Microsoft XBOX / XBOX 360 2 month refunds

solarpvman

If your child has a Microsoft xbox (360) account then you can reclaim the last 2 months of payments.


This only works in some circumstances such as mine (below) - but I suspect these circumstances to be fairly common.

My son created his xbox account without me knowing and used his debit card as the payment mechanism. He lied and said he was an adult.

The bottom line is that children cannot enter into a contract unless it is for 'necessary services'. Therefore the contract with Microsoft is invalid. they offered a 2 month refund (personally I think they should have refunded the lot but that's another story).


Microsoft cannot argue that the child said he was an adult and therefore the contract is valid, as it is a fact that the child is a child.


In other legal jurisdictions microsoft use CREDIT (not debit) cards to validate the age of customers - very simple to do for a company such as theirs. In the UK the xbox people DO NOT do that - they should IMHO, that would be the moral thing to do. I believe that they do not properly age-verify, effectively, knowing that many children will spend money with them whilst pretending to be adults. (they would and do dispute this of course)


You have to be careful as Microsoft will threaten you by saying that your child committed fraud and that therefore they can permanently lock the CONSOLE -whilst possibly true, they won't do that in reality as it would be a PR disaster. But don't be worried if they make that implied threat to you.


A different scenario I came across in my conversation with them was: As a one-off they may also refund unusual payments where your child may have made a 'spike' in the payment profile of another account.


PS: I was quite arsey with them - so if you adopt a more conciliatory approach you may reap better rewards.


PM me if you want any specific info - I'm annoyed I didn't get back more than 2 months worth of charges!!