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One of our most popular post series’ is How to Remove Remove Credit Card Details from Xbox Live. The upshot of it all was basically… you can’t. Not properly. We tried the website. We tried phoning them up. 53 days later, Nick’s credit details were still on his Xbox Live account.
Stories came in from everywhere about people having the credit card problems. Scott wanted to stop his son from buying MS points indiscriminately – couldn’t do it. PrincessMeri spent two years asking Microsoft to stop billing her. Mark‘s account was hacked and $247 worth of points was charged to his card. People even made complaints to Watchdog and the Better Business Bureau (sadly, with no direct response). Lots of worldwide frustration over such a simple little thing.
We are now happy to report that Microsoft have finally added an option to remove your credit card details from your Xbox account! They no longer blacklist your card and you can add it back later if you change your mind.
Editor’s Note: We’ve been updating this page as Microsoft update their site. Comments below may not be reflective of the current version. This page was last updated on 12th July 2011
Here’s how. Click on the images to see full-size versions:
- Log in to Xbox.com
- Hover over My Xbox and click on Accounts
- Click Manage Payment Options
- You should now be presented with a list of your current credit cards. Click Remove for the card you wish to remove
- Click Yes in the pop-up prompt
- And if you’re lucky, your card might be removed. Unlike mine.
Going to the Payment method information page as instructed brings me to my Microsoft billing information. This reveals that my only existing service is “Prepaid 12M Xbox Gold”.
I’ve just turned off automatic renewal for Xbox Live Gold so there shouldn’t be any payments due but it still won’t let me remove my credit card. As such, I don’t hold out much hope for anyone else. Do let me know in the comments if you manage to remove your card. Good luck!
Update January 2011: Updated instructions and screenshots again for Xbox.com’s October redesign. Also discovered that with the current version of Xbox Live, it appears that you can no longer remove all your credit cards even when your subscription has been moved to a 12 month pre-pay. I had to attach a different credit card to my account before it would let me remove the old one. Very unimpressed, Microsoft.
Update: 11th Feb 2009
We’re getting reports that some people are having trouble removing their cards. Some even think this is a fake option on the site to placate us. Trust us, it’s not. You can actually remove your card details.
As Gabe says in the comments, they may have an active subscription using their credit card that needs to be cancelled first. I switched to a pre-paid 12 month subscription a few months ago, so the theory seems to hold true. If you get a customer service rep to explain this, let us know.
Our advice, buy pre-paid cards instead:
UK Links:
- Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Membership plus 2 free months – £34.99
- Xbox Live 3 Month Gold Membership Card – £9.99
- Xbox Live 4200 Points Card – £34.99
- Xbox Live 2100 Points Card – £14.99
US Links:
- Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Membership – $49.99
- Xbox Live 3 Month Gold Membership Card – $24.95
- Xbox Live 4000 Points Card – $49.99
- Xbox Live 2100 Points Card – $19.99
Mine says This payment option cannot be removed at this time. Please contact Xbox LIVE Customer Support.
Sorry to hear that, Angry Xbox User. Please let me know if you get a reason from Customer Support.
I did test before posting this and it allowed me to remove all my credit cards. There shouldn't be a requirement to have at least one on file.
Even if you have the 12 month gold prepaid, it still doesn't let you remove it. I have auto renewal on, and I think that's why the card is "still in use"
Here in the U.S. I received the "this payment option cannot be removed please contact customer support. I contacted customer support and ran into several dodges.__ First they said they couldn't do it and it required their supervisor who may not be available.__ Then they said it would take 30 days and suggested I have my credit card bank block further charges from Microsoft. (This cannot be done by the Credit Card company).__ I explained to the superviser that this was not available and that I would have to cancel my credit card. At that point they offered to put a lock on the card# and said it would take a billing cycle to remove the credit card information from the X-box. They will cancel the gold membership and then email me a token code to restore the 1 year subscription.__All of this was incredibly complex and smacks of legal but unfair and unethical marketing practices that besmirch Microsoft's reputation. __Altogether the process took about 90 minutes from start to finish.__Hopefully they will wise up and stop doing this sort of thing as it makes me particularly suspicious of all of their products and less likely to upgrade the console or to buy games and support it in the future.__John
That's terrible, John! Guess I was too quick to believe that they'd changed their ways.
What you can do is enter totally wrong info – I am Dave at No Address with the City name REMOVE MY CARD and with a wrong security code & expiry date. This solves it with no need to call the evil that is Microsoft :D
Sadly, I tried that some time ago. In the UK it seems to validate the card somehow and rejected my fake attempt.
execpt for the fact if you put in a wrong security code then it wont let you continue, as well as if you put in an invalid credit card number
I actually did that and my card is still getting charged!!!!! It's like it remembers everything you've ever entered and just charges everything it can! Despicable!!!!!!!!
