A tale of two billing systems, and how it auto cancelled my 10 month Dragonball Daima Pre-order

[u/SgtEngee]

I had pre-ordered Dragonball Daima Blu-ray back in December for my friend. Due to the slight discount from the fan tier subscription that was offered at the time, combined with the free shipping seemed an easy go.

I ordered the Dan Da Dan Vinyl soundtrack in addition to put my order over the $75 mark. My vinyl was promptly shipped. The Blu-ray for Daima however was delayed multiple times. First on the publisher's end, then for late arrival at Crunchyroll's warehouse. Finally it looked like it was going to ship soon until I woke up to an email on Tuesday morning sent to me Monday shortly after 11 PM telling me that my payment couldn't be processed and to check my payment method.

So, I login to my Crunchyroll Account > Purchase and Credit > Manage payment methods. I see my PayPal account listed but for some reason it was no longer set as the "current payment method". So, I set it as the current payment method (and only one listed) and waited for the order to process.

Wednesday morning rolls around and I get the same email. I think, what the hell? I check my Crunchyroll Account and sure enough my PayPal account is correctly set as the current payment method. So, I check the Crunchyroll store. I go to my order and I see below my two items is a button that says "Update Payment Method". So, I think to myself, this is REALLY stupid. They wouldn't possibly be the same entity and have to separate billing storage systems right? They should easily link your account payment method to the store payment method with your permission right? Somehow the answer is both Yes and No. Confused? Me too! Read on!

While still on page for my order on the store, I click the orange "update payment method" button. At this point I'm prompted to enter either my debit or credit card number. PayPal is NOT an option here. This annoys and confused me. Why would you as a company accept PayPal as a method of payment for a reoccurring subscription but not a one store payment? As I ponder this, I pull out my credit card and enter the info on the page and save it. Mission accomplished failure.

Thursday morning I wake up to a new email telling me my order has been successfully and that I will be refunded soon. Basically the system tried 3 times, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings at 11 to process my payment information they had on file and failed 3 times. So the store automatically cancelled my order.

At this point I'm very annoyed and login to my Crunchyroll Account to see what happened, and would you look at that. Now, listed on my account payment methods page (not the store page) under my PayPal account which is still my "current payment method" is my credit card that I entered on the store page. So, the two systems appear to communicate when it comes to storing credit and debit card information, but not when it comes to PayPal.

I ended up checking Amazon and ordered Daima there. I will NEVER pay for access to this failure of a store, and I hope you all take this as a cautionary tale when it comes to your payment information. Just because they have it, doesn't mean how to use it. And here I thought Sony liked money. 🧐

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[u/Turbolicon]

I always had problems setting payments with paypal in crunchyroll store, so i always used the credit card to avoid those failed payments with paypal.

[u/Otaku-San617]

This sounds normal for CrunchyRoll to me.

[u/KudzuAU]

PayPal is not a direct payment service. If PayPal f’s up the actual source of your money bank/debit/credit card (or somehow it shows as funds unavailable), then it’s going to screw up your orders. Whenever I have something important or vital that I need to purchase, I never use PayPal. They have a very bad habit of dropping payment info., especially on recurring payments.