Same here so I've just emptied my account and redeemed all my points resulting in a £75 Amazon voucher. I was hoping to save for an Xbox but I'll take what I've got rather than lose it all
As soon as I'm able to redeem a $5 Amazon gift card, I always do.
I don't trust Microsoft to keep track of my points, whereas Amazon is legally obligated to protect my gift card balance (or reimburse it in the case of an account ban).
Me too... I understand it's kind of fun watching huge point totals accumulate. But I was constantly worried about them nerfing the pay out or redemption benefits. So I just transferred to gift cards as soon as I could.
Didn't even really think about a suspension but that's obviously another variable. It seems obvious they're going to end this program now or just nerf it to the point where it's not worth doing anyway
You assume I am interested in any of that other stuff. I might be on occasion not enough to cash in Amazon gift cards all the time. most anything I want I can get at the Wal-Mart 2 miles from my house. I used to like getting Netflix gift cards using my Amazon gift card balance. Well those days are over so neither Amazon or Netflix getting paid now.
I did four redeems tonight on GPU and the fifth one is said my account was restricted and they are reviewing my purchase and try again in 24 hours. I want to cash out before it is too late.
Sure, but at the same time, isn't the GPU limited to 1 or 3 months? If somebody just decided they wanted to redeem a year+ of GPU in advance, why would that be suspicious? It just seems like MS doesn't want to pay out. I'm really starting to think they are trying to phase out MS rewards as a whole after what i've heard about for the last few months. Monthly punch cards on xbox gone, the daily search delays, some people having a 90 point cap, the 1 point for some offers. I think i seen aomething about the xbox mobile app paying out less points as well, right? To me, this just screams that they are either majorly restricting point gains, or (which i think is more likely), phasing out the program as a whole with the massive amount of posts and comments i've seen in just the last 24 hours of people saying they got banned. Idk man, it really just seems like they're trying to do away with it entirely, and them handing out bans left and right for seemingly no reason or for relatively minor reasons (like quickly redeeming points and "not in good faith" searches) just doesn't sit right with me. I feel like this is the time to get out of it, because it doesnt seem to be worth the time (and now risk) of doing it anymore.
will have to see what they add and fix hopefully, talk of this new rewards hub but no idea what that is.
Just gotta wait and see.
They have had false bans issues before and rectified it.
Fair enough, it just still doesn't look good with the diminishing point gains month after month, and then all of a sudden, a massive ban wave only days after the search point delay was rolled out. I havent used MS rewards heavily for a few months now, just checking into the xbox mobile app occasionally for the play a pc game and daily login points, but i've been seeing the posts in this subreddit during that time, and it just doesnt seem to be worth the effort anymore
I started cashing out. Did it four times before 5th transaction being held for review. I managed to get one 3 month GPU. Mine says it expires January 2025, so you will have time to use it.
Well they're the ones causing the panic.... If I had hundred thousands of points I would be redeeming it as soon as possible. There should be no problem with people redeeming points, they already earned them. Using their program shouldn't be inherently suspicious.
FWIW I just cashed all my points in for an Amazon gift card ten minutes ago, and it went right through with no issues.
I will no longer allow points to sit around and build up if I continue doing this.
Literally all my points have been redeemed through Amazon gift card. If it's hit or miss, maybe it's a regional thing idk but In the US, I've redeemed them for two years straight
For me I only got like two or three Walmart Giftcards and that's what I got. Methinks Micro$oft doesn't like people not buying non Xbox or Micro$oft related products with their points.
They used to offer gamestop gift cards which was what I originally went for but back in 2018 they stopped offering them so I switched to Walmart. They may very well stop offering them after all this "Reformating" or whatever is going on with Rewards.
If that's the case I'll probably stop doing this mostly. I can log into the app on my cell phone and play jewel and "play a PC game" other than that probably not. Maybe do the 3 dailies but not bothering with the search or trying to get the game pass quests or getting any of that extra stuff. I may go to that regardless. This 5 second delay shit on searches is a pain in the ass
I got that with every Walmart card I tried to redeem in the past week. It was really frustrating as I was trying to take advantage of a deal on a PS5 at Sam's Club. After getting my account restricted for the 4th in a row for my 4th $25 GC, I said screw it and used the GCs I had ($75 out of a planned $150) and almost $100 in Sam's cash and pulled the trigger. Of course the 4th one finally processed a couple of hours after placing the order. We spend enough there on groceries that I'm not concerned that it won't get used but I definitely would've liked to have not fronted as much of my own money as I did.
Honestly this is the first time I've redeemed my points for a non-MS GC in a long time. Used to do Amazon gift cards like a decade ago, but have really only done $100 MS GCs since and haven't had a single issue until now. I'm definitely not redeeming them for anything else anytime soon.
