Microsoft Points, or Billy Bucks, as we like to call them around here, have long been the bane of many an Xbox 360 player’s existence. Besides presenting an unnecessary step between going to buy something and buying it, the bizarre conversion rate has made its fair share of customers rather irate.
Then came Games on Demand, which apparently negated the requirement for buying fake money with real money in order to buy your games. But while Billy Bucks remain in effect, apparently consumers were under the impression that they would work just as well as real money when it comes to purchasing Games on Demand.
And it turns out they were wrong… only now, they’re right. Huh?
Recently, one member of the staff at The Consumerist let old habits die hard, and purchased sixty dollars worth of Microsoft Points in order to download two games: Call of Duty 2 and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.
When he tried to purchase the goods, however, the Xbox service stopped him dead in his tracks. He could still make the purchase with a credit card or a 20-digit code, but Billy Bucks were no good there.
Discouraged, I called customer service. The CSR told me Games on Demand required “real money” rather than Microsoft Points. When I told him I bought those points with “real money,” he explained that Microsoft was responding to consumer demand by letting customers purchase games directly with credit cards rather than making them jump through the Microsoft Points hoops. I asked if he could refund my points or maybe transfer them back into “real money” so I could spend them on the games I wanted, but he turned me down. His supervisor, “George,” gave me the same spiel and refused to let me speak to his manager, who “doesn’t take calls.” At least the supe gave me a reference number and advice about how to complain about his service on xbox.com. A crafty one, George reminded me of the Indian version of myself, so I couldn’t find it in my heart to complain.
However, it seems that something has changed, as Microsoft is now accepting their eponymous Points for purchases from Games on Demand. “Either the change happened today, which I suspect because of what the CSRs told me Wednesday, or it was allowed all along and the CSRs were misinformed,” The Consumerist writes.
I suspect the former, simply due to the fact it was the system and not the CSRs who had stopped him cold in the first place. I’d wager to say that more than a few people might have been upset by this, and took George up on his offer.
On the other hand, the first post in the story’s comments section reveals that there is a subtle way to make it accept Microsoft Points, simply by pressing “Y” as indicated at the bottom of the screen. So it is possible the CSRs were misinformed, unless that addition was made today.
