XBOX Live Auto-Renewal

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I just got ####ed up the ass by Xbox and I'm really pissed about it.

I may or not have renewed my account but I just noticed that on Jan 27th Xbox renewed my Gold account without my knowledge or consent.

Is that even legal? Has anyone dealt with this bull####?

I'm so pissed. The only way to get rid of it is to call them. You can't even do it from your online account.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Ok I take that back. Well, some of it anyway.

I called them and bitched the guy out and he was more than happy to help.

I am still a little bit peeved that they auto renewed but the guy correctly pointed out that they sent me an email warning they would auto-renew to an email address that I no longer use.

He claimed that I should have gotten a message on my Xbox but I'm pretty sure no such thing happened considering it renewed 2 weeks ago. I gave him my new email address, turned off auto-renewal and got a nice little discount for the next year of Live Gold.

Can't say I'm happy about the auto-renewal practices but the customer service was nothing short of exceptional when I complained. And the guy clearly wasn't in India which is weird.

For anyone out there beware that you may have your credit card charged without any notice except an email.

/end thread

[Misterpants]

I'm still pissed that you have to pay $60 bucks a year for what is a free service on PS3.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Typically when you sign up for that kind of thing it's mentioned that it is an automatically renewing subscription. I generally cancel right away to avoid that problem and not forget. I would assume it's setup this way to hopefully catch some people by surprise and hope they are to lazy to do anything about it but of course their excuse is "customer service" or done for "our convenience".

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Apparently my hearing needs work. It isn't new but I didn't know about it.

[Hack&Lube]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

He told me it is relatively new. It was probably in the fine print in the user agreement the last time Xbox Live underwent an upgrade, which wasn't that long ago.

Well then you have good reason to be upset. They should make that VERY obvious when paying.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I only noticed because I went into my old email to check if there were any mailing lists I was on that I wanted to change to my current email address.

Out of 200 emails in the last month or so I happened to notice one that said something about renewal from Xbox.

Checked my credit card statement and sure enough there was a $60 charge that I may or may not have noticed when the time came to pay my bill in March.

I immediately went to disable it with Xbox live and it said I had to check the website to disable it. Went to the website and it said I had to call to disable it.

I play on my Xbox at least once a week, usually more, and no message has ever been sent to me or pop-up occurred warning me that I was about to be charged $63.

What if I'd disconnected my Xbox and didn't play anymore? Would I be getting $63 dollar charges for years to come and possibly not ever notice?

I'm almost 100% certain that I manually renewed last year because I think I waited a bit to renew because I wasn't playing quite as frequently.

[Burninator]

I can only to speak to what it is like right now as I just up for Xbox Live for the first time less than 2 months ago and they made it obvious that it was on auto-renew. Even poking around in my account settings I noticed that it had a check box for auto-renew (checked on by default).

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Burninator

I can only to speak to what it is like right now as I just up for Xbox Live for the first time less than 2 months ago and they made it obvious that it was on auto-renew. Even poking around in my account settings I noticed that it had a check box for auto-renew (checked on by default).

There is no such check box in my account. My account said I'm on auto-renew and there is no option to turn it off.

Copied straight from their website:

To cancel your Xbox LIVE Gold Membership or to turn off auto-renewal, you need to contact Xbox Support.

This will be my 3rd or 4th year on Xbox live.

[malcolmk14]

As far as I know, auto-renew has always been around for Xbox Live. I had an issue with it renewing automatically 4 or 5 years ago, and had to call to cancel after i noticed it on my Credit Card statement.

[Hack&Lube]

That's the way it's going to be until Microsoft gets sued for it. It's an easy way to make money. Many people will also not be proactive like you and once they realized it's already been renewed, they'll just accept it instead of complaining to CS.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

As far as I know, auto-renew has always been around for Xbox Live. I had an issue with it renewing automatically 4 or 5 years ago, and had to call to cancel after i noticed it on my Credit Card statement.

