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[Xbox-Scene]

UPDATE: Microsoft Offers Full Refund To Overcharged XBOX Live Member Posted by XanTium | August 19 21:09 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From consumerist.com: XBOX Live member ForceTrainer writes in with an update about his issue with Microsoft. In our last episode, ForceTrainer has been charged $50 for 2 months of a XBOX Live gold membership-- the price of a year of service. "I spoke with James in their escalated support for about 20 minutes. Right off the bat he explained to me what MS would be able to do, and I was offered the option of a full refund of the amount that I paid or they would provide me with a 12-month XBOX Live Gold membership code that I could redeem. I opted for the full refund since all I wanted originally was to downgrade to a Silver membership. After getting that cleared up, James asked me to explain the entire situation to him, and I gave him the story pretty much verbatim from what I sent to the Consumerist. When I finished James apologized for the confusion that occurred, and he explained a few things including why he thinks the situation occurred: - His first comment was that I was absolutely right that I should have received a full credit for the time paid for (vindication!). - My case should have been escalated by default when I first spoke to billing because my request and situation were non-standard. My account was in a decline state which the billing department can handle, but since I wanted to downgrade to a Silver account while in a decline state I should have been escalated immediately. - James believes that the major confusion occurred because my annual account was in a decline state, and that it is very rare for a billing CSR to deal see. Decline states are common with accounts paid on a monthly basis (which makes sense), and the CSR treated my annual account like it was a month-to-month. With month-to-month billing if you get declined your payment to bring your account current gets you paid for that month. Basically you're just paying for time that you've already used. However, with the annual membership, when you pay your balance there is time that is owed to you. The CSR that I spoke with just pretty much screwed this part up." Full Story: consumerist.com

[jasdev]

Silly M$, overcharging is for kids  

[warmaster_670]

ive found MS to be pretty good in this respect, while not teh same situation, i had a live account awhile back that i forgot about, realised i had been billed for another year, a quick phonecall and got it refunded no problem.

[Devedander]

So now the monsoon of people like those in the previous thread should call in for refunds.

This is what I truly hate about tier 1 support... they usually have no idea what they are doing and can only read from a manual.

[majik655]

Gotta love teir 1 support.

Anyone with half a brain understood what was going on here.

ESPECIALLY the tech or billing people that work for the company.

As for the others in the first thread.. half if not ALL of them bitching are or were month to month basis.
Which means they did owe.

[0794]

i agree about the whole tier 1 support being completely useless - especially to people like us in these forums that usually understand more than they do.  i just keep telling myself that they are just trying to work a job for money and that in itself puts them above much of the population...

with dell and some other companies, i have written customer support an email about all the steps that i have done regarding defective products (soft/hard resets, unplug for x time, etc) and that has saved me tons of time on the phone as most of the email replies are simply that they will replace/repair the product.

still, XBL should not be that complicated and refunds/charges really should be easier than what MS has done - you should be able to cancel your account without calling in person...

[ssj4android]

Yeah, MS really designs their billing to rip people off. They don't ever do retention, they should allow people to downgrade or remove credit cards whenever.
A while back, my brother bought I believe a 3-month subscription on his credit card on my Live account. After that expired, they started charging MY credit card monthly. I had to cancel my checking account anyway, and figured that would automatically stop my subscription. Nope, they just leave it active for a few months then deactivate my account and say I need to pay. I called them wanting to downgrade to a silver account, but they did not escalate me nor did they really help me. I ended up paying the balance with my brother's credit card on their billing website.