Ben says he bought a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 with a 250GB hard drive so he could transfer saves and downloaded content from his full old hard drive to a new one.

He says he spoke with a CSR named Patrick who refused to let him purchase a data transfer kit because the registration info in Microsoft’s system didn’t match what Ben told him.

Ben writes:

After giving Patrick my information he informed me that the information that he had on file did not match the information that he had on the computer. This made no sense to me because, despite purchasing the console shortly after launch, I was certain that the information was correct. I’ve never moved, I’ve never changed my phone number so this did not make sense to me at all. I explained to him that anyone else registering my console was impossible because I’ve been the only owner of it and no one else in my household uses the console.

At this point I begin to get upset. Not only could Patrick offer me no explanation as to how this could happen he continued to tell me that he was not allowed to send me the transfer kit nor could he tell me what information was incorrect. Was it a simple misspelling or a typo, I don’t know. There was no way for me to try to correct the issue because I didn’t know what was wrong other than ‘the information doesn’t match’.

So not only does my console appear to be registered to someone else, but I can’t order the Xbox 360 data transfer kit because apparently they will only send them out to users with two consoles registered in the one name. I’ve now purchased two Xbox 360s in addition to an original Xbox and own somewhere between 65-85 games. I’ve been a loyal customer and am now being told that the additional money I spent to upgrade my system was a waste because I’m not allowed to have a transfer kit.

I honestly can’t understand this policy. In contrast if I was a Sony PlayStation user not only could I easily transfer my data from one console to another I wouldn’t have to go through this process to just try to port over my data. It’s ridiculous to think that this day in age the only way I can access my own game saves, downloadable content, Xbox live Arcade titles, etc. is to use the old hard drive.

I am severely disappointed in Microsoft and in the future will have to second guess my choice as to which console company I want to get behind. I’ve now spent in excess of $500 to upgrade my console to a larger hard drive with an HDMI slot and it was all worthless.

All I ask for is what I should have been given in the first place, a data transfer kit so that I can continue using my Xbox 360 with the larger hard drive. I don’t know why that is such an issue and I would gladly pay for it especially since I’ve already spent so much money into it.

If you have any advice for Ben to transfer his data on his new hard drive, please share.

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