My Nightmare with Xbox Support

For the public record, here is a series of posts I put on my personal blog about my nightmare with Xbox support. My first two service requests went smoothly. The death of my 3rd and 4th 360 were the start of this nightmare.

November 14, 2006
I rushed out at 3am on Nov 22, 2005 to be one of the first to buy and play 360. That unit died in Feb of 2006. 1 week later I was back up and running, and I purchased the 2 year service contract.
A few months later my 1st replacement died, 3 red lights again. Another week of downtime and I'm on my 3rd unit.
That one died in October. Same 3 red lights of death. Ok, fine.. replacement initiated, and received on Oct 31st.
On that same day, Xbox/Microsoft sent down a highly anticipated 'Fall Update'. A firmware update that is required to log into the Live service. I was looking forward to this, and playing my new Splinter Cell DA game so I went home at lunch, fired up the new box, did the initial set up... logged into live, was told to download the update and the machine would restart... W00t!
Machine downloads, installs, restarts... Startup animation begins then BOOM ! 1 Red light, black screen, Error E71.
I went through all the tests to get it back up. No good. It's a brick. 10 Minutes after opening it up. NICE.
I call MS support looking for a quick and hopefully FINAL fix. The supervisor thought I should get a fully new unit so she says she'll request it and get back to me.
Two weeks of waiting for a call back, all the while I'm calling in trying to get an update to no avail. Finally on Nov 13 I call and get a supervisor who says that there's no point waiting as he didn't think I'd ever get a 'new' unit. So we initiate the regular return process. Something that if we had done on the 31st, I would have had my new unit by the time the biggest game of the year shipped (Gears of War).
So here I am, Nov 14, 2 weeks exactly from the day my 4th unit died, 3 weeks from the time I last had a working unit, and I'm told my replacement request I made yesterday has still not been acknowledged by the repair center.
So I'm to WAIT AGAIN and call back tomorrow to see if they've started the process.
Having done this a few times, I've always had pretty speedy service. I call and get the box the next business day. That goes out to the repair center and arrives there overnight. They take a few days to process and ship out the replacement overnight again. All told this usually takes 6-7 calendar days.
So far, not so good.
What ever happened to the meaning of CUSTOMER SERVICE. There is very little regard for the customer here. And very poor service in my opinion.
I think Microsoft should change their service contract offering to be next day advanced shipment of a new box. That shipment would contain a return box that you send your defective 'home' in. That way you're up and running in a few days.
Sure, it'd cost a bit more, but they can charge more than the measly C$60.00 they charge now. For security, a user's credit card number can be obtained to ensure they get a defective back if they're worried about fraud.
Having done this so many times, I expect EXTRA care, not the same old it'll come when it comes routine.
My next 360 better work for a LONG time.
A little something for my troubles would be more than welcome. How about that fancy new Wireless Headset? :)

Later that day

Update to my 360 saga

It's Tuesday the 14th. I called first thing this morning to see why my box hadn't arrived. The rep told me the service order "hadn't been accepted yet" by the repair center. IE it can take a bit of time.

That didn't sit well with me so I called again at 12:30. I got another rep who told me I was mis-informed. I wasn't going to get a box and I was to ship this defective to the repair center on my own dime.
"I SAYS PARDON!" Ya, I snapped, I lost it... "The Champ Style".

I told him no, this isn't what's going to happen, please put me through to a supervisor.

10 or 12 minutes later the same guy comes on, apologises, says I should get a box, but it wasn't done correctly yesterday but it's now fixed. I should expect the 'return shipping box' in a few days.

OMFG how difficult is this people?!?!?!?

My talk with the supervisor yesterday lead me to believe he knew his stuff. He talked about how I may have problems with my service contract because of all the exchanges, but a quick call into support when I get this next replacement (Xbox 360 #5 for the record) should straighten out my contract.

Yet today, no box, he did the service request wrong and presumably didn't click "SEND BOX"

I'm going to go postal. I want my system by this weekend. This latest screw up is not helping...

November 15, 2006

XBOX 360 Repair Depot is backed up, no box for me

I can easily speculate that the Royal Clusterfuck that is otherwise known as the 360 Fall Update is a major problem for Xbox support. As you can see from below, I created a repair request on Monday after two weeks of waiting for another option.