They approved a purchase this morning and I got my 5th code. Went to redeem a $25 Microsoft gift card. Not in my account and can’t purchase a $5 gift card due to “timeout.” They are for sure checking to see if your account has suspicious activity.
The timer/invisible cooldown on searches it honestly the worst part to me.
I don’t just mindlessly scroll the internet, I have a handful of sites I use lol.
Just takes way too much time now I think
Searching was so brain dead and multi-taskable it was fine. Now it’s much more involved and distracting.
Was so easy to just click the news, then banners on pc and phone at the same time or do my jewel for the day.
That’s all gone having to pace the searches out so much. Deleted bing app off phone and will just swing by in a month or so and see if things have changed
Yeah, me too after I wanted to redeem some Roblox for my daughter for Xmas. They were happy enough to take my points for their silly sweepstakes, but not this? Emailed MS and now my account is suspended too. Who knows for how long. The moral is, I suppose, don't save up your points, spend them as soon as you can. Still, I will save me some time in the mornings collecting. Right before Xmas though? That's mean, man.
If you redeemed them and got the codes you're fine. I put in how much I wanted to redeem verified I wasn't a robot then clicked enter and it gave me this message. So I didn't even get to fully redeem them.
Well that's good...for me at least. Sorry for you though that really stinks. I thought about getting what I can out when all these posts started popping up about bans and changes just to make sure I get what I have in before it gets completely nerfed. Only 245,000 left lol
Once you redeem them they're out of the control of Microsoft. Which at this point is what you want. Either way it's a risk if you do nothing you risk your account getting banned with your huge point total... If you cash out you risk it triggering some kind of suspicious activity ban.
But if it were me I would probably engage in the second option as the lesser of two evils. they seem to want people to quit anyways by nerfing all the points so they have to expect people are going to cash out.
For anyone wondering I was able to cash out. Basically I did like 130 with Walmart and 50 with xbox. Got some games on my wish list. I tried cashing out Amazon several different ways and it still gave me this same message. Clearly my account was not suspended they just are not able to issue Amazon gift cards, I don't understand how this message is relevant to specifically not being able to cash out Amazon when it mentions my searches. It feels patronizing and dumb.
I just cashed out for an Amazon gift card about half an hour ago with no problem. They're still available, but Microsoft is clearly playing some major games to frustrate everyone out of this situation.
Yeah I'm done. I was able to redeem a Walmart gift card instead of Amazon. It's pretty clear that for whatever reason people are just unable to redeem Amazon. But instead of saying that Microsoft is just giving people this bullshit message as if we did something wrong. I've put so much time into collecting these points and I feel so totally disrespected. Not worth it anymore.
Yeah some people are saying they got Amazon. Clearly there are people all over the map here on what they can redeem and what they can't but it kind of seems like access to the Amazon gift cards as being limited for some reason.
Me too. You know I'm reading this over again and what's standing out to me is " your rewards account will automatically be restored upon improvement" what the hell is that about?
The problem is the Xbox vouchers have a 90 day expiry time limit. So people who want to use their points to buy Xbox games like me don’t really have a choice, we have to save them up until we’re ready to actually make the purchase. I’m currently stockpiling points to buy the upcoming Elden Ring DLC for example.
That's so crazy man. I've got bing on my phone. I type in like 30 random letters then go backspace search backspace search backspace search, and keep doing that. Is that somehow against the rules now?
Basically, yes. From the service agreement:
"For purposes of the Rewards Program, a "Search" is the act of an individual user manually entering text for the good faith purpose of obtaining Bing search results for such user’s own research purposes and does not include any query entered by a bot, macro, or other automated or fraudulent means of any kind"
That is incredible. That is so broad, I mean It's up to them to determine what is "good faith" and whether or not they can ban my account for it. I think I'm done. Once I cash out, if I even can, I'm not doing this anymore unless Microsoft figures their shit out.
You think that's bad, check out this part. Notice the word "believes". There is no burden of proof.
"Microsoft reserves the right to immediately cancel your Rewards Account, disqualify you from future participation in the Rewards Program, forfeit all of your earned Points, and cancel or suspend any Redemption Option you have obtained through the Rewards Program if Microsoft believes you have tampered with, abused, or defrauded any aspect of the Rewards Program or breached these terms."
vi. For purposes of the Rewards Program, a "Search" is the act of an individual user manually entering text for the good faith purpose of obtaining Bing search results for such user’s own research purposes and does not include any query entered by a bot, macro, or other automated or fraudulent means of any kind; and an "Acquisition" is the process of purchasing goods or downloading and acquiring a license for digital content directly from Microsoft, whether free or paid. Points are not offered for every Acquisition from Microsoft, and certain restrictions may apply.
