Why is it made deliberately difficult to cancel (paid for) pre-orders?

SteveHargreaves · Feb 15, 2020

I tend to pre-order stuff when I have credit in my Xbox account as it makes it easier to keep track of my expenditure that way.

But lately, I have been penalised twice for pre-ordering games. I pre-ordered Zombie Army 4 and then low and behold, I find out as soon as I start playing it, that there is an offer on for 6,000 reward points if you purchase it. But because I didn't fall
within the confines of Microsofts date for that offer, I can't claim the points. Despite them having been paid well in advance.

Next up I see Bayonetta/Vanquish is the same. I have tried cancelling the order, but it says I can't because I have been billed for it. Well, surprise, companies have been able to cancel orders for years for stuff that has been paid for but not yet released.
But Microsoft can't manage that?

So now, I have missed out on 6,000 rewards points again, which isn't an inconsiderable amount of points.

There must be an easy way to get a refund on an item which hasn't yet been released????

:)

SteveHargreaves

I have some memory problems after a motorcycle accident so I tend to be extremely careful with handling finances, and indeed need help with it at times.

So I usually look on the regular forums for people selling Xbox Credit at a bit of a discount, then pre-order games at the time, just because it helps me keep track of orders, spending etc. Then keep a note of game purchases and orders in a small notebook.

I understand that it wouldn't work for everybody that way. But for me, it helps immensely to grab credit, order games, know what I have spent, know that I don't need to fork out when the game is launched.

That's it really.

webdevkit

Any time money is transferred from one entity to another, the recipient is usually going to do whatever they can to retain the acquisition. Don't like dealing with canceling pre-orders? Don't pre-order. There's really very little benefit to pre-ordering
from the consumer perspective. Just stop doing it and then you don't have to deal with any of that non-sense. If you're pre-ordering for some exclusive bonus, ask yourself, "do I really need this bonus?" or, "will they just release this bonus as a purchase/free
item in the future?"

Reactor Leak SF

My guess is that it has something to do with the way you paid for it originally. When you pay with cash or a debit card in the store, they can just refund it immediately, but if you’re using Microsoft credit of some kind, they’ve got a research to make
sure that the credit didn’t have anything attached to it (at least I think so, don’t shoot the messenger LOL)

SteveHargreaves

This has all come back to bite me in the backside now. I now have a total of 7000 odd points. But before re-ordering Bayonetta/Vanquish, I had a balance of just over 4,000 points.

Microsoft is telling me that I must be mistaken. I'm not because I was trying to get to 5,000 points to grab the MS credit as I had previously mentioned.

They claim I had a balance of 430 points, but that doesn't make sense because then my new balance should be 6,430 points.

I had pre-ordered The Division 2 New York expansion over the weekend which cost £33.49 I believe, which should have netted me well over 2,000 points. That coupled with the 6,000 should have put me over 8,000 points anyway. But MS is having none of it!!

mareledanut

Hi,I think that they penalize you so you don't take advantage of the pre-order bonuses.

Why is it made deliberately difficult to cancel (paid for) pre-orders?