The time is coming, the pandas will be upon us soon.
Also coming up shortly thereafter is the end of my annual pass commitment.
I signed on for a year of WoW. I played for a few months. I got my special mount.
And, most importantly I suppose, I got my “free” copy of Diablo III.
But I am not feeling it for the pandas. Not specifically because of pandas.
I just have no enthusiasm at the moment for Azeroth.
I won’t foreswear it forever. This blog clearly shows I am nostalgia driven at times, and Blizzard hasn’t managed to eradicate all of the nostalgia factors around WoW for me.
It is about time to unsubscribe. Blizzard, however, has other ideas on the subject.
I cannot just run out on my commitment!
Unfortunately, by my reckoning, my commitment was complete a while ago.
I did the annual pass in two six month payments. I made the second six month payment on my annual pass on April 23rd of this year. At that point in time, I had paid for my year and was done as far as I was concerned. I ought to be able to cancel my account to avoid running into the next billing cycle. Even Blizzard seems to agree, in principle. From their somewhat unhelpful (in this case) help files on the subject:
Once your billing cycle begins using the payment method you have chosen, it can not be reversed or refunded. You will still be able to access the account and characters for the duration of your pre-paid time. If you need to take a break from World of Warcraft and are using a credit card for payment you can cancel your subscription so that you will not be billed further.
Today though, Blizzard seems to be more interested in keeping unwilling subscribers.
To minimize the impact, I changed my billing options to monthly and opened a ticket to see what they have to say on the subject.
My account remains active for now. Making me keep it active at this point probably makes it less likely that I will return at a future date. Billing problems annoy me, and I have been known to hold a grudge.
Otherwise I have a 18 hour and 58 minute window in which to cancel my account on October 22nd.
I’d better set up a reminder. Until then, I remain still subscribed.
Anybody else see something similar with their annual pass commitment?
[And you can see how Blizzard support handled my questions about this.]
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I opened a ticket with Blizz for the exact same issue. Here is their response:
” While you do have paid game time through the end of your Annual Pass contract, we are not able to remove your recurring subscription yet. Since the terms of the contract stipulate that a credit card be attached for the entire 12 months, removing that card (even if you still have active game time) would cause battle.net to invalidate the contract and remove your benefits.
Once the contract period is over, you are more than welcome to remove your credit card, and if for some reason you are unable to and the card is accidentally charged, we should be able to issue a refund for any non-required time.”
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I see, it is “screw you, we hope to get another billing cycle by making this a pain!”
Because the first line of the online support section that I quoted in the post says no refunds will be issued for subscription time that has been billed. Just for reference, here it is:
“Once your billing cycle begins using the payment method you have chosen, it can not be reversed or refunded.”
So the statement about issuing a refund seems to contradict listed policy to the extent that I wonder if that particular agent’s pants are even now on fire.
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While their help files say nothing of the sort, you can indeed cancel immediately with a rep on the phone. I did so after I signed up not fully understanding that I wasn’t allowed to cancel. They gave me a hard time and recited parts of the agreement but when I told them the money simply wouldnt be there, plus my error in understanding, they cancelled it out. All that to say, if you really want to out and are willing to wait on their extended hold times, there’s a decent chance you could end it now.
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I tried to change and got blocked. But I am in until Feb anyway. I dont even play Diablo 3 anymore…just another sucker I guess
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Reminds me of trying to cancel AOL.
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Ok I did log in last night to see what all the fuss was about with the new patch – and……I actually played for about 2 hours!! Just going through all the changes, then I was hmm let me get my characters ready for action – not sure for what – but then got the mods done and played some bg’s etc… was fun.
Actually going to run a fun raid tonight – so will see if I grind to a halt after that or keep going.
With the new warlock changes tempted to get my lock from 80 to 85.
Oh well – I also am stuck in the 1 year sub with the same date as you all are – will keep to that and figure out as I get closer what I am going to do.
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@Gripper – I ran the updater last night while I slept. I will have to log in to see what is up with the new patch myself.
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If my calculations are correct, my subscription will renew THE DAY PRIOR to the Annual Pass commitment being fulfilled. I got an e-mail “agreement” from Blizzard that the balance of that month can be refunded after AP is done.
We’ll see if they are true to their word.
And I can’t wait to see what the TRUE subscriber numbers are, once the AP hostages flee.
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I discovered roughly the same thing shortly after I paid for the second six month installment. The response to my ticket stated that they couldn’t do anything electronically and suggested that I call the phone line, which I judged to be unlikely to be worth my time/blood pressure. Fortunately, for whatever reason, I have more than 24 hours between the end of my commitment and my next billing installment.
(P.S. I was considering blogging about this but decided that it would be more timely in mid-October. Perhaps we should start a PSA campaign?)
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@Green Armadillo – A PSA. Not a bad idea. It can be like those reminders about daylight savings time. Turn back your account billing!
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Assuming you can delete all payment methods and stored credit cards in their system, that would automatically freeze your account when the next payment cannot go through…. right?
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@Chris K – You cannot just delete your payment info, and Blizzard won’t let you enter an invalid credit card. In fact, to change to a one-month plan, as I did above, I had to re-enter my credit card info and it had to be valid.
I also had to pick a new security question from a list of what I consider the worst security questions ever. Not one of them represented something I could even recall now, much less remember correctly at some future date. But that is a rant for another time.
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I’d planned on resubbing sometime in the next six months or so to see the new race and zones, but if they’re going to engage in billing chicanery there’s no way I’m giving them my credit card number again.
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I got the easy way out. I had my credit card stolen during the annual pass and had to change it. I played D3 for a bit but I never bothered to update my CC. My CC failed when they tried to rebill me and I said meh, what do I care? I’m not playing wow or D3.
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Didn’t you have to sign on for a year long commitment? If everyone could get the “free” stuff and just not pay for a year that wouldn’t be what was agreed. What am I missing here?
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@Nightwing – Well, if you are referencing me, you probably missed the part where I pointed out that I have already paid for the required year.
The give away line from the post:
“I made the second six month payment on my annual pass on April 23rd of this year.”
So, yeah, I paid or a year as I agreed to. I just don’t want to pay for MORE than that at this time.
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Thank you Wilhelm, I understand and I’m concerned about that too now!
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