appropriate, review the other scenarios in this list, since your problem may be a combination of several factors.

3) You subscribe other people or your subscription is paid for by someone other than yourself.

Your Ankama account has to be in your name (which is confirmed on the Account Management page or upon your first payment), but we allow the payment of subscription by others. This is mainly the case for underage users, members of the same family, people living with a partner, etc ... (Note that we do not allow payments by credit card for people with no link between them because if there is any kind of payment fraud involved, we will be forced to lock the Ankama account of the beneficiary, permanently).
However, when you pay for a relative or a loved one pays for you, it is ESSENTIAL to indicate the Payer's details in the billing information. Indeed, the person who pays that is invoiced and therefore it is their details we need. Security checks on payment information, including the name of the card holder, are done regularly. Therefore, it’s important that their name appears and is correct.

4) You have history of providing false or erroneous information

We are legally required to respond to legal requisitions that may arise in case of fraudulent use of credit cards. With French laws and European directives aimed at fighting against fraud being reinforced, we are in turn forced to apply stricter rules in the accuracy of information provided during payment. This has been the case from the beginning for credit cards, and we anticipate that it will continue to increase for other payment methods. Be aware that for payments of €30 or more, we held responsible by the governments of France and Europe to verify your identity. We decided to implement these laws and guidelines for all amounts, because historically, customer protection laws in Europe and France have gotten progressively more strict.
In fact, if you provide false, inaccurate or out-of-date information, your payments are likely to be blocked. Thank you for your understanding and for those who have questions about the security of their personal details, they are invited to read the "Payment Security" paragraph below.

5) You have increased the number of attempts to execute a payment Our system is protected against abuse attempts. You may get blocked on that basis. Wait 24 hours before renewing or contact Support in order to be informed about the expected waiting time. Beware, if you do not respect the instructions given by support do not expect any miracles.

6) You are using a card with the caption "Carte Bleue" or "Diners Club".

- For "Carte Bleue", first of all do not confuse this logo with the logo "CB" which is just an indication that corresponds to "Bank Card" (aka, a Debit Card). "Carte Bleue" is a French affiliate of VISA that will soon disappear, mainly because of the confusion with the term "Bank Card". In any case, if your card has the logo "Carte Bleue" this usually indicates that it is also a VISA or VISA Electron. When making your payment, so choose VISA or VISA Electron as your card. The disappearance of the choice of paying by "CB" has no effect, since as mentioned, it is not and has never been an option per se, but an indication of the interbank network available to French bank cards.


"Carte Bleue" VISA => choose VISA


"Carte Bleue" VISA Electron => choose VISA Electron


"Mastercard" => choose Mastercard

- For "Diners Club" users: we are temporarily unable to accept payment from "Diners Club" cards. We apologize for the inconvenience and invite you to choose another card for the moment. We will be able to once again accept payments using this method sometime between one month from now and the next quarter of 2012.

7) None of the scenarios listed above is relevant to your situation. There could be a few other reasons for these problems.

- You are a very good Ankama customer and you buy a lot of Ogrines. First, let us apologize for the inconvenience. We have set up specific rules for the purchase of Ogrines, but we invite you to contact us to add you if necessary, in order to identify you in a clearer manner and subsequently resolve your issue.

- Your problem is with your bank (your bank doesn’t allow online payments, you do not have the necessary funds, your bank could not give us permission for withdrawal of funds at the time of payment, etc. .. .). In fact, few banks provide details of the problem to their account holders at the time of the transaction. Do not hesitate to contact support to confirm that the problem actually comes from your bank. We will be able to notify you that the problem originates from your bank as soon as the rejection of your payment takes place, allowing you to resolve the payment issue with your Bank a lot quicker.

- You have another concern, where we invite you to contact Support by giving a maximum of detail to enable us to identify the problem.

- Or finally, you are a known identity thief or have committed fraud (not necessarily against Ankama, but we reserve the right to refuse payment services to cases like these), in this case, we can do nothing for you.

Payment security
For your safety and ours, we regularly update our security and our payment procedures.
Some of these changes require some implementation time or server maintenance, so we apologize for any delays or inconveniences you may encounter and thank you in advance for your understanding.

1) We never access your most sensitive banking data.
Card number, expiry date and CVV (the famous digits at the back of a credit card) are not disclosed to us.
We have entrusted the management of payments to providers who specialize in this area and are regularly audited for safety and accountability. Our main provider is a worldwide renowned company the field of online payments.
Even in the event of a legal requisition, we will not be given the information; our provider will forward the information to the competent authorities, upon legal request only.

2) Your most sensitive personal information is encrypted

We regularly review our security measures, but we are not immune from illegal or malicious acts. We encrypt a maximum of information possible, including your logins.
If you ever decide that you no longer wish to use our services, we regularly erase non-essential personal data while keeping your game data if by chance you want to reactivate your account. The personal information we hold are solely to meet legal requisitions and only for as long as legally necessary. They will never be shared with other companies outside the Ankama group without your consent (except in the context of payments or benefits of partnerships in the distribution of our games, none of your information is transmitted to third parties and we have no plans to sell them one way or another).

3) Continuous improvement of payment interface
You've probably realized that in most cases, when you submit payments, you are no longer redirected to an external server. This does not mean that your credit card information is registered on our servers, quite the opposite. We use our provider's technical solutions to improve usability of payments and retain maximum control of interfaces, but without cutting corners on safety.
We will always continue on this path: more useful information for you, a payment process based on usability and, last but not least, increased security.

Conclusion
We hope to have answered most of your questions.
If not, we invite you to contact our support staff here: Ankama Support

For obvious security reasons, we cannot respond to specific issues here on the forums without compromising your privacy.