Another unpleasant interaction with MS, yet also great support experience in the end.

So my oldest wants to try out Gamepass Ultimate since I bought a Series X last year and am not using it currently. He had enough money left to buy a month of GP Ultimate (It's CAD 19.20 here per month after tax) so he made a new MS account on the Series X to start his own XBox account. So far so good, in comes me since he needed a credit card to buy GP Ultimate. I start entering the details on the Series X with the intention to remove my card again after. Before submitting the Series X says to go to account.microsoft.com for handling subcriptions, can't be done on the console?

Anyway I cancel submitting my info on the console, go to my laptop, log in to my son's new account and add my credit card info there. The I purchase 1 month of GP Ultimate on his account, read and agree to the terms, see his name at the top right of the screen and press purchases. A couple seconds later it comes back with "Welcome SvenZ" (my XBox gamertag). WTF. I click on subscriptions on the page that's still up and still shows my son's info and no subscription. Order history blank. Well done MS, done screwed up again.

To support I go, somehow the purchase ended up on my account. Getting support for XBox is near impossible. The 'AI' bots kept telling me there is no live support for my issue / didn't understand my issue. First I though my gamertag somehow got linked to his account, probably confusing the bots more. I tried getting a refund online but no option for subscriptions that I could find. After 20 minutes of searching I decide to call the CC company to cancel the transaction. While waiting in line to file a dispute, because of no recourse options, I keep trying different combinations on the support page until finally one of the combinations triggered a option to get a callback. I enter my phone number, hang up on the CC company, and almost immediately get a call from MS support ?!!! (No wonder I guess as it's impossible to find that option lol)

From that point on, a professional person on the line. He listened to my issues, tracked down the accounts and purchase to confirm it indeed went to the wrong account. He said it happens now and then that accounts get mixed up when logged into multiple accounts on one device. I said, well it happens nearly every time I try to fix/buy something for my kids. Afraid to switch accounts again he was fine sending the confirmation code to my backup gmail account so I didn't have to log back into my MS account to check my email. He issued a refund for GP Ultimate on my account and showed me / waited on the line to confirm we got GP Ultimate on the correct account this time. 10/10 for real life support.

Still logged into my kid's account on my laptop I could confirm the subscription was now listed under his account. I went to remove my Credit Card, was blocked due to recurring subscription linked to the card. More steps to find the subscription and cancel recurring billing which led to a "Sad to see you go, Goodbye" message lol. But it will remain active until 6-3 or longer if he finds it worth spending 19 bucks a month on.



Anyway I'm curious if he'll find the grass greener on the 'other' side. He got fed up with lag issues in Rocket league on PS5 so wants to try it on XBox. Then after I showed him that if he gets gamepass he can try out hundreds of games he was sold. It's not for me, but he's interested in Sea of Thieves as well and I'm kinda curious how good that looks in 4K HDR (last time I played it was at launch). He's booting it up now :)

I have never had a useful reply from a chatbot, to the point that if I am forced to use one the first thing I type will be "put me through to a custom service rep" and if it doesn't then i'll try 1-2 other ways of asking it to put me in contact with a real person before cancelling, they are not worth my time.

Yep, tried "I want to talk to a real person" many times with the chat bot haha. Yet they have it locked down tight for XBox support, much easier to get live chat for general Windows support. It seems to only allow you to get help with purchasing stuff / major account issues. It mostly tries to redirect you to "ask the community" bs. Wasted half an hour of my time just to puzzle out the right combination to get past the effing chat bot.

Hmm this is odd, under authorized transactions on my CC it lists GP Ultimate 3 times under debit now, one should be listed under credit...
May 3, 2023 Microsoft*Xbox $19.20
May 3, 2023 Microsoft*Store $19.20
May 3, 2023 Microsoft*Store $19.20

Guess I'll wait for them to move onto the posted transactions list, the two MS Store ones should cancel each other out...
Not gonna pay CAD 58 for one month on GP lol. Ugh technology.


