Your ticket is open, Wrathdays.
Will likely be another day or two for it to come up in queue.
5 Likes
Something I havenāt seen brought up, but that is very important to this discussion and why whenever I see ANYONE bring up, ājust do a chargebackā I adamantly advise against it: chargebacks are seen as a negative mark against a vendor by the card companyā¦ That is why vendors are charged a MINIMUM of 25.00 per chargeback (and most fees are way more than that) this is on top of the amount of the purchase that was refunded.
Most companies will block a person from making any purchase via a credit card if that person has done a charge back. Blizzard used to require someone to pay back any charge back (with fees) via a money order before that person was allowed to make any kind of purchase again (be it a sub or expansion or digital shop). Blizzard has since made it way easier to move on after a chargeback, but you will still have to work for it.
Chargebacks are NOT just some alternate means to get a refund for something you decided you didnāt want. Chargebacks are there for when a person makes a purchase and doesnāt receive the goods that they purchased while not being able to work with the vendor to get a refund for the goods not delivered. In your case you ABSOLUTELY got what you purchased, you simply changed your mind.
Luckily most card companies and banks are aware of how chargebacks are being abused and will deny them now if an account has more than one or two on record in a certain time. They will start to push back and require documentation or actually contact the vendor to get their side. If you are found to be opening chargebacks for reasons other than fraud or not receiving the goods or services purchased (could be for a non fraud reason) you can be prosecuted yourself for fraud and at a minimum have your card or bank account closed and yourself banned from doing business with the card or bank.
TLDR = Chargebacks are NOT a means to get a refund!!! They are you accusing a vendor of fraud.
Edit to add that after a vendor receives a certain number of chargebacks they can have their vendor account placed in jeopardy and their fees greatly increased.
11 Likes
Yes they di have a refund system and the op either got turned down for a refund or just did the charge back.
After re-reading the OP first post, there is no mention of a refund attempt. I do wish more people would post here so we can help them before they go to the extreme of a chargeback.
6 Likes
Blizz has a refund system in place for a reason.
After re-reading the OP first post, there is no mention of a refund attempt. I do wish more people would post here so we can help them before they go to the extreme of a chargeback.
In fairness to me, I did explore the option of a refund FIRST before the chargeback but when I clicked on it from my transactions page, it said none of my transactions qualified for it. So there was no option for a refund. I agree this would have been a much better approach but it wasnt an option.
Blizzard does deserve some culpability in this because they do not have great customer service, nor a means to be contacted. So in this case, if there are no options for the consumer to explore a dispute of anything, within a reasonable time frame, the consumers will just take matters into their own hands.
If they choose not to have an open line of communication to their consumers, then there should at least be a mechanism in place for people who may have āmade a mistakeā to initiate a refund themselves in order to correct the problem. I agree as a company I probably wouldnt just allow anyone to initiate returns without a discussion first, so as a solution, under the transaction page, there should have been a button or some sort of information on a potential refund with a link to a ticket/game master/customer service rep. Just that alone would have sufficed and deterred me from even exploring a chargeback in the first place. But all I got was āno transaction qualifies for a refundā alert on the payment. So that at face value means, sorry, sales final you SOL.
Again I am not deflecting blame here, I agree chargebacks are not good, I am merely pointing out that as a consumer, I made the assumption that was the only option for me based on the lack of customer service, lack of ability to contact anyone and seeing an alert on my transaction page saying ānone qualify for a refundā. This implies there is nothing to discuss on blizzards end.
Something as simple as a message on the transaction page stating āif you would like to dispute any of the transactions, please open a ticketā that alone woulda have avoided ALL of this headache.
Just to confirm for the future, that is simply for an automated refund. The system checks if you meet the requirements, and being automated, thereās no ability for nuance.
If you donāt meet the automated requirements, thereās an option to open a ticket. A Billing Agent will look at it and see what they can do. The answer may have still been the same, but sometimes they can do things the automated system canāt.
5 Likes
Possible they could have refunded that and replaced it with the less expensive version and avoid the charge back
1 Like
Itās not the most glaring thing on the screen, but if you tried and didnāt have anything eligible? It still would have offered you the path to submit a proper ticket. Clicking the āI still need helpā link would have taken you past the self-service refund screen.
Side note - YAY! I got my linking back.
7 Likes
Thatās exactly my point from the post above, the message I got on my transaction page was āno transactions qualify for a refundā. So that at face value implies theres no discussion to be had and a ticket is a waste or time.
