Jon ordered 20 Xbox 360s and was happy with all of them, except for the one that came with a mis-matched power brick adapter. He called Microsoft customer service but says he was stonewalled, dealing with a rep who was either quite misinformed, lazy, lying, or some combination of the three.

He writes:

My name is Jon. I work for an anime convention and we just ordered 20 refurbished Xbox 360s. One of them was shipped with the wrong power brick (brick had three prongs, cord has two holes — every other console we received had two prongs on the brick and two holes on the cord). I thought that Microsoft’s customer support would be understanding. They were not.

The first person I talked to did not understand that I just wanted the power brick replaced, so I got on the horn with Louis, her supervisor. I explained the situation that I wanted the power brick for this one console replaced, so I and the thousands of people who come to our convention have a playable console. I told him the other nineteen consoles were fine. He told me I had to register all of the consoles. Since I did not technically own the console I told him I was not comfortable registering something I did not own. I told him it was his company’s responsibility to send out the correct materials of product they refurbish. He told me they do not refurbish consoles. I know this is a lie, as 1) I used to work for MS and know they do, and 2) I had a friend who was just laid off from refurbishing consoles at Microsoft.

He then continued to be rude and would not let me speak to his supervisor. This man continued to be unreasonable, and I eventually told him I would be informing your site and ended the call before I went off the deep end.

Is it too much to just own up to your mistakes? Anyways, I appreciate the help.

Jon gave up on Microsoft and ended up ordering the proper part online. He probably would have been better served his cause to have called customer service again another time or two, hoping for better luck with a more helpful CSR, but if his story is accurate it’s inexcusable how he was treated this way.

If you’re an Xbox 360 owner, you’ve more than likely dealt with customer service and developed your chops. If you’ve got tips on how to deal with Microsoft’s wily customer service folk, leave them in the comments.

(Photo: tom.arthur)

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