I hired a couple of Xbox games today, Mass Effect and Lego Star Wars, but that’s not important.
I have been starting to have more and more trouble with tthe xbox not reading perfectly clean game discs, running slow and the like.
I put in a shiny new disc… “To play this disc, put it into an xbox 360 console”.
Hmm.
I have seen it before, usually when the xbox was hot. Not so this time. I look online for solutions. One suggests disconnecting the hard drive.
Same issue.
Another gives the button code to wipe out the cache.
Same issue.
I bite the bullet and decide to call Micrsoft Xbox Support.
By the name I just dropped, and the fact that I blogged it, you can guess what happened. Well, most of it anyway. Here we go.
Tech support answers exceedingly quickly. Good start. I identify myself and my console, and relate the problem. She calls up the script to solve my problem. I save a good hour by telling her the troubleshooting options already on her list and that I’ve done them. She checks to see if my warranty is valid for a repair.
NOTE: This is not verbatim, but the gist is there.
CS: Sorry you are out of warranty
M: I bought it less than a year ago. Xmas eve last year in fact.
CS: My system says you are out of warranty. I will double check.
{hold} (Music is, thankfully, from Halo)
CS: My system is showing a warranty date of 01/01/1900. This means your console had been tagged as modified, and is therefore out of warranty. We can’t help you.
M: …. you… I …. what?
CS:Your system is tagged as modified, and is therefore out of warranty.
M:Um, no, it isn’t. I bought it, from a retailer, 11 months ago, and it’s broken now.
CS:OK, you are saying it is not modified, you can send it to us, for a fee of $132, and if we find it is not modified, we will refund the money and fix it. If we find it is modified, we will send it back to you, unrepaired, and refund you
M:I don’t think so.
CS:Pardon?
M:I’m telling you it isn’t modified, and I have to *pay you* to prove my innocence?
CS:You must pay for the shipping because it is out of warranty.
M:But if it’s modified and flagged, why can I still log on to xbox live?
CS:… {hold} … Sometimes our update is ahead of the XBL update, so you may still log in, but not for long.
M:Right. What modification was made?
CS:We cannot reveal that information.
M:You can’t tell me what mod I supposedly made to get my system banned? Who can?
CS:We can’t give out that information.
M:You can’t tell me who I can talk to to find out why, how and when my system was flagged as modified and banned?
CS:No.
M:Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous. The first I know of any banning or claims of modification is when I call you for tech support. When was I banned?
CS:This is a recent update, so I…
M:When was it updated?
CS:November 30.
M:How often does it update? Monthly? Weekly?
CS:It is weekly, yes.
M:So sometime in the last week, I modded my system, then called for a warranty repair. Does that sound stupid to you?
CS:I can’t comment on that. Would you like me to charge the fee and organise the shipping? Or would you like to think about it?
M:I’ll think about it.
CS:Can I help you with anything else?
M:I doubt it. Goodbye.
I’ll say here that she very much stuck to the script, and that I was quite irate. She consulted her supervisor a couple of times, but stuck to the script. I then decided I’d call “XBL support” instead of “Hardware support” and see if they knew about the ban. Turns out, yup, same call centre, same screens.
Again, not verbatim.
I explain what Ihave already gone through, have many of the same conversations. Eventually he puts me trhough to his supervisor.
Supervisor: I see what has happened already, but unfortunately this is procedure. We must charge you for the shipping, but will happily refund if your console has not been modified.
Me: It hasn’t.
S: We must make this offer on one of two conditions. 1. The console has been modified previous to the current owner without their knowledge or 2. The console was part of a batch sold by retailers already flagged as modified. Since your system is almost a year old, it’s definitely not 2., so we must assume 1., and charge for the shipping.
M: So, because Microsoft assumes I’ve done the wrong thing, I have to fork out $132.
S: Unfortunately, yes.
M: Tell me this, if a customer suddenly gets a message saying “You are banned” and calls you to dispute it, what must they do to prove it?
S: The system goes to service.
M: And how does it get there?
S: They pay $132 and…
M: Right. How about this. There is a seal under the faceplate, right?
S: Yes…
M: I’ll take a picture of that, showing that the seal is unbroken. Can you then waive the fee since it’s still under warranty?
S: People have asked that before, and there is the possibility that…
M: That I take a picture of someone else’s console, and send you my, alledgedly modified one? How stupid is that?
S: It has happened.
M:… what?
S: Oh yes. But we will try it. Here is the email address. If you can find your receipt, a copy of that would be handy too
So I take a picture, luckily there is a sticker half in-half out of the damn-difficult-to-remove casing with the serial number on it, right next to the shiny sticker that seals the xbox case. I also found the receipt and scanned it.
So to sum up.
1. I need a warranty repair.
2. My console is out of warranty because it’s tagged as modified.
3. Nobody can tell me when, why, how or the nature of the modification.
4. I must pay $132 to prove my innocence. (I don’t have $132 to put down on this, by the way.)
5. If I’m veeeery lucky, photographic evidence of an untampered seal and a copy of the sales receipt will get me out of the charge.
6. MY XBOX IS STILL BROKEN.
I was playing Mass Effect at the time too. Damn that’s a pretty game.
