Mindark and deposits

[Husker]

Originally Posted by Teilk

btw, this is the very same message that I got back on the same day...word for word.....Do you think that the support section consists of robots????

That wouldn't suprise me at all.

[Hawkman99]

I submitted a response on my PE support page on Jan 27th saying that I was expecting SOME compensation (ingame PED OK) for their screw-up and as of today (Feb 3) I still haven't gotten a response. What a bunch of Monkeys!! You would think that all the money we pump into their system, they could at least afford some decent support staff members. BTW, the screw-ups showed up on my CC statement on Jan 17th and 18th so it obviously hadn't been fixed as of that time.

Hawkman

[Teilk]

Well, I am sure that me and husker can provide the responses that you will get.....kind of a long copy though

[Dusk]

Adding fuel to the fire, I posted the following in a fit of rage earlier on today without doing a search for other similar posts first. You can add MBNA Europe to the list of card issuers who will treat it like taking money from a hole in the wall:-

"I've just got off the phone to my credit card issuer after I'd noticed a charge of £3 that I didn't recognise. They've informed me that it is in connection with a deposit I'd made to Mindark that has been treated as a cash advance.

I'd made a deposit via Project Entropia, expecting that Mindark would charge me only the 3.5% of my total. Fair enough, but according to my card issuer, MA have changed the way they handle the payment, meaning that they (the card issuer) have to treat it like a cash withdrawal. It is the third payment I've made in total. The first was via their website, and the last two via PE. The first of those two did not incurr a charge, so as you can imagine I'm not too pleased at the moment. It's only £3, but it's the principle of the thing for me. It was MY £3, and now because of something that MA have done I've incurred this unexpected charge.

Has anyone else had this problem?"

[toorged]

It is not MA and our PSP (Dibs) who are setting the merchant category code. It is the acquirer toghether with VISA / Mastercard

OMFG, I cut and paste part of my support case regarding the MCC.... They knew about the Merchant Catagory Code a few months ago, now it's catching up.


Case 60892 History

2005-12-01 Todd DeGroot:
They just told me the Merchant Catagory Code provided to you by Visa shows you as a gambling website, do you have another merchante catagory code you can use?

2005-12-09 MindArk Support:
Well, what you stated doesn't seem to be 100% accurate:

"the Merchant Catagory Code provided to you by Visa shows you as a gambling website"

At the moment we have many US participators with VISA cards that are working perfectly well.

Most likely, it is your Bank that has activated this "blocking". This has happened with respect to a few US Banks before. However, it has always been possible to resolve by the customers themselves (By calling them and explain what PE is). Seems like they sometimes confuses "Online Gaming" with "Online Gambling"

However, if you should not be able to convince them, perhaps the best would be if we could have a fax number to the appropriate Bank dept. Then we could send them some documentation about PE, our policies regarding Fraud etc.


You can see from my post back in Dec....How does Banks Classify PE ? Read the last part, i gurantee this is why everyone is getting the cash advance fee because of the Merchante Category Code. I even had Marco PM me asking about this and said he would look into it but never heard back.

[Erinome]

Well, I'm down to my last 50PED or so and I will NOT be depositing again until this is fixed so I hope they take care of it soon. I don't want to quit playing PE, but I will not continue to deposit/play if I have to pay cash advance interest rates on my deposits.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by toorged

OMFG, I cut and paste part of my support case regarding the MCC.... They knew about the Merchant Catagory Code a few months ago, now it's catching up.


Case 60892 History

2005-12-01 Todd DeGroot:
They just told me the Merchant Catagory Code provided to you by Visa shows you as a gambling website, do you have another merchante catagory code you can use?

2005-12-09 MindArk Support:
Well, what you stated doesn't seem to be 100% accurate:

"the Merchant Catagory Code provided to you by Visa shows you as a gambling website"

At the moment we have many US participators with VISA cards that are working perfectly well.

Most likely, it is your Bank that has activated this "blocking". This has happened with respect to a few US Banks before. However, it has always been possible to resolve by the customers themselves (By calling them and explain what PE is). Seems like they sometimes confuses "Online Gaming" with "Online Gambling"

However, if you should not be able to convince them, perhaps the best would be if we could have a fax number to the appropriate Bank dept. Then we could send them some documentation about PE, our policies regarding Fraud etc.

