U.K. Bank Declines World of Warcraft Credit Card Payments

The Halifax bank in the U.K. has halted credit card payments to Blizzard as a result of overly-frequent use of stolen credit cards to pay for World of Warcraft subscriptions.

"We have seen a significant number of fraudulent transactions through Blizzard's gaming sites," the bank said in a statement. "We have, therefore, blocked the majority of Visa/MasterCard transactions we receive from there in order to combat this." The bank added that the decision to block subscription payments for the popular MMOG was not the fault of Blizzard or its billing system, blaming the problem entirely on "users utilizing stolen credit card details to pay for subscriptions."

World of Warcraft players who hold legitimate Halifax credit cards and wish to use them to make payments for the game can arrange to do so by contacting the bank directly. "If a customer does want to subscribe to a game site operated by Blizzard, using a Halifax or Bank of Scotland credit card, we can arrange for the payments to be processed for them if they contact us," the bank said.

Brit Michael, a Halifax customer currently living in Canada, first reported the incident to The Register after discovering he could no longer use his credit card to pay for his game subscription. At the time, the bank told him its fraud analysts "made the decision to decline all Blizzard transactions due to the high volume of fraud and a high incidence of compromised details."