Called the CC company anyway, more hoops to jump through but they're gonna call back in "more than 1 hour" to dispute the transaction. Not sure if the support agent messed up charging me again instead of refunding or if it's their stupid back end listing it wrong.

Curious as to why you went for Ultimate, there are no benefits if he only uses it on the console.

Edit: Nevermind, forgot gold was included in that tier, must be it.

Added a gamepass ultimate subscription to my account not long ago. Did it using the console, including creditcard details. Bit weird you needed to go to the website. But I agree, user experience overall with accounts isnt great. I also had some issues in the past with deleting and switching to a new account.

Happy it worked out in the end at least.

Oh it works getting it on the console, but you need the website to cancel recurring billing and to take my CC off his account again. Or at least that's what it said on the console. So I figured I would do the whole thing on my laptop, big mistake.

And yep @EpicRandy it's actually online (live gold) he wanted. Ultimate is CAD 5 more on top of live gold, so easy choice.

Anyway I got email notification yesterday already from MS that they issued the refund, so it's either a mistake from the CC company or a bug in their software listing it as a triple purchase. It's a first as so far every refund has always been listed as a credit. Same way getting gas works nowadays, tap the pump, it authorizes $250 debit, then lists $250 credit and the actual amount pumped as debit after filling the tank.

Call back came, one is indeed a refund. Just a bug in their software then. Explains the higher then normal call volume they're experiencing...

Also happened last year with my taxes. The preliminary assessment the government send included arrears interest on taxes owing before I even had a chance to pay (and still long before the due date). Called them to ask what I need to pay and they said don't paid the late fees, it's a bug in the software... Should be gone on the final assessment. Really breeds consumer confidence with stuff like this! This was only 19 bucks yet incorrect arrears interest on taxes owing, not a funny mistake!

Remember when gaming was as simple as putting a little piece of gray plastic into a rectangular plastic box and simply pushing a button?

Yeah, so do I.

And so do the 'Member berries.

There was an easy fix to this issue.
Just set your Xbox as your home console (using your account). That way any profile on that Xbox can use the GPU subscription even when your account is not currently signed-in.

Also consoles nowadays have their own browser, so you could've made those changes on the same console (plug in mouse and keyboard for better experience).

Is that easier than simply using the comfort of my laptop? (which I use as a desktop basically, it never leaves its place, just takes up a lot less space than a desktop plus monitor) The 'easy' fix to this issue is MS fixing Windows so it stops getting confused when managing several MS accounts.

The XBox is set as the home console. My kid wanted to start his own XBox profile, hence making his own gamer profile with his own MS account. But since he doesn't have a credit card, he needed my help to pay for Ultimate. And yep now I can check out xCloud since it's the home console, so it should work for me too. (I'm the old fart just playing physical disc games on it)

I didn't know the Series X had a browser, I can't make heads of tails of the UI haha. Hence I put in a disc and play that :)

One question: Can we play Sea of Thieves together in co-op with his account? One on PC, one on the Series X?

Googled it: Yes, with a digital copy of the game you can play on Xbox and PC at the same time. There are a few things you will need to do since an account cant be playing the same game on PC at the same time as Xbox. With the account that owns the game set the home Xbox to the Xbox you would like to use. Then login with a different xbox live account on that box to play on that Xbox. From there you can use the account owning the game on the PC at the same time.

Awesome!

I was going to say, you could just make the console ur home an switch accounts and still have access to everything, but having it switched it probably better long term, especially if you don't plan on using it much. A way you could save money tho if you do want to use gamepass ultimate on ur PC, just buy it again on ur account, have ur profile on xbox as the home xbox. He can just switch to ur account download whatever and switch back and you'll still have access to gamepass on PC. And yes SoT is cross play, I'm here for any and all SoT questions (got almost 2000 hours into it) lol