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[Stafford]

I barely ever ask for a refund of digital games but quite a while ago I did one for a game called War Mongrels. It seemed like it was a good alternative for Commandos, it wasn't. The refund went fine, I had played 15-30 minutes.

Yesterday I bought Asterix and Obelix : Slap em All 1 and 2. Barely played 5 minutes of the sequel and probably about 30 minutes of the first one. These game aren't it, so I asked for a refund, nope. Got rejected because you can't play or use a digital purchase. Yet another I played for about 5 minutes got refunded fine. In their policy it basically says you can't have accumulated significant play time if you want to be granted a refund.

Make it make sense. And back in the Xbox One days chat support used to be actual customer support, boy has that become horrible over the years. I don't think you can even reach a real person anymore. From here on out I'll be careful with refunds, or the expectation of getting one.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Yesterday I bought Asterix and Obelix : Slap em All 1 and 2. Barely played 5 minutes of the sequel and probably about 30 minutes of the first one. These game aren't it, so I asked for a refund, nope. Got rejected because you can't play or use a digital purchase. Yet another I played for about 5 minutes got refunded fine. In their policy it basically says you can't have accumulated significant play time if you want to be granted a refund.

Make it make sense. And back in the Xbox One days chat support used to be actual customer support, boy has that become horrible over the years. I don't think you can even reach a real person anymore. From here on out I'll be careful with refunds, or the expectation of getting one.

I'm confused, do you go to some chat support to ask for a refund?
You know they have automated refunds right?

Xbox Support

support.xbox.com

If it was rejected there, I dunno, never had a problem myself.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I barely ever ask for a refund of digital games but quite a while ago I did one for a game called War Mongrels. It seemed like it was a good alternative for Commandos, it wasn't. The refund went fine, I had played 15-30 minutes.

Yesterday I bought Asterix and Obelix : Slap em All 1 and 2. Barely played 5 minutes of the sequel and probably about 30 minutes of the first one. These game aren't it, so I asked for a refund, nope. Got rejected because you can't play or use a digital purchase. Yet another I played for about 5 minutes got refunded fine. In their policy it basically says you can't have accumulated significant play time if you want to be granted a refund.

Make it make sense. And back in the Xbox One days chat support used to be actual customer support, boy has that become horrible over the years. I don't think you can even reach a real person anymore. From here on out I'll be careful with refunds, or the expectation of getting one.

If you used the automated system you can resubmit it (I think replying to the rejection email but not sure) and actually have a person look into it

 

[Punished Miku]

I hit a cap on playtime once. Also hit a cap on max refunds per year after like 5. But I got more after time passed. I usually just do the automated one. It isnt perfect but its far better than Sony and Nintendo.

 

[El Sabroso]

I barely ever ask for a refund of digital games but quite a while ago I did one for a game called War Mongrels. It seemed like it was a good alternative for Commandos, it wasn't. The refund went fine, I had played 15-30 minutes.

Yesterday I bought Asterix and Obelix : Slap em All 1 and 2. Barely played 5 minutes of the sequel and probably about 30 minutes of the first one. These game aren't it, so I asked for a refund, nope. Got rejected because you can't play or use a digital purchase. Yet another I played for about 5 minutes got refunded fine. In their policy it basically says you can't have accumulated significant play time if you want to be granted a refund.

Make it make sense. And back in the Xbox One days chat support used to be actual customer support, boy has that become horrible over the years. I don't think you can even reach a real person anymore. From here on out I'll be careful with refunds, or the expectation of getting one.

they do not have a playtime policy that only goes for steam, none of console makers have that. MS specifically has policies for children purchases, accidental purchases but everything goes into a rule of service request with refund transaction per year, depending on quantity of transactions and money spend will just make it if support agent can do it in the same call or if needs to be escalated to another tier of support, dunno which limits have for that right now since is been a while I worked in a call center which had xbox support as campaing

they just denied the refund because you have a previous service request with a refund made in the last 365 days that's the policy and there is nothing you can do about it with Xbox support, the only alternative is reporting the transaction with the bank itself

 

[SteadyEvo]

Never had an issue getting refunds from MS. Even when I just didn't like the game. I believe you're allowed 2 or 3 a year.

