X-Box and Credit cards

Hi All -

I have a question for ATS...

My 15 year old son ran up a bill on my credit card of just over £1,000 by buying upgrades to X-Box games, despite not having permission to spend anything.

Because I entered, and was blocked from deleting, my credit card details for a £19.99 subscription transaction some weeks prior, I'm on the hook for the £1,000.

Apparently my contract with Microsoft X-Box includes the line that if I entered my payment details, then I'm on the hook for anything spent n the account - whether I authorise it or not.

To add interest to the story, if I cancel my credit card, Microsoft have an agreement with the card company by which my new card details are automatically updated to my account - and so the spend could go on...

(I've blocked the existing card, and refused a new one, so ended the relationship with the bank involved).

I accept the cost, and have had 'words' with my son.

I am a little suprised though, the AI systems used to track unusual transactions didn't flag the £30.72p spend happening four times in the same day, but who knows what normal is in the X Box world.

However I'm still in the dark as to how I can delete payment details from an X-Box account after payment for a subscription has been made?

Your help would be appreciated.

Microsoft makes it a huge pain to change your credit card details. You need to log into the email account that your son or you made with Microsoft Outlook. From there you can change information.

originally posted by: Doxanoxa
Hi All -

I have a question for ATS...

My 15 year old son ran up a bill on my credit card of just over £1,000 by buying upgrades to X-Box games, despite not having permission to spend anything.

Because I entered, and was blocked from deleting, my credit card details for a £19.99 subscription transaction some weeks prior, I'm on the hook for the £1,000.

Apparently my contract with Microsoft X-Box includes the line that if I entered my payment details, then I'm on the hook for anything spent n the account - whether I authorise it or not.

To add interest to the story, if I cancel my credit card, Microsoft have an agreement with the card company by which my new card details are automatically updated to my account - and so the spend could go on...

(I've blocked the existing card, and refused a new one, so ended the relationship with the bank involved).

I accept the cost, and have had 'words' with my son.

I am a little suprised though, the AI systems used to track unusual transactions didn't flag the £30.72p spend happening four times in the same day, but who knows what normal is in the X Box world.

However I'm still in the dark as to how I can delete payment details from an X-Box account after payment for a subscription has been made?

Your help would be appreciated.

I'm pretty sure you can set it up so that you have to authorize any purchases. I don't have a block on my Xbox as I am the only one who uses it, but I'd be surprised if you can't chnage the settings so that any purchases have to be authorized. I know my Amazon Prime account requires entering a pin# so my son doesn't accidentally purchase TV shows when he is watching it.

You'd think your credit card company would have picked up on unsual purchases. Mine does. Anytime I buy something that seems expensive or unusual, I get a text. Some credit card companies allow you to set parameters when you will be notified.

You bank should not be letting any company access your new card, usually when people change their card its because if some kind of fraud . And if you accept the charges that were accrued but don't want any more than you should be able to make that choice.
If the company doesn't like it then they should have to take action against you and not be allowed to make the bank let them keep taking your money.

a reply to: Doxanoxa

I've read stories like this on Reddit.

Typically game companies will give you a 1 time get out of jail free card, so I would look at calling Microsoft and explain what happened. All of this is digital, so it's really no skin off of their nose to revert said transactions.

Here are some tips for that call though.

-Be polite and avoid getting irritated (I know this is hard, especially because you'll likely get bounced around a bit and have to talk to a few different people).

-Explain that the Xbox pretty much forced you to plug in some payment information. (Please don't take offense by what I say next as it's for leverage only, and is not meant personally) Play the I'm old card and don't really understand technology, express that you were just trying to make your grandchildren happy with some presents and didn't understand the possibility of this snowballing like this.

-If all else fails, stay polite, but say some stories like you're retired and this is really going to hamper your tight budget (be that the case or not)

This is a huge problem in gaming just now. Mobile games tend to be the worst along with these "pay to win" style of games. The T&Cs of the gaming companies don't make things easy either, there are various countries who are making movies to try to remedy this problem but as far as I am aware your stuck with the bill.

As for how to remove your details then I think you will need to get your son's log in details and log on to the website and change your billing details form their under the settings. It sucks that this happens.

I am pretty sure that X-box has parental controls that I would encourage you to use, there is actually quite a lo ti think non-gamer parents are not aware of regarding the dangers of online gaming its not just them running up your credit card but all kinds of other things that can go on from cyber bulling to sexual grooming.

a reply to: Doxanoxa

Similar story but account was hijacked, someone ordered hundreds of dollars of services, drains my checking, my password changed, new email entered and I had to hack my own account - end result, and advice: ONLY use a prepaid debit card with x box. In the end my bank reversed the charges but M$ wanted me to make good on the charges. I told them how about you secure my account. Never heard another word. PRE PAID DEBIT ONLY.

a reply to: Doxanoxa

To follow up and add to this, should you decide to let your son keep his Xbox in the future, you can go into payment settings and create a pin or password for any monetary transaction in the future.

Obviously this is not to be taken lightly, and he certainly needs to learn a lesson from this, and you as a parent get to decide how you want to execute that (so long as it's not him, lol)....

Just remember, a large majority of kids in the past few generations have unexpectedly cost their parents a cool grand. On the bright side, he is not in any sort of major trouble... Again, this isn't to make light of the situation, just a thought.

a reply to: Doxanoxa

My son did the same thing with Google Play store games a few years ago. I think it was almost $700. We were able to finally get most of the charges removed (like you there were several on the same day for the same amount), and took the remainder out of his savings.

I just saw an article yesterday about a contractor who worked for Microsoft having scammed almost $10,000,000 from the company somehow by using fake transactions. I guess their AI puts more precedence on potential fraud internally than us lowly consumers.

a reply to: Doxanoxa

Just an update.

I contacted Microsoft X-Box following Critical Stinkers steer - however, the transactions were declared legitimate.

This puzzled me as they were made in a different name to the account holder, and using stolen credit card details, which seemed very easy to do.

Perhaps the 150 characters they gave me to explain were not enough. Maybe I could have held on for another 18 minutes listening to the and they would have answered, but sadly I didn't.

Thanks for everyone's input though.

To round off before I could delete my credit card details I had to cancel all existing subscriptions This sounds worse than it is as you either get a credit for the unused portion, or the cancellation is effective a long way down the line.

Then I removed all credit card details.

Next time we buy anything online from anyone we will be using a prepaid card.

Hard lesson in modern life.