Walking Dead Zune Subscribers Being Double Charged

Seriously does it suck any worse to support AMC’s Walking Dead and buying it on the Xbox live Zune Service? I think not. So Monday morning I wake up to watch The Walking Dead Episode 3 and discover its not downloaded even though I purchased the entire season with my microsoft points. I get on the site, write about it and start hearing immediately from our community who have the same problem. Microsoft Zune support was no help and seemed to care very little. As Kris put it they told him to check again NEXT Saturday and then call back. Really ??

So this morning for whatever reason I woke up silly early and turned my Xbox on to see that Episode 3 Tell it to the Frogs had finally arrived. Turned my Xbox off without thinking about it again until I hit the site to read community comments. Steve and Junito have both commented on the site saying that despite having a seasons pass to watch Episode 3 on Zune its requiring them to buy the episode. To verify this claim I to checked and yep… although it says ready to watch in order to watch it I have to shell out another 240 microsoft points on TOP of my subscription for the entire season. Wigsplit commented on an earlier post saying that they were using the AMAZON service to watch Walking Dead but it doesnt offer HD and any place to download it to. So thats not really a viable option. Others are simply pirating the show which is wrong gang… support the creators you dont punish Zune by pirating it you are punishing the creators who worked hard on the show. I think AngryDude says it best when he writes;

Yep. I really think this will be the end of me and Zune purchases. I’m pretty happy with Amazon too, but I thought I’d try something different. First problem was the shows take way too long to download, a 1.5G game on the Xbox can come down in an hour, but the first 3.2G episode of TWD took about 6-7. Then the episodes were delayed – and now I have to wait for them to fix the purchase SNAFU with season pass, if they do (I hope without me calling).

Hopefully AngryDude gets a better response then Kris who got the run around. Are you having this same problem? Anybody else getting a bad taste in their mouth for the ZUNE service? Walking Dead on Zune is nice because its in HD and loads super fast with no wait but this no double charging and missing episodes nonsense has made me less then a fan. If you are considering subscribing to a TV show on Zune I would suggest you dont buy the season up front with your points… you have no idea what you will get.

Quick Updated: Its been mentioned a few times how do I get a refund for my points. I did some looking but could find absolutely no way to refund points. Wikipedia also states;

….complaints are numerous regarding the refund policy Microsoft employs. Namely: “no refund or credit will be issued for Microsoft Points for any reason whatsoever”.

As far as what is going on with the double charging those of us who subscribed for the entire season DamnIrish has an update for us all from the Zune support team writing;

So I just called Zune tech support (outsourced to India of course) and they told me this is a problem they’re aware of and in the process of fixing. They took my phone number and after a bunch of basic information, said they’re working on it and that someone will call me back in 48-72 hours!!!! This is absurd and only forcing me to pirate! I don’t want to punish the show’s creators, but then maybe THEY should be pulling some strings to get this fixed for THEIR fans… since we little people can’t get anywhere….

So be patient it looks like an update/correction is coming and WHATEVER you do dont pay twice just wait!

Update: We now have a fix that works for those of you who still have been unable to download Episode 3 of The walking Dead for Zune. Details here

http://www.zunemax.com/category/zune-pass/ zune movies

What are they thinking? Microsoft is really working against the Zune service by neglecting the most popular new show on television and double charging people. I mean how weak is that? Not only do we have to pay for a free tv show but now people are being double billed.
Torelith

Yep, same thing is happening to me right now. It took zune 3 days to post the new episode then i find out I have to pay for it again to be able to watch. Sure there is the pirate route but if i wanted to go there I wouldn’t have paid for a season pass in the first place.
Jack Sparrow

Ugh, spent the $15, or whatever, on a season pass and have to buy episode 3!!! It’s like Microsoft and Hollywood are forcing me to pirate something I now own. Maybe because the chance of suing people like me for $100,000 is the only way to make money nowadays? First 2 episodes took 6 hours each, just finished this one in under an hour. Shimmer Me’ Timbers.
Graffkidwiz1

Same problem and Im irate at this point. I cant wait for them to fix this to watch the episode, I need TWD now!
ChaiTease

Got my hopes up when i turned on my xbox and saw it in my library this morning. then i just got confused. Happy to know I wasn’t the only one. Hope this get’s settled soon. I’ve definitely lost my appreciation for Zune and it’s services though. There’s no excusing the delay and there’s definitely no excusing this.
- Anonymous
  
  chai I am the same I had my hopes up big time as well. Real bummer but at least Zune is aware of it and say they are working on it.
Portwineboy

I’m having the same problem and it also appears that you can no longer buy the season pass for TWD? I am at work, but I looked at the Zune marketplace website and it has no option for a season pass, just individual episodes. Also, my Zune profile doesn’t seem to list video purchases, so nothing I’ve bought on xbox zune mktplace is listed.

