Xbox "Support" is absolutely useless

In all the years I’ve had an Xbox account, which going by my first achievement is a little over 15 years, I’ve never had to contact their support department.

Unfortunately that changed this week when I tried to buy my daughter a game using the Ask to Buy system.

If you’re not familiar with the system it works by making child accounts ask a parent to buy games for them. They click the buy button and I get a notification on my phone that they want a game. I then log into my account and buy it for them. Sounds great.

However the game I bought for her still showed as needing to buy it on her account despite me having the receipt email and the money taken from my bank.

So I request a refund which was instantly approved. This was last Friday. Today she gets an email saying “upon your request this transaction is under investigation.”

Woah hold on, I requested no investigation.

So off I go to the Xbox website expecting to speak to a real live human being.

After filling out a form telling them my issue I get offered various “contact” options which are, in order…

1. Message a Gamer in the Community
2. Post on the Forums
3. Request a Call Back (Wait time 999 mins)

So a random person on the forums will have access to my account and transaction information will they? I bloody hope not and when you request a call back it says “you are not eligible to use this feature.”

There is simply no way to speak to a real live human being. What way is that to run a business?

Sony’s support is terrible but at least they have live chat available.

So I guess I either do a chargeback and lose access to my account or accept they have stolen my money.