Between MS, Sony and Nintendo, MS is by far the most reasonable and generous with refunds.

 

[Stafford]

I'm confused, do you go to some chat support to ask for a refund?
You know they have automated refunds right?

Xbox Support

support.xbox.com

If it was rejected there, I dunno, never had a problem myself.

No I went to order history. I then chose refund details/information and there I ticked the boxes of games I wanted refunded. I got one immediately for the River City side story game and the two Asterix games got rejected immediately for the reason of how you can't play or use a digital purchase. Even though in their policy it says "significant play time." one game was played for 30 minutes, the other was for 5 minutes.

I can't try it again, and thus I hoped to speak to chat support about this.

 

[Iced Arcade]

edit: nm read your previous post

 

[Stafford]

Never had an issue getting refunds from MS. Even when I just didn't like the game. I believe you're allowed 2 or 3 a year.

Between MS, Sony and Nintendo, MS is by far the most reasonable and generous with refunds.

Ah yes, that must be it then. I do think it was this year that I had that War Mongrels game refunded. So with the River City side story game that makes it two.

If you used the automated system you can resubmit it (I think replying to the rejection email but not sure) and actually have a person look into it

You mean via order history and then choosing refund info/options? I did that. I check at refund status and I can only view the details of why they didn't refund me, can't send another request.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I can't try it again, and thus I hoped to speak to chat support about this.

The only chat support worth talking to is their sales support, so put something in your cart and select the option to talk to someone during checkout, otherwise call them, phone support is a million times ahead of their outsourced in india chat support.

 

[Stafford]

I just said that I already had a game refunded in 2024, so that makes River City side story game thingy the second refund. But then I realized it's 2025 now, it should count as a new year. This isn't right.

The only chat support worth talking to is their sales support, so put something in your cart and select the option to talk to someone during checkout, otherwise call them, phone support is a million times ahead of their outsourced in india chat support.

Doesn't matter if it's a digital game or something else? As for calling them, I don't live in the USA, I wonder if they'd still help me. I'm gonna try the "talk to someone" thingy.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Doesn't matter if it's a digital game or something else? As for calling them, I don't live in the USA, I wonder if they'd still help me. I'm gonna try the "talk to someone" thingy.

it doesn't really matter, just as long as you get to talk to someone from sales, I don't live in the US either and I've called them many times, once I was even chatting with a brick wall for an hour, called during the chat, and they helped me within 5 minutes.

 

[Stafford]

it doesn't really matter, just as long as you get to talk to someone from sales, I don't live in the US either and I've called them many times, once I was even chatting with a brick wall for an hour, called during the chat, and they helped me within 5 minutes.

Hmm, I put a digital game in the cart, I went to the shopping cart, but the only option I see is to call them. I only have a mobile phone and there will be some costs for calling to the USA. I'll go check and see about that first. Also I think I'll wait a day to see if I can request a refund again, basically try again, or if these two games won't be available for that any longer.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Hmm, I put a digital game in the cart, I went to the shopping cart, but the only option I see is to call them. I only have a mobile phone and there will be some costs for calling to the USA.

Hmm weird, are you browsing the en-US site maybe? You should try your local version, you should be able to swap the locale somewhere at the bottom in most of MS's websites.

 

[Stafford]

Hmm weird, are you browsing the en-US site maybe? You should try your local version, you should be able to swap the locale somewhere at the bottom in most of MS's websites.

I've tried both USA and The Netherlands, but only seeing a phone number. I'm a little reluctant on calling Xbox The Netherlands because boy have they been trash for a long time now. Then again, that was years ago when I needed them for something and compared to USA support it's a world of difference. But maybe things have changed for the better. I doubt it because Xbox is pretty much dead over here tbh.

I'll call them tomorrow.

