Paying with credit card at Volks

Hey,

I finally dared to get a credit card. Still not my thing but oh well, I want those lucky bags!

Now I tried to buy the GL Membership but I keep getting an error.

I think it could've something to do with my surname... which has one non-englisch character in it.

Could this be the problem? Does anyone else have a problem with a non-englisch character in their name?

The support of the card provider (is that the right word?) couldn't really help me right now. I will try it again in a few days, but I wanted to know if anyone else got a problem with this lol

 

Thank you for your help

I don't think it's even possible to register anything with non-english letters at Volks (int).
There are issues every now and again with addresses, when trying to order, on Volks site. So you probably just have to contact them to fix your information/address - I've had to do so in the past. So it is most likely an "issue" on their end.

Recently the GL memberships have been giving errors to everyone with a name that is not written in Japanese characters. Volks has always been focused on Japan and their international customers sometimes have problems because of it!

If you write an email to customer service and give them your information, they will be able to fix it for you.

You have to send an email into customer service. Tell them the exact error, and your full name with First: x, Last: y and they will have it fixed up for you quickly.

11 hours ago, Yumeiro said:

I don't think it's even possible to register anything with non-english letters at Volks (int).
There are issues every now and again with addresses, when trying to order, on Volks site. So you probably just have to contact them to fix your information/address - I've had to do so in the past. So it is most likely an "issue" on their end.

 

11 hours ago, Gallye said:

Recently the GL memberships have been giving errors to everyone with a name that is not written in Japanese characters. Volks has always been focused on Japan and their international customers sometimes have problems because of it!

If you write an email to customer service and give them your information, they will be able to fix it for you.

 

11 hours ago, Misuka said:

You have to send an email into customer service. Tell them the exact error, and your full name with First: x, Last: y and they will have it fixed up for you quickly.

I should've mentioned that my adress at volks is in english characters (I ordered there before with no issue, just with paypal instead of credit card), but when paying with credit card you need to put in the card name, right? There's the issue with my lastname then. Also I should've mentioned that I get an error not on the volks site but on my providers site when I send the order for the membership and they check the information (I guess?).

I'll try to send an email to customer service and see what happens
Thank you all so much!

I find it interesting that your provider gives an error on the name.

This is just my personal experience, but both for my own and the company credit card the provider does not seem to care what name I use when entering my credit card details. They only care about the cvv and the 2 factor authentication code.

3 hours ago, Wasabi said:

I find it interesting that your provider gives an error on the name.

This is just my personal experience, but both for my own and the company credit card the provider does not seem to care what name I use when entering my credit card details. They only care about the cvv and the 2 factor authentication code.

It's just something I thought might be a problem, but I think the provider has a problem, not volks, not my last name. 

Volks quickly emailed me back saying that it shouldn't be a problem on their end and I think I agree.

I'm just super new to credit cards in general lol

You may need to call your credit card provider then and tell them you need to make an international purchase in japan. Some credit cards automatically block overseas transactions as an anti-fraud measure.

29 minutes ago, Misuka said:

You may need to call your credit card provider then and tell them you need to make an international purchase in japan. Some credit cards automatically block overseas transactions as an anti-fraud measure.

The problem is, I talked to the customer service of the provider yesterday and they don't get a canceled order, and because they don't see a canceled order they think it's not their problem. But the "system error" I get should definately be a provider problem ._.

Have you been able to make other international purchases with the card at for example, other japanese stores?

13 hours ago, Weltfremd said:

The problem is, I talked to the customer service of the provider yesterday and they don't get a canceled order, and because they don't see a canceled order they think it's not their problem. But the "system error" I get should definately be a provider problem ._.

Sorry if you wrote this somewhere already and I just missed it but was the system error in the credit card authentication page (if your card has one) or on the Volks website itself? Not sure if this helps but I placed an order on Volks Japan today using a non-Japanese card and the first time it jumped to my credit card authentication page for a second and then immediately loaded an error message on the Volks checkout page asking me to try again as there was a discount error on Volks' end. I put in all my payment information a second time and everything worked out. 

