The Ko Home

Microsoft Support Sucks

Oh man, where to begin?  This is EXTREMELY frustrating.

So I bought a new Xbox 360 S 250GB Kinect bundle on Nov. 4th.  Cool, I got a newer slim model  with a bigger hard drive.  Score?  Not so much…

I use my transfer kit to get about 70GB of content off my old HDD onto the new 250GB drive.  I go through the whole license transfer thing on the Microsoft website and spend the next 4 hours re-downloading stuff from my download history so I can update the license files.

About 3.75 hours into it, I start getting download errors and freak out.  I power-cycle the system a few times and each time it doesn’t detect my hard drive.  I try re-seating the hard drive and it works and I figure it just failed because it was loose from shipping or something.

The hard drive issues continue for another day where it won’t detect my hard drive.  I start getting E68 and E69 errors.  Shit…

Here’s where the fun begins…

I call Xbox 360 support on Nov 6th to get the issue straightened out.  The first representative said she needed to connect me with an Xbox Live Specialist to deal with my issue (really?  Xbox Live?).  When I talk with the specialist, he has me go through several troubleshooting steps.  After an hour or so (and many E68 errors laters), he deems my hard drive defective.  He tells me that they would be sending me a box for me to pack my new Xbox in and send off for repairs.  He also said I’d receive an email about the repair and I could use my service request number to check on the status of my repair.  He also says that the repair team will try to save the data from my old drive if it’s possible.

I wait 7 business days.

I call Xbox support again on Nov 16th asking when my repair box would be arriving.  The support rep told me I’m not getting a repair box and that I needed to print out a label and supply my own box to ship out my console.  I told him that’s not what the first representative told me so he digs further into my file.  He comes back after putting me on hold and said, he was mistaken.  He said a hard drive is getting shipped out to me and should be arriving within 7-10 business days with the day I called being the 7th day.  He said I just need to ship back the hard drive after I receive my new replacement one.

I wait another 3 business days.

So I call Xbox support today.  The first representative says I was misinformed on both accounts and that I needed to print out a label and send in my hard drive before they did anything.  After he repeated this fact a couple more times, I ask to speak to a supervisor.  The supervisor then tells me that I need to PURCHASE a label and supply my own box and send in the hard drive on my own money.  And THEN, they would commence the repair process.

I ask him why everyone is telling me a different story and he says he’s sorry but this is the process I need to follow.  Understanding I’m pretty flustered at this point, he tells me he can review my phone calls and see if I was misinformed and call me tomorrow with further action.

So it’s 2 weeks since I bought a BRAND-NEW Xbox 360 and it broke and Xbox support has been doing nothing but screwing up in every way possible.  At this point, they’re just questioning if I’m telling the truth and they won’t fix my god damn broken drive.  If they just told me to send in my hard drive from the start I would have.

Microsoft, you need to get your act together.  I’ve long supported the Xbox 360 but this ordeal is really, really testing my loyalty as a customer to you.

UPDATE, Part 2:
http://thekohome.com/2010/11/21/microsoft-support-sucks-part-2