XBox/Paypal Drama

On April 27th, while laying in bed I checked our bank account with my little app like I do every night. Much to my surprise I see 3 charges for $19.99 and one charge for $9.99 all from PayPal. I log into my PayPal to see that I haven't bought anything, so I turn to my husband and he of course says he never buys anything through Paypal. I made him log into his account anyway and there were indeed 4 charges through his PayPal originating from Microsoft. We own an Xbox, one that only gets turned on for watching Netflix and an occasional game or two.  So, I guess you could understand why I was confused.

The next morning it was time to log into Microsoft to see what was really going on. After seeing all the charges it was time to call, only you can't really call Microsoft, you have to request for them to call you. Luckily we got a very good representative to call us or well call my husband since I'm not on the account. He was very understanding and saw that at 2 am someone added a new email to my husband's account and THEN made those purchases. He promptly opened a fraud investigation. We were not allowed to remove our Paypal from our Microsoft account due to needed to have somewhere to issue a refund IF a refund was to be given. Keep in mind this was now the 28th. On the 29th I received an email that they had concluded their investigation and it was indeed fraud and we would be receiving a refund for $69.96 through PayPal.   It also stated that this refund could take up to two billing cycles, which by my calculations could be two months.

Time passes and it was the beginning of July and I began to remember I was due a refund that I haven't gotten.  When I asked my husband to call about it, again since I'm not on the account, he said I must have overlooked it in the bank.  No honey, I couldn't overlook almost $70 appearing in the account.  I told him to check his Paypal.  When he tried, he found that his Paypal account was locked for security.  So, he checked his e-mail to see an e-mail from Paypal dated all the way back on June 7th that he was one of the "lucky" random security checks to make sure people are who they say they are and he just needs to verify a few things.  No problem, he's going through the questions and gets to the "final step" and it's phone verification.  No problem, oh wait, they can't verify a cell phone, it has to be a land-line, which we don't have.  So they will snail mail us some documents.

Days pass and it seems to be taking forever to get this letter, but we forget about it.  That is until July 17th when we can't watch Netflix on the Xbox.  Ok, our prepaid card had expired, we will just enter another one, only it won't let me.  I Google the error code to find out our Xbox has been locked.  Are you kidding me?  My computer genius husband got hacked again?  Ok, no that wasn't the problem, it was the stupid security lock on our Paypal.  At this point we can't do anything because it looked like a hacked Paypal to Xbox so they weren't unfreezing anything.  FINALLY the paperwork comes in from Paypal with a little code to enter online.  Ok, done and Paypal is back up and running.  Time to handle Microsoft.

This time we didn't get such a friendly guy, he did however scan the Paypal account to see that it was active and then unlocked our Xbox.  Next question, where's our refund?  "Uhh I don't know what you're talking about there is nothing on the account."  Then my husband tells him to just be patients because his "wife never throws anything away and she will find the letter."  Haha, but yes I found it and read him the numbers off the top, only to have him read the e-mail OUT LOUD to us like we can't read and him tell us they already credited it and to contact Paypal for our money.  So, the hubby then calls Paypal who reads off the charges and then says they have no credits coming from Microsoft... Really?!

Back for another call request from Microsoft.  Low and behold, we got us a good one.  He explains that Paypal can be jerks about credits and refunds and they tried on three different occasions to credit us and Paypal refused.  He was going to try one more time and if it failed, they would mail us a paper check.  Very happily we ended the call.  The next morning, the money is there, only with a % taken out as a handling fee. Really Paypal?  They charged the handling fee since the refund wasn't done within 60 days.  Yeah, because you wouldn't accept it.  Would I fight more?  ABSOLUTELY NOT, I'm not that much of an idiot lol.  We got our refund and if you get the right person on the line Microsoft Customer Service can be BY FAR some of the best customer service that I've dealt with in awhile.