Reader Ben was sad. His Xbox was doing the ol’ Red Ring of Death. He thought that was quits for his trusted gaming companion but then he started doing some research on Consumerist. Perusing our archives, he realized from some of our old posts that included in the price of the repair to the machine he had done not too long ago was a one-year warranty extension. Huzzah! Here’s what he did next:

Ben writes:

I checked my email and sure enough, I was able to find the repair ticket for my xbox, which would expire next month. I browsed your website for tips and armed with these I went to the Xbox support line.

Everything went a lot better than I expected. While I had to do a little bit of work for the person I was on the line with to look for the refurbished warranty as opposed to the 3 year system warranty I bought with my system (that I knew had expired), everything else was a breeze…

…A big thanks goes out to my particular customer service representative for being accommodating, and to the consumerist as well for giving me the resources and confidence to stand up and be assertive: if I hadn’t pressed for the agent to look up the warranty I you had told me about, I would be out the price of a new Xbox, or perhaps a PS3.

Nice. That’s right, if you paid for a repair to your Xbox, as many owners have had to do with the cursed and flawed machine, you got a free 1-year warranty extension. If your Xbox breaks again after that within the next year you are good for a free repair. Just remember to tell the customer service rep to look up your refurbished warranty rather than the original warranty.

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