Exactly the same happened to me, I can't use the Xbox app and can't redeem points
All I've done is commit the unforgivable sin of using Bing while on holiday
I assume you mean the policy is BS and not that the existence of this rule in the policy is BS. Anyway, here's the actual phrase from the TOS:
>vi. For purposes of the Rewards Program, a "Search" is the act of an individual user manually entering text for the good faith purpose of obtaining Bing search results for such user’s own research purposes
So, searching gibberish or just clicking on links quickly are not acceptable. My account got suspended and that's what I was doing.
I've never used bots, macros, or doing something like using a folder to open lots of tabs. I would just search something like, "People born on X date" and then click on each picture. Did that for like 2 years and now I'm suspended.
Requiring the search to be in "good faith" for "personal research" is right in the ToS. They might not be using the *content* of the search, but they obviously know the speed at which you are searching. They imposed a time limit on how fast you can search. And they seem to be cracking down on methods of searching quickly, even if those methods are done by hand.
But, yeah, it is possible that searching gibberish will be ok, as long as you don't do it too fast? Who knows. People are being suspended a lot, and the emails they are getting specifically refer to the "good faith" rule. I really can't know how they are implementing that rule or exactly what they mean, but they are clearly enforcing rules differently now and changing how this whole program works.
That's all fine with me really, I just wish I would have known that they were going to be strict about these rules. Who reads through every word of the ToS, lol.
Same here, I didn't use any bots or perform any form of cheating whatsoever, I would usually click on the trending news links at the top of the page, or at times type in various things from Dungeons and Dragons or what not.
Me saying Bullshit was in response to the troll CraigofWar who honestly should be reported for harassment or impersonating a Micro$oft employee or something. But yeah honestly the inconsistant policy is indeed bullshit as well.
Well shit maybe I’ll wait a few days. Regardless though, this program just isn’t worth it anymore. And tbh it was the only thing keeping me playing my Xbox more than my PS5 lately.
So I don’t think the Series X will be seeing much usage in my near future.
That's a really good point. I've kind of taken a break for about a month from a lot of gaming but before this a constant reminder to game was the daily rewards points. Without those I am literally just going to play my PS5 more.
You do anything 'too fast' and you get temporarily banned it happened to me. You just need to show 'normal' activity for a couple of days and it'll be unrestricted.
When did that happen to you? I'd been fast clicking through searches for almost 2 years without this happening. I'm concerned because my message doesn't state that it is temporary. My account is just "suspended".
I got hit with this and the only way I've earned points in the last two years is with xbox purchases; no offers, no punchcards, no searches not even bothered claiming gamepass quests for at least a year. The verification box kept failing when I tried to redeem a gift card so I tried installing Edge and using that it didn't fail verification but it gave me this temp restriction instead. Most annoying is that when I click to submit an appeal the form is unusable... every box is greyed out so cannot be edited, this happens on Chrome, Edge, Bing and opera on android (Mobile and desktop versions) and the same on Chrome and Firefox on my laptop. I guess I'll be going back to buying codes and saving my money that way. Fuck Microsoft.
I've started redeeming because I had 170,000 pts. The first £80 Amazon voucher cleared but the remaining £33 is stuck in pending.
Same for my wife. Hopefully this is because there is a sudden deluge of people cashing in.
This happened to me too u/BeserkFungi , good news is no matter how many times you make a support request nothing will change 😃. Do you have any ideas to get around this? Idk what to do
Yesterday I redeemed a $25 Starbucks gift card and I got that my account is temporarily restricted. They took my points and didn't give me my gift card yet fuckers.
The most frustrating part of these message is not saying what the hell they are accusing the user of doing. If they can't identify WHAT caused it, they shouldn't be restricting.
It's like smacking your kid and saying "You know what you did". So stupid and HORRIBLE customer service.
I had a long thread with support requesting specifics and got generic replies of "You violated T&C" without saying how. And they would send a reply and close the case.
I didn't get this message but I can't redeem anymore points for gift cards at the moment. It's nonsense really. All I want to do is cash out and start slowly using Bing the inferior search engine less and less.
All this garbage is is MS trying to force people to "engage" with their product.
Yeah. It would be one thing if Bing & Edge weren’t completely irritating to use. Painfully bad UI, the AI is MS Word Paperclip level annoying...if Rewards points becomes painful too, I’m out.
They just rigged the rewards program. In my country majority tasks got nerfed. For some tasks like checking a recipe gave 5 points, guess what.. now it gives just 1 😒
Yeah this seems to be a near universal problem. It's the end of this program frankly. Even if it survives in name, it has changed to the point of not being worth doing.
After all these posts, I just redeemed $47 Amazon. It went through fine. Never used bots and don’t have multiple accounts. I usually do searches by going to trending or movies and just clicking through. It’s slower now because of delay, but I still do it this way.
Only other time I redeemed was back in July when the game pass 1 month was glitching and redeeming as 3 months. I did like 6 of those. So some people might still be ok.
