I got an Xbox 360 about a year ago with the hope of using it as a media player for my HP Media Vault because it is supposed to be a DLNA-compliant media server. It’s not. You can get it to work by installing Twonkyvision’s server on the Media Vault (which costs another $40), but it won’t stream Divx/xvid-encoded videos, which pretty much renders it useless as a media player in my opinion.
I’m not much of a gamer myself, and so the Xbox 360 hasn’t gotten much use. For some reason that I cannot recall, I decided to upgrade my Xbox 360 silver membership (which is free) to an Xbox Live Gold membership which costs about $7.99/month. I figured I could always just switch back to the free membership if I didn’t use the Gold membership features. After a while of seeing that monthly charge appear on the credit card, I decided to cancel it. I first tried canceling it on-line via the webpage for Live, then through the Xbox console, and wasted at least a half hour before searching on the Internet only to find out that that only way to cancel it is to call up 1-800-4MY-XBOX (1-800-469-9269) to wait to talk to an operator. And that took an additional 18 minutes, most of which time I was on hold.
I really hate it when a company makes such an obvious attempt to hang on to subscription fees that it causes that level of inconvenience when attempting to cancel a service. Signing up took a few minutes and I didn’t need to call anyone, but canceling took 48 minutes from my life. So I’ll post this here for three reasons:
I hope someone Diggs this and maybe it will get the attention of the person Microsoft who can correct the situation. If they do, I’ll gladly remove this from my blog.
Glad I found this .
My 1$ is about to expire in a few days and had thought i was going crazy when I couldnt even figure out where to cancel at online.
Finally found it . It points you to a phone number to call in business hours..
What a scam.
Calling is a pain in the ass and they know it.
Samem stupid situation with realplayer subscription where you sign up easily online but if you want to cancel you have to call and get a barely english speaking person to cancel ur account.
God, I just had this happen to me after I signed onto the $1 for a month deal, spent 40 mins. on the website and fiddling with my Xbox trying to figure out how to cancel until I figured out I had to call. The call was only about ten minutes, but they kept pumping me for information and even trying to upsell me to subscribing for a year (no, I want to *CANCEL*) before they’d let me cancel. It’s a way bigger pain in the ass than it should be. I’m certainly never going to get a Gold membership again. Ugh, if I didn’t love the games library I’d trade this shit in for a PS3.
well, I emailed support to see if there was any other way to cancel the account as I used a friend’s credit card and wouldn’t be able to reach them until after they re-charged me and they sent me this:
Hello Ryan,
This is Ellen, with Microsoft XBOX Support services.
As I understand it, you want to cancel your Xbox Live Gold subscription. We appreciate the opportunity to assist.
With regards to this matter, you may need to call our phone support line. Accessing your account information requires high level of verification. This is to ensure the confidentiality and security of your account. Thank you for your time and understanding.
You may contact Xbox Customer Service for US and Canada by calling 1-800-469-9269 at your earliest convenience, and we’ll be happy to help you. We are open everyday from 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 A.M. Eastern Time and 6:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. Pacific Time
For international customers, please contact Xbox Customer Service in your local region. (To find the correct Customer Service number for your region first use this link http://www.xbox.com/en-US/ChangeLocale.htm to select the appropriate country and then use the contact number found under the Support menu). You may also choose to call international assistance (direct dial to the US) by dialing 425-635-7180.
To expedite service, please provide Service Request Number 1108551491 when you call.
Thank you for visiting Xbox.com. If you should have future questions on Xbox products or services, please be sure to revisit our Web site as we are continually adding information to enhance our service.
Best Regards,
Ellen
Microsoft XBOX Support Services
http://support.xbox.com/
so in other words, they told me:No, we can’t cancel your account because it requires a “higher verification” to keep someone from canceling your gold (utter BS, in fact I wouldn’t mind if someone canceled my gold as it wouldn’t change anything and I could just re-sign up and wouldn’t gain any additional bills. I would be more worried about them having the Credit card info then I would with them canceling a gold membership) then put information that I have seen hundreds of times before and to make sure I could reach them again, added the link to where I found them at the bottom -_-
I can officially say that I support Microsoft employees because they are usually well mannered like Ellen here, but hate the company in general
I can also say that my friend will be pissed at me and possibly smash my Xbox