'This payment option cannot be removed at this time'
ARGHHHHHHHHH I hate Microsoft for this. I want to avoid ringing them at all costs as its hard enough explaining to them what you want.
Props for this method though.
I wanted to avoid it too :( but I had to call them. Twice. :( :(
i'm guessing if you have an account active, tied to one of your credit cards, you wouldn't be aloud to remove it until your cancelled your account through xbox customer support. if you bought a prepaid subscription to xbox live. and only used the credit card to buy points it would remove with no problems
You would guess that, but you'd be wrong! The removal option is a ruse. A filthy ruse. You can only remove additional credit cards, there still has to be a default one.
I suppose it's somewhat brilliant in a way. Make it so difficult to remove your card that you give up and leave it on there, along with your automatically renewing gold subscription!
>_>
That might be it, Gabe. I did switch to using a 12 month prepaid subscription some time ago, so the subscription isn't tied to my card.
I removed it with no problem! I use pre-paid cards for live and a cc for points.
So if I bought a 1 month card and used it. Could hten I remove my credit card from the xbox?
In the UK, just call up your CC company and tell 'em that you lost your card. They will send you a new card with a new number, which means MS is stuck with an invalid card on their records. I've still got one on there from years ago that I can't remove, but neither can they use it to charge me. I switched to prepaid cards ages ago.
Are you 100% sure this works and your bank doesnt just transfer the bill to your new account??
thanks
Got the same Payment cannot be removed at this time bollocks. This is after a 40 minute 'chat' to CS and being elevated up to a 'Supervisor' who informed me of this new three day old method of removing credit card details.
After a second 'chat' to CS I am now awaiting a call back from Billing.
Frustrating isn't the word.
Ended up calling them to cancel. Spent 15 minutes on the phone telling the woman all my fake details that i entered in and she said that its cancelled and gave me a reference number. seems a little too long for a thing which should as simple as hitting the DEL key.
You know what I am going to do? I am going to my bank after I cut up my debit card into a million little pieces, get a new card and never again give the information to Xbox live. My kids will have to earn the money to buy the membership card from the electronics department of any store that carries the accessories. I am done with being taken advantage of… How about you???
I M Down With Raelyn. i M Done With This Stupid Process. Never Again Gonna Get Taken Advantage Of. I M Just Gonna Make My Cuz Work For That Extra Five Dollars From Now On.
I rang Microsoft CS from UK (is it in France?) a couple of months ago to remove my card and completely forgot about it. Just checked and my details are still live! When I found this solution I thought all my problems were over and common sense had prevailed, but I get the 'please contact CS' message too and cannot remove my card. I can't believe this is so difficult to do! I feel like selling my Xbox gear and getting a PS3 and I have NEVER had a Sony EVER! I bet they dont get this crap!!!!!
can you get a refund from xbox if theyve been taking my money even though i havent used my xbox in over 6 months?
yh you can. they did that to me with my old account. I phoned up to tell the to delete that account and a year later its still active and they even renewed it and took 40 pounds from my account without telling me. but i phoned up which took around an hour to sort and got a refund a week later
im getting the old 'This payment option cannot be removed at this time' shit aswell
it also says there is no valid card on file, but is still able to take £40 out of the account? wtf
I got this same bollocks. they somehow were still able to get £40 off what looks like an expired card!
"This payment option cannot be removed at this time. It might be associated with an active subscription." I dont understand why, that card expired last year and my XBL has ran out, so how can my subscription still be on there?
how do u turn off automatic subscription?
sry, automatic renewal of subscription
Hi Luke. I believe it's under the Account Summary section within the Xbox Live website. Can't tell you exactly where as I'm using pre-pay cards.
i called support, removed my auto renewal from card and it still will not let me remove the credit card! I even bought a 3 month pre paid card and that still will not work.
I managed to remove my credit card – thanks for your post. I only added it to buy some songs, immediately regretted it, thank God I managed to remove the card!
Thanks Wendy. Good to hear that some people are having success.
My Card Expired over a month ago and when it was active i was getting charge monthly. Now my last billing was 19/02/2009. Its been well over a month now that my card has expired and my membership should have expired and gone silver but its still silver, when i go on xbox.com to remove that card all i get is " This payment option cannot be removed at this time. It might be associated with an active subscription. " Would i possibly have to cancel my subscription to xbox live or just wait a week or so for my account to go silver then try remove my card ?
Hi, i have solved this problem, here's how:-
To update your billing information, visit the following Microsoft Billing and Account Management Web site:
https://billing.microsoft.com/home.aspx
To switch your subscriptions to a new Payment method follow these steps:
Under Your payment methods, click the payment method you want to change.
