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5 months ago, I bought an Xbox 360 Slim which turned out to be defective. Unfortunately by that time, it had passed the retailer return policy so they recommended I speak to Microsoft directly since it's still under the 1 year manufacturer warranty. The retailer even offered to ship the product for me, until they realized Microsoft imposed a new policy where the customers now needs to ship the product themselves. For someone with a 9-5 job, this is not a very convenient solution.
After almost two weeks of shipping my Xbox, I received an email saying that they believed my console had been tampered with and that they would not do the repair. I promptly called the support center who told me I had to wait a week before they can escalate the ticket because they needed information on a letter being sent with the Xbox.
After a week or so I received the Xbox, and called the support center again. This time they said I had to wait 3-5 days to hear back from the repair team. Apparently, no one is able to call another employee directly, everything has to be done by sending tickets or emails. And apparently, no information was needed from the return letter, which was just a reprint of the email I received.
So on the third day I call again, and this time they finally have the report which claims that the warranty sticker on the back of the console had been removed, thus negating the warranty.
Upon inspection of the sticker, it appears ONE corner of the sticker had been slightly bent, though the rest of the sticker is clearly fine thereby indicating that the console had in fact NOT been opened or tampered. Maybe there simply wasn't enough glue on the sticker to hold it down properly?
I brought the console back to the retailer to explain the situation, but they said there was still nothing they could do because the Xbox is a "special item" and therefore no exceptions could be made. I called the support center again to explain that the sticker had not been tampered with and the retailer employee was willing to verify that claim, but there are no managers there, no person able to make exceptions, and when asked for their supervisor, no one seems to know who that person is either. Not one person was able to tell me who they worked for or refer me to a person with the authority to handle special circumstances. No one could give me a name of someone in Customer Relations, or the phone number of any other department for that matter.
Frankly, this seems like a scam. The repair team could claim any item had been tampered with and not be responsible to fix it. And as an average consumer, what proof do I have? What person would think a situation like this would occur? And with a support center with no means of verification, there's no one to hold accountable. Employees aren't allowed to give a last name or employee number, so there's no repercussions on them for the outcome of a call. The fact that I was 'disconnected' from the call multiple times when trying to reach a supervisor will go unnoticed.
All I ask is that the company honor their product and do the right thing by repairing a device that was sold as defective. In this economy, I would think companies would be more interested in creating customer loyalty than trying to get a quick buck. I will continue to post this message around various web communities, retailer websites, "watchdog" websites, and new channel websites to warn current and future customers of this scenario should they find themselves in a similar situation.
After almost two weeks of shipping my Xbox, I received an email saying that they believed my console had been tampered with and that they would not do the repair. I promptly called the support center who told me I had to wait a week before they can escalate the ticket because they needed information on a letter being sent with the Xbox.
After a week or so I received the Xbox, and called the support center again. This time they said I had to wait 3-5 days to hear back from the repair team. Apparently, no one is able to call another employee directly, everything has to be done by sending tickets or emails. And apparently, no information was needed from the return letter, which was just a reprint of the email I received.
So on the third day I call again, and this time they finally have the report which claims that the warranty sticker on the back of the console had been removed, thus negating the warranty.
Upon inspection of the sticker, it appears ONE corner of the sticker had been slightly bent, though the rest of the sticker is clearly fine thereby indicating that the console had in fact NOT been opened or tampered. Maybe there simply wasn't enough glue on the sticker to hold it down properly?
I brought the console back to the retailer to explain the situation, but they said there was still nothing they could do because the Xbox is a "special item" and therefore no exceptions could be made. I called the support center again to explain that the sticker had not been tampered with and the retailer employee was willing to verify that claim, but there are no managers there, no person able to make exceptions, and when asked for their supervisor, no one seems to know who that person is either. Not one person was able to tell me who they worked for or refer me to a person with the authority to handle special circumstances. No one could give me a name of someone in Customer Relations, or the phone number of any other department for that matter.
Frankly, this seems like a scam. The repair team could claim any item had been tampered with and not be responsible to fix it. And as an average consumer, what proof do I have? What person would think a situation like this would occur? And with a support center with no means of verification, there's no one to hold accountable. Employees aren't allowed to give a last name or employee number, so there's no repercussions on them for the outcome of a call. The fact that I was 'disconnected' from the call multiple times when trying to reach a supervisor will go unnoticed.
All I ask is that the company honor their product and do the right thing by repairing a device that was sold as defective. In this economy, I would think companies would be more interested in creating customer loyalty than trying to get a quick buck. I will continue to post this message around various web communities, retailer websites, "watchdog" websites, and new channel websites to warn current and future customers of this scenario should they find themselves in a similar situation.
