Microsoft Billing - recurring charges for 6 years

Skiiddy

Hi All

I have noticed that Microsoft have continued to charge me for Office 365 in spite of closing my account over 6 years ago.  I only noticed the charge yesterday on my Amex card and raised a query with Microsoft and they confirmed that the email account it was linked to had indeed been closed 6 years ago but they could only reimburse the most recent payment as it was within 30 days.  I spoke with Amex who advised that they could only raise a query with a payment made within the preceding 120 days but they would try to get back the payment made in 2022 - they confirmed that Microsoft had reimbursed the payment taken on 15th August.  I appreciate its my fault for not checking my credit card statement but as Microsoft have admitted that they closed the account, surely there is some recourse?  Does anyone have any suggestions?  The email account was closed by Microsoft due to "a breach of their T & C's" but they refuse to say what I did wrong so I just accepted their decision and had assumed my 365 subscription would be cancelled at the same time.

Alderbank

Skiiddy said:

Hi All

I have noticed that Microsoft have continued to charge me for Office 365 in spite of closing my account over 6 years ago.  I only noticed the charge yesterday on my Amex card and raised a query with Microsoft and they confirmed that the email account it was linked to had indeed been closed 6 years ago but they could only reimburse the most recent payment as it was within 30 days.  I spoke with Amex who advised that they could only raise a query with a payment made within the preceding 120 days but they would try to get back the payment made in 2022 - they confirmed that Microsoft had reimbursed the payment taken on 15th August.  I appreciate its my fault for not checking my credit card statement but as Microsoft have admitted that they closed the account, surely there is some recourse?  Does anyone have any suggestions?  The email account was closed by Microsoft due to "a breach of their T & C's" but they refuse to say what I did wrong so I just accepted their decision and had assumed my 365 subscription would be cancelled at the same time.

Welcome to the forum.

This was a digital purchase. What is the address of the MS entity you actually made the contract with?
Was it in the UK (eg MicroSoft Edinburgh) or was it Redmond, Seattle?

born_again

So was this a yearly or monthly payment?

Any claim would be against Microsoft. Good luck with that. 

jon81uk

They stated the email account was closed, but did you ever tell them to cancel the Office subscription?

RefluentBeans

I think you’ll struggle to get more than 30 days back in all honesty. Could potentially look at small claims court options but think it’s an uphill battle. Maybe could confirm you want the 30 days refunded but you also are looking into legal remedies for the remaining amount, but you’ll be happy with a 12 month refund. 

outtatune

Office 365 is not an 'email account'.

Exodi

jon81uk said:

They stated the email account was closed, but did you ever tell them to cancel the Office subscription?

outtatune said:

Office 365 is not an 'email account'.

I think this is probably the crux of this issue, whereby the OP "assumed my 365 subscription would be cancelled at the same time".

A Microsoft 365 subscription (it's not called Office 365 anymore) isn't just email (Outlook), it includes the Office suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc), increased cloud storage (OneDrive), among other stuff.

I also wonder whether having your email account closed is even necessarily relevant, because you could just as easily add a different email account to Outlook.

Unfortunately a specific email address =/= Microsoft 365, and I don't think it's reasonable to assume that a closed email account would automatically cancel the entire Microsoft 365 subscription.