Those of you in the UK who pay World of Warcraft may be in for a surprise if you've been paying through a Visa or Mastercard issued through Halifax. They've decided to ban the majority of transactions with Blizzard they get due to fraudulent usage. The good news? If you want to pay with that card, you can contact the bank and arrange for your payments to go through. Otherwise, start paying with a different card.

Frequent use of stolen credit cards to pay for World of Warcraft subscription has prompted UK bank Halifax to block payments to the game's publisher, Blizzard Entertainment.

In a statement, the bank said its decision to block payments was not a reflection of the integrity of Blizzard or its billing systems.

"We have seen a significant number of fraudulent transactions through Blizzard's gaming sites. We have, therefore, blocked the majority of Visa/Mastercard transactions we receive from there in order to combat this. We do not believe the fraud is anything to do with Blizzard themselves, their sites or the integrity of their billing systems, rather it is site users utilising stolen credit card details to pay for subscriptions," the bank said. "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."

Chais via theregister.co.uk »