Ian wants your permission to keep the Xbox 360 Best Buy gave him by accident.

He doesn’t spell out his request in his message, but you can tell he’s struggling with a moral dilemma. The devil on his shoulder tells him that the extended warranty he bought when he purchased his destined-to-break Xbox 360 entitles him to whatever results from the process when he makes Best Buy live up to its end of the bargain. The angel says, “Be better than Best Buy.”

He writes:

Today I went and picked up a refurbished Xbox 360 Elite from my local Best Buy that they gave me as a replacement for the one I brought in a couple weeks ago which was broken. The only thing is, I had already returned the broken Xbox and received $400 in store credit for it. I had tried to get it repaired through their extended warranty program (which I know is a terrible deal for everything else, but has worked wonders for my series of Xboxes), and they couldn’t repair it. I had been eyeing the release of the Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 being released in November, so instead of simply picking up another Xbox 360 Elite, I asked if I could get store credit instead.

The retail price of an Elite was $400 at the time of purchase, and the new MW2 Xbox will also retail for $400. $400 of store credit was granted, as well as a prorated refund of the extended warranty. Basically, I milked the warranty program to get a free upgrade to a newer version of the Xbox (which I had previously done when my Pro Xbox died and I upgraded to an Elite without being charged due to price drops), but this is an entirely new quandry for me. They gave me a replacement Xbox for one I already returned to the store for store credit. I have a feeling it may be an issue with the Best Buy computer system accepting the refund and the Geek Squad system automatically giving me a replacement for an Xbox they couldn’t fix. Do you guys think I should try to give it back?

OK, time to weigh in on what you think Ian should do.

(Photo: Tengaport)

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