Everything started when the ticket was up at the website. I would buy it certainly, since it's no longer maintained by a 3rd party company (RayV), which brought us the wonderful lag spike & downtime of the stream right when the showmatch of FruitDealer vs Boxer was live on the stage.
I clicked the "Buy Now" big green button and then BAM!, my credit card wasn't accepted at the store. I thought this was normal since a lot of people complain about that about the Blizz Store. I never had any problems in the past, I bought the 2010 Virtual Ticket, the Moonkin Hatchling WoW Pet, and I've always paid for my subscription and character transfers for me and my wife on WoW.
However this time it wouldn't accept even my brother's card. I was stuck and had to call the international billing & services support, by the way I didn't mention, but I'm in Japan.
After buying a card for international calls at the nearest convenience store, I called Blizzard Support and spoke to the representative, which proceeded to say that he couldn't complete the transaction since he didn't had access to the Blizzcon 2011 Virtual Ticket, because it was not listed in the Blizzard Store - and indeed it isn't. The only way to put the ticket in your cart to buy it is by going to the Blizzcon.com website and clicking the big green button I mentioned earlier.
Well then he said he couldn't do nothing and suggested that I posted on the forums so I could pray for a lucky blue response. Lulz ensued as the general forum inhabitants appeared to throw words on me, and without blue response, I turned back to the ticket support from the battle.net site itself.
I just copy pasted my thread there and then the answer came: "We are sorry that the representative you spoke with was not able to help you. Rest assured we can force the ticket purchase for you if you give us a call back." - I had a smile in my face, I thought everything was going to work well.
The next day I called billing support again (and as always, it's near midnight here in Japan 11pm = 7am pacific), the guy indeed said there was a problem and that he identified that I couldn't use my credit card because it was blocked by Blizzard itself because I used it on 2 different accounts - which are mine and my wife's - I was like *duh*
I had to wait for him to contact the guys from the credit card security on Blizzard. I was afraid my international card would run out of minutes, but then he picked up the phone again and said "I just talked to the guys, and they will remove the lock on your card today. So try to make your purchase again in about 6 hours and all will be resolved" - Thank God! I thought. After hanging the phone, I have gone to sleep since I had to work early the next day.
The next day I woke up 5 minutes earlier, booted up my PC, logged in, clicked the BUY NOW! and then BAM!, same error. I let out a long drawn *sigh* and with Blizzcon getting nearer and nearer everyday, I am starting to think I might lose the party this year.
I reopened the ticket they answered to me and suggested I could pay for other services equivalent to the price of the ticket and they could swap products in my account, but they said it's not possible, also suggested a PayPal payment, but again, they said it's not possible, and said I should try to make my payment with a different credit card.
I am running out of options, and patience here. Here is the history of my journey:
4 Support Tickets
3 Different Credit Cards refused
2 Phone Calls of about 20 minutes each, costing me 1 international calls card of $20
1 Forum thread with no response
29 days since first contact
I am now waiting for my father to get online on skype so I can get his Credit Card info and try this 4th card - if it doesn't work, what could I do then? I am running desperate here... that's why I had to unleash my frustration on this blog post, and hope someone who cares would respond on how could I buy that damn virtual ticket!
Thanks for listening to me guys <3TL