I have a hyphen in my name which sometimes causes issues on Japanese websites since they aren't recognized as alphabets, but simply removing it has worked. Maybe take a bit of time to make sure that no charge actually went through (since you don't want to be double charged) and then give it another try to see if the issue is coming from the card or Volks? 

Hope it works out for you soon! 

6 hours ago, Hiruma said:

Sorry if you wrote this somewhere already and I just missed it but was the system error in the credit card authentication page (if your card has one) or on the Volks website itself? Not sure if this helps but I placed an order on Volks Japan today using a non-Japanese card and the first time it jumped to my credit card authentication page for a second and then immediately loaded an error message on the Volks checkout page asking me to try again as there was a discount error on Volks' end. I put in all my payment information a second time and everything worked out. 

I have a hyphen in my name which sometimes causes issues on Japanese websites since they aren't recognized as alphabets, but simply removing it has worked. Maybe take a bit of time to make sure that no charge actually went through (since you don't want to be double charged) and then give it another try to see if the issue is coming from the card or Volks? 

Hope it works out for you soon! 

Hey! Thank you for your answer. I haven't layed out in detail what happens, but it could be slightly similar to what you experienced. 
Here is what happens: I get redirected to my credit card authentication process (I THINK) and get a system error there, I can only click to cancel and then I get redirected to the volks page where it says that the payment was canceled.

I put in my information multiple times, even just to register the credit card with volks in the user control page but everytime I'll get redirected to a janky looking page with systemerror on it and the customer support on both sides can't tell what went wrong lol. I think I wait it out a little bit and try again.

What browser are you using?

10 minutes ago, Misuka said:

What browser are you using?

Chrome Version 95.0.4638.54

10 hours ago, Weltfremd said:

Hey! Thank you for your answer. I haven't layed out in detail what happens, but it could be slightly similar to what you experienced. 
Here is what happens: I get redirected to my credit card authentication process (I THINK) and get a system error there, I can only click to cancel and then I get redirected to the volks page where it says that the payment was canceled.

I put in my information multiple times, even just to register the credit card with volks in the user control page but everytime I'll get redirected to a janky looking page with systemerror on it and the customer support on both sides can't tell what went wrong lol. I think I wait it out a little bit and try again.

If the redirect to the Volks page shows a message saying the payment was cancelled, my guess would be that the issue is with the credit card service provider as my issue was that is went through the credit card authentication process but then Volks showed that there was an error with their calculation. 

I wonder if it would be worth giving the credit card service provider another call to see if the card has been fully activated (my card required another activation step for the online authentication called 3D secure for my Visa card) and see if there are any additional steps or limitations to international purchases. 

Again, hope this gets resolved soon! Frustrating when you've made the commitment to ordering something and they won't take your money... 

33 minutes ago, Hiruma said:

If the redirect to the Volks page shows a message saying the payment was cancelled, my guess would be that the issue is with the credit card service provider as my issue was that is went through the credit card authentication process but then Volks showed that there was an error with their calculation. 

I wonder if it would be worth giving the credit card service provider another call to see if the card has been fully activated (my card required another activation step for the online authentication called 3D secure for my Visa card) and see if there are any additional steps or limitations to international purchases. 

Again, hope this gets resolved soon! Frustrating when you've made the commitment to ordering something and they won't take your money... 

Oh at this time I definitely think that my card is not fully activated even if 2 different people told me it is. It's a virtual and a physical card and the physical one isn't activated yet since it didn't arrive here. Both times I talked with the customer service they guaranteed me that this is not the problem, but I think it definitely is the problem. Gonna wait till the physical card is here and see what happens then lol.

A little embarrassed that I thought my name could cause such a problem, but I genuinely thought it would be the source of the problem. It's just the system error page that was in a different language than my own, it wasn't even in english plus broken HTML that I thought what the heck happened. As a developer I could see badly formatted data be a problem haha. 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Weltfremd

Update to the story if anyone is interested: ended up cancelling the card immediately after their staff just said "try another shop" and I specifically said I don't need this card for anything else.

Got a prepaid card with my bank and I could register it without a problem.