XBLA non-Customer Service

It's unlike me to have a good moan, but I feel that I need to about something ...

So I was on XBox Live Arcade earlier and I was playing a trial game. I went to quit the level I was on and it must have come up with an upsell screen (you know one of those "unlock the full game" screens) and I wasn't paying attention and pressed OK and then fumbled on the next screen and before I knew it, it was downloading the full version! I immediately spotted this and cancelled it, but my points had been spent.

I checked my xbox and online but there was no way to get a refund for the points used. So I called customer support. I explained that it was an accidental purchase and that the game is not even in my full games list but they said they cannot refund it as the points have been used on their system. I spent AGES on the phone to them (I got the call elevated) to see if they could make a special case for a new xbox user and either a) refund the points or b) give me some kind of voucher for more points. But they steadfastly refused to do either. I told them that this level of customer service disappointed me and made me consider not using the service any more but they would not budge.

She seemed to be saying that it was impossible, that the system would not allow it but I just couldn't believe that. Any decent small firm would just give me a refund and be done with it. Is it really impossible or are these people trained to be MEGA stubborn just to save Microsoft $10 or whatever? It's absolutely crazy that they can't do anything about it and would rather loose my custom than offer my some sort of sweetner! Or has anyone actually had any success with them giving refunds?

OK rant over, but let this be a lesson in NOT how to run your company. Big Fish Games would NEVER treat a customer like this, nor did I when I ran my own company, it's frankly disgusting. I mean what if your kids buy a game by mistake? Their policy seems to be "tough sh*t". Really I think there should be an option to enter a small pin number or something when purchasing to avoid this sort of thing.

Always one reason why I hate ms.. never thinking of the customer.

Send snail mail and you'll get the refund. Obviously, someone somewhere in the company has the power to do what you need.

I haven't used XBox Live, but I have used the Wii VC Shop and you select your game, then you click Buy, then you confirm... surprised (NOT) that MS doesn't have something like this is place.

Awhile ago, a customer of mine bought the Windows version of a game from my site, then sent me an email saying they made a mistake and wanted me to send them the Mac version.

On my site I made it pretty clear which link was for which version and then Plimus stated it twice in the buying process. I wasn't sure what to do, as it was pretty clear what you were buying, so I said no... 1 week later they bought the Mac version!! I think next time that happens I'll give them 50% off or something...

They have it but they get tricky with the buttons sometimes. Many games even switch them up each time you play so you always have to read what button to press. The Wii is much more straight forward because you're always dealing with the identical interface so developers can't get sneaky.

i've never had that problem myself, although i've come close several times. i'd hit a button to exit a trial game not paying attention, and the download full game conformation would come up and i'd immediately hit the B(back) button.

if you don't have parental lock on maybe try it to prevent that or atleast kids making purchesses. although i don't have any kids so i've never used the parental lock and i'm not 100% sure if it would stop the ability of making a download without a pin code or not.

also atleast in situations where you checking out a trial game and you know you don't want to buy it, try hitting the guide button followed by the y button for a quick exit. that should eliminate the possiblilaty of an accidental purchase.

just from what i've read and my own experience i've come to the conclussion that most of the CS staff don't know their butts from a hole in the ground. with my second 360 the rom sometimes has a problem reading the disc and it can take several tries, so about a week and a half to two weeks before the warranty was up i called CS and explained my situation and requested a coffin for my 360 to send back, i also explained how my warranty would come to an end soon and asked if that was gonna be a problem.

she said no problem it'll be there. well two weeks later no box no email no nothing. so they never honoured my warranty and i'm left with a slowly dieing 360. now i know i probably could have fought it but i was so angry and disgusted by their incompetence that i just said screw it.

now if i want to send it in i'll have to pay them i think $160.00 to send me back what is probably a refurb. so my thought is why would i do that when for $199.00 i can go out and buy an Arcade 360 bundle, which includes five arcade games four of which i don't own, and i can just put my 120gb hdd that i bought on that machine.

about getting any kind of compinsation you can try to fight/continually bug them and they may give in but it's very unlikely, although i have heard "stories" of success in situations like that, but far and few in between and whether they're true or not i don't know.

just out of curiousity what game was it, and you should probably finish downloading it if you haven't done so already seeing as you've paid for it.


the thing about the Wii store that i don't like is there is no way to download a trial/demo of the game before deciding to purchase or not,(at least no way i've seen).

I had a wii and hated the wii store, but then nintendo have never been one's to offer good value for money. Especially not to europeans.

Xbox support is abysmal.

If you got to speak to someone who speaks English, you did better than me. Over here, it's all handled in Eastern Europe somewhere. If you thought Indian call centres were bad, prepare for a whole new level of customer service. These guys don't just have an accent, they barely speak the language, and they understand almost none of it. I shudder to think what would happen if they had to speak to someone from Sunderland or Glasgow.