 

[Fess]

No luck for me when talking to them.
I had about 30 minutes of BG3 logged on Series X. Didn’t like how it played with controller and went with the Steam version instead.
Refunded on Xbox but a couple days too late.
Rejected.
Tried to talk to them to get it refunded anyway since I just played it one single evening and never touched it again. It was during Christmas too so they should understand that I forgot to refund I thought. And they could see my playtime to verify.
Nah. Rejected again.

 

[hemo memo]

Better than no policy at all. AKA Sony and Nintendo.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

It’s very inconsistent. I’ve refunded bad games I have hours in no problem and then broken games I barely played I get the “you can’t refund played digital games”.

That said, it’s a million times better than the other console companies.

 

[SenkiDala]

I barely ever ask for a refund of digital games but quite a while ago I did one for a game called War Mongrels. It seemed like it was a good alternative for Commandos, it wasn't. The refund went fine, I had played 15-30 minutes.

Yesterday I bought Asterix and Obelix : Slap em All 1 and 2. Barely played 5 minutes of the sequel and probably about 30 minutes of the first one. These game aren't it, so I asked for a refund, nope. Got rejected because you can't play or use a digital purchase. Yet another I played for about 5 minutes got refunded fine. In their policy it basically says you can't have accumulated significant play time if you want to be granted a refund.

Make it make sense. And back in the Xbox One days chat support used to be actual customer support, boy has that become horrible over the years. I don't think you can even reach a real person anymore. From here on out I'll be careful with refunds, or the expectation of getting one.

I said it on another thread, I totally agree with you, happened to me too. Except for me it said "you already asked too many refund this year" when I asked like 2 or 3 max.

Before it was really fair, like Steam, you played less than 2 hours or the purchase was from less than 14 days : full refund, no question asked. Now they refuse 90% of refunds without any real reason. And the customer support don't answer about this...

Meanwhile the PS support improved a lot. Before when I asked a refund on PS, even just the fact that I downloaded the game was enough to refuse a refund. But last year I bought 2 games I really didn't like, played a couple of hours : both were refunded no problem.

Xbox fuck you.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Refunded on Xbox but a couple days too late.
Rejected.

You waited more than 14 days before submitting the refund?

 

[SenkiDala]

Ahah so now, seeing this thread, I tried to refund a 1.99€ game that I bought 2 days ago : REFUSED because "Refunds are not available for digital purchases that have been played or used." I HAVEN'T EVEN DOWNLOADED IT YET WTF.

... Xbox is really becoming a disaster... I love them and defend them always but now the last "top notch" thing they had : the customer service, has fallen, so what remains...

 

[Fess]

You waited more than 14 days before submitting the refund?

Yeah it was Christmas and I forgot all about it. I was maybe 5 days late to refund but hadn’t touched it since that first evening of essentially just doing the intro and walking about a bit.

 

[GHG]

You waited more than 14 days before submitting the refund?

Had no problem refunding things after 14 days on Steam when under the 2 hour limit. Just requires them to manually do it, so it takes a bit longer instead of being automatic (and quick) when within 14 days.

It's a digital product, these arbitrary time limits (from date of purchase) for refunds shouldn't apply, it should solely be based on usage (hours played).

 

[Trogdor1123]

I much prefer Sonys. It’s so much easier to understand you are screwed…

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Tried to refund a game on Xbox a few months ago, it was the last day I could ask for one and a damn bot just said no and shut it down for no reason.

 

[Beechos]

Make sure you close your game. If it's apart of your quick resume rotation I think play time still accumlates. I remember I did one of those ea 5 hour free trial things for a game a long time ago played like 15 min left on quick resume next thing I knew my 5 hours were up.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I got rejected after playing about 10-20 minutes of GRID Legends and realizing it's broken on XSX after the last patch (and no new patches are coming). Got the BS reason that I launched the game. Who cares that it was on the same day as the purchase and therefore I couldn't "cheat" by playing it offline.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was a bot and on top of that there's no appeal process. Since then I stopped buying digital games on the Xbox (fyi I wasn't a big customer anyway, it's my secondary hardware).

 

[Astray]

Xbox used to get a lot of praise on here for their refund policy (makes sense given they want to get consumers back on-side), so I assume the recent layoffs pushed these things to some AI bot and it's fucking things up.