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Microsoft stole $165 from me. Is there anything I can do?
Karrmer
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I had $165 worth of Microsoft points on my account - and I have the cards in hand, these were purchased and placed onto my account when there was absolutely no expiration date.
Microsoft, during the transition to "real currency" has decided to delete all of my money and absolutely refuses to do anything about it.
Basically, they claim that I accepted a new terms of service that says my money will be deleted. However, there is no option here - it's not like I could have, instead, gotten my money refunded to me. The only option given to me is "accept this, stating that your currency that used to have no expiration date will now just be stolen from you" or "do not accept, you cannot access your account or ever use it again anyway."
Microsoft has legitimately stolen $165 from me and I find this insane and borderline illegal. Is there really nothing that can be done here, and is this considered normal to anyone else?
For reference, all future currency purchased now has no expiration date, and the currency I purchased when I did also had no expiration date. They just randomly decided that anyone that had already purchased currency from them would have theirs deleted for some reason during this transition. Really swell business practice.
Microsoft, during the transition to "real currency" has decided to delete all of my money and absolutely refuses to do anything about it.
Basically, they claim that I accepted a new terms of service that says my money will be deleted. However, there is no option here - it's not like I could have, instead, gotten my money refunded to me. The only option given to me is "accept this, stating that your currency that used to have no expiration date will now just be stolen from you" or "do not accept, you cannot access your account or ever use it again anyway."
Microsoft has legitimately stolen $165 from me and I find this insane and borderline illegal. Is there really nothing that can be done here, and is this considered normal to anyone else?
For reference, all future currency purchased now has no expiration date, and the currency I purchased when I did also had no expiration date. They just randomly decided that anyone that had already purchased currency from them would have theirs deleted for some reason during this transition. Really swell business practice.
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Edit: Whoops, nevermind. http://www.usgamer.net/articles/microsoft-points-will-expire-a-year-after-transition-to-real-money
In that case, you very well may be out of luck. Talk your way up the food chain in support as the lower level people won't be able to help. See if you can find regional vice president phone numbers/emails and talk to them. Whatever you do, stay polite and courteous, but firm. Chances are though, you're out of luck since it was in their terms of service. The only way to really contest it would be to talk to a lawyer to try to see if their terms are even enforceable or not, but for $165 that's not going to be worth it.
I purchased them via point cards, about two years ago.
They claim that during the transition my funds changed from permanent funds to a "promotional balance," just something they did during the transition. That gives it one year to expire, however it doesn't say this anywhere on my Xbox or any place else unless you read through the whole updated Terms of Service, which again isn't even my issue. I don't care what they changed it to, I care that I paid hundreds of dollars for points and placed it onto my account when there was NO EXPIRATION DATE and they think it is OK to just change the terms to say my points now get deleted.
http://support.xbox.com/en-US/billing/microsoft-points/microsoft-points-retire-faq
So you could try to use that. Because based on that, you'd at least have another 8 months to spend the points before they disappeared.
"You spent $165 of your own money, but... well I don't care, we're going to expire those point cards"
Your other option outside of credit card charge back would be to file a small claims court. If you've got proof it was on your account and a record you bought them, you can probably get them to refund you money back and be out maybe $40-60 of that $165.
This really has me pretty pissed off, I was just looking at grabbing an Xbox One and was excited to finally have something to use this money on.
I did purchase the cards with a credit card but most of them were years ago, I'm not sure if a charge back would be possible.
Doesn't hurt to call the bank and ask what your options are in regards to charge back on these things. Tell them that you were mislead with the new system they're implementing and they're basically stealing your money, and that you've called their customer service and they were unhelpful and basically told you too bad so sad. Visa/Mastercard have way more leverage to make them play nice than you do, even if it is old, doesn't mean they can't take money back via the insurance system your cards have.
I mean, you may not have any options simply because you've had that money there a LONG time, and while the initial points have no expiration, they did put a time limit on the transitional funds. They may stick to that, especially if they can prove you were sent notice of that (I know every time they change something I get an e-mail, not just a pop up EULA on the console).
So on the one hand, I would say stolen is not accurate. They changed the way money is handled and imposed limitations on the transitional period that you agreed to. They likely assumed a year would be long enough for most to clear out any balance they had.
And on the other hand, you certainly got boned in it, and it would be nice if they at least gave you a few weeks to a month to spend it now, after which point it would obviously be all on you if you let it sit and expire again.
And I'd absolutely bring up wanting to buy an Xbox one. Like, "I was planning on buying one in (whatever time period you were thinking) and using that balance on games and DLC I wanted."
It gives them some financial incentive to help you out.
Be aware that if you do a chargeback, Microsoft may very well react by shutting down your account.
As a person who works in support, I hate this advice. As a consumer, though, I think its a valid avenue.
This is the next step if microsoft wont play ball. The AG may not do anything specific for you directly, but if enough complaints come in they definitely will do something.
