So then I took a chance & purchased the smallest amount of CC's that I could via the Steam store ~ $6.* odd in Oz dollars. & it was accepted & it worked. So, finally I have been able to do what I want re. purchases from the SWTOR store. I can't do it directly as it is BUGGED. I can do it via Steam, (which many can't apparently - which is why this whole story - this thread - I've been involved in started). I'm so happy not to have to be doing multiple passwords just to login to this forum & then again to try to use the store, then again to start the game. I think that the only time I will be using this forum in the future is if I have some kind of game stopper. To all who offered me some support in this thread, once again I thank you. Cheers :)

OK, out of desperation I took my chances & tried tried running the SWTOR from Steam. It accepted my credentials & started (without my having to go to my email account & get another one time password). It also showed the login panel the size that it should be instead of being too big for my 32" display. So that was nice too. Then I quit out of the game & started it again, & navigated to the store via the login panel & tried my luck again. No, it still won't take my money. I wasn't surprised, I didn't think it would. I doubt that it ever will take my money again. Buggy system that it is.

Long past 24hrs since my last attempt, & I played the game all day yesterday so my character is level 22+ now. With hope in my heart, I tried to make my purchase again. & guess what? It still won't take my money. So I did a search on the web that roughly put up the title of this thread & there I found SO many other threads spread about the internet, due to this problem. I looked at one on Reddit, that was obviously posted from a person that works for one of the companies involved in SWTOR, it posted the various reasons & the way to get around it. That thread is now over 4 years old. The so called "temporary" problem, looks to be a permanent problem for the multitudes that are affected by it. I don't want to waste my time looking through the threads on the web about this problem to see just how long people have been posting complaints about this, & it just doesn't get fixed. So, I no longer accept that this problem is caused by my character being too new. There is another fault in the design of the store. Quite a serious one. It must be considered to be worth not fixing it, due to the cost of actually repairing it. I don't know. It is just plain really poor customer service as far as I'm concerned. Someone from the company could say, well what are you complaining about, you can play just about all of the game for free? To that I would say that I don't want to play it like that, I actually want to give your company some money & improve the free to play experience. Just like your actuaries likely told you many players would.

I just tried again & still blocked. Pain in the RRR's that it is.

Thanks for your reply Shaori. I'll try not to have to use paypal. See how it goes first.

Thankyou Owen for putting the time in & giving me an acceptable reason as to why this is happening. I do appreciate your efforts. :)

Beyond that I gave it well over 24hrs before I tried again & it knocked me back. If what you state is the case (I can see that it possibly could be) it would be REALLY helpful if that was made clear to the customers to start with. Tell them that purchases over a certain amount will not be accepted in the first week that they play, or some such. As the notification that I got gives no clue as to why. So the customer is left scratching his head & has a bad taste in his mouth, & wastes time. It causes threads like this to appears.

I don't use paypal. & SWTOR took my money & gave me my product from that debit card a day or two prior to this problem surfacing. So that is inconsistent.

Well, just to be doubly clear, I have NEVER logged into SWTOR from Steam. Or tried to buy anything at all SWTOR related from Steam. Above I was just stating that research I did, put my off using Steam with SWTOR, as there are a number of pitfalls that people are complaining about, in the Steam community, Reddit & other places online - including this forum too.

Thanks for your replies Owen. My Aldi phone account does not offer any international calls at reduced rates, on my service at least. I tried to log in using my SWTOR credentials & it did not recognise me. Though I likely used my user name not my email. So I will give it one more try using my email address. OK, I just used the link you provided above, to the EA page, which actually states the opposite of what you said. Since June 25th 2019, they no longer create an EA account that mirrors your SWTOR account. They DON'T share email addresses now. In fact, I find that page just muddies the waters even more.

I live in Australia, so I'm not phoning internationally for this problem. It is just so weird the day (or perhaps 2 days) before I purchased a 60 day sub' with added benefits, & then the same card isn't good enough anymore. Though it has been tested good enough for everyone else I've used it with since. The company is shooting itself in the foot by not having a customer service phone contact that offers support in all of the countries where the game is played, or at least all of the countries that have game servers in them. No one likes having to check their email every time they attempt to log into a forum that they are a member of, to get yet another "one time" password. Let alone have to do it again when you call the game from inside of that forum. Or the store, from inside that forum. Or just for the game itself. This is a reason why I am not at all enthusiastic about setting up another account, this time on the parent EA website, so I can have to go through the same laborious process anytime I need to contact them. It is just not good enough. I generally like to manage my games through Steam, but I'm scared to link SWTOR to Steam, as there exist numerous reports about various kinds of breakdowns in the communication between the two companies. e.g. People buy a subscription on Steam but it doesn't work. People have a functioning SWTOR but end up also paying money that gets lost between the 2 companies when they want to buy some kind of subscription, CC's or whatever. Both companies say to talk to the other company, so the customer wastes a great deal of time, whilst feeling increasingly dissatisfied, frustrated & angry, due to having paid their money & not got what they paid for, & then they getting fobbed off by each companies customer service. As neither will take responsibility for the problem & help them get what they paid for. It is just not good enough. Customers remember this. So in the future they will shy away from purchasing a game from a company that has let them down, in more ways than one.

I just went to the link provided above: https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/bd-p/star-wars-the-old-republic-en Where i have to create another account to be able to log in & tell them about their problems. I'm not. I just won't spend anymore real money in the game. To hell with it!

Well i've waited over 24hours, i've used the card elsewhere, i've checked via internet banking that i have the balance in the account that i'm supposed to have. I still can't use the store. It tells me to try again tomorrow. Which is screwy. So now i have to go to the trouble of contacting whoever? So they can fix whatever has gone wrong with their system.

Ty. i'll wait & try tomorrow like the message told me & see what I think I want to do after that.

My card's good.