I've started this thread for members to post any issues related to MFC's Live Streaming service as it will be easier for people to check whether others have had a similar problem rather than just with a particular game or week.
On a separate note, I received an email from the club last night advising me that they had taken £117 from my payment card for what appears to be a matchday season pass for 2020/2021.
I had not applied for one and in fact had not seen anything on the club website advising that they were renewing passes but may have missed it.
Has anyone else received a similar email.
I've not received any mail from the club - it does sound surprising that they would deduct money for next season already given I didn't purchase my pass until 8 August 2019 - although interesingly it says that my subscription expires on 7 Oct 2020.
What date did you purchase your 2019-20 pass? Maybe it was an automatic 12 month renewal but I can see nothing in my MFC digital account to suggest there is an automatic renewal set-up or indeed a means to cancel if that was the case.
Although the heading under 'Billing Instructions' states 'all purchases and subscription renewals will be deducted from this card' - so not sure if a season pass is actually an annual subscription that we signed up to - it simply doesn't say anywhere.
Maybe it was sent in error - did you check your account to see if the money has actually been taken.
@werdermouth. Hi Werder, yes the first thing I did was check my bank account and it is a pending debit. I have been back onto my MFC account but can't find any information on my previous purchase history or subscription expiry dates. An examination of my bank account shows that I paid them £117 on the 30th of July 2019.
It will be interesting to see what MFC come back with. I have emailed Alex Thompson who I have corresponded with in the past but he is away from the office until tomorrow so its a case of watch this space.😎
I've not received any mail from the club - it does sound surprising that they would deduct money for next season already given I didn't purchase my pass until 8 August 2019 - although interesingly it says that my subscription expires on 7 Oct 2020.
What date did you purchase your 2019-20 pass? Maybe it was an automatic 12 month renewal but I can see nothing in my MFC digital account to suggest there is an automatic renewal set-up or indeed a means to cancel if that was the case.
Although the heading under 'Billing Instructions' states 'all purchases and subscription renewals will be deducted from this card' - so not sure if a season pass is actually an annual subscription that we signed up to - it simply doesn't say anywhere.
Maybe it was sent in error - did you check your account to see if the money has actually been taken.
Now managed to access my purchase history etc in my MFC digital account which also stores my card details and the headings are as you have quoted and seems to indicate that we are on an annual cycle for renewal of the season pass; I suspect that this will be confirmed tomorrow.
Not sure what happens if you want to cancel after they have taken the money.
I will set up a diary note to review next year prior to the renewal date and also to update card details in the MFC digital account when a new bank card is received. 😎
KP - for what it's worth, here's my cock-up theory...
Given that you said that you took out your season pass on 30 July 2019 and they appear to have automatically renewed your subscription on 30 June 2020 - which is exactly 11 months instead of the 12 you'd expect from an annual subscription. Perhaps because of the Covid-19 delay, the club intended to extend the subscription period by a month but the IT guys got the coding wrong and reduced it by a month instead 🙂 No doubt we'll find out tomorrow!
For those who may be interested here is the response from MFC:
Hello Kevin,
Thank you for your email. I hope you are well!
No you had every right to email me with the query. You were actually correct in your first email, the packages I set up are not set to be automatically renewed, payments should not have been taken from supporters. It also happened on my own account so as soon as I saw this I was in touch with our streaming partner to make sure no more payments were being taken and that those that have been taken be refunded immediately. I’m currently waiting for an explanation as to how this happened.
We will be sending a communication out to those that will have received an email regarding a payment being charged from their bank account. You will of course be fully refunded.
No need to apologise, it is us that should be apologising. We are sorry for the inconvenience and for this misunderstanding.
Yes it is unfortunate about Bob leaving, he’s certainly missed. You are correct, it was his own choice to leave the club, looking for a new career challenge.
If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Alex
Pleased to be able to report that funds returned to my account today. Many thanks to MFC for quickly rectifying their mistake. 😎
Pleased to be able to report that funds returned to my account today. Many thanks to MFC for quickly rectifying their mistake. 😎
Glad you've got your money back and while it appears the response from MFC has been handled well, it does raise the question of how a third-party company was able to take money from the bank accounts of essentially customers of Middlesbrough Football Club without sanction from the club. I'd be interested to see what the explanation is and also raise the question of just how secure the transaction is if an unknown company holds your banking details and can without request remove cash from a bank account that it has no contractual right to do so.
