Square Enix Is Cracking Down On Fraudulent Time Card Use And Players Are Going To Pay

If you’ve been buying your Final Fantasy XIV time from one of those third-party discount sellers, you might want to stop. This is something we should all know by now, but let’s give the benefit of the doubt here. If you weren’t aware, those sites are not legally selling you the codes. The way it works is that they use stolen credit card information to buy a bunch of cards and then sell them to you at a lower price – because they obviously cost them nothing.

If you’re the type to think that doesn’t matter as long as you get a discount. One, you suck. Two, you’re now at risk of losing your Final Fantasy XIV account as Square Enix has announced that they will no longer be giving players the benefit of the doubt when they discover an account has used a code obtained this way.

The thing is that sooner or later the owner of the stolen credit card information figures out what their card was used for and goes about getting that money back, meaning (in this case) Square Enix ends up losing money. For a while now, the company has been overlooking it and running with the idea that players may not know and therefore it was difficult to justify punishing them. However, the company recently announced there has been “a significant increase” in the uses of these fraudulently-acquired cards – which means it’s costing them more to deal with it.

Well, now it’s going to cost the players who used the cards. The developer has decided it will now be suspending accounts that have redeemed game time cards obtained via fraudulent third-party sites. It will be possible to reinstate the account, but it’s going to cost you. Anyone who has been caught using one of these cards will need to pay Square Enix the cost of the card before they can get their accounts back. We’re not talking about paying the next month of the MMORPG's sub, but making up for the money lost on the fraudulent card – which means you’ll end up having paid more for your two months of sub than if you’d just bought the card legitimately.

If you’re not sure where to buy legitimate cards, Square Enix provided a list in the announcement on the Lodestone. These include the Square Enix Store and Amazon for the Americas and Europe. The Americas also have the option of buying through Newegg and Gamestop.