This sounds reasonable enough - except that the credit card change occurred only when MindArk changed service providers.

[Veda]

Originally Posted by Dusk

You can add MBNA Europe to the list of card issuers who will treat it like taking money from a hole in the wall...

I can confirm that as for my previous months deposits there were no cash advance fees applied until MA, to quote from their reply "changed both their PSP (payment provider) and CC payment procedures at Jan 05" After this, according to MBNA Europe PE are classified as a gambling site. Quote from MA: " It might be that our new PSP are stating a merchant category that is not appropriate. " and they say they are trying to fix the problem. I received MA's response the next day so I'm happy the problem will be solved in time. Meanwhile I can't really play the way I like to... as I can only deposit about $10 at a time and it's costing me £3 for £6!!! ...

[Teilk]

Originally Posted by Veda

I received MA's response the next day so I'm happy the problem will be solved in time. Meanwhile I can't really play the way I like to... as I can only deposit about $10 at a time and it's costing me £3 for £6!!! ...

Not trying to burst your bubble, but we have alll recieved somewhat timely responses, almost exactly like this. My first one was 3 weeks ago, others as much as a month ago. I hope that the problem can be solved in "time", but time is infinite. As a business manager myself, I know that when dealing with a customer base that spends a lot of money quite frequently, a quick and timely resolution to problems is very, very important. I cant imagine what would happen if I let a problem continue for more than a month! I do know that my customers would probably find an alternative company to work with. That gives me an idea......Does anyone know if we can use paypal, or some other means of deposit that would not be listed as a cash advance for a casino?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Marco|MindArk

Thank you for your well-put and reasonable message. I agree it should have been posted, and I will talk to the Support manager about that. I am not up to speed on this matter, to be frank, and I don't have any details to it. I am sure that people who have suffered additional losses due to this will be compensated as it is something out of their control.

Some sort of Support News section should be created, where any known issues are displayed, to avoid any future incidents as this one.

Marco,

I made MindArk aware of this on the 6th of January, and also notified all players I could online as well as posting within this forum. We have worked with other PE participants to bring awareness to as many players as possible so they were not taken unawares by the new fees. To date, MindArk Support has responded several times, including notifying us that the problem was corrected on the 17th of January. Sadly, this was untrue and yet more fees were incurred by players who trusted that depositing was again properly handled.

Details to date:

When MindArk changed service providers on 5/1/2006, the new service provider reports all deposits as "Quasi Cash" transactions. This is the category used by online casinos, and results in many banks (predominantly in the US) charging per-deposit "cash advance" fees (between $5 and $25 per deposit) for each transaction. Because these deposits are handled by the banks differently than "purchases", they also incur higher percentage finance rates for people who finance their PE deposits on credit. Players whose credit cards do not allow cash advance transfers simply find themselves unable to deposit at all.

Many depositers who pay-to-play using small daily deposits have incurred several hundreds of dollars of fees before becoming aware of this change - in part because banks process a "reserve" of the funds deposited but do not post the cash-advance fees until a few days later when MindArk's service provider "completes" the transaction and reports the deposit as a cash advance. This is a change from how deposit transactions were reported by the previous servide provider.

MindArk also notified many of us that the problem had been corrected as of the 17th of January, and after a test deposit and a few days' wait, we began normal deposits again. Sadly, it turns out that the fees were merely delayed and began showing up shortly thereafter. Again, we stopped depositing, reported everything to MindArk Support, and watched as the incurred fees were applied. Several players have reported that the unexpected and unauthorized fees pushed their account balanced over their limit, incurring overdraft fees on top of everything else - and negatively affecting their credit rating. This will remain a negative on their credit report for 7 years, affecting loans, mortgages, and even job applications in some cases.

It is now one month since this problem started. MindArk Support has been polite, but provided no aid thus far - only one assurance that the problem had been corrected and then a later response that it turns out the problem still remains. Many players wait, unable to deposit and with massive unexpected fees amounting to hundreds of dollars or more. We have attempted to warn other players here, and continue communicating with MindArk's Support group - but have not heard from them for some days.

We hope this will be corrected soon. Thank you for any assistance you might provide in gaining their attention. Our own efforts to date have yielded no positive results.