If the message was āif you would like to dispute any of the transactions, please open a ticketā that alone woulda have avoided ALL of this headache by driving me to exploring the ticket/refund option from the start.
Just for the record, Iām not trying to come off as scoldling. Iām just mindful that someone, 4, 5 or 6 years from now will search and dredge up this old thread and necro it. (I wish I was joking.) Trying to be thorough in providing details and all of that fun stuff. 
Also, just because I would be remiss if I didnāt mention it? But please be prepared. Most, if not all chargebacks Iāve see come through here have required players to go and buy a Battle.net gift card for Blizzard Balance. The chargeback would have made you persona non grata and your debit/credit card no good for direct payback. That is how chargebacks are TYPICALLY handled. But with all the purchases and whatnot, this is already beyond typical.
If you can or think to? Please do check back in once youāve reached some resolution with the staff. Good luck to you once more. I am crossing my fingers this will be able to be worked out for you.
2 Likes
Thatās on you. I donāt know anyone that would simply see that and throw up their hands and give up, especially if you are offered a link to open a ticket. Even if the answer is no you still had a option to inquire.
Also this is beside the point. If you are outside of a vendors refund policy they are not entitled to give you a refund and you are certainly NOT entitled to commit fraud by doing a chargeback against them.
The issue here is that according to your bank or credit card company Blizzard committed fraud by not giving you a service or product that you paid for. Blizzard absolutely delivered what you purchased, you just decided that you didnāt want to spend money to get the extras. That is simply changing your mind and not fraud.
Iām sorry to come of like a scolding parent here, but I work in the CC industry (and have for way longer than I care to admit) and this is a real problem that cost businesses (and in reality) consumers huge amounts of money a year because people use the chargeback system as there own little refund system for purchases that they regretted making. People need to realize that doing a chargeback has real world consequences that they might not see right away.
Honestly I would expect a law very soon that ups the penalty for people that open fraudulent chargebacks. Already CC companies and banks will at minimum block people from opening cards or accounts with them for too many chargebacks (even if they are valid) and sometimes they will actually fine people and go after not only the cost of the chargeback but the fees as well. There are a few CC industry groups that are pushing for felony charges to be able to be brought, that is how big the problem is.
So again chargebacks are not to be used as a personal, āwell the business had a refund policy I didnāt like give me my refundā thing. It is serious and can have serious ramifications for everyone. Honestly, I wish Blizzard would go back to their previous policy of not allowing any purchase of any kind until a chargeback was paid back in full using a form of payment that isnāt a credit or debit card.
3 Likes
Just for the record, Iām not trying to come off as scoldling. Iām just mindful that someone, 4, 5 or 6 years from now will search and dredge up this old thread and necro it. (I wish I was joking.) Trying to be thorough in providing details and all of that fun stuff.
Also, just because I would be remiss if I didnāt mention it? But please be prepared. Most, if not all chargebacks Iāve see come through here have required players to go and buy a Battle.net gift card for Blizzard Balance. The chargeback would have made you persona non grata and your debit/credit card no good for direct payback. That is how chargebacks are TYPICALLY handled. But with all the purchases and whatnot, this is already beyond typical.
If you can or think to? Please do check back in once youāve reached some resolution with the staff. Good luck to you once more. I am crossing my fingers this will be able to be worked out for you.
I 100% appreciate you, its been 13 years since I last played this game and a lot has changed. I will definitely update this thread if/when a resolution happens. I think the BEST solution for everyone is they issue me a refund for the new recent Epic expansion purchase and I call my bank and reverse the charge back on the first one. If the chargeback cannot be reversed, I am happy to add money back to my battlenet for the amount owed.
But I must say I will not wait much longer then this for a resolution, Its already been a week. I personally donāt really care all that much about maintaining access to the game in the event I need to dispute the second purchase of the Epic edition and just uninstall the game and move on. I also added another 30 days game time to my account thatās being eaten up by this character lock out. The game is pretty much the same as I remember from 13 years ago and not all that important to me I wont lose sleep over moving on lol.
Obviously I want a good resolution that benefits both blizzard and I, but if they remain unresponsive, then it is what it is, Ill just get all my money back for every charge I made this week and move on. I do hope it doesnt come down to that as I genuinely do not want them to suffer penalties as a result of my actions with the chargebacks, but they are not showing a willingness to respond to me in a reasonable timeframe, and at the end of the day, I am the consumer, they are selling me a product, and they should be able to provide support for that product wether I am in the right or wrong. Thatās just good business practice.
