Reader Kevin’s XBOX 360 suffered the usual Red Ring of Death, so he sent it in to be repaired. He got back a different XBOX 360 with a different serial number. That would be no big deal, except Kevin has purchased a bunch of content through XBOX Live… content that is no longer fully functional due to Microsoft’s broken DRM.
Here’s a quick summary:
- November 2007: Kevin’s XBOX 360 is replaced, causing his content to lose full functionality. He calls Microsoft.
- Microsoft keeps Kevin on the phone for an hour trying different methods of restoring functionality to his content. Nothing works. They say they will call him back in two weeks.
- They do not call him back, so he calls them. Microsoft makes him repeat the steps he tried the first time he called. They tell him they will call him back in two weeks.
- This cycle repeats twice more before Kevin gets a call from Frank at XBOX escalations. It’s now the second week of January.
- Kevin periodically speaks to Frank. Frank has no answers for him.
- February 7, 2008: Frank tells Kevin that there’s nothing more he can do and, when Kevin asks when he can expect a resolution, Frank says “hopefully sometime in 2008.”
We suggested that Kevin escalate his complaint. He did. This resulted in another call from Frank confirming that there was nothing Microsoft can do.
Kevin writes:
I just wanted to drop you a line about my recent experience with Microsoft’s horrible customer service for their 360 consoles. First a bit of background for folks not familiar with the 360′s problems and it’s DRM system.
It’s well known that Microsoft’s 360 console has an unusually high failure rate resulting in many users suffering what has been coined the ‘Red Ring of Death’ and being forced to send in the console on warranty. While Microsoft has extended the warranty on these systems for 3-years against this problem they are refusing to fully repair the devices. While they are happy to replace the device if you are an Xbox Live Marketplace user your box will not be fully functional on return. If you have purchased any content through their Xbox Live service which sells full games, movies, tv shows and add-on content for various titles you will find that it no longer works properly on your replacement console.
When you purchase content on Xbox Live it’s linked to two things. The Xbox Live ID of the original purchaser of the content and a secret ‘code’ of some sort inside the Xbox 360 itself. You can use your content on any Xbox 360 anytime your are signed into Live using the original purchaser’s Xbox Live account. You can also use the content offline or with any profile signed into the 360 the content was originally purchased on. This is particularly good for families who have multiple gamers with separate profiles. Any content purchased on the system is available to everyone who signs into the box online or offline. Well, that is until your box red rings.
In October of 2007 my 360 experienced a hardware failure and the red ring of death. I sent it in for replacement and after waiting over a month I was shipped a new replacement console. This new replacement console has a different serial number and as a result all of my downloaded content only works now when the purchasing profile is signed into Xbox live. Additional profiles on the system can no longer access the content. I can no longer access the content when I’m not signed into Xbox Live. So any internet issues with my system or Xbox Live (which experienced serious problems for most of last month) means I can no longer use the items I have purchased. As far as I’m concerned since the functionality I had before is now crippled my console has not been repaired.
I immediately contacted Microsoft when I noticed this a day or two after I received my system back in November of 2007. They had me try a few things in the system blade and redownload one of my items. This did nothing to resolve then issue. At that time they put me through over an hour of providing them with serial numbers, reference numbers, UPS tracking numbers and all sorts of other information while they located the information about my repair. Somehow they had apparently lost it. After this frustrating episode was over they escalated me to a supervisor. He informed me this had to be reviewed and that someone would call me back in the next two weeks.
Two weeks go by, I call back. I first get a Xbox Live rep who doesn’t know what to do with my reference number from my previous call and makes me go through the whole process again of giving serial numbers and items from the previous ticket. I get escalated to a supervisor who thankfully can use my original reference number. He tells me he has nothing new to tell me and that I should expect a call back in the next two weeks.
This cycle repeats two more times until I get fed up with constantly being told ‘two more weeks!’ and I email a different contact address in Microsoft. This seems to get things moving since I’m contacted very quickly by a representative who only calls himself ‘Frank’ from “Microsoft Xbox Escalations” he assures me that he is going to follow the issue to resolution. But he has nothing to tell me at this time but promises to give me weekly updates until the issue is resolved. It is now the 2nd week of January.
The next week he calls up asking me to give him the serial number for the console so he can pass it along to whoever is working on the issue. He says he doesn’t have anything new but hopes this will help. The next week he calls up to report that he has nothing new to tell me yet. Still no ETA. This continues weekly until February 7th.
Yesterday, February 7th, Frank calls to tell me he will no longer be working on my case because there is nothing he can do. I ask if he is passing me onto someone else who will handle it and he says he is not. I ask if there is anyone I can call for status updates on my issue and he says there is not. I ask him when I can expect it to be resolved and he says I quote: “hopefully sometime in 2008.” I ask to speak to a supervisor and he refuses assuring me there is nothing that can be done. Apparently my issue is being handled by the “Live Team” but whoever this team is they do not talk to any department outside their own, they do not give ETAs. Essentially I’m being told that since my console suffered a widespread hardware failure, was serviced by Microsoft under warranty, that now I’m supposed to wait for a call back from Microsoft some day in the next year or more for the system to be fully functional again. Furthermore I have nobody I can contact or speak to regarding the status of my problem.