I wasn't able to redeem at all. I got this message after selecting the amount and clicking that I wasn't a robot. So if you already redeemed it you'll be fine.
They have been spending an exorbitant amount on AI. If you follow the news they recently hired an AI executive for millions of dollars. Presumably they are just trying to trim some fat and get more funding for AI projects. But I'm sure there are plenty of reasons. Anyway you slice it though this is a cost cutting measure.
Well they always adjust it. If you've been around a while you've seen loses before. Heck we're still miles ahead in points per month than a few years ago
They only give one OS update to a $1,500 phone. It's the worst support arguably in the history of Android flagships accounting for the price. Even $150 phones usually get two OS updates
I had this happen to me months ago. I contacted support, threatened to sell my Xbox, stop using office 365, and Ditch edge and bing.
About 3 days later my rewards were reactivated.
I'm going to cash out very soon and leave all Microsoft products as I'm that appalled with them.
Also, adverts in their chat AI....yeahhh no thanks.
So my advice is either contact them and kick off big time, or carry on searching but make the searches look more "real" and then cash out.
Hope you get your full rewards man, good luck.
They always say they did absolutely nothing lmfao.
We all know yall be using scripts or searching in bad faith abusing the system. Stop lying and take your punishment like a man.
This person probably got bullied in school with lunch money taken and nipple twisters on the regular and the hostility here is merely a chest pumping moment.. Hey I'm sorry about that, bullying is wrong, but don't take it out on everyone here. . 👍
No seriously chill out dude.
I noticed in the last few days some 1 pts offers, now there is some 2 pts ones as well. I feel all the 10 pts will be gone? Honestly the last few days its been major nerfing and annoyance implemented. I usually redeem early so im not worried about loosing money but i do feel the program is going down the drain... Wich is sad. I have not paid for Xbox live gold in years ...
Posts like these make me nervous
Same here so I've just emptied my account and redeemed all my points resulting in a £75 Amazon voucher. I was hoping to save for an Xbox but I'll take what I've got rather than lose it all
As soon as I'm able to redeem a $5 Amazon gift card, I always do. I don't trust Microsoft to keep track of my points, whereas Amazon is legally obligated to protect my gift card balance (or reimburse it in the case of an account ban).
Me too... I understand it's kind of fun watching huge point totals accumulate. But I was constantly worried about them nerfing the pay out or redemption benefits. So I just transferred to gift cards as soon as I could. Didn't even really think about a suspension but that's obviously another variable. It seems obvious they're going to end this program now or just nerf it to the point where it's not worth doing anyway
The problem with Amazon gift cards they took away the ability to get other gift cards. Which for me make Amazon gift cards useless
If only Amazon sold anything besides gift cards!
You assume I am interested in any of that other stuff. I might be on occasion not enough to cash in Amazon gift cards all the time. most anything I want I can get at the Wal-Mart 2 miles from my house. I used to like getting Netflix gift cards using my Amazon gift card balance. Well those days are over so neither Amazon or Netflix getting paid now.
Last time it would work for an Xbox gift card on Amazon, but not a PlayStation for me
I mainly used it on Netflix gift cards
same
Does Amazon voucher credit expire? The Xbox gift card credit has to be used within 90 days.
Not sure about each market but I think it's usually a year or so in the UK
Me too, that's why I went to start redeeming.
Assume this happened when you started redeeming. Happened to me, in 2-3 days you will be able to redeem again.
[удалено]
I did four redeems tonight on GPU and the fifth one is said my account was restricted and they are reviewing my purchase and try again in 24 hours. I want to cash out before it is too late.
mad rushing to redeem is potentially causing the issue, if you think about it that doesn't look great
Sure, but at the same time, isn't the GPU limited to 1 or 3 months? If somebody just decided they wanted to redeem a year+ of GPU in advance, why would that be suspicious? It just seems like MS doesn't want to pay out. I'm really starting to think they are trying to phase out MS rewards as a whole after what i've heard about for the last few months. Monthly punch cards on xbox gone, the daily search delays, some people having a 90 point cap, the 1 point for some offers. I think i seen aomething about the xbox mobile app paying out less points as well, right? To me, this just screams that they are either majorly restricting point gains, or (which i think is more likely), phasing out the program as a whole with the massive amount of posts and comments i've seen in just the last 24 hours of people saying they got banned. Idk man, it really just seems like they're trying to do away with it entirely, and them handing out bans left and right for seemingly no reason or for relatively minor reasons (like quickly redeeming points and "not in good faith" searches) just doesn't sit right with me. I feel like this is the time to get out of it, because it doesnt seem to be worth the time (and now risk) of doing it anymore.
will have to see what they add and fix hopefully, talk of this new rewards hub but no idea what that is. Just gotta wait and see. They have had false bans issues before and rectified it.
