Xbox Live

[KillCrazy]

Not long ago, our family was greeted by the presence of an xbox 360. Intrigued by this device, I started setting myself up an xbox live account, and got acquainted with all the features and pleasures, including some of the top games that were out.

Investigating the advantages and disadvantages of xbox live silver and gold edition, I decided to set up my account for xbox gold edition for one month. To my misunderstanding, it was a continuing subscription that would go on forever, charging my bank account £5 each and every month. This was all OK at first, but due to financial problems occurring recently, I realised that I could not afford any deductions on my account.

Sure, no problem. I will just log on and simply cancel the subscription. Unfortunately, Microsoft's xbox live service is not so simple, and to cancel the account is very frustrating indeed.

Sifting through help page after help page, I found that I was being led in circles on how to cancel my account. There was no easy cancel button on the website, nor was there a clear indication of who or what to contact to do so. I ended up finding my answers on google, along with many many more frustrated people.
It appears that you need to call in order to cancel your subscription, and be led through the whole "please hold while we put you through to our qualified personnel" routine. After reading all the headaches that other people had been through (being begged to keep their account and being forwarded to person after person), I was not looking forward to the experience.

Luckily, I didn't have to wait long to speak to someone who cancelled my subscription immediately. God knows how much the call cost, but I won't have to worry about that.

My point to this thread is basically a rant at how much I hate this kind of service. For a company which provides all this gaming on the web to not have the functionality to simply click a cancel button on your subscription is really beyond me. Instead we are forced to spend more money to cancel something by phone, and have the prospect of the person trying to force you to keep your subscription, and just generally not being helpful at all.
My other experience with this has been with NTL. My dad was put through the same hassle at cancelling our phone line and TV with NTL as I am describing, only a few times worse. He was led to call centre after call centre of people telling us they couldn't cancel it, or being told it had been cancelled only for us to get a bill for the next month. And after all that, we are told we need to write a letter to one of their centres in Ireland.

Has anyone else experienced grievances like this, specifically with xbox live? I know a few of you out there use it, or are maybe looking to use it. If not, any other stories or opinions of this nature are welcomed.

 

[Piacular]

What you can do, if you don't want to go through all that waffle looking how to cancel it from their end, is just ask your bank to stop giving them money . Easy peasy.

 

[KillCrazy]

I know there are solutions out of it, but it's the crap they put you through before you can get things sorted. I shouldn't have to go to my bank and explain the circumstances for them to sort it out. There could then be the possibility of problems arising at the banks end.

A cancel button is all I ask for

 

[Ronin Storm]

Leaving ISPs used to be like this, depending on your ISP. Ofcom regulations now, fortunately, expressly prohibit ISPs making it difficult for you to leave them. MAC key in 5 days, maximum.

Still, some of the fault (occasionally) lies with us, the consumer. We don't do our research sufficiently, don't read through (and sufficiently understand) the AUP or T&Cs for contracts we enter.

Clearly that's a blanket statement but when one considers that these large companies have entire legal departments in play to build contracts that are bulletproof and give their consumers as little as possible (while not seeming to be that way) I begin to wonder why we, the consumers, don't have our own legal counsel to tell us what these frickin' contracts mean! Of course, cost is going to be a major constraint on the average gamer...

Capitalism gives corporations the wish to screw us over, without seeming to do exactly that; they know the value of good PR (though bad PR seems to work for some people too...!?) In that environment, where government regulations appear to be the only control, I guess our only recourse is to share these stories about how company X wrote contract Y that had effect Z, and how that's clearly just fuckery and shouldn't be tolerated. Then, like good capitalists, we vote with our money... by taking it elsewhere.

That said, there's no good excuse for an online service to not have a clearly marked "cancel account" button. None at all. See above on fuckery.