Let this be a warning to anyone considering making purchases on Xbox Live. Microsoft does not stand behind their product in regards to this service and failures of their own systems. They are happy to take your money and give you the run around until you simply give up and go away. This is honestly the worst customer service experience I have ever had with any company.
Intern Alex asked if he tried escalating his complaint and pointed him to some contact info that we’d posted. Kevin wrote back:
I saw that and sent an email to each of them and one to Major Nelson who runs Microsoft’s official Xbox Live blog.
As a result of those emails, Frank called me again.
He confirmed for me the following:
* That he can give me no ETA for when this issue will be resolved.
* That there is nobody I can call for status updates since the team that does ‘relicensing’ does not give updates.
* That they will only provide me with resolution when all my content is relicensed not partial.
* That there is no compensation for the fact this has taken and will likely take months more to resolve.
* That there is nothing more he can do.
* That he ‘hopes’ that it will be resolved shortly.I’m expected to accept this as the resolution and basically “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Worst Customer Service Ever.
Kevin
(Photo:Milkham)
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How hard could it be to flash the serial# back into the bios and be done w/ it? Dell has a serial # changer, Microshaft should have easy means to do this!
Even after you get it back. Drop in MS provided CD; let end user connect to XBLA account and transfer old serial to new device Bam! or a damn menu under the XBL that provides this service. done.
If MS can ban an xbox for having 12v fans by network bios polling…bla bla bla =D
Sixxtwo
So it seems that Kevin’s probably has been resolved, probably due to the publicity received here. What about the rest of us? I’m still having the same problems and MS Support continues to give me the run-around after two months. So what do we do? I have a proposition. I would like to collect a list of names and gamertags of people who are currently stuck with broken DRM because your 360 needed to be repaired. I have setup a thread on my website’s forums for this purpose.
Please take the time to add your name and gamertag to the list if you’re in the same boat as myself and many other 360 users out there.
Something needs to be done.
Link: Xbox 360 DRM Broken After Repair
@shafnitz: Where are you hearing this?
@shafnitz: Cuz I’ll love to have that on hand for when I call Tier 3 Escalation later today.
This gets even better! I just called Tier 1 to check on my licensing escalation. Yup, that got kicked up, 20-30 days for someone to CTRL+H all my XBL Contact..
..wait, one month free? No, sir, we have no records of that!
Yeah, I’m just gonna call Tier 3 when I get home. This is ridiculous.
I was an Xbox potential customer……
Think I’ll pass.
Maybe it’s just coincidence that I posted my story here last night, but once “Geoff” or Borat or whatever his name is DIDN’T call me back this morning as he promised, I called the “escalated customer service” number I got off this site, and they told me that as of 1:22 PM this afternoon, my DLC license transfer has gone through. I’m afraid I wasn’t exactly polite to the guy, as that was approximately the dozenth time I have heard that, but sure enough, he was telling the truth.
The day after I post my story on Consumerist, I get my DLC back. Yeah, I can finally play Shivering Isles without being connected to the Internet, five months after my 360 died.
Coincidence? Luck?
I was in the same boat as this. Its good to see an article that talks about this (I think this is a bigger problem then is let on).
I don’t use live a lot, if I download anything its just for playing here and there. My Xbox 360 dies in July 07. I got it back at the end of July. It was long after I realized I couldn’t play the 7 or 8 games that I had downloaded (let a lone the Call of Duty 2 maps that I had downloaded and payed for).
After a number of calls to xbox live support about erase the games, delete your gamer tag and redownload it, and then redownload the games. Well considering I’m only on a 256k dsl, it does take a while. I let the xbox rep go. This happen like twice I had to go through all the steps. Nothing ever worked. I was little surprised that they thought it would. After searching Xbox’s forums I found a guy that said I needed to get the points.
So I called again, explained all I had done. The guy was actually here in the USA and the process went much faster. He said we need to submit a claim to get your points back. He asked all the games that I paid for (some I didn’t but got free full version). He then said he had to run it buy his supervior. Then it kind of got strange, he had to test my gamertag to see if he could put the points into it. For what ever reason that didn’t work. So he said I had to create a new Gamer Tag, and a new e-mail address to go with it. I did. It still didn’t work (what ever test to put points in) he said I probably can’t do it because it never had any points in it. So I had to buy points to put it in this account. (so I bought 500 points). He said okay it should work. I’ll give you a call back in a couple of weeks and walk you through it (it then sounded like it was going to give me codes or something). I said Okay.
Over a month went buy and I never heard anything I went through the process again. I explained the whole deal to some manager this time. She didn’t know why the guy did some of those things, but this is when she told me they don’t do the points any more. I said okay so now what. She had to fill out some form so that they could switch over the S/N in there computer to allow me to download things back on my Xbox 360. I said how long is this going to take. She said well probably closer to a month, and she joked about how thats the Government. So I waited, never heard anything. This was during Sept and Oct. Finally I called again in Dec, I waited forever, got somebody and told them the story. The girl said yes I see that you have that submited. I asked for a manger, she said it would be about 30 mins. I said Okay I’ll wait. I waited about 35 mins and never got through and hung up. I have never heard anything from them!!! This is big problem!