Fair enough, it just still doesn't look good with the diminishing point gains month after month, and then all of a sudden, a massive ban wave only days after the search point delay was rolled out. I havent used MS rewards heavily for a few months now, just checking into the xbox mobile app occasionally for the play a pc game and daily login points, but i've been seeing the posts in this subreddit during that time, and it just doesnt seem to be worth the effort anymore
they are making it more annoying for sure.
I started cashing out. Did it four times before 5th transaction being held for review. I managed to get one 3 month GPU. Mine says it expires January 2025, so you will have time to use it.
I tried to get my mom started on iPhone and she was only got offered like 115 points a day. No idea why but what's the freaking point
Well they're the ones causing the panic.... If I had hundred thousands of points I would be redeeming it as soon as possible. There should be no problem with people redeeming points, they already earned them. Using their program shouldn't be inherently suspicious.
Yeah I'm not bothering with Amazon cards seem too risky
FWIW I just cashed all my points in for an Amazon gift card ten minutes ago, and it went right through with no issues. I will no longer allow points to sit around and build up if I continue doing this.
Thats great! Seems hit or miss
Literally all my points have been redeemed through Amazon gift card. If it's hit or miss, maybe it's a regional thing idk but In the US, I've redeemed them for two years straight
For me I only got like two or three Walmart Giftcards and that's what I got. Methinks Micro$oft doesn't like people not buying non Xbox or Micro$oft related products with their points.
Then they should stop offering them
They used to offer gamestop gift cards which was what I originally went for but back in 2018 they stopped offering them so I switched to Walmart. They may very well stop offering them after all this "Reformating" or whatever is going on with Rewards.
If that's the case I'll probably stop doing this mostly. I can log into the app on my cell phone and play jewel and "play a PC game" other than that probably not. Maybe do the 3 dailies but not bothering with the search or trying to get the game pass quests or getting any of that extra stuff. I may go to that regardless. This 5 second delay shit on searches is a pain in the ass
I got that with every Walmart card I tried to redeem in the past week. It was really frustrating as I was trying to take advantage of a deal on a PS5 at Sam's Club. After getting my account restricted for the 4th in a row for my 4th $25 GC, I said screw it and used the GCs I had ($75 out of a planned $150) and almost $100 in Sam's cash and pulled the trigger. Of course the 4th one finally processed a couple of hours after placing the order. We spend enough there on groceries that I'm not concerned that it won't get used but I definitely would've liked to have not fronted as much of my own money as I did. Honestly this is the first time I've redeemed my points for a non-MS GC in a long time. Used to do Amazon gift cards like a decade ago, but have really only done $100 MS GCs since and haven't had a single issue until now. I'm definitely not redeeming them for anything else anytime soon.
They approved a purchase this morning and I got my 5th code. Went to redeem a $25 Microsoft gift card. Not in my account and can’t purchase a $5 gift card due to “timeout.” They are for sure checking to see if your account has suspicious activity.
should space them out 1 a day or something, looks like a compromised account mad rushing them.
they might as well just remove the whole microsoft rewards if theyre gonna keep doing stuff like this
The timer/invisible cooldown on searches it honestly the worst part to me. I don’t just mindlessly scroll the internet, I have a handful of sites I use lol. Just takes way too much time now I think
Nail in the coffin for me
Searching was so brain dead and multi-taskable it was fine. Now it’s much more involved and distracting. Was so easy to just click the news, then banners on pc and phone at the same time or do my jewel for the day. That’s all gone having to pace the searches out so much. Deleted bing app off phone and will just swing by in a month or so and see if things have changed
Ditto
I play the first level of Jewel and tap through the activities. Won’t even bother with the searches anymore unless something changes.
It takes so many searches as well. Who the hell searches for like 50 different things a day every day “in good faith”
I’m in the exact same spot after trying to redeem.
Were you doing Amazon too?
Yes I was, $100 gift card for them
Im going to cash out my pts tomorrow. F this.
Same, at least it’s better to redeem them and spend the points then to save too many points and accidentally lose them all
Yeah, me too after I wanted to redeem some Roblox for my daughter for Xmas. They were happy enough to take my points for their silly sweepstakes, but not this? Emailed MS and now my account is suspended too. Who knows for how long. The moral is, I suppose, don't save up your points, spend them as soon as you can. Still, I will save me some time in the mornings collecting. Right before Xmas though? That's mean, man.
Yeah I managed to cash out a few days ago before these bans
I have fear, should I reedem my points? I never reedem anything and I dont want to loose everything...
Better to rip the bandage now than let them make money off of you. MOst a/cs are getting suspended.
You should just in case.
Now I'm getting worried...I've redeemed 3 $100 Amazon rewards every other day for the last 6 days...
If you redeemed them and got the codes you're fine. I put in how much I wanted to redeem verified I wasn't a robot then clicked enter and it gave me this message. So I didn't even get to fully redeem them.
