Comments About EI Billing Post

[Steelclaw]

Clarification of actions to take:

* If you have been billed ON OR AFTER July 18th 2007 (by EI Interactive/PBT)
or
* You have or had a subscription that was active through or after July 18th 2007 (as a result of a charge from EI Interactive/PBT)



then...



* Dispute the charges with your bank/credit card issuer and have PBT cancel all of your subscriptions.
or
* Have PBT cancel all of your subscriptions and give you a refund.


The former action will have a greater collective effect than the latter. You can help put a stop to this crap by making sure your financial institution knows about it.

Note that PBT has no billing relationship with Virtrium or Horizons. Your subscriptions with PBT have nothing to do with your Horizons subscriptions.

[Tathar]

On a side note, when PBT was pinging the 99¢ charges, I put in to my credit card that all future charges from them were fraudulent. I'll make sure to phone them to get it canceled. I'm not going to be entirely hopeful they give a refund for all four months.

I haven't heard about this until recently, but have noticed a charge like this as well. Could you please explain what these charges were and why they were charged? I'm not understanding what you mean by pinging the 99 cent charges.

[SinOfSuns]

I am a little concerned for Virtrium personally. While you guys haven't actually done anything wrong, you are now the ones who are likely to take the blame from irate customers who don't understand the issue. Couple this witht he new billing system you've been implementing (whilst NOT requiring subscriptions) and it's obvious that Virtrium is currently working on faith alone, and that you're taking a rather large gamble with the monetary consequences. However, Horizons has long needed a team like Virtrium to take control and put things back in the right direction and I support that fully - I've already started paying my subscriptions because you guys deserve it.

If there's anything else I can help with as a consumer, I'd be interested in hearing about it. I think the Horizons community, however small, should band together to protect their game, and to help it grow.

Anyway, thanks for being so open with the community about everything, I think that's the first step to a really successful comeback.

[Kumu Honua]

I haven't heard about this until recently, but have noticed a charge like this as well. Could you please explain what these charges were and why they were charged? I'm not understanding what you mean by pinging the 99 cent charges.

It's a fraudulent charge from EI for a subscription you never signed up for.

[Errick]

I have a question in my case. I started a free trial, not knowing all this was going on, just before the switch to the billing system started. I was going to cancel temproarily, until I get my new computer later this month, but I appear not to have a subscription to cancel. Is there a way to tell if I'm still going to be charged when the trial period ends sometime next week?

I'm not sure if it's related to this thread, but since it is related to the transition I wanted to be sure..

[C`gan]

Tathar, in August, PBT did a 99¢ billing to all EIInteractive-related accounts for a subscription to a new website that is being put together by New Gaming World (PME/EI, different day, different name). The subscription was for some type of monthly newsletter. As it was, the billing was automatic and went through multiple rounds (at least two I know of) to completely ping everyone (a ping in the old style computing was a check to see that the connection was still there. In terms of finances, it's a small charge done by a vendor to make sure the customer's accounts are active before handling major transactions. Usually, they're done upon opening, say, a large line of credit with a security backing like a savings account or checking account). None of us asked to be on this list. After complaints and fraud reports started tidal waving in from us, they refunded thos charges. You should check to see if you got any of these pings in your credit card or bank statement and by ALL means, dispute them and demand a refund if you did and haven't received one yet. As was stated in the thread concerning them, I also notified my credit card company that EIInteractive no longer owned the rights to the game and that any billing done on their behalf since July 18 should be considered fraudulent and declined.

Errick, your trial account is currently comped until you set up a billing arrangement through https://accounts.istaria.com to do the billing. I know they're talking until the 15th of this month, so it'd be a good idea to get your subscription set up, regardless of when you get your new computer.

[Qhon Undrum]

Last night when I got home from work (1:00 am EST.) I read this line of posts and then called i-pay. What I found was that my pre-paid accounts, I pay by the year, had been cancelled and a refund had been issued to my cc on 8/31/2007 and the subscription that was due for billing at the end of July was not billed. I then verified this with my card holder.

Whether Vi or Ei gets my August payment is not my concern I received what I paid for and if Vi does not receive the payments after the purchase date it is their (Vi’s) issue.

“As of July 18, 2007, EI Interactive was no longer the legal owner of Horizons�, however Vi failed to take steps to insure the transfer of all assets of the game i.e. paying and pre-paid accounts (also a liability). This is the USA----no offense intended to any player from any other country---lawsuits are us-you(Vi) are the easiest target for recovery of funds from pre-paid accounts that were legally billed. The responsibilty for transition of accounts was and is yours.

“If the current circumstances cause you to leave Horizons - we understand�, Vi shows a very cavalier attitude for a company that needs to keep every subscriber needing about seven new subscriptions for each one that is lost.

