Xbox Live - A warning!

Supahpossum

My partner and I have had an Xbox for about 2 years and have had to pay the monthly £5.99 in order to get online with it. We recently traded in the Xbox for a PS3, as it plays Blu Rays and you don't have to pay to go online. Now, we've always had trouble with the Xbox Live website, we can't log in to our account, it always comes up with a different 'gamertag' and is not our account. We sold the Xbox before we realised we needed to cancel the Xbox Live account. We tried to log in online with the usual lack of luck and in the end decided to just cancel the direct debit using online banking.

Fast forward two months and lo and behold Xbox Live are still taking £5.99 from us for a subscription to something we don't use. Once again I try to log in - no luck. I then search their site for other means of communication. Can't get the 'click to call back' to work and there is a waiting time of 27 minutes to 'chat' to one of their representatives via messenger (which the website tells me is no use for this sort of problem anyway). It took me a few minutes of Google-Fu to even find their phone number, not listed on their site at all and eventually I get through to them on the phone.

Utterly useless, 'read it from the screen' people! They talk over you, won't listen to your complaint and at no time did anyone ever say "I'm sorry you're having this problem". They were rude, discourteous and I was utterly shocked by their lack of any customer service. Of course, they refused to give me my money back. Waffled on about 'terms and conditions' and told me the log in did work (which it still doesn't). They then said they sent me emails (never received, even checked the junk mail folder) and just plain refused to give me any benefit of the doubt.

I asked to speak to a supervisor and got someone even more useless. He hardly spoke at all, several times I had to ask if he was still there. He cancelled the account (taking me through all security again) but refused a refund and refused to apologise for the lack of ease to cancel the account. At the end of the call I asked if he had anything else to say to me, such as sorry and he just said 'no'. Terrible!

So, lesson learned, cancel your Xbox Live membership ASAP after selling your console.

Their phone number is - 0844 545 8143

(as you'll no doubt have difficulty getting the site to work and they don't seem too keen on you calling them)

shegirl

Or do the sensible thing and cancel it BEFORE you sell it.And make sure your profile can't be signed into if you have your card registered for buying points!

custardy

So, lesson learned, cancel your Xbox Live membership ASAP after selling your console.

why would you give this advice?
surely before is the best idea
I'm assuming you didnt factory reset the console either?
So the buyer got some free live time too

Wanton

I find it better (and cheaper) to buy the cards with codes on from Amazon (or somewhere similar). Had to jump through hoops with microsoft before to cancel the recurring payment when I no longer had internet access.

DCFC79

Wanton wrote: »

I find it better (and cheaper) to buy the cards with codes on from Amazon (or somewhere similar). Had to jump through hoops with microsoft before to cancel the recurring payment when I no longer had internet access.

This is what I do for a few reasons 1 its safer from my perspective as no current card details are linked to my account 2 it means I (or anyone else) cant accidently buy a game or ms points eg when ive had way too many drinks and 3 M$ cant take any money off me.

Supahpossum wrote: »

My partner and I have had an Xbox for about 2 years and have had to pay the monthly £5.99 in order to get online with it. We recently traded in the Xbox for a PS3, as it plays Blu Rays and you don't have to pay to go online. Now, we've always had trouble with the Xbox Live website, we can't log in to our account, it always comes up with a different 'gamertag' and is not our account. We sold the Xbox before we realised we needed to cancel the Xbox Live account. We tried to log in online with the usual lack of luck and in the end decided to just cancel the direct debit using online banking.

Fast forward two months and lo and behold Xbox Live are still taking £5.99 from us for a subscription to something we don't use. Once again I try to log in - no luck. I then search their site for other means of communication. Can't get the 'click to call back' to work and there is a waiting time of 27 minutes to 'chat' to one of their representatives via messenger (which the website tells me is no use for this sort of problem anyway). It took me a few minutes of Google-Fu to even find their phone number, not listed on their site at all and eventually I get through to them on the phone.

Utterly useless, 'read it from the screen' people! They talk over you, won't listen to your complaint and at no time did anyone ever say "I'm sorry you're having this problem". They were rude, discourteous and I was utterly shocked by their lack of any customer service. Of course, they refused to give me my money back. Waffled on about 'terms and conditions' and told me the log in did work (which it still doesn't). They then said they sent me emails (never received, even checked the junk mail folder) and just plain refused to give me any benefit of the doubt.

I asked to speak to a supervisor and got someone even more useless. He hardly spoke at all, several times I had to ask if he was still there. He cancelled the account (taking me through all security again) but refused a refund and refused to apologise for the lack of ease to cancel the account. At the end of the call I asked if he had anything else to say to me, such as sorry and he just said 'no'. Terrible!

So, lesson learned, cancel your Xbox Live membership ASAP after selling your console.

Their phone number is - 0844 545 8143

(as you'll no doubt have difficulty getting the site to work and they don't seem too keen on you calling them)

Your first fail was paying £5.99 a month when you could have got a sub for as little as £30 or look at it another way if you were paying the £5.99 a month for 2 years it would cost £143.76 compared to a max of £60 based on 2 yearly subs of £30.

Your second fail was just cancelling the DD and not calling xbox support to cancel the subscription then sell the console which is what most people would do.

Wolfskin

There are so many things wrong with your statement.
1. Microsoft never MADE you pay 5,99 for a monthly subscription. You bought that yourself and it is no one's fault but yours that you could not be arsed to look at all the cheaper options available (e.g. special offers on amazon)

2. You tried to call their customer support and complain about the fact that you sold your Xbox and cancelled your debit card BEFORE cancelling the Gold subscription? This makes even less sense. If the debit card was cancelled, then it is not Microsoft's fault that the charges were taken. Your subscription was renewing automatically (because you forgot to turn it off yourself), so the charges were attempted to be made and a request was sent to the bank to make those charges. As you said, "Lo and behold". Your bank authorized the charges, coming from a debit card that was cancelled.

Now, here's a question. If it was your bank, authorizing charges to be made on a cancelled debit card, who would you need to ask the refund from? Why would you even consider asking that from Microsoft, who were just following the aforementioned in your post terms of use that you should have read and agreed to before you applied to the service?

Seeing how you went through all the trouble of posting a complaint on the Internet about this experience, I can only imagine how "polite" and "understanding" you were with the customer support agent. And you really did not see the same level of politeness being returned to you? That is just silly.

Idiophreak

Supahpossum wrote: »

So, lesson learned, cancel your Xbox Live membership ASAP after selling your console.

...or they'll just keep billing you, as agreed?

Shocking.