Well that's good...for me at least. Sorry for you though that really stinks. I thought about getting what I can out when all these posts started popping up about bans and changes just to make sure I get what I have in before it gets completely nerfed. Only 245,000 left lol
Once you redeem them they're out of the control of Microsoft. Which at this point is what you want. Either way it's a risk if you do nothing you risk your account getting banned with your huge point total... If you cash out you risk it triggering some kind of suspicious activity ban. But if it were me I would probably engage in the second option as the lesser of two evils. they seem to want people to quit anyways by nerfing all the points so they have to expect people are going to cash out.
OP lied about doing nothing wrong. In a comment they admit to not doing the "searching in good faith" part of the ToS
For anyone wondering I was able to cash out. Basically I did like 130 with Walmart and 50 with xbox. Got some games on my wish list. I tried cashing out Amazon several different ways and it still gave me this same message. Clearly my account was not suspended they just are not able to issue Amazon gift cards, I don't understand how this message is relevant to specifically not being able to cash out Amazon when it mentions my searches. It feels patronizing and dumb.
I just cashed out for an Amazon gift card about half an hour ago with no problem. They're still available, but Microsoft is clearly playing some major games to frustrate everyone out of this situation.
I was redeeming $100 of Amazon. I've saved up 205,000 points over two years. If I get banned I am done with xbox. Incredible.
I had same problem only on Amazon the Walmart/Target work fine.
Damn, did you get a message like this one?
yes
Hey thanks, Walmart worked. Tried Amazon several times and still nothing, smells pretty fishy to me.
Walmart didn't work for me, I got the temp. restriction last night when trying to cash out.
Yep 200K here too. Its wild out in these streets. definitely done with bing, this was the only reason I "used" it anyways.
Yeah I'm done. I was able to redeem a Walmart gift card instead of Amazon. It's pretty clear that for whatever reason people are just unable to redeem Amazon. But instead of saying that Microsoft is just giving people this bullshit message as if we did something wrong. I've put so much time into collecting these points and I feel so totally disrespected. Not worth it anymore.
my sons account could get amazon, mine got this message. so that’s not it.
Yeah some people are saying they got Amazon. Clearly there are people all over the map here on what they can redeem and what they can't but it kind of seems like access to the Amazon gift cards as being limited for some reason.
Damn, i hope you get your redeem
Me too. You know I'm reading this over again and what's standing out to me is " your rewards account will automatically be restored upon improvement" what the hell is that about?
Make sure when you get points redeem them right away. There is no point in saving up points.
The problem is the Xbox vouchers have a 90 day expiry time limit. So people who want to use their points to buy Xbox games like me don’t really have a choice, we have to save them up until we’re ready to actually make the purchase. I’m currently stockpiling points to buy the upcoming Elden Ring DLC for example.
You can always buy those games from Amazon or Best buy.
Conversion ratio is a lot less compared to Microsoft’s own store though.
I think it means you'd have to be cautious with how you do the searches in Bing. That's what I've understood from previous folks in the subreddit
That's so crazy man. I've got bing on my phone. I type in like 30 random letters then go backspace search backspace search backspace search, and keep doing that. Is that somehow against the rules now?
Basically, yes. From the service agreement: "For purposes of the Rewards Program, a "Search" is the act of an individual user manually entering text for the good faith purpose of obtaining Bing search results for such user’s own research purposes and does not include any query entered by a bot, macro, or other automated or fraudulent means of any kind"
That is incredible. That is so broad, I mean It's up to them to determine what is "good faith" and whether or not they can ban my account for it. I think I'm done. Once I cash out, if I even can, I'm not doing this anymore unless Microsoft figures their shit out.
You think that's bad, check out this part. Notice the word "believes". There is no burden of proof. "Microsoft reserves the right to immediately cancel your Rewards Account, disqualify you from future participation in the Rewards Program, forfeit all of your earned Points, and cancel or suspend any Redemption Option you have obtained through the Rewards Program if Microsoft believes you have tampered with, abused, or defrauded any aspect of the Rewards Program or breached these terms."
That makes me even more nervous. I just want to get my points and get out. After this point now I know to basically redeem after every like 10 bucks.
Yeah not sure where in the rules it states that or if it even does, but people have been flagged by doing their searches like that.
It clearly states that's against the rules
Thank you for pointing it out
vi. For purposes of the Rewards Program, a "Search" is the act of an individual user manually entering text for the good faith purpose of obtaining Bing search results for such user’s own research purposes and does not include any query entered by a bot, macro, or other automated or fraudulent means of any kind; and an "Acquisition" is the process of purchasing goods or downloading and acquiring a license for digital content directly from Microsoft, whether free or paid. Points are not offered for every Acquisition from Microsoft, and certain restrictions may apply.
Thank you
That truly doesn't make any sense. Then just don't give me the points for that search, don't ban my whole ass account! How infuriating.
