Xbox purchases made by son. What are my rights?

jonnyd1973

Hi
At Christmas I turned off parental controls to let my son download a free trial. A few days later I realised that I had not switched protection back on. In those few days he'd purchased multiple items summing to £270. Many were not successfully downloaded as he did not have the memory space to download full games. Several were 18 certificates even though he's only 12. Calling Microsoft within 2 days of the first purchase, they agreed to refund the most expensive item at 49.99 but referred my to my banks' charge-back process to claim back the rest. But my bank said they do not have the rights to pursue non-faulty goods in this case. On returning to Microsoft for help they said that my acceptance of the 1 refund meant they were not allowed to refund any more. I'm unsure where to turn.
I wish to get a full refund and allow Microsoft to recall all the game licenses. But they won't. My bank don't seem to be able to help AND I have no way to access the full price games even if I wanted them (which I don't). Does anyone know if I have distance selling rights to use here? Should I be looking at the small claims court? Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

wealdroam

Jonnyd1973 wrote: »

Hi
At Christmas I turned off parental controls to let my son download a free trial. A few days later I realised that I had not switched protection back on. In those few days he'd purchased multiple items summing to £270. Many were not successfully downloaded as he did not have the memory space to download full games. Several were 18 certificates even though he's only 12. Calling Microsoft within 2 days of the first purchase, they agreed to refund the most expensive item at 49.99 but referred my to my banks' charge-back process to claim back the rest. But my bank said they do not have the rights to pursue non-faulty goods in this case. On returning to Microsoft for help they said that my acceptance of the 1 refund meant they were not allowed to refund any more. I'm unsure where to turn.
I wish to get a full refund and allow Microsoft to recall all the game licenses. But they won't. My bank don't seem to be able to help AND I have no way to access the full price games even if I wanted them (which I don't). Does anyone know if I have distance selling rights to use here? Should I be looking at the small claims court? Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

You seem to be suggesting that either Microsoft or your bank have done something wrong.

Sadly, you need to accept that the only people that have done anything wrong are you and/or your son.

I'll stop there.

WTFH

Unfortunately you no longer have the right to smack the child. That would have been your only right. Hopefully you and your son will have learned from this expensive lesson.

mije1983

Sorry if this comes across as blunt but YOU knowingly disabled controls Microsoft had provided to prevent exactly this happening. Microsoft and the bank are not to blame here I'm afraid.

Geodark

Jonnyd1973 wrote: »

Hi
At Christmas I turned off parental controls to let my son download a free trial. A few days later I realised that I had not switched protection back on. In those few days he'd purchased multiple items summing to £270. Many were not successfully downloaded as he did not have the memory space to download full games. Several were 18 certificates even though he's only 12. Calling Microsoft within 2 days of the first purchase, they agreed to refund the most expensive item at 49.99 but referred my to my banks' charge-back process to claim back the rest. But my bank said they do not have the rights to pursue non-faulty goods in this case. On returning to Microsoft for help they said that my acceptance of the 1 refund meant they were not allowed to refund any more. I'm unsure where to turn.
I wish to get a full refund and allow Microsoft to recall all the game licenses. But they won't. My bank don't seem to be able to help AND I have no way to access the full price games even if I wanted them (which I don't). Does anyone know if I have distance selling rights to use here? Should I be looking at the small claims court? Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

Sorry to be brutal here fella, but you and your son need to take the responsibility here, not microsoft or the bank. If you had given your son your credit card and pin number, then got upset when he spent money would you be turning to the bank to try and get the cash back? If I was you I would be making your son do extra chores etc to pay the cash back!

DCFC79

Can you not buy the cards like you can for iTunes and Google play where the card has credit on it, if so get 1 of them and redeem it to the xbox account.

Learn from the mistake and dont make it again. You dont even ned to enter you card details into the xbox as you can get he pre paid subscriptions.

Money-Saving-King

Sue your son.

bluenoseam

There's many wrongs here, but there's two absolute errors on your own part.

You turned off the parental controls & forgot to turn them back on again.

You either left your card details stored on the system OR left it lying in a place he could get to it OR willingly gave him the card.

Sorry to sound pretty harsh, but I think you were fortunate to get away with the £50 refund you've already gotten - ultimately that was Microsoft's good will in play. Begs the question as to what demo it was which you disabled the parental controls for which in turn allowed your Son to DL the games involved?

ladymagpie

Tbh I think 12 is too young to have an xbox full stop, let alone to have parental controls off. There are very few games on Xbox that are for under 15s, and those are all available on another platform too - such as Minecraft.

This is the fault of your son and yourself I'm afriad. No xbox for a month for him, and a lesson on age-appropriate material for you too - and that includes access to card details.

mattyprice4004

So as usual, people want others to take the blame for their own mistake.
You turned off parental controls, so of course he can then download games with an age rating! Common sense would tell you that.

Man up and take responsibility for your mistakes - it's god awful parenting to show your son you can balls up and then blame other people.

jonnyd1973

Hi

Thanks for your input.

Whilst I appreciate the perspective portrayed so far, like any other purchase you make (a car, kettle or tv) if you have purchased something you don't want (in error, faulty or otherwise), you have the right to return it in 28 days.

Everyone who told me to accept the mistake might consider their response the last time they had returned something to Argos and were told to 'man up' by the sales staff.

It's not that simple, otherwise I may have not even sought some useful advice. You have a 28 day cooling off period for in-shop purchases and something else for this kind of purchase.

What I'm looking for here please is a bit more constructive input please from someone who understands consumer rights, not just has an negative opinion on gaming.