Doing a chargeback from two years ago is gonna be feat. I think most banks, even the super friendly ones, will tell you to fuck off at that point.
I think the PR route is probably the correct course to take on this while submitting complaints with the BBB and AG's offices.
Edit: Dur, AG not DA.
They can go back further than they usuaaly do if it fits within certain constraints, such as a plane ticket that hasn't been used yet but the airline refuses to refund.
It could certainly be possible to do a chargeback based on the terms changing, with no real way to opt out, even after the normal chargeback time period has passed. It will probably take a higher level manager or even VP to authorize the attempt though. That means having money and/or influence within the bank though, and someone with that generally won't worry over pocket change like $200
and yeah, my understanding is that the 'promotional' currency shouldn't expire for another six months or so; I have six bucks or something still sitting in my account that they've been sending me email notifications about using. Are your funds actually gone, or are you just upset about the new expiration?
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I would also recommend twitter. The xbox twitter support team is a separate team from the phone support, and staffed by generally competent people.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
You should absolutely tweet to @xboxsupport
Tell them vowels sent you.
There is someone there right now who knows about your problem and wants to help.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
When you're talking to CSAs straight like that, then yes, that's true - the people on the phone literally cannot get you higher than their supervisors. I've worked as a CSA, this is the absolute truth and not that person bullshitting you.
However, one thing I always wished I could tell my customers (but was never allowed to) was that even though *I* cannot escalate above my supervisor, that doesn't mean that *you* can't do it. You can do an executive escalation.
The way you do that is by writing a calm and polite email explaining your situation to all of the executives you can find.
Here is The consumerist's list of Microsoft executive email addresses:
http://consumerist.com/2009/03/25/email-addresses-for-microsoft-executives/
Not only is this awesome but the nickname just played out perfectly in my head. "Vowels? Why are is Aioua calling themselves vow-oh."
― John Quincy Adams
The technical feasibility of removing it from your account is directly linked to the local laws regarding it. Some states have protections, some do not.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I guess I'll be getting an Xbox One and remaining a customer after all.
Odd, I just had to replace my card. Took me like. 3 seconds. Paypal was the one that was a pain in my ass.
But that was adding a new card and removing the old one... so I don't know if it is harder to remove all payment options completely. But I noticed they let me add paypal now which is kind of nice, no longer messing with any cards at all there and only in paypal is a better option as far as I'm concerned.
Yea, they'll let the old one go away as long as you give them a new one. This was in the wake of the hacking stuff flaring up so I decided I just didn't want my card attached to something with so little serious safeguards and such a big target on it's back. I had been using prepaid cards for it for a couple years by this point. When you are able to get codes instantly off of Amazon for points it isn't really a big deal to not have a card on file.
"hello this is <bank rep name> with Wells Fargo, we have a fraud complaint about item (x). Is there any statement you would like to make before we take this to the next level?"
"It's a year and a half old."
"We understand this, but we are more than happy to pursue this on behalf of our client (me) and see what Visa will do for us, and because we are worth a billion dollars to Visa chances are they will be happy to accommodate us over a $50 back charge."
I got my money back. You can ask your bank to advocate on your behalf in matters like this.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
FYI, your bank was (more than likely) bluffing as Visa/MC don't care if it's more than the 120 day limit and Wells Fargo needs them more than they need WF (How well do you think your debit card would work if it wasn't backed by Visa/MC?). Also, you're story is far from the norm as WF reps straight out laughed at me when I asked them about pursuing a transaction that was 6 months old. Of course my bank account was constantly at or near zero and I only gave them a little over $1000 in fees so why should they help me anyway.
Protip: Don't get on a Chexsystem report. It fucking sucks
So after calling and speaking to 6 people and multiple supervisors, not one showed the slightest bit of even fake empathy or any suggestions on where else to try to get a resolution, and all just said "sorry you agreed cya."
Xbox twitter people quickly responded, escalated me to this escalation team, and they gave me 200 dollars and 6 months of Live. They know how to do customer service.
I already now own an Xbox One and the Halo MCC because of them. It's a smart way to do business.
TLDR; if you ever have an issue, tweet. Don't ever call.
I wish I had seen this earlier. Working in a call center, doing customer service, I'm basically a barrier between customers and any kind of fair treatment. That's all I do is simple transactions that could be done online or listen to complaints and offer empty platitudes in return. If you want to call the corporate office, too bad. The website has my phone number and of course I don't have the number to corporate. My job is to basically divert those who are woefully behind the times. People who think the BBB still has any power are the same ones who have no idea what social media is, and those are the people I deal with all day.
If a mega corporation fucked you over, hop on Facebook, Twitter, or your favorite social media site. Then state your case in simple words while expressing your disappointment. "Hey xbox, you just stole a bunch of my money. That's not cool" You will get an answer and a resolution so much faster than a campaign of phone calling.