It's been a week since I submitted a repair request for my 360. They still haven't sent out the carrier name and tracking number they missed out of the email it was supposed to come in. They still haven't sent a prepaid box to send it to them in. I've emailed over and over, but they don't comprehend English there either. They literally send you solutions to completely unrelated problems.

Attempts to chase it up on the phone are just an exercise in futility, of course. They promise to phone back, but never do. They leave you on hold for an hour before eventually cutting you off. If you do manage to get someone who seems to just about grasp the problem, they tell you the system is down for routine maintenance and they are thus unable to retrieve any information on your problem.

The problem is simply that the people you talk to are glorified coffee boys and girls. They have no authority, they have no information. Their sole job is to prevent you getting to speak to someone who does. More than likely you could resolve your problem and get your points refunded *if* you can find a way to speak to someone with authority.

I'm pretty sure on XBox Live in the demo games, the button for buying the full game is always the same button. I don't think they are allowed to change it up to confuse the customers. So, there is no dishonesty here liek some people are trying to say.

Also, once you do choose to buy the full game, then the confirmation screen is always the exact same screen. It is the exact same screen that confirms when you want to download something free, it is the same screen when you buy a video, the same screen... you get the picture. So, again, nothing about MS trying to be tricky.

Now, after saying that, it is still possible to make an honest mistake. And I have a very hard time believing they can't give you a refund, give you points back, etc. But all downloads on XBLA do say "there are no refunds for this item", so they are technically protected.

The best solution to this is to NOT keep a balance of points. Only purchase as many points as you need to buy what you want. There is no discount for buying them in bulk. This will keep you from accidentally buying something, and keep your kids from buying stuff (purposefully or accidentally).

Nope, such a statement has no legal standing whatsoever. They just put that there to try to discourage people from complaining.


Sure there is. It just depends where you buy them.

Thanks for the tips. Yeah the interface just popped up quickly and I just hit the wrong button is all, easy to do with kids running around you. The game is Poker Smash which was interesting but I didn't want to buy it (it's got good reviews actually). Btw, I'm pretty sure I've seen different buttons for unlock, or different Menu positions in-game e.g. the cursor ends up right on unlock after completing a level so you hit A on auto-pilot to continue with the game (who reads every screen that appears?) and you are on the confirm sale screen which if you hit A on again, BAM you just bought it! It really needs a code or something...

I'm sure the right person in the company must be able to help me. At the end of the day my Microsoft Points are in a database somewhere and someone could alter that number. The person on the phone was VERY good at repeating the same thing and not giving way, it was a classic stalemate.

@Taskmaster: Yeah good tip, I'll be doing that. I may also check out the parental lock for Marketplace too.

I'm not going to carry on any further as it simply isn't worth my time - it wasn't worth my time last night. The principle irks me but I have to let it go and move forward.

But my tip for Indie developers is just always refund your customers no questions asked, the positive reference you get via word of mouth is worth it. You can always track refunds and see if one customer has done it a lot, and then maybe think twice about giving them a refund again, but most people were just like me last night: honest and made a simple mistake. You want them to end up feeling happy, not like me. I'm amazed MS couldn't even just send me some voucher in the post, or even a sorry letter. The wages they paid their staff were probably more than the amount I was trying to get refunded. It was a total false economy which ended up with a disappointed customer, utter LOSE-LOSE from a business point of view. I am utterly AMAZED at the stupidity of it in this day and age, perhaps it's just down to staff training though...

Accidentally buying a game from XBLA? I don't buy that. When you press "Unlock the full game" button you still need to confirm your purchase.

About their service. My Xbox 360 broke twice. Both got times it got replaced within 2 weeks.

Really? Where can you buy them for a discount? Are the cards discounted somewhere? Or, are you referring to buying them from a shady source?

Probably referring to the fact that you can buy 4200 points for generally less than 2100 points. Except if you look hard enough, you can get 2100 points for less than £16.

Whoops, somehow managed to double post...

What do you guys mean by look hard enough? You are buying them in stores? Like a card or a code you enter or something? Hmmm, I always just buy them with a CC through Live. I will have to look into buying them at a store. How much can you save, generally?

Also, I am in the US, I wonder if that make a difference?

You are seriously doubting my word on that? wow. Do you work for Microsoft support? The confirm button is A btw so it's easily done if you are not paying attention (e.g. small kids fighting in the background etc). If it was a button combo or like one of the tigger buttons that would be safer.

Is there not an option on the 360 like the PS3 where you have to enter some details before any purchases are able to be made?

I know I have my PS3 set up to require me to input my password whenever anything deatailing my cash (either my credit card or the money already on my account) is brought up to prevent any accidental purchases. Figured there'd be a similar thing for the 360 marketplace.

I have some sympathy for Microsoft here, what works for a small business selling a relatively small number of products to many different groups doesn't necessarily work for large multi-national service.

I think the problems for Microsoft in this case are:

There is no way for them to remove an individual game from a user's Xbox 360 and/or profile once it has been paid for.

