My 360 broke in mid-November (possibly due to Gears of War/Fall update). And I got a replacement in 2 weeks, which was not that bad, or so I thought. Except it was a refurb and the dvd drive was jammed shut. So it took about 9 weeks after that, until February to get the prepaid shipping box they promised. And that was 9 weeks of me calling every day to find out it had been mysteriously canceled only to be reassuringly reissued, at that. Coincidentally, I received the box about 2-3 days after opening up a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Xbox support is crap. The first line of support is borderline retarded and are not allowed to escalate it anywhere outside there own retarded office. They should hire more people like the fluently english, seemingly competent smooth talker who so politely followed up on my BBB complaint. I should get back to him in about 6 more weeks.

I am also currently awaiting a box to send back my 360. My third time total, second time since December. While it is certainly a pain in the ass, the majority of the time customer service has been pretty good. That is in terms of these repairs. In terms of help with problems regarding accesories, or their marketplace...TERRIBLE! If you ever have a problem regarding a 360 accessory, you should wait at least two weeks post-release to call up, as nobody has any clue how to help with new products.

This users experience is not the experience everyone gets. It took two weeks for me to get a box from them, for me to send it to them, and then for them to send me a refurb. Didnt have any problems. Best customer support service that i have experienced.

Whatever happened to that one kid with the big box thing he had going on with Microsoft...did he ever find the biggest box in the world to ship his xbox in?

My roommate had the same problem waiting for Dell to ship a box to fix her laptop. She was hoping that she could send it in and get it fixed before her classes resumed in January. I think she asked for a box in late November, and they finally got the box to her after Christmas. And no, her laptop wasn't back before classes started. Of course.

I'm at 7 weeks waiting for my 360 to be returned after the 3 rings of death. As soon as I learned it was broken, I called their Support line and spoke to someone in a far-off land who had difficulty understanding and distinguishing between the letters of the English alphabet.

A week later I hadn't received the box so I called back, and found out that my address had been entered wrong - my short, fairly common street name, which I spelled and re-spelled and re-confirmed with this guy 5 times, was spelled wrong. Since Micro$oft's system couldn't confirm the street address, my order had been placed 'on hold'. Although MS had my phone #, they didn't bother to call back to re-check my address - I guess they figured I would call them back eventually.

After waiting one month with my online repair status never being updated, I kept calling back and first-level support couldn't find anything about my console. I finally got kicked up to another tier of Customer Support, this time with a southern US accent. To reach this level of customer support you need a confirmed ticket number as well as a specific 6-digit extension for the agent assigned to your case.

I would love to be able to get ahold of the direct US and Canadian call center #s (I know for a fact that Arvato in Kitchener, Ontario handles 360 calls) so that next time I can reach someone in North America who may be better empowered to help me resolve these issues more quickly. The Indian call center folks are fastidiously polite, but you can tell they have no authority to go off script whatsoever and no real insight into any problems in the repair process.

This reminded me of an I had with LG & Newegg.

On 6/1/04 I ordered an LG GSA4082B DVD burner (comprehensive order
histories come in handy). About 6 months later it stopped burning.
It had a 1 year warranty, so I called LG. They said they were fine
with replacing it, but I never got got a prepaid mailer for the drive
after several claims that they sent one. Exasperated, I called Newegg
and explained the situation. They offered to swap it out for a
replacement (the newer GSA4082B model to boot, as they were out of the
one I had). I had to pay to ship it back to them, but I was glad to
after dealing with actual competent customer service. On 1/17/05 they
sent me a new drive, and 2+ years later it's still working perfectly.

I have never dealt with another company as all-around great as Newegg.

Err, "reminded me of an interaction I had with LG & Newegg."

It takes MS a good 5 years to develop a stable OS after it's released (XP), so judging by that, 6 weeks isn't anywhere near enough time. MS lives in its own little world and it's on "Microsoft Time."

This kind of puts that excellent Nintendo Wii customer service story from a while back into perspective.

... and I was just informed by my 'Elite' CSO rep assigned to my case that because my console has been in the repair status for more than one month, my repair order has been automatically cancelled. Apparently, in Microsoftland, if they can't fix it in 30 days or less, the problem never existed.

I may have to threaten a call to the BBB (and maybe name-drop Consumerist) and see if they'll just send me a new damn console.

Got a question for everyone who had repairs on their 360s....

Were you ever told that your repairs had to be handled differently once you hit your third repair??

The rep I had (North American) freaked out, and had to put me on with a supervisor, because this was my third repair. He said it had to be "handled differently".

What is that all about?

Can I get a free game/controller out of it?

Is this guy sure he called MS? I had 2 consoles replaced. One was my fault, it was sent in on a Thursday (christmas weekend!) and I got it back the following Wednesday.

The next one died on me and it took 8 buisness days from the day I sent mine out to get a new one back...not bad if you ask me.

I understand you cant always win but what are the chances your calling and getting every single moron that works there? Are you calling during Buisness hours? After like 8pm EST you get transfered to an Indian call center which is crap.

@AlteredBeast: I think a third breakdown wins you a brand new replacement console, and not a refurb, or they send you a totally different unit because the 3x loser is borked forever. I dunno, I don't have one, but I think I read something about three repairs and they give up and ship you a new console story somewhere.