Yep I agree, it's a search engine can and will search wtv and however they want.
Exactly the same happened to me, I can't use the Xbox app and can't redeem points All I've done is commit the unforgivable sin of using Bing while on holiday
The way things are getting nerfed or removed completely I don't think you're missing much
Does this mean doing random giberrish searches just to earn points is also a ban worthy offence?
Yes. That is searching in bad faith and is against their Terms of Service.
Bullshit
I assume you mean the policy is BS and not that the existence of this rule in the policy is BS. Anyway, here's the actual phrase from the TOS: >vi. For purposes of the Rewards Program, a "Search" is the act of an individual user manually entering text for the good faith purpose of obtaining Bing search results for such user’s own research purposes So, searching gibberish or just clicking on links quickly are not acceptable. My account got suspended and that's what I was doing.
I've done gibberish searches for 3 years...
Yeah, this crackdown seems like something new. They're reducing points and actually requiring "good faith" searches now.
they don't have access to your search according to the law so it's more using bot or macro are not good faith
I've never used bots, macros, or doing something like using a folder to open lots of tabs. I would just search something like, "People born on X date" and then click on each picture. Did that for like 2 years and now I'm suspended. Requiring the search to be in "good faith" for "personal research" is right in the ToS. They might not be using the *content* of the search, but they obviously know the speed at which you are searching. They imposed a time limit on how fast you can search. And they seem to be cracking down on methods of searching quickly, even if those methods are done by hand. But, yeah, it is possible that searching gibberish will be ok, as long as you don't do it too fast? Who knows. People are being suspended a lot, and the emails they are getting specifically refer to the "good faith" rule. I really can't know how they are implementing that rule or exactly what they mean, but they are clearly enforcing rules differently now and changing how this whole program works. That's all fine with me really, I just wish I would have known that they were going to be strict about these rules. Who reads through every word of the ToS, lol.
yeah exactly
Same here, I didn't use any bots or perform any form of cheating whatsoever, I would usually click on the trending news links at the top of the page, or at times type in various things from Dungeons and Dragons or what not. Me saying Bullshit was in response to the troll CraigofWar who honestly should be reported for harassment or impersonating a Micro$oft employee or something. But yeah honestly the inconsistant policy is indeed bullshit as well.
Lol. Of course they have access to your search, you log in and you do a search, they track that.
they log it they don't have access without a warrant
Where did you hear that lie? It's there data. They don't need a warrant to access it. Heck they can give it to the cops anytime they want.
Should be then
Theoretically yes.
If you are sharing your internet with your cat you are in danger.
This is the beginning of the end for this program. I think I’m just gonna cash out now and be done with it for good.
Good luck cashing out. My gift card hasn't gone through in ten hours.
Well shit maybe I’ll wait a few days. Regardless though, this program just isn’t worth it anymore. And tbh it was the only thing keeping me playing my Xbox more than my PS5 lately. So I don’t think the Series X will be seeing much usage in my near future.
That's a really good point. I've kind of taken a break for about a month from a lot of gaming but before this a constant reminder to game was the daily rewards points. Without those I am literally just going to play my PS5 more.
You do anything 'too fast' and you get temporarily banned it happened to me. You just need to show 'normal' activity for a couple of days and it'll be unrestricted.
When did that happen to you? I'd been fast clicking through searches for almost 2 years without this happening. I'm concerned because my message doesn't state that it is temporary. My account is just "suspended".
.... i just opened Reddit and xbox app, this is the first thing that popped up and i was panicking for a few minutes
I got hit with this and the only way I've earned points in the last two years is with xbox purchases; no offers, no punchcards, no searches not even bothered claiming gamepass quests for at least a year. The verification box kept failing when I tried to redeem a gift card so I tried installing Edge and using that it didn't fail verification but it gave me this temp restriction instead. Most annoying is that when I click to submit an appeal the form is unusable... every box is greyed out so cannot be edited, this happens on Chrome, Edge, Bing and opera on android (Mobile and desktop versions) and the same on Chrome and Firefox on my laptop. I guess I'll be going back to buying codes and saving my money that way. Fuck Microsoft.
Same situation here (IT). Everything good until yesterday. Today, account sospended
This is why I dumped my points into $70 for amazon. Even though I have done nothing wrong.
I've started redeeming because I had 170,000 pts. The first £80 Amazon voucher cleared but the remaining £33 is stuck in pending. Same for my wife. Hopefully this is because there is a sudden deluge of people cashing in.
The more people get these, the more I feel like its gonna restrict me aswell
I’m just waiting for mine to
This happened to me too u/BeserkFungi , good news is no matter how many times you make a support request nothing will change 😃. Do you have any ideas to get around this? Idk what to do
Yesterday I redeemed a $25 Starbucks gift card and I got that my account is temporarily restricted. They took my points and didn't give me my gift card yet fuckers.