If they did as you suggest and left standing orders to refund everyone who called in saying they had bought the product "by accident" then this would become well known and exploited by many people. The sad truth is, some people will ruthlessly exploit anything a company does if they think they can get away with it.

Microsoft is only the vendor for most products on XBLA and will have already paid the supplier of th software for that copy of the game, I think there would be serious issues with the developers if Microsoft wanted to claw back refunds from developers each month.

I have never seen any varience in the buying screens for XBLA games, they all look pretty much the same and have the same controls and you do have to confirm every purchase. I don't think there is ever any ambiguoaty in the confirm scren (I have only bought 7 XBLA games but so far it's been 100% consistent).

I'm sure your case is 100% genuine but there would be a lot of cases that would not be and impossible to tell either way. Microsoft has to have a crystal clear policy for it's customer service people and to retain the credibility of XBLA as a sales channel with developers.

I've had a real world exmple of someone abusing me as a vendor very recently:

I had a lady recently who bought something off me on E-bay, she sniped a legitmate buyer in the last second and beat him by 1 penny. 1/2 and hour later I got a message that she had "bought it by mistake" and didn't want it any more. The Second Chance Offer fell through after 24 hours, so I was looking at racking up fees and a totally wasted auction for nothing. The next day she messaged me she now wanted the item again but won't pay the PnP. I strongly suspect she bought my item, saw another one a bit cheaper, bid on that and then decided to abuse my good nature, when she saw she wasn't going to get the other item (or it went too high) she knew there would be my item there if she wanted it. I'll leave you with an example of the good lady's prose: "hiya can u tell me wen i can pick the *** **** up plz and where bouts u live thanks"

Darkheart

No there's not but there should be! That was my problem.

Here's the thing though, only a small number of people would try to exploit it and you could keep track of how many times they tried it and after say 2-3 times, you'd say "NO". Otherwise MS are punishing innocent customers, which STINKS. Also I canceled the download before it completed so they should have been able to check that and verify that I had not actually played the unlocked version.

No I don't work for Microsoft. It's just that, when you press the button to unlock the game it takes a while before the confirmation screen shows up, where you'll see the amount of MS Points you have and how much it'll cost. You then still need to confirm the purchase.

A trick that works for me is to only have enough points for the next purchase. I usually have about 100 to 200 points left. Not enough to buy an arcade game. I only purchase the amount required for my next purchase. And perhaps I'm always cautious when I'm in payment screens.

I purchased the Tomb Raider: Underworld theme by hitting the A button too many times.

But then, I am a doofus :)

Yeah, I buy the cards, and the bigger sizes do cost a bit less ( per x points, obviously). Plus some online stores knock another little bit off the price. I don't know how it compares to buying the points directly from Microsoft though, as I've never done it that way.

Here in the US the points cost 80 points for 1 US dollar when purchased directly through MS on Live.

So, 4000 points cost $50. 2000 points $25, etc...

I just did a search online, and I see a 4000 point card for $49.99, $52.49 after shipping. So, no savings, even if there was no shipping, it would have saved 1 penny.

Is there a standard price per point in the UK? What does a card cost there? I truly have never seen a price for the cards here in the US that makes buying more points cheaper.

So, I am really curious about this.

Well, I've never bought the points directly before, but apparently, 5000 points from Microsoft work out at 85 pence per 100 points. If you buy a 4200 point card from (for example) Play, the cost is about 78 pence per 100 points. So barely 10% cheaper.

I doubt people do it to save money. I know I don't, it's just for the convenience. If like me you do prefer it, though, the price does vary according to how many you buy. The 2100 point cards, for example, are slightly more expensive per point. Although buying them direct does seem to always be more expensive over here, because there is no discount for volume there. I guess you pay for the convenience of choosing your own amount. With the cards, they hope you'll spend them on frivolous things once you've bought them.

I bought 2800 in Futureshop for $40 + 12% tax so that makes it 62.5 points per $1 (post tax) in Canada, which seems expensive to me...

While I was checking the price earlier, I spotted the table of comparison on this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Points

According to that, Canadians pay less than everyone except Mexico and Australia.

It wouldn't have surprised me to learn that Canadians got a raw deal as well as us Europeans though. I have heard that before from Canadians (or people living there, at least) including one wag who reported "We still get screwed just like when we were in Britain. The only difference is now we get screwed in Dollars instead of Pounds".

Yeah I saw that too, but the reality is the Post Tax price which is $16 for 1000 points.

I feel for ya Jake. An over-easily accessible purchasing system is a huge scam in my opinion. There should be some law against it.

Wow, the pricing is rather interesting.

Here in the US, I have never seen any benefit to buying a card. So, purchasing them with a CC is quick and easy. And, as I said before, there is no benefit to buying in bulk, so only purchasing enough points to afford what you want to buy is a good way to help mistaken purchases.