In all fairness to Blizzard, you didnāt make a mistake. It wasnāt a matter of clicking on the wrong product in an oops. You conscientiously purchased the Epic Edition, used the boost, played a bit, and decided you didnāt like it.
Blizzard has mechanisms in place to help those that āmake a mistakeā but buyerās remorse, as in your case, falls under the non-refundable category unless you hadnāt used the product.
If you were to go to GameStop and purchase any game or software, played it and decided to return it, youād be denied. Their policy clearly says āunopened software and unused digital productsā.
5 Likes
Unfortunately, that is not likely going to be a solution. Iām not 100% sure if thereās a way to reverse a chargeback. And if there is, thatās mostly just going to be a red flag to the bank that what you implicitly claimed as fraud was, in and of itself, fraudulent. I donāt think you want to go down that road with your bank. Even though your intent is to correct it, it can also have unintended consequences to it.
The best thing is to wait on your ticket and see what Blizzard requires to resolve this.
While ticket times are not in a good place right now, they will get there as fast as they can.
Wait, what?? You have this whole thread telling you that chargeback are not an option because of the myriad of consequences to themā¦and yet youāre still thinking about doing it AGAIN??
Just when I think Iāve seen the depths of the human race, someone says āhold my beerā.
If you only hear this one thing by reading this thread, make it be this: DO. NOT. DO. THIS.
Not only is your bank going to send up red flags about this, since you charged back this company once before and now youāre doing it again, one of the charges is for the exact same price. Red flag after red flag. Not to mention they have likely already communicated with Blizzard and better understand the situation.
And they willā¦when they get to your ticket. People are in line ahead of you, and quite frankly, while Blizzard wonāt make this distinction, those players are people who didnāt chargeback a purchase for no reason.
But no, Blizzard doesnāt owe you anything once you do something like that. Many companies will refuse to do business with you after something like that, regardless if you want to pay it back or not.
3 Likes
Also Blizzard has already pointed out (via the Blue post above) that your ticket is in queue and should be answered in a day or two. You technically arenāt owed any kind of refund as has been stated by their policies, however Blizzard does tend to try and work with people if they can, but they are not required to.
Also just to get ahead of anything, yes the non-refundable nature of software and digital purchases has been tested in court and ruled valid. Open software being non-refundable has been a thing since the late 80s.
Please be careful. I know a chargeback sounds like a quick, easy solution. Using it for these purposes is fraud on your part. Itās also something where your bank can decide youāve simply used it too much, and stop allowing them, or severely restrict their use. If something actually happens that requires a valid chargeback, you may be denied by your bank. Disputed charges also appear on your credit report.
I would guess that your later charges are reversable, as long as they havenāt been charged back. The original chargeback may take some jumping through hoops to make it right. Bliz isnāt legally allowed to just take funds you authorized for one purchase and apply them to another (for example the original issue of refunding one purchase to apply to another, would have to be done as separate transactions, that sort of stuff). Just a guess tho. Best of luck, and be careful you donāt end up with other consequences with your credit and bank later.
6 Likes
you bought an item (pre-order war within epic) with consumable items (level boost) and USED the consumable items, at that point your option of a refund is null and void. Not even support would refund you for that. Read the terms of what you buy.
FWIW, I recall in the past where you could get a refund on a boost that had been used (and perhaps an expansion purchase that included a boost) and all that happened is that the boosted character was locked out until another boost had been applied to that character.
I think this might have worked in OPās case if they had given it a chance, assuming the refund ticket was approved. Get refunded, immediately use the refund balance to buy the lower tier of the xpac, reboost the locked character using the new purchaseās boost, and Robertās your momās brother.
A blue can correct me on this, but my memory says it is not quite that easy.
They did (still do?) allow a refund on a pre-order with a used boost. They do lock the char. But getting that char unlocked again takes CS intervention to actually apply a new boost to it. So it does require a ticket to have them unlock it once a new boost is purchased or acquired in some way.
The issue for the OP is that they did a charge back instead of opening a ticket for a real GM to review the refund request. I donāt think people realize the automated refund tool works great for standard cases but lots of things fall outside that which is why the ticket to have a real person review the request is so important.
I do wish more folks would use this forum as the Information Desk it functions as. So much time and frustration could be saved by just asking first.
5 Likes