Microsoft refunds $8000

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/once-in-a-lifetime-xbox-dad-gets-8-206-back-1.2752049

I dont think they should have. The man and his son are to blame for the charges. But I guess to the uninformed public it was bad PR for MS.. these people dont realize there are safeguards the father never took and warnings before each purchase asking you to confirm.

It was bad PR that they turned into good PR. It's a good move, and $8000 is literally pocket change to them.

Sony would've kept it.

Sony has more balls than ms now

Think that's smart in the long run. It's such an obvious misstake and very harmful to the individual that it makes sense a big company like MS goes in and correct it. Microtransactions (rightfully imo) have a bad enough name without incidents like this.

Momma always said, stupid is as stupid does.

I guess you beat the Xbox/M$ bashers to this story,....I'm sure they would have posted it soon.....

Other than the PR thing, it looked like the fact the kid was a minor made them look at the situation more closely.

The kid is 17 years old, if he doesn't know what a credit card is, what kind of child is that parent raising? He deserves to lose the $8k.

Seems weird the "kid" was 17 and didn't know what he was doing.

Didnt know the kid was 17, how stupid is this kid... They are lucky MS was fishing for publicity on this one

What was he buying, FIFA card packs or something?

@dotWithShoes: losing $8k in today's economy is a big deal, please stop being an ass.

Seems that M$ is just as gullible as the dad was to believe a 17 year old "kid" didn't know he was racking up 8k in microtransactions. I just lost more respect for M$ for refunding that dumbass parent his money. He should have been taught a lesson about giving his kid a credit card.

But I have to fight for hours on the phone to get my kinect replaced......MS

You people are fucking unbelievable sometimes.

You really believe a 17 year old didn't know what he was doing? If a 5 year old got a hold of the card that would be one thing. The 17 year old deserved an ass kicking from his dad for being a complete idiot.

For once in your life, have some perspective. Yes, the kid did a very dumb thing and at that age he should be more aware of what he's doing. But $8000 can make all the difference to a lot of families. It's not just the kid paying the price when it comes to something like that. That is a serious hole burnt in someone's pockets to the extent where it can lead to further consequences.

Saying you lose more respect for MS for refunding it and that the kid "deserved it" just makes you look like an asshole for the sake of being one. Stop. You're not impressing anybody.

lol always funny seeing people believing this shit. it's an ad covered as a "news". it's called viral marketing.

You must be joking.

Not at all. 17 is a year away from being a grown adult. How many 17 year olds rack up 8k on their parents credit cards? None because most people have a brain. I lost respect for M$ for bailing that family out for their own stupidity. No lessons were learned from this.

Typical cows coming in and turning a MS positive into a negative. I've said it once and I'll say it again, MS could cure cancer and these idiot cows would come in and turn into something bad. They'd claim MS is putting people out of work some how.

@I_AM_MEGATRON what's not to believe? MS didn't have to refund the family anything. We know Sony wouldn't have. Why does this have to be something negative. Whatever MSs reason was, it's was good for the family and that's the bottom line.

Funny how you seem to know how much money the family has.

"It's going to be much better to have it in my bank account than somewhere where it shouldn't have gone." doesn't really sound like "Oh thank God, we would have been ruined."

Claiming that a 17 years old teenager doesn't know what a credit card number is, is simply ridiculous.

@nethernova: he's not implying that, please learn English. The fact of the matter is there are enough middle to lower class families where $8k can significantly affect them for multiple years, in ways like credit scores, mortgages, and more, that it's good a refund happened.

Losing your cash on the stock market or on a bad mortgage is a more egregious issue that is understandably non-refundable. Losing it to your son being an idiot because of microtransactions in video games is up to the will of the service, and Microsoft didn't let the family get screwed because of their teenage kid.

There's a difference between knowing what a credit card number is and being aware of how much you're being charged. Awareness and knowledge can be exclusive to each other. The kid should have definitely been more aware. Perhaps if you read my first post then you would have noticed I said this already.

And regardless of what financial state they're in, losing $8000 is significant. So I really don't know what you're getting at.

@NathanDrakeSwag: get over yourself. The fact of the matter is that he's a minor in the eyes of the law. Meaning, 18 is the age that many have recognized people capable of making some reasonable choices. And I'm sure if MS really cares, they could keep it. But they don't. The kid did some stupid crap (likely behind his parents back) and MS just gave it back. Whereas Sony struggles to defund people who had their accounts hacked.

