I had nearly the same experience with Azure a few years ago. I signed up for a trial account to try their database service, but ultimately didn't do much with it and wasn't storing any data there.
A few months later Microsoft wanted to start billing me, but when I went to try to cancel my account, there was no way to do it online. Some friends in Microsoft (not in the Azure world) looked into it and told me they thought it was that Microsoft wanted to do it over the phone to get a better sense of why I was leaving. Needless to say, this is not how the cloud should work.
Looking back in my email, the first email from Microsoft opening the issue tracker for 'cancel account' was on Oct 21 2011. The last email I have for it, and when the account finally seemed dead, was July 23rd 2012.
Now, the credit card I used when I signed up for my trial expired before Microsoft ever tried to actually charge it, so thankfully I was never out of any money. But I've been bummed - Azure is a lot more interesting now than it was in the summer of 2011 and I'd like to use it, but after my last experience I don't dare give them a working credit card every again.
At least in 2013, you can cancel it (my client did) and Azure has a default spending limit for trial accounts which, unless you remove, never gets you charged if you consume the trial usage and simply suspends your account. On the other hand, AWS doesn't have a spending limit concept for even free, one-year micro instance trial last I checked.
Use a temporary, merchant-limited bank-generated credit card number. BofA calls it ShopSafe, I don't know what the other CC companies call it but they all offer it. You can set the period of validity, the maximum amount that can be charged to the "card", and close the card at any time.
Hah ... I'm glad he posted this and it subsequently made it onto HN. I got the same email last night and have been dreading trying to log on to figure out how in the heck to cancel the account. I had a similar confusing problem canceling an azure subcription, xbox live indie games subscription, windows phone store subscription, and zune music subscription in the past.
edit: it gets worse, unfortunately. I followed Frans' steps and tried to chat with a support tech. I didn't notice when they came on after a while and so they closed the chat session. Fine, my fault. So I went with the "call me" option. After a while, I get the call, and the first lady was really nice, but informed me that she couldn't help me. So she forwarded me to another number which ended up being MSDN subscription support. After I got on with someone there, they informed me that they couldn't help me and that I had to do it online at orders.microsoft.com/history (the http version is a 404, so I had to figure out to put in https). He was clueless otherwise, so I hung up and just tried to go back and initiate another chat conversation. That is unfortunately erroring out with a 500 server error. What a CF :(
Finally got it resolved ... I ended up requesting for support to call me. Same as before, the guy said he had to transfer me to another place for them to help me. I asked him to stay on the line and talk to the other agent to make sure it was the right place (which to his credit he did), and he discovered that they would in fact not help me. So then he put me on hold for a while, and came back trying to suggest that I should just post on the forums, or try the chat option, or request a callback. After informing him that requesting a callback is what brought me to him, he was further flummoxed. So I asked to speak to his supervisor. I made sure to tell the supervisor that the agent was nothing but nice, so it wasn't a complaint on him ... I just wanted it handled without posting on a forum. Eventually he told me that he was going to do it, but that "things don't go well when we do this". He suggested that having consumer support make a change on a developer account might lock the developer account ... or something, and that I'd have to call back to have it unlocked if I had problems signing up in the future.
So although I appreciate that they were eventually able to help me; wow, what a complete and utter nightmare. I'm kind of bummed because although I was disabling the auto-renew, I was considering whether I would pick things back up in 6 months to a year and maybe release another windows 8 app. Going to really think twice about it now ... heck, it might not even let me sign up again!
I wish they would just let you remove the Xbox account from your Live.com account but nope! I might just close it anyway, like I'm ever going to use Outlook.com
I remember when people decided to leave Xbox Live after the Xbox One/PS4 press events, and how much everyone agonized over figuring out how the hell to actually undo their subscriptions.
Live subscriptions must be huge income sources for Microsoft the same way subscriptions are for AOL whose customers probably forget about the subscription and won't bother with the hassle of unsubscribing.
Is there a way to cancel an account w/o an angry blog post and then waiting for a call from PR?
I created a Windows Store account when I was a MSFT employee and it's straight up impossible to cancel it. There are circular links but no actual way to get in touch with someone.
More interesting than deregistering was his views on WinRT. It's looking like Microsoft have pissed off a few folks. Anyone know the backstory around this?
WinRT is supposed to be a modernized version of .Net built with lightweight asychronous programming in mind. I haven't yet checked if this promise is bullshit.
In my experience with Windows Azure, Microsoft seems to be moving deliberately slowly. They build a small solid foundation and add more features when they're ready. Azure didn't have AutoScale until recently. I'm sure WinRT will keep growing.
The promise itself isn't bullshit, but the execution is definitely slow.
Windows 8.1 is opening a lot back up but I will agree that MS shot themselves in the foot by making it as "simplified" as it is. It's nowhere near 1:1 with .NET or even Win32 at this point and that'll likely take quite a bit of time, likely well beyond the "mythical version 3".
I feel they absolutely have to release new version of Windows or at least the API every year. It has to get very close to 1:1 or a lot more people will start abandoning ship. I know personally I was more neutral and borderline annoyed at the WinRT change but I think 8.1 is reviving some enthusiasm I lost. I believe they're heading in the right direction it'll just be a matter of getting there as fast as possible to keep my interest. It's not a very pleasant feeling when you think that you picked a poor choice by sticking with .NET as things start to fall away. I keep looking for WinRT projects to start picking up steam but they're pretty much non-existent in the Atlanta area, save a very select few. I'm really hoping 8.1 starts to change that.
Just to be clear, you probably mean that Windows RT is DOA. They're not necessarily the same thing (you can call WinRT libraries from regular desktop code).
It mirrors my own opinion when I jumped in to try programming for the windows 8 app store last year. WinRT is so restrictive that microsoft can't even publish their own office software on it. Even Apple knew better then to completely cripple their desktop app store.
I don't know if it is always the case, but it is often the case that when the billing and payments system is this screwed up it reflects on a very distracted (sometimes quite painfully so) company. And the recent re-alignment at the top can leave tectonic fault lines where entire subdivisions become weirdly autonomic like this.
What I find most amazing though are large organizations which can continue to operate tolerating these sorts of things. It seems the P/L statements coming from the people who tally up the "Developer Store" for each quarter are so far in the noise that its rounding error, and yet there they are, doing their thing, checking in changes, turning the crank, but clearly without oversight.
A few months later Microsoft wanted to start billing me, but when I went to try to cancel my account, there was no way to do it online. Some friends in Microsoft (not in the Azure world) looked into it and told me they thought it was that Microsoft wanted to do it over the phone to get a better sense of why I was leaving. Needless to say, this is not how the cloud should work.
Looking back in my email, the first email from Microsoft opening the issue tracker for 'cancel account' was on Oct 21 2011. The last email I have for it, and when the account finally seemed dead, was July 23rd 2012.
Now, the credit card I used when I signed up for my trial expired before Microsoft ever tried to actually charge it, so thankfully I was never out of any money. But I've been bummed - Azure is a lot more interesting now than it was in the summer of 2011 and I'd like to use it, but after my last experience I don't dare give them a working credit card every again.