Reader Dustin lives on a military base and Microsoft keeps telling him that they can’t fulfill his warranty because UPS doesn’t ship XBOXs back and forth from military bases. According to UPS, this isn’t true. Dustin tried escalating his complaint and got some apologies, but months went by and still no box arrived for his broken XBOX 360.

Fed up, he tried giving Microsoft another address (his friend’s), but still no box has arrived. He just wants his XBOX 360 repaired before the warranty is up.

Dustin wrote to us on Jan 10:

Hello, I’m writing you in hopes that something can get done about this issue. I bought an xbox 360 around September of 07 and lately its been freezing up. So I called Xbox up to get a repair. On December 27 the repair was placed and two weeks later I never got my box. So I called up Xbox to find out why my box isn’t here after a few CSR I was told that they would not ship to a military address.

I talked to a few supervisors and was told that military bases would not allow Xbox’s to be shipped. I called UPS as thats what Xbox uses to ship out everything and they said there was no such rule and that empty boxes get brought into the base all the time. A CSR said I would get a call back on Saturday so maybe that will solve my issue. I just really want to get my Xbox repaired and not have to go through all these hopes and loops just for them to fix my stuff.
-Dustin

We passed along some advice on escalating complaints and heard no more from Dustin until the following email arrived today:

Dear Consumerist,
A few months ago I sent an email about Xbox not being able to setup a repair for an unknown reason. You sent me suggestions on how to contact the higher ups, and within a few days I was contacted by Becky from the Xbox Escalation team. She has very kind and sorry about this issue Months passed by and still no word on why my address was not working with their system. Around March I got tired and just gave them a friends address. She put in the repair and everything seemed to work. Here I am 2-3 weeks later and still no box and the tracking number they provided is not valid. I don’t know why my address isn’t working or why my box isn’t getting here but all I’m trying to do is get my Xbox fixed before my warranty is up. Any suggestions on what to do next?

Thanks
Consumerist Reader,
Dustin

Well, Dustin. It seems to us that Microsoft isn’t living up to their manufacturer’s warranty. If you purchased the XBOX with a credit or debit card, call them first. Find out if they offer extended warranty coverage or a purchase protection plan. Explain that Microsoft is essentially denying you the ability to use the manufacturer’s warranty because you live on a military base.

If your credit card can’t help you out, you might want to try small claims court. File a case against Microsoft for breach of warranty. This is a “worse case” scenario, however, because filing a small claims case (while cheap) isn’t free.

For more information about small claims court and how to prepare your case, click here.

If you’re still willing to beg Microsoft for a shipping box, you should try launching an EECB on them. For more information about how to learn to launch your own EECB, click here.

We’ve been hearing a lot of similar complaints, Dustin, so you’re not alone out there. In fact, it might be a good time for people who are having this issue to start complaining formally to their state’s attorney general. To find your state’s attorney general, click here.

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