After a $4,500 Xbox bill and denied a refund, man looks to change Microsoft’s policies

How often do you check your credit card bill for abnormalities? Every month, every day? Jeremy Hillman, the Director of Communications for the World Bank Group and father, didn't check his regularly enough to see that his son had spent $4,500 in FIFA.

 If you're wondering how his kid got that credit card info, Hillman put the info in himself to buy the game.

The son, who went unnamed, had made somewhere around 45 player pack purchases for around $100 each over the span of a couple months. At first Hillman thought the charges were mistakes, then he did his research which led him to ask his son about the charges. His son tearfully fibbed a bit and said the charges had all come from a single incident — a Microsoft representative cleared that bit up later:

He tearfully told me that he’d tried to buy a player pack for $100 but it hadn’t worked and so he tried a couple more times. Knowingly trying to spend $100 would have been bad enough but if he was telling the truth then this was a one-off aberration — and Microsoft would surely compensate us for the failed purchases…

A while later I managed to start a Live-chat with a Microsoft agent and explained the situation. The agent was helpful and said she’d log the incident and someone would get back to me, but as we were finishing the chat she dropped the bombshell. ‘What about the other charges?’

Boom.

That Microsoft representative threw baby-Hillman (son) under the bus (family drama probably hit max levels). Microsoft went on to say that there would be no refund for the $4,500, as the console itself has Parental Control features and he didn't use them.

Ultimately, Hillman is upset that Microsoft didn't have any features in place that asked for the credit card details to be re-entered after so much money was spent. He also went on to question how many people would actually put thousands of dollars into in-app purchases. Big daddy Hillman is still upset, so if a lawyer wants to "start a class-action against Microsoft and force them into compensation and adopting a better policy" Hillman will "happily sign up."

Do you think Hillman deserves a refund or is it his fault that he didn't properly research the item that his son invested tons of hours into (and money)?

[Jeremy Hillman]