My son wants to play Minecraft online with other people (maybe other things too, but that’s the main one for now) so needs a Live account. He’s only 8, so only going online when supervised.

So I signed him up for one – after I’d got through age restrictions on creating an e-mail account for him (I created another account for me, with his name on it) I should have realised putting down his real age would cause problems. It then said it had to be linked to and controlled by an adult Live account – fine, happy with that. So I selected mine, and next it says it needs a credit card to verify my age. WTF!

Had never put in a CC when I created my account, and not happy about needing to here, so I stopped and googled. At which point I find not only can I not do this as I actually need a CC (which I don’t own) rather than a debit card, but that if I did MS would actually put a charge on it. http://support.xbox.com/en-US/billing/xbox-live-membership/charged-create-child-account-faq

So what has anybody else done? Have you just added a CC and paid the charge? Or what I have just done and restarted and lied about his age? Which you don’t have to verify with a CC, making the whole thing totally pointless.

Makes sense otherwise a kid would just blag the adult account bit.

CC age verification is nothing to worry about. It should state that it’s for verification only and won’t just your child rack up a monster bill…

Set up an account and paid via credit card a few years ago, was a nightmare to cancel, was put on hold when called and the online method to cancel kept taking me round in circles…. cancelled the card in the end. Does not really answer your Q but if its still the same avoid giving your details. Have you tried buying the gold membership from a shop?

/\ same, don’t put cc on, can’t get it off.
I use cdkeys to buy it’s much cheaper.
http://www.cdkeys.com/xbox-live/memberships?gclid=CIaL5omM8MkCFaoIwwodj6IIIg

Don’t link cc to sons account. Mine spunked £400 on my cc on fifa points.

+ 1 for CDkeys…. V quick and easy

Check Electronic First also. I’ve used them for years, can be cheaper than cdkeys depending on the phase of the moon.

For clarification, I wasn’t trying to pay for Gold membership, just set up a free (Silver?) Live account. Like the one I already have for myself which is mostly used in order to use iPlayer. I don’t have a CC registered with my Live account (I don’t have a CC), but it’s insisting on me registering one (and according to the link will put a charge on it) to my account to prove my age in order to verify a child account.

Except the child can just blag their age when they set up the account – which would be a heck of a lot easier even if they didn’t have the stupid CC thing. Which is exactly what I did on his behalf in the end (well in case any legal people get after me, I put in my DOB and mini-aracer’s name is my second name, so strictly speaking it’s my second account).

Check Electronic First also. I’ve used them for years, can be cheaper than cdkeys depending on the phase of the moon.

Ta muchly, shall be using that!