I have extreme angst because I turned auto-renewal off for Xbox LIVE's auto-renewal bullcrap, but I still have been charged for another three months of LIVE.
Apparently, the credit card was declined when it attempted to charge it (which was not an authorized charge in the first place), so I was told that I needed to modify my existing payment option... so after 2 minutes of wondering why I was being charged again, I went into to edit it and tell it to forget (and permanently remove) the credit card info and I wasn't allowed to remove it. Then, out of nowhere, I'm signed out of Xbox LIVE and told that my account has been suspended because of a payment error. It said I could still have all the privileges of a Silver account and still be able to play games in any type of online setting which I thought was peculiar.... of course, I sign into my account to play Call of Duty 4 aaaaand... no dice. I'm kicked off LIVE for real.
So... apparently, Microsoft went ahead and charged me for another 3 months, but the card was declined so there's a friggin' transaction pending for it, and I can't remove the card or anything because it's linked to my active account and that pending BS. I just want to remove the card information and get on with my life, but I can't remove it until I use another credit card that is legit to cover it. So, the transaction is obviously final... I have to go put in new info on a working card for the transaction to go through, go call customer support again to have them remove the card info immediately after the transaction clears, let the three months run out on it, etc. Oh, but wait. This is even better: My account reverted back to Silver when it found out the credit card exploded, so before my account got suspended and all this crap happened, I went to redeem my pre-paid card. Okay, well, the card redeemed and everything and my profile had been upgraded back to Gold, so I thought "Hell yes, that went smoothly." Well, no, I still can't play any games until this transaction goes through but I was able to redeem my pre-paid card and have my account upgraded back to Gold... so basically, that means that my 3 months is ticking away and I can't do a friggin' thing about it until this stupid card crap is taken care of. Another question is: since my 3 month card is redeemed and apparently active, when the transaction does finally go through and it renews, is it going to stack on top of the three months from the pre-paid card or am I gonna be out $20 for a worthless piece of plastic that I had just redeemed?
This is complete and utter bullcrap, to say the least. I entered the card info back in April to get three months. After three months, I noticed it renewed itself for another three months. The second I realized this, I called XCrap Support to turn auto-renewal off... keep in mind that was early July-ish... so here I am, another three months later, and Microsoft is trying to charge me for a renewal that I cancelled almost three months ago. It's just weird that you have to call Microsoft to tell them to turn auto-renewal off. It's so easy to put your card info on LIVE, but then nigh impossible to get it back off again if you run into a trivial matter.
I mean, what is so hard about removing the card? Why is Microsoft like "OH LOL WE ALREADY TRIED TO CHARGE IT. ITS PENDING LOL U CANT DO NOTHIN BOUT IT SO PAY UP"? Does Microsoft think you're trying to con them out of a subscription or something? You'd think that if the card didn't go through, you could cancel the pending transaction/remove the credit card info online or over the phone explaining what the situation is and that you are, in fact, the cardholder, and then that would mean you wouldn't have your subscription renewed-- simple. Well, no, apparently not.
I can't sign into LIVE to modify my credit card info, but I need to access Live TO change it. I can't sign into xbox.com because it says my account doesn't exist (yet I've visited the site dozens of times, queued up downloads from there, etc.). I've been calling support, and I'm talking to complete idiots that sound like they're reading questions and answers off a sheet of paper. I get redirected to the "supervisor," I'm on hold for 3 minutes, then I get hung up on!
What it boils down to is:
-My Xbox is an offline brick until this can be sorted.
-Microsoft charged the credit card after I phoned Xbox Support to have them get rid of the auto-renewal BS almost 3 months before the renewal date... so that is basically a crime. If you tell them to not renew your card automatically, then they are not allowed to just carry on and do the opposite of what you requested.
I've been reading horror stories (interestingly all on the LIVE forums) about people who have found themselves in my shoes and it's pretty ridiculous what they have to do to rectify the problem(s). Maybe Microsoft needs to be smacked around with a class-action lawsuit.