I hope I didn’t waste a ton of points…should have just pirated the show.
- Anonymous
  
  The problem with pirating outside of it being highly illegal is you punish the shows creators and not ZUNE.
DamnIrish

So I just called Zune tech support (outsourced to India of course) and they told me this is a problem they’re aware of and in the process of fixing. They took my phone number and after a bunch of basic information, said they’re working on it and that someone will call me back in 48-72 hours!!!! This is absurd and only forcing me to pirate! I don’t want to punish the show’s creators, but then maybe THEY should be pulling some strings to get this fixed for THEIR fans… since we little people can’t get anywhere….
- Anonymous
  
  good update Irish thanks for sharing.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=550192045 Dave Allen

When I log into Zune on my Xbox, it is telling me the same thing, I have to pay 240 points to watch episode 3, when I purchased a season pass for 1440 points. This is illegal and unethical, and reeks of wire fraud. where do I get my refund?
- Anonymous
  
  article has been updated dave… apparently you CANT get a refund. Period.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=550192045 Dave Allen
    
    Fuck Zune, and Microsoft, I paid my dues and they fucked me, I’ll just torrent that shit for free then.
    - Anonymous
      
      dave by torrenting it your not hurting microsoft your hurting the shows creators who deserve our support
      - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=550192045 Dave Allen
        
        This is why I paid to watch it on Zune, so if the creators don’t fix this ASAP, they lose my support $$$, a Price was agreed upon, I paid the price. so where is my service I paid for? and apparently I can’t get a refund. so in essence they ripped us off. so they forced my hand to torrent it.
      - Jess
        
        Are you sure that you won’t get refunded? If nothing else Microsoft is usually good about compensating for and fixing their mistakes.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=550192045 Dave Allen
    
    I sent this to the Comsumerist.com hopefully they will pick this up.
Guest

Captain Obvious here, but maybe you all need to chillaxe a bit. It is just a TV show after all.
http://twitter.com/Munntendo Brian Munn

To make matters worse, the previous episodes have the same problem now. Although I purchased a Season Pass it says I need to pay again for episodes 1 & 2 if I want to re-watch them. Also, for some strange reason, the price listed for the HD Season Pass is now 1300 points instead of the 1440 that I paid two weeks ago.
Dependable_skeleton101

Apparently iTunes is having a similar problem. WTF?
Jess

Season Passes are new, I would give it a while before dedicating money to it. And stream, don’t download it’s faster. And my last Zune tip is: try SD before you buy HD every time. I don’t notice an appreciable difference between the two (but my set is only 720, that might be why they look the same). Both are far superior to DVD.
I’m not an X-BOT but I do think more people should drop cable and save money by buying TV shows per episode using Zune, iTunes or Amazon. If they opened up our bandwidth so that our internet was as good as say Japan I might feel differently.
And for all we know it’s the AMC side who has deals with the cable company’s to release popular shows late to the download/streaming services. Those of us who use such services are the demographic who is watching Walking Dead. Just some food for thought …we should all drop cable!
Kingofrock667

Called Xbox support and they sent me to the Account management tab in the settings folder. Under your downloads in the Zune folder, I found Ep. 3 ready to download. I don’t understand why it’s not where last weeks show was but I’m happy not to pay twice.
Douglas Lashuay

Well I experienced all of the above and am a bit mad I paid out for the season pass and ended up paying for the 3rd episode on accident. How many episodes are there going to be? I paid 800 points for the season pass in SD. I just cannot understand how they have allowed people to double pay.
wigspl1t

I should of explained myself better, my bad. I can purchase HD episodes on amazon video its just that my net must not be fast enough for amazon or something because it never seems to reach full quality on my 60″ HDTV yet it easily does on my 22″ computer screen. (I think maybe it takes more bandwidth to steam HD to that much larger of a screen?) Anyways, for some reason with zune even tho my net isn’t the fastest the zune player for some reason seems much faster then the amazon one in the sense that it seems to load hd content faster and consistently throughout the episode. I like zune better, the fact you can download movies to your xbox hard drive is a total win but if its like this every week then I will go with amazon every time, there’s no way I’m waiting till Tuesday morning to pay for a show that came out on Sunday.
Knicolejuen

yes thank you for releasing new epsode.. but pls hurry up…lol… i am scarely to death of wating for you to play it on the screen…
Cremutator

Monica D.: Hello Die
CrouNit, My name is Monica D. with Microsoft Customer Support and I will be
assisting you today. For your records, your service request number is:
1175792231Please give me a few moments as I review the information you’ve
submitted.

Monica D.: Hi There how
are you?

Die CrouNit: doing ok
here..just abit hesitant about season passes since i read the articles

Monica D.: form the
description of your query you have a problem with your microsoft points ?

Die CrouNit: i wanted to kno
if the people that had the problem with having to pay for ep3 of the walking
dead, even after buying a season pass..had been resolved

Monica D.: apologize for
this,I need to escalate this issue we can refund the 240 points,if you want to
purchase it now?

Die CrouNit: no..the
escalation dept will say this “complaints are numerous regarding the refund
policy Microsoft employs. Namely: “no refund or credit will be issued for
Microsoft Points for any reason whatsoever”.”

Die CrouNit: i have no
problem myself currently with wanting a refund for this…i just wanted to know
if the problem has been solved

Monica D.: There is
something not working properly here,I still escalate if you go ahead and
purchase wit the points I can refund it the points

at this point i said thank u and that im just going to sleep. strange how it seems like they want to give away points now. and i still cant get my credit back for the purchase of “the core” lol
Xavierj20

I had this problem with a movie I purchased once before, but I went into my movies picked the movie and deleted it and then closed Zune and restarted and I was able to get again. The info is store in the cloud so it should still have the fact that you purchased it before.
http://www.facebook.com/luna.croft.xbox Luna Croft

I bought my episode via Amazon and they do have HD $2.99 an episode, WORTH it in the long run because Amazon is a customer service guru and if there are any issues they fix them or refund your money. PLUS. you can get it in HD OR SD (1.99) and you can watch amazon videos on almost anything now, INCLUDING Xbox

MoviesOnline

Walking Dead Zune Subscribers Being Double Charged

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