Phenquestions
If you notice any unknown billing charged against you by MSbill.info (Microsoft) or bill.ms.net in your monthly bank e-statement or any other payment, you can investigate it. The given post provides instructions on how to make an inquiry regarding a billing charge from Microsoft or MSbill.info.
Investigate a billing charge from Microsoft or MSbill.info
There are many instances where we notice that a charge has been declined due to insufficient funds, an expired card, or when changes are made in the billing info. So, Microsoft bills the account again after a few days. If you are sure that you have been charged unfairly, you can investigate the billing info as follows:
- Check your Order History
- Check Purchase History
- Manage Payment options.
1] Check your Order History
The stuff you buy/purchase, or subscriptions you pay for, always show up your Order History. So go to this page and sign in with your Microsoft account. If you are using more than one Microsoft account, sign in to each one to check your order history.
Compare your account with the charge in question. It's possible the unexpected charge may be for a subscription or a mistaken purchase by someone in your family. This mainly happens when you allow family members to share a device with your account. So, they may purchase something without saying so at the time. To verify this,
Go to your Family group and sign in with your Microsoft account. Find the name of the family member whose purchases you'd like to see.
Select 'More options' > 'Spending', then, for recent purchases, scroll down to 'Purchase history'.
If you would like to check more than 90 days of purchase history, ask your family member to sign in to your family group.
Next, go to 'Payment & billing' and choose 'Order history' option.
To help avoid unexpected charges from family members or others, prevent accidental or unauthorized purchases from Microsoft Store by requiring a password for any purchase. See this post for instructions in detail.
2] Managing Payment options
If you suspect that someone has acquired your payment info, contact your payment provider immediately to prevent any more charges. Also, change your payment option info in your Microsoft account. Go to 'Payment options'.
Here, remove debit or credit card information.
You can also investigate if you were charged unnecessarily by, checking whether:
- You used a credit card for the first time with Microsoft - If you have made a purchase from Microsoft with a new credit card, a small authorization hold is often placed to verify billing info. These charges are reversed, however. So, no need to worry about it.
- If you have a recurring bills for Xbox Live, Office 365, OneDrive, or Skype subscription enabled - Sometimes, you enroll yourself for a free trial subscription but fail to cancel it in time. As such, you automatically get enrolled for a paid subscription and thus, charged for it. To check if you have a subscription with recurring billing, Sign in to Services & subscriptions. Also, if you have more than one Microsoft account, sign in to each one to check your subscriptions and look for any subscriptions with recurring billing.
- Your multiple purchases are grouped into a single charge - If you make multiple purchases from Microsoft Store but span it over a few days, Microsoft bills all those purchases as one charge. To verify this, you can check your Order History.
- Your order was split into multiple shipments and billings, or shipping was delayed - Orders that include multiple items are sometimes split into different shipments and billed on 'per shipment' basis. this is especially seen with items that are pre-orders, items that are on backorder, or orders that come from different locations. So, when an item is out of stock, shipping gets delayed and so does the billing with it. You can verify this, by checking your Order history and comparing it with the statement to find out how your order might have been split as different billings. Also, check if the shipping dates are different for each item.
- You have a pre-order - Microsoft mostly does not charge pre-orders for physical items until they ship. However, your payment provider may place an authorization hold for a small amount or up to the amount of your purchase. These, however, are usually reversed before the item ships.
Hope you find the post helpful.
