News
Five Xbox Live Gold Failures
Cordova, TN; December 4, in the year of our Lord 2013--Family
Friendly Gaming, the industry leader in covering the family
friendly video games is lamenting the Five Xbox Live Gold
Failures. They are Payment Problems, No Error messages, Monkey
With It For Hours, Never Get It Working, No Prepaid Debit Cards.
This all came up from our attempts at Family Friendly Gaming to
set up Xbox Live Gold during the Black Friday sale – where Xbox
Live Gold was twenty dollars off for an entire year. Many hours
were spent on this endeavor and ultimately it wound up being a
futile waste of time. Why would we want to go to Xbox Live Gold?
Because Microsoft is moving everything that direction. Little
can be done on the Xbox One without paying additional money per
month.
Payment Problems
Paying for Xbox Live Gold is a major pain. Microsoft has a very
narrow limited scope on what kinds of payments it will accept.
We had money on the Xbox 360 from cards we purchased in stores.
The money was there, but Microsoft denied us the ability to
spend it on Xbox Live Gold. It would not accept my pre-paid
debit card. It would not accept our Paypal account – which would
pull directly from a bank account. We authorized that in the
Paypal account. We do not believe in credit cards, and refuse to
get one. That seemed to be the main payment Microsoft wants to
get paid from.
No Error Messages
I tried multiple different payment methods to purchase Xbox Live
Gold over the Black Friday weekend. I selected confirm on the
screen, and the system thought about it for a minute and went
back to the advertise screen for the Xbox Live Gold sale. I
thought at first it had completed the transaction. I checked for
payment and did not find it. I checked for an email that the
transaction had been completed and again nothing was there. The
video game system did not tell me there was a problem. I had to
do extra work to try and find out it had not worked.
Monkey With It For Hours
Paul and I both monkeyed with Xbox Live Gold for hours. Neither
of us could get it working. We verified this, set up that, and
spent many thankless hours trying to give Microsoft money. I
know we are media and they should just give us Xbox Live Gold.
By the same token they should not be constantly turning down
families who are trying to give them money. Microsoft did not
pay us for all of the hours we spent trying to set it up. We
should get compensation for all of the time, stress, and
resources we expended on it. At least you – our wonderful
readers can attain an educational experience that may even be
entertaining.
Never Get It Working
There is something that happens to a human being when they waste
all kinds of time, money, and resources on something; only to
face complete failure. The image of what they are working with
and on takes a dive. The reputation of the product starts to
slip and slide down that slippery slope. Personal accounts of
problems from so many others comes up to the surface. An
agitation and an irritation set in. A lack of interest in ever
trying again is realized.
Lack of Flexibility
I pay for our online purchases with a prepaid debit card.
Microsoft must have something against them since they denied us
that kind of a payment option. After multiple tries I actually
found teeny tiny writing on the screen letting me know they
would not accept my money. It would not accept our Paypal
account because we did not have the money sitting there. It
would not accept money in our Microsoft account that we usually
use to purchase games. This lack of flexibility from Microsoft
is crazy. We tried to pay them in multiple ways and they refused
all of them. We will not get credit cards. If I can muster the
energy I will consider looking for a Xbox Live Gold card that I
can purchase at a store. I am concerned that won't work too –
since Microsoft has been such a problem with all the other
payment options. On top of that we are out the sale price since
they stressed us out so badly we had to stop. Microsoft gave me
a nasty migraine. They did not offer any compensation for the
pain they caused either.
God bless,
Yolanda Bury
Family Friendly Gaming