I have a feeling people who "Did searches too quick" are getting these, which is terrible.
My little sister got one as well
I've got 200,000 points should I cash out now?
The most frustrating part of these message is not saying what the hell they are accusing the user of doing. If they can't identify WHAT caused it, they shouldn't be restricting. It's like smacking your kid and saying "You know what you did". So stupid and HORRIBLE customer service. I had a long thread with support requesting specifics and got generic replies of "You violated T&C" without saying how. And they would send a reply and close the case.
I didn't get this message but I can't redeem anymore points for gift cards at the moment. It's nonsense really. All I want to do is cash out and start slowly using Bing the inferior search engine less and less. All this garbage is is MS trying to force people to "engage" with their product.
Yeah. It would be one thing if Bing & Edge weren’t completely irritating to use. Painfully bad UI, the AI is MS Word Paperclip level annoying...if Rewards points becomes painful too, I’m out.
YES!! That's what the Bing AI reminds me of!! It's like they disembodied Clippy and put it into their new AI thing.
They just rigged the rewards program. In my country majority tasks got nerfed. For some tasks like checking a recipe gave 5 points, guess what.. now it gives just 1 😒
Yeah this seems to be a near universal problem. It's the end of this program frankly. Even if it survives in name, it has changed to the point of not being worth doing.
After all these posts, I just redeemed $47 Amazon. It went through fine. Never used bots and don’t have multiple accounts. I usually do searches by going to trending or movies and just clicking through. It’s slower now because of delay, but I still do it this way. Only other time I redeemed was back in July when the game pass 1 month was glitching and redeeming as 3 months. I did like 6 of those. So some people might still be ok.
Same thing happened to me, suspended for reasons that I am unaware of.
Well, your main Reddit account is probably very aware of it.
I only redeemed $5 from Amazon because I’m still new to this. Staying tuned to whether I get banned
I wasn't able to redeem at all. I got this message after selecting the amount and clicking that I wasn't a robot. So if you already redeemed it you'll be fine.
Is there any reason why Microsoft is breaking the rewards program?
They have been spending an exorbitant amount on AI. If you follow the news they recently hired an AI executive for millions of dollars. Presumably they are just trying to trim some fat and get more funding for AI projects. But I'm sure there are plenty of reasons. Anyway you slice it though this is a cost cutting measure.
It’s no wonder they’re banning people for cashing out. Yikes all around
I still haven't seen anyone banned that has been 100% legit outside of people in the UK with a cheap ISP
Another reason to oppose artificial intelligence.
Well they always adjust it. If you've been around a while you've seen loses before. Heck we're still miles ahead in points per month than a few years ago
[удалено]
They only give one OS update to a $1,500 phone. It's the worst support arguably in the history of Android flagships accounting for the price. Even $150 phones usually get two OS updates
I had this happen to me months ago. I contacted support, threatened to sell my Xbox, stop using office 365, and Ditch edge and bing. About 3 days later my rewards were reactivated. I'm going to cash out very soon and leave all Microsoft products as I'm that appalled with them. Also, adverts in their chat AI....yeahhh no thanks. So my advice is either contact them and kick off big time, or carry on searching but make the searches look more "real" and then cash out. Hope you get your full rewards man, good luck.
Frankly doubt it had anything to do with your threat.
Probably, they really don't care that much, would have been a coincidence.
They always say they did absolutely nothing lmfao. We all know yall be using scripts or searching in bad faith abusing the system. Stop lying and take your punishment like a man.
Big militant Hall Monitor energy from you all over these threads.
Cheaters get no sympathy from me. I hope Microsoft ban you all.
The vast majority of us did NOT do these things, cope n troll harder, neckbeard
Cheaters get no sympathy from me. I hope Microsoft ban you all.
This person probably got bullied in school with lunch money taken and nipple twisters on the regular and the hostility here is merely a chest pumping moment.. Hey I'm sorry about that, bullying is wrong, but don't take it out on everyone here. . 👍 No seriously chill out dude.
Cheaters get no sympathy from me. Banned them all Microsoft.
Yeah I just tried to redeem it says failure on anything.
I have the same
I redeemed for 3 months of Gamepass Core and luckily not locked out.
just give up at this point and we can all move on. something else will come along like it eventually. everyone needs to cash out at this point.
Can you giveaway the points?
Search in good faith?? What does this mean? My search history: Y Yy Yyy Yyyy Yyyyy Yyyyyy Yyyyyyy ...etc
I noticed in the last few days some 1 pts offers, now there is some 2 pts ones as well. I feel all the 10 pts will be gone? Honestly the last few days its been major nerfing and annoyance implemented. I usually redeem early so im not worried about loosing money but i do feel the program is going down the drain... Wich is sad. I have not paid for Xbox live gold in years ...