The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Xbox Live Subscription
precisionk
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am interested in resubscribing to xbox live again, but looking to buy the code online and not wait for the shipment of the card itself. Anyone have an good, decent places that sell it this way?
precisionk on
0
Posts
Don't listen to this man, canceling your Xbox Live subscription requires a call to their 1-800 number and jumping through myriad hoops, and getting your credit card out of their system can take weeks. Don't give them your credit card details if you can possibly help it.
Yeah, I made that mistake. I'm entangled in their system now, and when I inevitably wish to cancel, it will be a pain.
Go with cards.
Nope. Here's a three-part blog entry chronicling how difficult it is to get out of the Xbox system.
edit: only problem was i couldn't retrieve the name when i wanted it, now it's a dead account.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
The three-part ordeal is what the author had to go through to get Microsoft to completely remove his credit card from their system last year -- a process that takes two clicks on most business' websites.
But I digress. You called a full day before your account was supposed to auto-renew, asked them to cancel, and they went ahead and billed you anyway? That's not "painless", I think you're way too laid back (take it as a compliment). :P
step 1. Called 1 800 4 my xbox
step 2. verified my gamer tag and personal info.
step 3. transferred to billing and re-verified info.
step 4. They canceled the auto-renewing subscription feature and as long as there is no use of my card on my xbox in the next 30 days the card number is removed from the system.
They even set up to call me back to confirm when the number is off the account.
Yes. It is worse then most companies.
No. It's not like canceling AOL.
edit: Having just read the blog, I sincerely hope my experience does not play out like his and I retract all my prior advice.
Ahh. I guess I got the idea that he was just trying to cancel his account, and removing his credit card from the system was just the words he was using. And yeah, I'm pretty laid back.
eBay might have that happy medium, but virtual goods are a massive grey area there.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
To be fair if my details were on file with them I just wouldn't care because it's not worth the hassle, but I buy prepaid cards because they're cheaper and don't get me into the system.
There's also the issue that if you bought a Live subscription by prepaid card because you weren't sure about your financial stability when it was time to renew, and you then buy a one-off set of Microsoft Points on Live with your credit card in the interim, when the rebill period comes for Live they'll just charge your card for it even though it wasn't used for the original transaction.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
That should wrap things up nicely.
It is exponentially harder for a company to "accidentally" bill you for another month after you've tried to cancel if they no longer have your credit card number.
Edit: Or hell, here's a practical example. I have two cards linked to my Live account. My MasterCard was almost maxed out last month due to travel, and I wanted to pay for my Xbox Live subscription with my Visa. Microsoft offers absolutely no control over which card they will bill. In fact, they don't even indicate which card they're going to bill. I could solve this problem in three seconds on any other site by just removing my MasterCard and letting everything default to my Visa, but that process requires a 20 minute phone call and a 30 day waiting period. That's lame.
It shouldn't actually be allowed to happen.
After realizing that whoever stole my box could buy more points and then more crap with those points (even though they couldn't extract my credit card #) I called Microsoft to have them remove my CC from my account.
The verdict was that it was impossible, and the person on the other end told me it would be simpler for me to just cancel my card.
Here's why: they can't manually remove the number from their system. All they can do is mark it for later deletion, which takes about a month. Except that if there are any further charges to that card within that month, the request gets canceled. Which means that the minute whoever had my box tried to buy more points, the request to remove my CC would be canceled.
I got lucky, though: the burglar was my apartment neighbor, who was arrested about 1 week after the burglary, and I got my box back about a month later (it had to sit in a police station, along with all the other stuff the asshole stole from me, until a judge could release it all to me.) And the asshole neighbor wasn't stupid enough to start playing with the console during that first week, so there would have been no way to trace my box via its IP, through his ISP, and back to his place.
Anyway, what Microsoft does with credit card numbers should be illegal. It probably is, but I bet they have a room full of lawyers who cook up defenses for such things all day.
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com