Thanks for the heads up guys. I'll be sure to let my first subscription completely expire before I register a second card. F-ing xbox.

X-box Live service really is atrocious. It took me 2 days to have an expired credit card removed from the account. They wouldn't just let me do it on the website; no, I had to call the service, wait on hold forever, tell the CSR what I wanted only to have him tell me 'Only a supervisor can do that' and wait for that supervisor to call me back the next day.

Not to mention the time I couldn't buy microsoft points to download a game I wanted, for no apparent reason. All my contact info was correct, card info was correct, it just wouldn't work. Spent almost an hour on the phone to get the same runaround: a supervisor had to deal with it and would call me back in a few days.

Seriously, if I didn't like gaming with my friends so much, I would just say hell with it.

/end rant

Isn't automatically renewing when the client has specified not to autorenew some sort of... fraud I guess? I mean, it's theft.

I got a phishing warning accessing this page.

Didn't the Xbox team has issues with their billing departments recently? That particular system was down for a while and this might be the cause...

I wouldn't reccomend it but there are also the 13 month cards for about 30 bucks these days - using one of those might up you for 22 months as well, not that you want that.

That's why I can't wait for the demise of credit/debit cards.

@litbruin: I think I'm going to reply to random comments simply because my Reply function works now.

This won't really help the OP, but for anyone considering signing up with XBox Live in the future, *don't* give them a credit card to being with. It's cheaper to get a 13 month prepaid card (but $20-$30, depending on which sale you catch), and they don't have a card on file to create these kinds of issues with.

Save yourself the headache and just go prepaid.

@masterage: cause of this issue, not of the system crashing...or was it?

@RandomHookup: Wow! It does! Awesome.

This is the OP here. I'm not entirely sure but I believe I was required to enter CC info anyway. I might just accept the waived $54.11 and cancel my account forever. At least I'll be able to play social slayer on a friends account. Sadly, BoPeep21 is no more.

I still don't understand paying for a ad heavy service that should (and can be...) free.

EX: PSN, WiiConnect, PictChat, etc.

@Cocotte: at least the credit card wasn't reactivated when they used it... [consumerist.com]

@PSN: kingpsyz: You get what you pay for and NONE of those services match what XBL has to offer.

please that argument is outdated at best and outright false at worst...

yes I miss the myspace features that LIVE offers while playing on PSN for free... I hate playing 60 player matches for free.

I really miss a cavalcade of 13 year old racists with headsets screaming for more mtn dew in my ear...

Back to the crux of the matter, LIVE is overpriced in a market when it should come with the system as both PSN and WiiConnect have shown can and should be.

LIVE also has horrible customer service in regards to the gay community and this is not the first time I have heard an auto renewal story either.

@PSN: kingpsyz: I have all 3 systems and Xbox Live is the best. I can invite or join anyone regardless of the game I'm playing or my friends are playing without having to go back to the dashboard. With the PS3, I have to be in the same game or they have to be in the same game for me to send or receive any invited. The 360 Marketplace has faster download speeds than PSN. WiiConnect? shit is useless.

I have spent many years hoping for Microsoft to change their policy on credit cards. I first got my xbox live account when I was under age with the original xbox. Back then you had to use a credit card with your account (pretty sure?).

When I migrated my account to the 360, I had no choice but to re-enter credit card information, the system did not have an option to switch to prepaid cards.

I dream of the day that I can log into my passport and just click delete to remove a credit card. Not swap for a new one, just delete! Especially with kids going around hi-jacking accounts through phone customer service.

Why is it so hard microsoft?

This is why I use the cards and never gave x-box my CC. I've seen horror stores on here from them and auto renewal. Luckily I have about 40 1 month free cards to use.

@y2julio:
You just mentioned one of the myspace features that annoys me the most.

If I am playing burnout and someone kept inviting me to say play Killzone 2 I'd be highly annoyed. One, I might not have that game you want to play so bad, two if I wanted to play the other game ID BE PLAYING THE OTHER FUCKING GAME let me drive around already...

With PSN your friends give you a pop up when online, or when you get a message so if if it's someone you would like to play another game with you can ask and give them the opertunity to say yes rather than be force fed your invites.

AGAIN... regardless, it's asinine to ask $52/yr for something the other systems offer for free.

Had the same thing happen to me just last week. Ask for a supervisor and ask for the credit. Original rep told me that same stuff they told you. I now have a 59.99 credit back on my card and the pre-paid card is active and I did not get suspended!

Ask for a supervisor otherwise you'll get the same stuff about it being tied in and yada yada!

I find it sad that I posted the exact same story and The Consumerist did not post it!

@RandomHookup: YESSSSSS!

@supertechman: Yes, look at all of the horror stores on here about XBox billing, they all form because of M$'s screwed up auto billing system when dealing with credit cards. ALWAYS go with the retail cards, far fewer headaches.

Of course for people who have been with the service since the beginning (not I but thousands of others) in the XBox 1 days there HAD to be a CC on file so that's one thing they have improved on.

@cuchanu: ... replaced by?

@PSN: kingpsyz: Also MTV's gaming blog had a scoop last week that Sony charges publishers $0.17 per GB downloaded from the PSN Store. It applies to both free and pay content, but the charges leave for free content after 60 days of its upload to Sony.