That repair request was done wrong at first, and fixed so they were supposed to send me out a free return shipping box for my dead 360 overnight. I should have it today.

I don't.

Why? Well, they're "a little behind". They haven't even picked up my service ticket yet because they have so many f'ing 360's coming in right now.

I've been through this 3 times before. You call support, you get a box within one business day. Its' pretty efficient. Well, not this time.

Talking to another supervisor (I'm going to send Microsoft a bill for all my time on their support line) today I was given the option of sending it in on my own dime, or waiting for them to get around to shipping me an empty box.

OMFG! This is just WRONG people.

Any suggestions out there? WTF should/CAN I do???

Later that day

No 360? I don't give a sheite anymore

I give up. I'm sure they'll get me a new system sometime. When? I don't care. I've had to call multiple times over the last 3 days to be told something different every time.
The latest reason that I don't have a return box yet is that the Monday Nov 13 repair request got stuck in their system. So this latest supervisor has canceled that request and initiated a new one. She promised to watch it until it shows that a return box has shipped out.
And for my troubles, I could choose to receive either PGR3 or Kameo as compensation. Great. Choose between two budget priced games I finished a year ago. (I took Kameo since I don't own it :)
Ya, a $29 game I finished already makes up for the 10's of hours I've spent on the phone with these people, and the 5+ weeks I've been down all told.


Maybe this will work, and I'll see a box tomorrow. Maybe it wont. Don't care.

November 16, 2006

Still no box

This is a good one. It's Thursday morning. I asked for a return on Monday. One that should have been initiated when I first called 16 days ago.

I got my crappy compensation, a copy of Kameo.

Did I get a box? No.
So, of course I called into 1-800-4MY-XBOX just for fun. Got Debbie. She was very cheery. She cheerily told me that there is no update and it can take up to 7 days to get a return shipping box.
I explained that I live close to the depot and it should arrive overnight once they send it out. I've been trying to get them to send it out all week. It should be here. My game that was sent out from the same depot arrived this morning. Why no box?
"Check back Monday to see if they have an update". Thank you very much Debbie.

Good thing I don't give a flying f**k anymore

Later

Beating my head against the wall is more fun that Xbox Support

Ok, because I'm a glutton for punishment. I called back. I decided I want to return this by hand (or courier). I tried to do this yesterday, but was convinced that I'd get a box today so I decided to follow their suggestion. Well, no box came as you know.
So I called at 10:53. After 10 minutes of the typical figuring out stuff with the guy who answered, he blind transferred me into the queue for the supervisor. I think he screwed it up 'cause I waited 'till 11:10 and all I heard during that time was dead air. (Normally they have ads and muzak)
So I did some more work and tried again at 11:27. !0 minutes more of the standard crap they put you through (these are exact figures) I was put into the queue for a supervisor (only a supervisor can do ANYTHING so the few they have are VERY backlogged).
It's 11:51 and I'm still waiting... Gotta go to lunch and learn soon...

In the interim I emailed the customer service email at the depot MS uses for Xbox returns in Canada. I asked them what I can do since XB support is not helping. They said I have to contact 1-800-4my-xbox :)

What are the chances that I will be able to do a drop off ? I'm also going to ask that I do a drop off AND pick up of a replacement unit. Think that'll happen? No I don't either, but I'm going to ask :)

Later again

No Joy

After 40 minutes on hold, I got supervisor Joy.
I asked to do a drop off I asked to do a drop off and pick up.
She said that a box is coming. It can take up to 5 days. It hasn't been 5 days.
I have to follow the procedure, if I decide to go outside of the procedure, my Xbox will likely be lost and I'll delay the process.
NICE.
Back to not caring. I have work to do, I'm done with this.

Friday November 17, 2006

Friday - No Box, but loaner!

Friday comes around...still no box. What? Is there a worldwide cardboard shortage Microsoft??

My dear nephew was kind enough to loan me his core system (which i can use with my HDD). He said he saw a 3 red light error this morning... Geezus... so who knows how long this system will work. But it's a wonderful gift to have one to use for a while.