[Updated 2020.11] Recently, in addition to broadly categorizing transaction postings under Wechatpay, see the full WeChat guide here. WeChat’s customer-service entry points now have also basically removed the option to directly upload information yourself. Previously, you could upload foreign-card information through other channels and have customer service forward it to the department that reviews foreign cards.
Now it is basically all bots, and then they just tell you to wait. No matter which keyword you use—“foreign card unable to pay,” “remove payment restriction,” or “upload overseas credit card statement”—the bot auto-generates a case for you and tells you to wait for customer service. And customer service gives the same boilerplate reply every time. If you find a keyword that works better, feel free to leave a comment.
If you add a new card or use a card you do not use often, you may get a “fraud risk” warning when trying to make a purchase, and then be told to switch to a Chinese card. Contacting customer service leads to the same result as above. Given that Wechatpay is now a 1x Cat for most credit cards, it is going to be very easy to trigger these “fraud alerts” going forward. There is no especially good solution at the moment; all you can do is hope customer service eventually takes pity on you.
If you are persistent enough, you can keep submitting requests and keep leaving one-star ratings; that feedback does carry some influence.
[Below is the 101 update from July 22, 2020]
As we know, WeChat customer service used to be cloud-based support. Usually, you could only submit a request and then wait slowly for a response, which could take a very long time. If the issue involved overseas credit card payments, it could drag on for months. See the risk-control DP in our full WeChat guide:
Recently, my LD’s WeChat Pay account was hit by risk control, so only small charges would go through and larger payments would all return errors. I took a look and found that WeChat had actually started offering real-time live customer service, and they could also help submit foreign-card payment issues. They could also explain the scope and limits for foreign-card payments.
Choose the payment exception/error option, and a customer-service rep pops up.
The rep will first tell you the payment scope and limits. KUKU had known these limits existed before, but there had never been confirmed data. Now we have it.
If you continue to say the payment still does not work—I seriously suspect the “rep” is a bot—you will then get the next option.
Note that you need to click the very inconspicuous [Submit Issue] button after the redirect, and then verify your phone number.
The next step is the familiar one: customer service 10000 asks you for a photo of the front of the card, a bank statement, screenshots of your ID, and so on. Once a card’s restriction is lifted, it tends to remain fairly robust for a short period.
Overall, this improvement is worth recognizing.