Error Code 401

This is what I have been warning about on the official forums. People unable to play for such a long time will find another game to entertain themselves with, and may decide to not come back.

The other part of this issue is that it affects FFXIV too, except that they have time cards for that game (so they should be able to have them for FFXIV too). The problem with the time cards is that they can't factor in any sort of discount for Legacy players, and they can't pay for things like Retainers. I imagine FFXIV is being hurt by this lack of payment option as well, maybe moreso because of having more players.

been getting the 401 error myself, and not sure what to try to do. if anyone has any tips, that would be great thx.

do they actually put a ban on your account for trying again and again?

I've been locked out of my account since oct 2. I've gotten 401's on that account since June of this year and was using Paypal. Haven't gotten a single CC charge to go through since June. The longest I've waited between attempts was 17 days.. so safe to assume that I've got a 30 day block or longer on my account. I've read others say that they were told by se that the block can go up to 90 days, but who knows. Honestly don't care anymore, at this point it's highly unlikely I'd come back to the game even if I was gifted a years worth of free subs. I'm not even mad/frustrated anymore, after 3 months I've more or less moved on and found other things to fill my time with, and being away gave me some perspective on how shitty the game has become.

Take what SE says with a grain of salt: I was able to recently buy crysta on a mule account with my fiance's mothers credit card, so despite all their *** "make sure the name and address matches your se account" I got a credit card to work where not only the name didn't match, but the address and country didn't either.

Sorry to hear this Calipso, I had this once and I managed to get a none HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE Rep to help..

It really is a case of "Luck of the draw" depending on whom you speak to :/

Tried different CC's, browsers and IP addresses. guess I will have to see if I can get lucky tomorrow and get a SE rep that actually wants to help.

well, phoned SE today, had a very helpful rep. looked into my problem, "lifted the ban" I had from trying too much. told me to wait 20min and then it worked. never have I had such a good experience with them over the phone in my 8+ years.

I'm not looking forward to trying to top up crysta when my next billing is due in 2 weeks.

I can see it being the end of me playing tbh. I liked the easy way to buy the crysta with Paypal via Ultimate Play or whatever it was called.

*edit*
Wow it went through when I just tried it.
I was in the bath holding my inspiration in my hands, when it occurred to me that my old credit card runs out tomorrow, what with it being the end of the year.
I still had it lying around ready to bin because I've been using the replacement since it came in the post a month ago.
So I put the details in and it confirmed no problem.

I have no intention of ever connecting a credit card to my account. So hopefully this way is just a one off transaction every 4 months or so.

I just transferred 1 of my accounts. the payment went through and I was on my new server for about an hour before it kicked me off and is now giving me 601.

Good of them to take my money for transfer before locking me out.

Today was my turn to have my accounts having 401.

3 accounts blocked for no crysta stored.

First 2 i managed to recharge crysta using my personal CC, using mozilla and reactivated without any further issue.

Last one got 401. I didnt try again with that card. Asked my mother CC.

Mothers CC was a mastercard, and it got 401.

Mothers second CC was a visa and it got 401 again.

Went to ipad, and tried all 3 cards, and got 401 in all of them.

Turned off my wifi and tried 3G internet, and 401 in all again.

Went back to pc, and tried internet explorer instead. My mother visa CC got 401.

Tried my mother mastercard again, and this time, it entered.

God knows what logic is behind of this.

There is no logic. According to SE, your account should be locked for 30 days after trying that many times. And yet, the payment eventually did go through.

Amazed at their incompetence when it comes to this. I mean, people want to pay and can't, and they pretty much do nothing about it. The "information" given by their reps isn't even correct. Meh.

I dnt doubt there is a 30 days block for your card. i made sure i never repeated over many times the same card. just the necessary amount.

Account block isnt correct though. Card block is true.

That's the thing though, supposedly it's not your card that is blocked but your account that's locked from all further attempts, so it doesn't matter if you have 20 different cards you can try. At least that's the impression I'm under from having dealt with 401 error myself (including talking to SE reps), and also from reading what others have been told by these reps.

I've waited the 30 days, tried multiple cards, multiple times... nothing. There has been no light at the end of this tunnel. I'm on the phone with them now. I'll let you know how awful this goes as usual.

Edit: I managed to keep them on the phone for an hour in order to gain a glimpse of how "suspicious" it was that I was trying to order a subscription with my card. Apparently all card numbers I gave them had been flagged for "suspicious activity"... even a card number that I had made up to see if they were even looking them up and giving me a response. Apparently, they don't even know what the problem is. They're just making things up as they go along. Why don't they just use a square card reader and take payments over the phone? The fees? I think a 10% fee on 10 dollars would be better than 0% on 0 dollars for them.

The only thing blocking the account is "lack of funds".

Them blocking your means of adding funds to the account with moronic poorly configured protective measures is half of the issue.

The other half is them being unable to pinpoint what is moronic about their protective measures.


And snowball grows. That's killing FFXI lol. Before I deactivated Fenrir had 450 people on lowest populace time vs 1200 people at highest. (week days)

From those 450 at least half were certainly bazaars, not playing players.

Will you come back or this was the end?

Paypal is now an option to buy Crysta with.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/44683?p=537931#post537931

sorry necro but anyone still having this issue ty

I still have this problem when paying directly from my credit card but it has been working fine with paypal option.

So even with error will be allowed to pay with PayPal or have to wait for cool down timer.

Even with error i could pay with paypal.