Ok, after doing some research into it I was mistaken. It definitely isn't new.

This was my first Gold subscription. I was on the free Silver variety before.

I was on a 12+1 subscription that I only got so I could play COD: MW2 online. So this is the first time I've ever had to renew. I think I may have had a free month or something when I first got my account but never used it and that's why I didn't have Gold for the first 2 years I had my Xbox.

Auto-renew still isn't cool.

It'd be like Telus auto-signing me into a new 3 year deal when my phone contract runs out. Or the Flames auto-renewing my Flames tix without asking me.

[flamesfan6]

i had a 1 month warning on mine when it was going to auto-renew.... maybe you missed it?

Originally Posted by Misterpants

I'm still pissed that you have to pay $60 bucks a year for what is a free service on PS3.

ps3 network sucks though, so its worth the money to do the xbox

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

i had a 1 month warning on mine when it was going to auto-renew.... maybe you missed it?

Totally possible. I even admitted it to the guy on the phone and he gave me a discount anyway.

I don't remember it happening but the supposed date they sent me the warning was right at Christmas so I may have been in a Turkey coma or liquored up.

[theonlywhiteout]

its unreal that they still charge for xbox. ps3's online network is free and seems to work just fine. what the hell is so special about xbox live?

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by theonlywhiteout

its unreal that they still charge for xbox. ps3's online network is free and seems to work just fine. what the hell is so special about xbox live?

its better to start with. I've never had a single issue with xbox live, heard the opposite with psn.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Xbox-Live-vs...tation-Network

and don't forget psn introduced a paid option to get more similar features to the xbox live.

[Huntingwhale]

I had quite the ordeal with getting my xbox live account renewed. This is my story.

I had a live account, and it expired. The credit card l also had one file with xbox expired as well. Instead of Microsoft notifying me about my expired card, they attempted to put through the charges on my old card. However, I went to Best Buy and bought a year subscription, figuring I could put that towards my new subscription.

Yet Microsoft somehow came to the conclusion that because they had attempted to auto renew my account, that I now owed the full balance before my account could be activated. I couldn't even use my freshly bought card to activate my account. Hell, l couldn't even demote myself to a silver account. I called CS, and I got zero help whatsoever. I was told that because Microsoft had attempted to put through the charges and it didn't go through, that I now OWED the balance they had attempted to charge. I told the lady I have a brand new live card I would like to use. Nope, I have to pay the balance with my credit card she said. I then asked her what was the point of buying a subscription card if l couldn't use it. She didn't have an answer for me, and then proceeded to tell me to 'sell it someone who could use it'. I was livid. My xbox account was frozen, I couldn't demote myself to silver status to at least upload my gamerscore, and I couldnt even use the card I bought because I now owed a balance. I emailed customer service over and over again and tried to speak to a manager, but to no avail. In the end, they ended up cancelling the charges, resetting my account balance to zero. I was then able to use my card.

I probably lost around 2000 gamer points because I could only play offline, and as you know when you sign in online after gaining points offline, you lose them. I then tried to remove my credit card # from my account because I DID NOT want auto renew to happen again. I'm perfectly happy buying the subscription and live points at the store.

I encourage everyone to not give MS their credit card and just make the trip to the store to buy the cards you need. The auto renew SUCKS and l can't even take off my credit card they have on file!

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by theonlywhiteout

its unreal that they still charge for xbox. ps3's online network is free and seems to work just fine. what the hell is so special about xbox live?

You get what you pay for. Live is way more reliable and download speeds are way faster. What can take up to a day to download on PSN takes an hour or two to download on Live. I have the paid service for PSN and although having access to betas and being able to download free games(for as long as you are a subscriber) is cool it's still not as a good as Live as far as performance.

[Codes]

I can also confirm that they DO send you a message on XBox Live asking you if you want to auto-renew. Got the message myself last week. I opted out, as I like to try and find a better deal.