Pleased to be able to report that funds returned to my account today. Many thanks to MFC for quickly rectifying their mistake. 😎
Glad you've got your money back and while it appears the response from MFC has been handled well, it does raise the question of how a third-party company was able to take money from the bank accounts of essentially customers of Middlesbrough Football Club without sanction from the club. I'd be interested to see what the explanation is and also raise the question of just how secure the transaction is if an unknown company holds your banking details and can without request remove cash from a bank account that it has no contractual right to do so
Some very good points Werder. I shall leave it a few days to give Alex time to undertake his investigations and then contact again and will cover the points you have highlighted. 😎
I thought it appropriate to instigate a separate topic regarding my recent mishap where MFC renewed my streaming subscription without prior notice and my agreement and not include it amongst the general football discussions. Whilst the MFC response is not a 100% convincing and does not explain how their preferred partner was able to process transactions without prior approval, MFC have acted quickly to resolve.
No doubt somewhere in the MFC terms and conditions we have agreed to MFC sharing some of our data with their preferred suppliers in order to facilitate the provision of streaming facilities.
I have appended below the latest response from the club. It appears to indicate that this was a one off error affecting a few supporters and which has been quickly addressed.
Hopefully this error will no longer recur and MFC will be in touch regarding renewal of the streaming annual pass once this season is completed and they have settled on pricing for next season. Colleagues who use the service may wish to check their preferences within the MFC digital account to ensure they opt in for club emails so that announcements of this nature are not missed.
Hi Kevin,
Glad to hear that you are all well!
Glad to hear that the funds have been refunded to your bank account as promised.
Usually closer to the start of the season once we have our prices confirmed and we are happy with the streaming platform we will announce all of the information. We will then usually send a marketing email to those that have had subscriptions with us previously, as long as you are opted in to receive Club Information emails from us in your preferences within the MFC Digital Account, you should receive these communications.
In regards to the payment being taken. Supporters subscriptions were due to end around this time which should have been fine as we all thought the season would be over by now! With the unprecedented COVID situation, supporters entitlements needed to be extended for a couple of months to ensure everyone had access to the eligible remaining games in the easiest way possible. We wouldn’t want to send voucher codes to all our seasonal subscribers asking you to input a code to extend your subscription, we’d rather the extension of the subscription be done for you. As the nudges were done to extend the entitlements, the system generated a payment script in error for some users which meant payment was taken as if to auto renew the subscription.
We work very closely with our streaming partner and we have a good relationship with them, I can assure you they are not an unknown company to us, we’ve worked with them for a number of years now. The banking details which they hold is a payment token which allows transactions to be taken, they are not the full card details stored. The company is PCI compliant and are very secure with their payment gateways.
This is one hundred percent an isolated incident which we were able to identify quickly and rectify the issue immediately. We have the emails of those affected and a communication will be going out to assure supporters that they were incorrectly charged and the money will be refunded into their bank accounts.
I hope this helps ease any concerns you have. If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Alex
😎
Note: All earlier posts regarding this issue are now contained in his thread.
I'm not sure if the reply is exactly an explanation in the sense it explains what happened - Also I'm not sure if 'nudge' (other than on fruit machines) is a technical procedure that I'm aware of and why did it generate a payment script for a subscription that isn't supposed to be a renewable subscription - plus only for some users and not others? All systems operate to the logic to which they are programmed and generally don't randomly decide to do things on their own.
Also how was this payment processed by the third-party company if they don't hold the full card details - somebody must be holding the full card details in order to generate the request for your bank to debit the £117. Does that mean the 'payment token' which they hold essentially allows them make a payment request via whoever is holding the card details in which case why is that deemed secure - plus who then is holding the card details that the payment token gained access to?
It also maybe optimistic to say that this was 100% an isolated incident unless the system error (sorry nudge) that created the payment has been reprogrammed and tested thoroughly. Perhaps they can only say that they've been promised it won't happen again.
btw KP, since you started a new thread for the reply to the earlier problem, I moved the earlier posts into this thread as they refer to this problem.
In the end, I decided to create a sub-forum under Middlesbrough FC for matters regarding the Live Streaming service - with this now existing as a thread within that sub-forum.
Note: video streaming of Hull v Boro is only available to Season Card holders so the rest of us who can't view Sky will have to search for unofficial streams.