Under Payment method activity, click Go to payment method information.
Under Payment method information for this account, click Use a different payment method.
Check box next to card you want to make your default payment method.
On the Confirm transfer page, confirm the balances and services you want to transfer, and then click Next.
Now if you look at "manage your payment options" on xbox.com or payments options on your xbox, the card will be gone!
(note if you want to remove ALL credit cards, you need to contact xbox live support)
You saved my life. These steps solved all my problems!
yes but we want to completely remove our cards not transferr to another! an xbox make it impossible i regrett buyin an xbox the console itself is ok but MS is the biggest con on earth fuck bill gates the robbing c**t
so has anyone managed to successfully remove their card when it says you have a subscription cuz ive tried everythin so far to no avail im currently in the proccess of waitin for my new card as ive said my card was lost so i guess ill have to just wait to see if this works if now guess ill have to change my bank and cancel my bank account altogether lol(dont really wanna do that though tbh its gonna be a pain havin to tranferr everythin )
I'd always been very careful to never give MS my card details. Tonight I foolishly bought $5 of points at zune.net (for XBOX DLC). I was then horrified to find the card details as the (only) payment method at https://billing.microsoft.com/home.aspx.
I wasted about an hour with 1-877 GET ZUNE customer support who eventually told me I'd have to call 1-800-4MY XBOX to get a "violation" put on the card to block (not remove) it. While on hold, I found this page and followed instructions to remove the card on https://live.xbox.com/en-US/Flows/EditCreditCard/…
The billing.microsoft.com page still shows payment type "Xbox Live (Visa: xxxxxxxxxxxx9999) " but now there's a "(Removed)" after the hyper link. So, fingers crossed, my card can't be used from that live account.
I'm so angry with myself for breaking my own rules. I'll be far more careful in future to avoid direct transactions with MS. I'm also going to spend some time on the phone to my credit card co tomorrow to try to get zune.net flagged as a phishing site.
P.S. on a tangential note, never buy any DLC for a MS published game. After our 360 RRODed, Crackdown DLC was the only content that we weren't able to fully restore on our replacement box (from MS!). MS seem to go out of their way to destroy trust and undermine their own business. It's like dealing with Soviet bureaucracy – GOS-soft.
P.P.S. A day later, just got back from dinner. My credit card was refused. It turns out that every time I tried to over-write my card details at billing.microsoft.com they sent a $1 trial transaction to the card company. After 4 or 5 invalid transactions the card co froze my account.
NEVER, EVER, GIVE YOUR CREDIT CARD DETAILS TO MICROSOFT.
Thank's wanted to get my card detail's off my account and this worked a treat i guess people struggling to get there card's off there account's have bought a gold account with them.
As i only used it for purchasing Point's.
Thank's again as i started to worry incase my gamertag was stolen and people used my card.
I just called Xbox and downgraded from Gold to Silver with no problem at all. I maybe could have just removed my credit card online, but I called instead, and this way I don't have to re-enter card details to buy points. Anyway, I read nightmare stories of Xbox not wanting to do that, the process taking several months, calling several times, and even that Xbox will erase your gamer score when you downgrade – but none of that happened. I already paid for this month, but I will not be billed again and my accounts is intact. They were professional and polite. Suprising, eh??
Worked for me. I used the Credit Card for a Microsoft Point purchase. The XBOX LIve subscription was done via prepaid card. I was able to remove the credit card from the account.
I just don't want my kids to "purchase" something without me knowing about it.
For the person who said "Change the address, the number, the expiration date to something invalid", this is called fraud. If you after that try to purchase something with this "invalid card number", Microsoft can sue you. So, just follow the drill and remove the card.
It is finally deleted, YAY!
wicked this really helped me thanx
well i called M$ because i couldn't sign on to my gamertag and they told me that i had a "balance" on the credit card i was using to renew my month to month membership even though the credit card was canceled months prior. apparently they tried multiple times to charge the credit card while still having a gold membership. even though i was waiting for them to revert it to silver so i would get my moneys worth for that month then buy a prepaid card. so i called for about a month and they finally gave up and reverted it to silver but i still cant remove the card and it still shows that there is a balance owed. I'm so sick of M$ taking advantage of its customers.
I had to call to cancel the account because you can't do it online. You also can't shut off automatic renewal to the credit card. If you have an active gold membership, the credit card on file will be charged every month, whether you like it or not. What a hassle. I don't understand how Microsoft gets away with this stuff.
"This payment option cannot be removed at this time. It might be associated with an active subscription." And I have just turned the auto renew off and I am using a redeem code. any idea why I can't delete it as it's no longer in use?
Same problem mate. You have downrgrade to silver or let your membership expire then remove it.
