Credit Card

[zantsuken]

I am called my credit card company and they said I have rights to dispute the payment I made on September 20th... I stupidly paid for 3 months only a few days prior to this shut-down news.

I am considering moving forward with the dispute.

[ffxjosh]

I am called my credit card company and they said I have rights to dispute the payment I made on September 20th... I stupidly paid for 3 months only a few days prior to this shut-down news.

I am considering moving forward with the dispute.

Good luck getting money from a company that:

A - Wont exist by the time you have everything sorted
B - Doesnt have any money to give you anyways
&
C - stipulates in it's EULA that it doesnt guarentee to give you a service and has the rights to withdraw its services at any point.

16. GUARANTEE / LIMITATION OF LIABILITY.

The sofware, the Game and the associated services are supplied by Gameforge France 'as is', with no other guarantee than the legally-required minimum public order guarantees applicable to this Contract. Any other guarantee, legal or contractual, is expressly excluded. Gameforge France will do its best to make the User's account constantly accessible, but reserves the right to interrupt service due to technical and maintenance activities. Gameforge France can in no way guarantee constant and error-free functioning, however, either of its services or of the Game, nor Users' uninterrupted access to their accounts. In no circumstances shall Gameforge France be held liable in the event of damage to the User's hardware or software when using the Game. Users are reminded in this connection of the need to maintain a proper hardware configuration which meets Gameforge France' recommendations, to update their software regularly and to save their important files on a regular basis. Gameforge France cannot be held liable either for the content of exchanges between players or for players' behavior. Should Gameforge France be held liable for damages on any grounds whatsoever, such liability shall not be greater than the total amount of subscription fees paid by the User.



17. CESSATION OF OPERATION OF THE GAME BY Gameforge France.

Gameforge France gives no guarantee to the User concerning the duration of its running of the Game. Gameforge France reserves the right to stop providing the Game or maintaining its services, at its sole discretion, if the number of Users becomes or remains too low or in any other circumstances, but shall give the User notice of this by means of a message displayed on accessing the Game, on its website at www.ryzom.com or by email. User accounts will in that case be definitively closed.



18. CANCELLATION BY Gameforge France.

Gameforge France may cancel this Contract and close the User's account without notice, instantly and without warning or advance notice, if the User breaches any one of his/her obligations under this Contract or any of the conditions imposed by any of the documents that have been declared part of this Contract. If Gameforge France closes the User's account due to a breech of the contract, Gameforge France reserves the right to ban the User's computer, credit card and/or to disable the software from future access to the game. If the computer is banned or the software disabled any other player using the same computer and/or software will be unable to connect. If the credit card on the account is banned, all other accounts that have been opened using the same credit card may also be banned. In that situation no refund shall be due to the User for the portion of the subscription fee corresponding to the days remaining until the normal expiry of the current subscription period.

[zantsuken]

I better get started right away. The longer I wait the less chance I have

I have nothing to lose, and if CitiBank decides in my favor I get my $40 back.

[aranykai]

I highly suggest that any of you who prepaid for several months in advance to speak to your credit card companies about this. There is a good chance you may be able to recoup some, if not all of your money.

And, these charges are handled by the credit company and the government, not the consumer and the seller. So, doesn't matter if GF is bankrupt, you may not need pay for it.

It cant hurt to try.

[ajsuk]

It's worth a try if it doesn't cost you much (more time/money) and with it being more a service than a product you might have better luck claiming. However if they don't have the money to give you, not sure where you'll get any from.

[zantsuken]

It works differently in the USA than in some other countries. Consumers are pretty well protected as long as an actual credit card is used (not a debit card). Citibank is pretty confident that I will get my money back. They have issued the provisional credit and the case will be closed within 1 week.

EDIT: in the US, the credit card company sometimes eats the charge. It is part of the risk they take.

[twina]

Well I dont know about your banks - but anyone of the three I belong to will reverse the financial transaction on a service charge for upto 15 days - no costs and no charge.

For example - I was charged by Mapfre car insurance when it had already been cancelled - I was using another insurance company. I realised about 12 days later and had the transaction reveresed - and the money refuned to my account. That service was initially paid for by credit card. Have also done the same with Vodofone - reversing bank charges when they had over billed me - that was transactions direct to the bank. After the transactions had been reversed I then contacted the companies to inform them of the inconvienence they had caused.

Ryzom normally is a reacurring subscription also - which means it is an automatic transaction - unless you change billing info. Therefore your bank should be able to reverse the transaction with absolutly no problem - if not I would consider usig a bank that is more customer friendly.

[forever]

I'm not going to try and get back what is left of my pre payed year back.
I don't mind, I hope a dev got it.

[zantsuken]

It would be good if a dev got it. But I think the repo man is going to get it. It is free for most of us to call and put the charges in dispute. No fuss, just a few minutes on hold

[dnycran]

Well, you may be lucky if the bank decides to jump in out of amiability, best luck for this. Different banks work differently on that matter, and it greatly differs by country and method of payment, too. For example, in Germany, a bank transaction is not revocable at all, but a collection can be revoked up to 6 weeks after receiving the abstract of account (by applicable law). My VISA card guarantees 4 weeks, but that's a service of the bank, not a law.

If you are unlucky with the bank, liquidation works first ranked, first served. Whatever happened, the money you paid is part of the total asset. You may get a claim on it, but it's still served out by rank.
So if you dispute your payment, you will probably be entitled a compensation, but it will be good for nothing, because you will be position 36 in the list of creditors, and there will be nothing left, even if someone else buys the game.

Here is a real life example of how this can turn out: A couple of years back, I bought an apartment at a forced auction, which was quite cheap for me, but not so cheap for the people who had given their money for that house.
The construction company had gone bankrupt 4 days before due day. The 12 original "owners" had paid a gross total of 4.8 million Euros to the construction company. Their money was mysteriously gone, the manager had disappeared, the apartments were sold, and the liquidator sold the apartments via auction and would not give them back a cent.
Half of the "rightful owners" (those who could afford) actually bought their apartments again (for about 1/3 the price) at the auction.

After all other creditors had been satisfied, a total 180k Euros were found to be left over, for which the original owners had to file a lawsuit that took 3 years, to get it back.