@werdermouth. Thanks Werder for creating a sub form and moving the earlier posts.
As far as MFC is concerned, I feel there is little further to be gained by pursuing the issue providing there is not a repeat and that funds are not taken from accounts without prior customer (me) approval in future. 😎
Just being doing a little research on other clubs websites to see if they are offering video streaming facilities for overseas supporters. Sites visited were Norwich, Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday, Birmingham and Watford. All are offering video streaming match day or season passes at varying prices.
I would hope that the delay of any offer from MFC is perhaps down to the fact they wish to wait until the first game which is on Sky and therefore not available to stream, is out of the way before offering video streams to overseas subscribers. Fingers crossed. 😎 🤞
Latest update from MFC on live streaming.
ViaSat showing it live on TV in Finland. I have access to ViaPlay that usually have more matches to choose from than on TV. But as always, I couldn't find if I can see it yet. Have to wait until Friday morning and see then from the TV's list.
I wonder why info on the web pages is often so much worse or non existing compared to old fashioned services? If you want to buy a car, do not expect to find practically any info on your new car except a search machine of your local dealer. They even have less pictures on the internet than in the old printed brochures. Strange.
Up the Boro!
BeIn sports has the game here in Oz which means that It turns up on the regular cable which, in turn, also means that I can record it and watch when I wake up.
After that I’ll probably go for the season streaming pass.
utb
MFC have just emailed me with details of the video streaming facilities for overseas supporters for the coming season. Individual match passes are £7 and seasonal passes are £140. CoB 😎😀
That's good news KP and thanks for the info as I haven't yet got a reply to my query I sent last week on a season pass - you're obviously better connected than me 😉 OK £140 it's slightly higher than the £117 of last season but it's a good deal cheaper than paying £10 per game!
On reading the Fleetwood site and the impending arrival of Sam Stubbs on a permanent fee they mention at the bottom a £10 fee for their next cup game on iFollow so its possibly a standard fee rather than a Boro only one.
@redcarred. Yes cup games are only available via video stream to U.K.supporters and at a price of £10 as agreed with the EFL. League games are similarly priced whilst available via streaming to U.K. supporters whilst coved impacts.
Purchased my video season pass yesterday and hoping that too many Boro matches do not get picked by Sky for either UK or International broadcast. I do want Boro to do well and if they do then they are more likely to get picked by Sky! 😎
Finally got a reply from the Matchday Live team today after five days about my enquiry over a video season pass. It simply said I could purchase a subscription from the link below... sadly the link was to matchday audio subscription with no mention of video! Shakes head, awaits next reply 🙁
@werdermouth. If you go to the MFC website and log in and go to the menu and pick Matches then Matchday Live you will see the package options including the video option.
Please forgive me, I am not trying to teach you how to suck eggs and hope this helps. 😎
Silly me, I for some reason opted to visit the 'Matchday Live Information' page from the main menu where it only states "More information on the pricing and purchases of overseas video passes will follow shortly."
Yes if you actually got to the 'Matchday Live' page instead it now has the information that will "follow shortly."
Although, I emailed the Matchday Live team to see if they would respond with something definitive as at the time of mailing (and only a week to the season starting) it only said individual matches could be purchased for £10 - the reply to my one-sentence email appeared to miss that I was enquiring about a video pass and instead directed me to the audio subscription.
Not exactly demonstrating they are on top of the situation by neither updating their 'Matchday Live Information' page or actually reading my mail before replying after 5 days.
Then again they appear no worse than the many companies and organisations I've had contact with in the last 12 months, where it seems basic customer service is beyond everyone these days and mistakes and errors are the norm.
Mrs Werder has the same thing with work - it seems very few people are capable of doing the basics of their jobs these days and nobody is capable of thinking beyond a few seconds - even it seems in the very top jobs! We just wonder what's happened to get to a point where we just don't expect anything to be done correctly any more!
@werdermouth. Totally agree on the level of service and people doing the basics or should I say not doing the basics.
We were contacted by the managing agents of our rental property recently asking for instructions on various points. I duly replied and asked them to confirm receipt of my email and that they would act in accordance with my instructions.
You can guess, no reply and had to chase at which point they apologised that they had not responded. A few weeks later they contacted me again asking if they could proceed with some work. I pointed out that I had already advised them in my previous email to proceed on the point that they were now contacting me! 😎