Cry me a river. In less than a year he'll be old enough to join the military and fight in a war. 17 is not a kid and now M$ have started a bad precedent where more people will start asking for refunds from companies for their own carelessness and stupidity.

Youre just upset that MS can afford to give a refund. Stop hating.

@NathanDrakeSwag: oh it's not. Sorry, I was confused by the differences between a minor and an adult. Please, tell me, in the eyes of the law, what should we consider this 17 year old? And lol, Microsoft isn't the first company to go easy on a minor. If Microsoft really wanted to, they could keep the money. If they really wanted to, they could go to court and easily win. But why do that? Tell me, why should Microsoft, a multibillion dollar tech juggernaut, care about $8000 from one kid? Heck, I'll even go the cynical route and say they did it for good PR.

You seem like the type of person to vote for Trump.

What a feel good story. The kid didn't know what he was doing and when the dad found out and informed his child, both of them were probably terrified losing that much and did not know what to do. I'm glad so many media shared this story so the generals from Microsoft took notice and had the final say and not that one pesky customer service rep that's so stubborn and does not want to help at all. The child was probably grounded but after that both have learned their lessons and it won't happen again. And thanks to the leaders from Microsoft, the dad could now pay his bills and the kid could play games with a piece of mind.

Anyway, this isn't really surprising to me since someone accidentally bought a full game on my account. So I had a chat with Xbox customer support and they bent over backwards to give me a refund immediately. While I'm still waiting for the settlement offerings from the Sony hack like a year ago now.

Why do you get so upset about anything positive when it comes to MS? You so much of a loser you can't stand that MS would actually get some praise for doing something nice? Get over it already, you're so pathetic.

Good to see good PR and Customers relationships come from MS. Good for them!

...so what are people upset about in here?

like i said it's called viral marketing. made up storys by companies to make their product on everybody's lips. remember the "news" when some guy played fallout 4 and a car crashed in his house? very important to mention that he played this game on his xbox lol but Sony does this too. i remember a "news" when a boy ordered a ps4 and he then got a wooden block. you know websites get money for this kinds of "news".

So you're saying it's a made up story? Have ANY proof to back that up? Of all the stories they could have "faked" you think this is what they'd come up with? Please, give us a break. It's a good thing MS did and something Sony would NEVER do voluntarily.

lol i guess you believe in anything what you read in the internet. are u that naive?

@I_AM_MEGATRON: but you're on the Internet...

Just NathanDrakeSwag being upset about M$,as usual.

I get why MS refunded it, but they certainly didn't have to.

Parental controls and the ability to disallow micropayments are there for a reason. Good on MS though.

Microsoft done something nice for a family where one of them made a dumb mistake.... The bastards!

It's so weird that people are so cynical towards the father and the kid, it was just a dumb mistake. I'm actually glad he got his money back.

Guys, keep it respectful. Feel free to discuss the topic but lay off the personal attacks.

As for the topic, I'm way more concerned with how it's even possible to spend 8k on in-game purchases. This is one of the problems with games that allow you to spend real money to purchase in-game currency because there's potentially no spending limit. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the kid was able to spend that much money but from what I've seen the in-game currency purchases are in increments of up to $100 per purchase which is a bit nutty unto itself.

-Byshop

Cool that they refunded his $8000 but why aren't they refunding $150 for everyone who was forced to get a Kinect on launch? Refund that since we're at it.

It is disgusting that there is a game with $8000 worth of micro transactions in it. WTF is that about?

Good on MS for turning it into good PR. Smart move refunding it when r=they clearly weren't in the wrong.

Sony wouldn't have paid a dime, because they are greedy and ignorant. They would rather blame the users. If you want money from Sony, you better take them to court.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news101105ps2lawsuit

That's the only way they will pay.

I strongly believe anything you buy that is not physical should be fully refundable no questions asked within 30 days, give people one chance (shit happens right) then if they demand a refund again without a good reason ban the account and refund them.

I'm also trying to figure out why the Credit Card Co. didn't notify the dad about that $8000 overspending? Normally, Credit Card Co. are supposed to inform you what's going on and why are you spending that kind of money which seems odd and the Dad at least should have been notify.

Those things are based on algorithms and are so freakin' random, but yeah. You'd think this would trip a fraud protection routine.

-Byshop

Thats why they shouldn't have given it back.

They did it strictly for PR reasons. No 17 year old doesn't know what a credit card is...not any that have a current gen console anyway.

Thats a bullshit exscuse....they didn't deserve the money back.

Uh, why did MS refund it?

Isn't FIFA an EA game?