When I try removing it give me this error.Sorry ut this credit card cant removed because it is linked to an active account
Worked fine for me. Thanks
Thanks, I managed to put my details in and remove my partners (who was fuming after finding a one of payment for my son had turned into a regular payment!). MS bad biz pracitce – taking advantage of people. Thank heavens for threads like this that help the everyday joe bloggs.
I made the mistake and placed my card in their system in 2008 to purchace MS points. The creditcard I put in also expired in 2008. Apparently I thought since the card was going to expire in 2008 i wouldnt have to worry about any extra billing or anything. I thought wrong apparently XBOX LIVE uses auto renewal for the LIVE. So 2009 there is a pending charge for xbox 12 month on my EXPIRED CREDIT CARD. I don't know how they can charge to an expired credit card. so i got this message when i was trying to remove it. "This payment option cannot be removed at this time. It might be associated with an active subscription." So after bitching with them on the phone they told it me it would be removed in 30 days and not to purchase anything on live.
mine says An outstanding balance exists on this payment instrument. Please try again later.
anyone help?
I dont know about you guys but someone should take this to the news channels and get them a lil publicity as "scammers" who wont remove you credit card info from their website and your account im so sick and tired of M$ taking advantage of everyone
Just got a ZboZ. I haphazardly (drunkenly) decided to get some points one weekend and now I feel bad for leaving my credit card info in the system.
Thank you so much for this post!
i was going to swap my account over xbox live but i seen that i had 2 of my card details on there from about year ago! so then i couldnt swap my account cos they would of been having free stuff with my card on xbox! so i done what it said and only 1 deleted and the second does'nt work for some weird reason. XBOX SUCKS but CoD is beast :)
Lol i stop because xbox live stole of my cridit card and my credit card was buying micro points
it ended up to equeal up this much micropoints Points Balance 11000
If your stuck making monthly payments for XBox Live and want to stop easily you can login in at http://www.xbox.com, click on My Account in the drop down box, look at Membership Level and you will see the Automatic Renewal: ON , click on this and turn the Auto renewal to OFF, MS will still have your card details unless you ring them but atleast no more payments will be taken.
I HATE MICROSOFT my account got hacked and was charged 500 dollers and when i called they said i was lying that i had bout them points wich i didint i hadnt even playe d my xbox and they still wont remove my credit card and im still being billed and i do not have the money for this shit!!!! i think every body who hates microsoft should come togeter and tell microsoft off thur fucking cheap basterdZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have purchased a 1 month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership with a credit card. I do not want it to be renewed automatically nor to have the credit card details attached to the account for longer then the 1 month period (sooner if at all possible).
I have gone to the appropriate websites and set the account option to not auto-renew. I am however not content with this and wish to remove the credit card details directly after having purchased the membership.
I am assuming that I may only remove the credit card details after the month has passed and my membership has reverted to Silver status.
Any assistance on this matter will be appreciated.
-Thankyou.
It worked im in US and It FUCKING WORKED THANK THE LORD I PRAISE YOU NOW I WON'T BE IN DEBT!!!
That is crazy. That why I buy everything from gamestop.
My credit card actually expired at the end of August and I am still being charged for September. How does that work? Thats ridiculous.
the customer service is fucking terrible aparently the Cusomer Service people said that i cant remove a credit i can only add one that is so fucking stupid this has now happened to me twice from now on im just going to sick with the fucking 3-month xbox live cards
yeah, i found it, it was in the marketplace options. you cant just log in and do it. you have to dig for it lol.
Same here. My credit card actually expired at the end of August and I was still being charged for in January for 12 months!!!
i'm trying to prevent this from happening again and 1)turned off the auto renew which should help.. but 2)I'm still can't remove my old expired credit card.
THIS IS WT I GET…………………… An outstanding balance exists on this payment instrument. Please try again later.
This payment option cannot be removed at this time. Go to the Payment method information page to view services associated with this payment option.
Called CS and they say it takes 3-6 months to remove it.
i use a pre paid visa card&get exactly 20 euros on it for 3 mnts,subscription ran out&MS used orignal card number 2 renew,dey suspended my acc so got 20euro on card,wen u do dis u get new visa card num each time u top up so had 2 add new card in billing however dey took 3 euro for first card been expired(pre paid only visa numbers expire after 3 mnths),so rang dem&was told 2 buy a 3mnth voucher from GAME,did this&now account wont let me change payment method,head wrecked,after spending 40euro in total&still cant play online,dealing wit gangsters
I cant remove my card which expired over a year ago, i have turned off automatic renewal but BE WARNED!!!! WHENEVER YOU TOP UP WITH A PREPAID CARD AUTOMATIC RENEWAL RESETS TO ON!!!!! F-ING MICROSHAFT ARE IMMORAL TW@TS