Still complaining I see. I dont have time for this shit. I’m going over to Team X-BOX. Y’all terarted.
@unhappymatt1: Matt, do you practice or does it come naturally? The vast majority of those who are complaining about M$’s unethical business practices and incompetent customer service employees are not SONY fanboys, we’re XBox 360 fanboys. We’re just unhappy that the system we love so much (despite its shoddy construction and indifferent customer support) is plagued with these easily-preventable flaws.
Having played all three next-gen (or should it be this-gen by now) consoles, in my opinion, the 360 has by far the best library of games and also the superior controller. I love my 360, I just have some problems with the people who make it.
Look at my goddamn gamertag. If I was a Sony fanboy, would I play over 15000 achievement points’ worth of games just so I could go on a forum and pretend to be complaining about my system? That’s some deep cover right there.
@edrift101: BUT I NEED my Rock Band tunes. *whimper*
@STARSMORE
I received an e-mail from him stating that his issue had been resolved. At least it was from someone claiming to be him.
I’m not getting much response on my list, however. I was hoping more people would be willing to help.
@REDSONSUPERDAVE:I guess you personally know the people who make 360s huh? In my experience they have excellent CS. Where does all the complaining get you? Get a life. Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.
@REDSONSUPERDAVE: By the way I checked up on you. Your gamertag DOES NOT EXIST on X-Box Live. Just as I suspected, you’re BOGUS.
@REDSONSUPERDAVE: Sorry my man, my mistake. I just read your previous posting. You don’t have an internet connection. How unfortunate.
@Starsmore: Well if you find that you are playing Rock Band that much… it’s time for a wireless solution.
@DustoMan: See, I shouldn’t have to spend any more money to be able to play the songs that I already paid for. That’s my point.
@unhappymatt1: By the way I checked up on you. Your gamertag DOES NOT EXIST on X-Box Live. Just as I suspected, you’re BOGUS.
You’re telling me that the gamertag “AtmaDave” doesn’t exist on Live? Check again. Jeez, try googling it or something. If I don’t exist, how do I have a service record at Bungie.net?
yeah… live is SOOOOOOOOOOOO superior to PSN that they couldn’t even manage something as basic as PSN’s download policy. UNlimited downloads on up to 5 units. And with a 30% failure rate of the 360 that’s pretty generous.
This is a bunch of BS FUD. Content is only connected to the gamertag, not the box. And for a RROD you don’t have to talk to anyone on the phone for any amount of time, you take 2 minutes to fill out a form online and they send you a box to send it back in, you get the new one in 2 weeks. I just did it a month ago. Snap on the hard drive from the old one and it’s just like new, all at no cost.
considering the ammount of people that have reported otherwise for the last 2 years, I’m gonna have to say no. This isn’t BS it’s a clear sign of bad customer service and a complete disregard to their most vocal supporters.
The only thing that puzzles me is why and how so many burned by Microsoft and their shoddy design and production keep coming back for more. Many of you paying out of pocket for multiple boxes. And people complain of the PS3 being too expensive… at least you only need to buy one of them.
If my PS3 broke due to a widely known and publicised design flaw and they refused to fix it or made me go through the run around for months on end til I got a properly running refurbished model only to force me to buy a new box. I wouldn’t. End of story, I’d take my business somewhere else.
So someone please tell me why in a rational manner, not in fanboi speak, why is it those of you who have had to buy multiple 360s to get over and around the inherent design flaws keep coming back for more? And in the same vein, can I have some money? I’ll send you a plastic box that may or may not allow you to plkay games on it. You’ll have about a 66% chance it will work out for you.
@theprof00:
THE CAKE IS A LIE!
Okay, I don’t know if anyone has brought this into the mix, so here goes.
There are two ways to purchase games.
1: Via the XBL console
2: Via the “Buy It” nag/prompt within the game itself.
That said, my offline gaming experience has been: if I’ve purchased a game via the XBL console I can play it sans internet connection. If I’ve purchased the content via the “Buy It” nag/prompt inside the game, I’m S.O.L without the a network connection.
So it seems like the purchasing should ONLY be done via the XBL console.
@wallapuctus: It seems to me then that giving points to redownload isn’t an option if you have to change your gamertag to do so. You should not have to lose your content or your achievements due to M$’s incompetence.
As was said earlier, call the BBB, the United States Atorney General, and a lawyer… please, stop this stuff from happening, press charges.
Exact same problem, originally got my 360 RROD unit replaced in January, called maybe mid-Jan on the DRM problems..was told to wait 30 days, called back, they say 30 days (somehow they’d lost my info or some such)…this is really funny, the guy actually said “don’t worry it’ll be done on April 5th or I will be fired!”…guess I should’ve asked for his pink slip after my hour on hold with the next brick in the customer service firewall today?