The obvious lack of business acumen and understanding of basic economics and/or behavior theory does concern me. My hope is that the skills that Vi does bring to the table are enough to offset this and make HZ a true success.

[AA0]

Qhon, if EI charged did charge you for a year after VI bought the rights to horizons, then it IS your concern. VI has no obligation, or even information that you'd have paid that amount, no less to a company that is not related to Horizons, so yes it is your concern, and you have to do something about it, or you will lose your account.

[LaughingOtter]

a refund had been issued to my cc on 8/31/2007 and the subscription that was due for billing at the end of July was not billed.

So, the payment you made to EI was refunded to your card and you have not yet set up a subscription with Virtrium?

Better take care of that in the next week if you want to take advantage of the Grandfather rates.

[gopher65]

“As of July 18, 2007, EI Interactive was no longer the legal owner of Horizons�, however Vi failed to take steps to insure the transfer of all assets of the game i.e. paying and pre-paid accounts (also a liability). This is the USA----no offense intended to any player from any other country---lawsuits are us-you(Vi) are the easiest target for recovery of funds from pre-paid accounts that were legally billed. The responsibilty for transition of accounts was and is yours.

Key word there, in bold. EII illegally billed you after they were no longer legally allowed to. If EII refuses to abide by the law, there is little Vi can do except sue them. But EII no longer exists (it became PMI, and then something else), so could they even sue them?

And it isn't like Vi BOUGHT the game from EII. EII had the game ripped away from them by Tulga, who then turned around and sold it to Vi.

[Tathar]

Tathar, in August, PBT did a 99¢ billing to all EIInteractive-related accounts for a subscription to a new website that is being put together by New Gaming World (PME/EI, different day, different name). The subscription was for some type of monthly newsletter. As it was, the billing was automatic and went through multiple rounds (at least two I know of) to completely ping everyone (a ping in the old style computing was a check to see that the connection was still there. In terms of finances, it's a small charge done by a vendor to make sure the customer's accounts are active before handling major transactions. Usually, they're done upon opening, say, a large line of credit with a security backing like a savings account or checking account). None of us asked to be on this list. After complaints and fraud reports started tidal waving in from us, they refunded thos charges. You should check to see if you got any of these pings in your credit card or bank statement and by ALL means, dispute them and demand a refund if you did and haven't received one yet. As was stated in the thread concerning them, I also notified my credit card company that EIInteractive no longer owned the rights to the game and that any billing done on their behalf since July 18 should be considered fraudulent and declined.

Errick, your trial account is currently comped until you set up a billing arrangement through https://accounts.istaria.com to do the billing. I know they're talking until the 15th of this month, so it'd be a good idea to get your subscription set up, regardless of when you get your new computer.

Yes, I have had that 99 cent charge reversed already, but now I have an $11.28 credit to my account and have no clue what it is for. Also, I'm very confused about who Virtrium is and how they happened to acquire the game.

[C`gan]

$11.28 credit. Well, that would be a partial month billed ($12.95 full month)?

Virtrium LLC is composed of Rick Simmons (CTO of what used to be Artifact Entertainment and Tulga Games), Amon (Chaos Worldmaster and lead programmer) and Reyem (Tulga Games CSR).

HOW they acquired it, who knows? I'm just glad they DID!

[Deth]

The general thought and understanding is that EI EI OH/PMI/Whoever had an agreement with Chris (the owner) that they had a year? to make some money off the game and pay him for it. The year passed, they did not have the easy time of it they thought they should and did not make any cash, the payment came due and they did not pay it. So he yanked it back and VI stepped in with some offer.

That is all hear say but that is the only explanation I have heard, and I have been hearing about the delayed payment to Chris since the sale, so that sounds like the best explanation to me.

[Qhon Undrum]

Just to clarify I was properly billed last January and my accounts were credited correclty in August, without intervention on my part. No billing occured after the change in ownership. Apparently others have experienced unauthorized charges on their ccs--I have not. I monitor my cc and always take immediate action if there is/are charges that i do not recognize.

The how and why of the change in ownership of HZ is not my concern, I, like everyone else can only deal with the results.

