BT customers lose control of Xbox accounts after Game Pass trial period

Customers who received a free six month subscription to Xbox Game Pass as part of a welcome offer with BT have lost control of their accounts following the trial period expiring.

BT Broadband is offering a free six or 12 months of Xbox Game Pass in a deal, but customer Wes Williams has said on Twitter: “There’s a critical bug in the software for this deal, which means that when the six/12 months expires, BT do not relinquish control of your Xbox account, which prevents you from resubscribing.”

Referring to it as a serious gamer’s “worst nightmare”, Williams states that BT is being “less than transparent about the issue” and that it is “unable to provide regular updates”. Williams also believes this could be a “big problem” for BT.

Williams isn’t alone in his plight, as it seems that on a BT customer forum others are raising this issue. One user states that the Microsoft subscriptions page prompts them to go to BT to manage their Game Pass, and even “tried adding a prepaid code” but that they failed to do so whilst the subscription is managed by BT.

BT broadband currently offer a free 6 or 12 months Xbox Game Pass deal. However, there’s a critical bug in the software for this deal, which means that when the 6/12 months expires, BT do not relinquish control of your Xbox account, which prevents you from resubscribing.

— Wes ???????? Film|TV|Games|Footy (@wideawakewesley) June 29, 2022

Speaking to NME, Williams says: “You can still use your account, but the controls for it have transferred to BT, which means you’re unable to extend subscriptions in the usual way. For many in the UK that involves redeeming codes from third party sellers, which can no longer be done, or buying direct from Microsoft.”

He goes on to explain: “It may be possible to extend via BT at prices they set, but I’d expect most customers would be extremely reluctant to do that (if it’s possible), given this problem.”

Those who have spoken to Microsoft about the issue state “they can’t help as they can’t override it”, and after asking for BT to release the control of the account, this action is not being taken. It appears that a bug is preventing BT from terminating the billing relationship between itself and Microsoft, and customers are stuck unable to manage their accounts, renew their subscriptions or even purchase prepaid codes in order to continue their Game Pass subscription.

This leads to the Game Pass expiring and customers having no access. Their only option at that point is to create a new account and lose all progress if they wish to continue using Game Pass features.

A BT community moderator going only by the name “NeilO” on the customer forums acknowledged the problem on June 21, but to date no fix has been identified or applied to any of the affected customers’ accounts. There has been no public comment or update for those affected by any BT customer forum moderator since June 29.

At the time of writing, “BT appear to be doing nothing to sort this” including being unresponsive to private tickets raised by customers affected by the issue.

NME has reached out to BT for comment.

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