Xbox Users Baffled By 'Free Store Credit' Message

Xbox owners are more than a little confused about a new message they’ve received from Microsoft, directly through their consoles, promising them some free money.

Microsoft has a history of being pretty generous with Xbox gamers. It would seem that they’re always giving away something every month, from free Xbox Game Pass subscriptions to store credit and, on a few occasions, cold hard cash.

That’s probably why folks didn’t think twice about checking a new message on their Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles that promised users a “promo code” and “exclusive offers”, even though it seems to have led everyone on a bit of a goose chase.

As detailed in an article by Pure Xbox’s Fraser Gilbert, an ad on the Microsoft Store has popped up over the last couple of days that outright stated: "Check your chat - We've sent you some money”.

The thing is, if you click on the advertisement, nothing happens. It’ll take you to the “Offers for you” page, but there’s no sort of specific deal or free credit in sight.

If you manually take yourself to the chat function, there’s also no message there from Microsoft. They have directly messaged people with codes for free credit through the chat page in the past too, so there’s clearly something strange going on here.

Over on the r/Xbox subreddit, multiple users in a thread detailing the ad have been sharing their frustration, confirming that they too haven’t been able to claim anything from it.

“Yes I have it. Got a nice little rush of anticipation and went to my chat. Also nothing. Bit dissapointing”, commented user CrispyMongoose.

“I have the same message in the store but no messages from Xbox”, replied user DarthSynx.

However, one user decided to reach out to Microsoft support directly, and what they received in reply is truly baffling. According to the customer support representative who replied to them, the advertisement might be a phishing scam.

I’m not sure if the customer support rep is just mistaken or not, but surely there’s no way that an advertisement through the Microsoft Storefront itself could be a scam, right?

I’d hope that Microsoft rigorously vets all of the advertisements that go up on the storefront, so the idea of a phishing scam slipping through their checks just seems borderline impossible to me.

Still, for the time being, maybe it’s best to be extra precautious and not click on it entirely. Hopefully, it’s just a promotion that was sent out too soon, because the alternative is much more concerning.