[agak]

first let me begin with i respect the efforst that VI is taking and have seen positive changes thus far.

also let me state that they are allowing FREE time for game play while they sort out the billing.

facts:
VI has obtained the rights to Horizons
VI seems to have all the resources files etc associated with Horizons

thoughts:
when a company buys another company in doing so it usualy isstated what assests and liabilities come with the purchace.
EI or no oher company other then VI has the right to charge you for the service of Horizons.
Vi has all the accounting information and the remainder of subscription information. When transfering the information each account should be credited with any remaining balance. Providing a continuos server to the user. Any monies previously payed to Ei or other companies is the responsabiliy of VI to seek since this should have been worked out when HZ was bought.

conclusion;
as mentioned in my thoughts VI shoulde credit accounts acording to the full balance on the existing subscriptions. Seek to obtain the difference from EI or other responsiple companies. Doing this would certainly shed a more favorible light on the user base and promote continued subscriptions.

this is only my opinion -- -i could be wrong

[AA0]

Mostly correct Deth, except the payments were to be made much sooner than a year, but EI's stalling tactics led things go on far longer then should have.

[gopher65]

Vi has all the accounting information and the remainder of subscription information.

I don't think they do. Again, remember.

1) Vi didn't buy HZ from EII.

2) As far as we can tell, from the press releases and such, Tulga repoed the game from EII. (why? that's another issue. I doubt we'll ever know the exact reason to to legal issues)

3) Tulga, or rather its main investor Chris Baker, sold HZ to Vi.

4) As far as we can tell, Vi never had any contact with EII. Vi says that it *tried* to contact EII to get the billing info, for 1.5 months apparently (July 18th to Sept 5), but that they eventually gave up because they couldn't get ahold of EII (just like we the customers never could, nor could the BBB)

5) EII has an account with a billing company called PaybyTouch. It is this company that charged you money for HZ. They handle your CC info and such things.

6) Vi CANNOT just phone up PbT and ask them for all the information on EII's account (ie, your billing information). That would be like you phoning up my credit card company and asking them for a list of my purchases, and my CC number, and my SS (or SI, I can never remember which one is Canadian) number. Would my credit card company give you that information? Of course not. This is the same deal.

EII could phone up PbT and tell them to send that info to Vi, but apparently they are unwilling to do that (which is what this whole fiasco is about).

7) Now. The only thing that I see that Vi did wrong was to not take down the old billing page on the 18th of July. Apparently they were still hoping that EII would transfer the account information to them. Yeah. Right. Those of us who have watched EII for the past year know they would never do something like that. If it had been me that billing page would have gone down the moment I had control of the servers.

I'm just surprised that Vi had any expectations that EII would act in an honourable fashion.

[Vahrokh]

conclusion;
as mentioned in my thoughts VI shoulde credit accounts acording to the full balance on the existing subscriptions. Seek to obtain the difference from EI or other responsiple companies. Doing this would certainly shed a more favorible light on the user base and promote continued subscriptions.

this is only my opinion -- -i could be wrong

EII is not Compaq and Virtrium is not Hewlett Packard.

The former is a company whose actions have been "peculiar" (to stay on the "prudent side" theme) and expecially studied to be low profile enough (moderate small "surcharges", change of name) to barely stay below the thresold above which you can be sued and prosecuted by law.

The latter is a 3 good willed men "force". Good willed, with further backup but still a 3 men force.

We happen to live in a thing called "reality", where not everything is about multi-billion companies sold to multi-nationals with an army of attorneys checking up to the last transferred trade-mark and accounting the water closets cleaning brushes with labels one by one.

This has been about a company with extremely low communication "skills" getting kicked after a "trial" and replaced by another smallest company.

Wether in your opinion you "care" or not, wether "they have to deal with it or not", those in charge are unable - with the ways things have gone - to do it like they were say Sony or Blizzard. Both the companies in cause are so abysmally small and unimportant that a judge won't stop his gardening hobby to bother with them.

"You are right and no one can care the least" is the possible answer to the pretty much harsh "they should do this, it's their business to do that" and so on. They won't.

Finally, it'd be a criminal act to divulge private banking / credit card information and hand it over from company A to company B. PBT, being reasonable serious, did the maximum extent they could do at reimbursing unused parts of subscriptions, they can't just slam away a neat credit cards list to Vitrium so that their employees enjoy buying stuff and having fun with them. They will close their records and have YOU to deal with YOUR privacy.

If YOU consider Virtrium good enough to earn your money, YOU will use their facilities to instate a new account. There's no premade clerks to do your consumer job for you.

[Halacious]

Hi Community!! Dragons Rule!!

I just called PayByTouch about the charge to my credit card for Horizons on Aug. 18, 2007 and they said the account/subscription had been canceled by Horizons and a refund has been generated. Just thought that was interesting since I didn't read anywhere that I could expect that to happen automatically. Relieved at any rate. wooooosh!

Looking forward to a long exciting continued adventure in Istaria. See you all in game.

Halacious/Anakan

[SinOfSuns]

*cough* I just have to add this:
"Old Mac Donald had a farm..."

EI EI OH

Sounds like a more pressing issue for Virtrium is getting new developers on board. Maybe I have a chance!