So if you had a 1 GB file that was downloaded 2 million times from the PSN Store, publishers would owe Sony more than $300,000 in bandwith fees.

@PSN: kingpsyz: I agree with you that the psn service itself is as good as xbox live, but if it meant having an established protocol that all online games had to follow so you knew that you werent going to get some mickey moused online match system that a publisher came up with by themselves, i would happily pay 50 dollars a year for it.

plus did you read about sony charging developers per GB of downloads off psn? not good for gamers to be discouraging the developers from putting up free content and demos.

Um hey simply call and ask to be downgraded to a silver account. I had the same issue. All my CC were expired and my account was canceled. I had to call asked to be downgraded and all was good.

Later on in the month I picked up a new XBL year card and upgraded back to gold.

@ramfan1701: A little while ago purchasing anything was down, even PSN seemed to be having the same problem I think it was some sort of payment processing issue on the back end. But I do agree MS needs to let go who ever is doing their Xbox live customer service and get another company, which is also kinda sad considering most of the time I have called it's been a American.

@PSN: kingpsyz: If Playstation 3 came with a Mic in the box like 90% of the Xbox 360, PSN would have the same 13 year old problems.

Moral of the story is... don't use credit cards and autorenewal with Xbox live. Always use the pre-paid cards.

(And pro-tip for canucks. Get your cards at Shoppers Drugmart. They think they're gift cards, so they don't charge sales tax on them... spread the word. Don't tell no one!)

Too many companies do stupid things like this all the time. We need to shift from merely having a civil "penalty" of having to make good on what is paid for after taking them to court. We need stiff "incentive to do the right thing" penalties like $10,000.00 (plus legal costs) for a clear and obvious ripoff when the consumer can show they presented the fact of the error and was denied a correction.

Legitimate businesses do not need to worry about occasional mistakes, since they would correct them when they happen. This isn't about penalizing for a mistake happening. This is about penalizing for not correcting the mistakes.

@cuchanu: You'll be the first one to "demise" before that ever happens. lol

@xredgambit: In general I do not ever use auto-renew on anything. The one exception is my "all you can eat" Magnatune account.

@litbruin: All your dollars are belong to us.

@ZekeSulastin: Beaver pelts. Once the Internet gets tubes big enough to handle them, that is.

@Skaperen: Thats not really true. MS is a huge company and it is legit. You cant blame an entire company for one idiot on the phone not knowing how to fix something.

Did the OP ask for a supervisor?

@Cocotte:

Yup.

That's how the "girls gone wild" guy got busted.

@PSN: kingpsyz: Keep the fanboyism to Kotaku, please.

@DoktorGoku:
Guess you missed the fanboy replying to me when I stated something quite simple. Why is it LIVE charges $52 a year for a heavily ad supported service that others get for free? One they can't even seem to manage simple customer service on.

@WEGGLES90:

Thats kinda like Walmart and the World of Warcraft game cards. In canada they sell them for the US price, yet every other place sells them for the canadian price. 29.99 instead of 35-40 depending on the place.

i remember having to deal with this. it was such a pain. maybe if any of their csr's were in america and spoke english this would be easier.

but still better than psn and wii connect.....

@PSN: kingpsyz:

If you have friends who play games, Xbox Live is much better. The features that you call "myspace features" are actually very useful if you have friends that you play with frequently.

If you don't have any friends you game with, PSN is fine. I don't know why you even mentioned the Wii's online gaming. Nintendo might as well have not even bothered.

<--- Owns all three systems, has no problem paying $30/yr for online gaming on EACH of my Xbox 360s (I could use the same account on both, but I got a second account for my wife)

@supertechman: That's what we did right away. Saw the autorenewal bit, and avoided it like the plague. Been burned by other companies on auto-pay stupidity.

@wondermoose: Something must have been wrong then. You don't have to use a CC for a prepaid card. You can also enter the information online as well, and not have to go through your Xbox.

@PSN: kingpsyz: Why is anyone paying $52 a year? The cards are on sale regularly for $29. Start watching Slickdeals when your account is about up.

My account canceled last December. My card on record had expired, but I couldn't get the new information to Xbox Live. Trying to log into the account, with the email address they sent the bill to said no account existed. I tried all my other email addresses (some of which I no longer have) and none of them worked either.

I couldn't find a number for the live person option. Nor did trying to access through the Xbox 360 (which I only hooked up to renew after moving) work.

@Coles_Law: Fantastic, I knew that trip to Canada would pay off somewhere down the line.

@PSN: kingpsyz: ha! that's classy. Calling me a fanboy even though I have all 3 systems.

@MSUHitman:

Companies release demos to sell their product. So you're comfortable with paying to download advertising aka demos?
I understand the extra features on XBL as a plus worth paying for by many. Complaining about developers having to pay to funnel you their content that they want you to buy is fanboyish in every regard.

Developers paying 16 cents out of $1.99 for 128kb unlocks on a street fighter 4 outfit sounds fine to me.

@y2julio:

My question is why customers have to purchase the XBL service if it is ad driven already. I'd hate to turn on my Nintendo Wii or Sony PS3 and have to see 2-3 advertisements before i could get to the friend's list.