Xbox 360 Repair Sucks Ass.

My beloved Xbox 360 died this week.

It froze up while listening to a music CD, with funky graphics artifacts all over the screen. I figured, oh a reboot will fix it.

So I rebooted.

Next it froze up again while playing Blue Dragon early one morning. Same symptoms. Then I tried playing another music CD later that evening... froze again. Then it would freeze sometimes while booting.

Today my son was stoked to watch a copy of Goosebumps we bought last night at Target. Halloween is on it's way.

Froze up.

I called Xbox repair and, unlike the last time I called them several months ago, a foreigner girl answered the line. She proceeded to ask me all my personal info. I casually asked "Where are you?" to which she replied "I cannot tell you that, Microsoft won't allow us to disclose that information". So, umm, how do I know this girl isn't in China and going to sell all my personal info when we get off the phone.

She thought it was funny the whole thing, you could tell.

"Sorry, I can't give you that information" I told her. It seemed we were at an impasse, so I asked to speak with a manager there. At first she tried to deflect my request, but then she relented and another foreigner by the name of "Drew" came on the line. He said he was a supervisor.

Drew gave the same hat and dance routine, that he wasn't allowed to tell what country he is in. He tried to convince me to proceed with giving my personal ID type stuff by saying what does it matter which country he is in, they are all Microsoft employees any way.

I disagreed.

He kept insisting he was a Microsoft employee until I told him I was recording the conversation to send into Microsoft along with my complaint. Then his story changed and he started using phraseology such as "We are under Microsoft's policy" and "We are part of Microsoft's Xbox support team". I pointed out that I bet Microsoft isn't on his paycheck, and he admitted he wasn't a Microsoft employee.

So we said our goodbyes.

He refused to have an American person call me back. He refused to tell me what country he was operating out of. He threw his hands up in the air over everything. Every other word was "can't". I hate that word. Usually it is misused in place of "won't".

So I go to the Xbox website and enter an e-mail complaint. I received a reply from someone ostensibly named Melissa. I say ostensibly because it's very possible she was in the Phillippines or wherever too, since they always call themselves by some fake common American name. As if.

Anyway, Melissa says in this e-mail to "please accept our apologies for the unsatisfactory resolution" and then goes on to say that "unfortunately, our support team will not be able to assist you further through email" and that I should call support. I was e-mailing to report my unhappiness with calling support, and she said to call support.

Am I the only one who sees the madness in that?

So I called back support. First some other foreigner guy answers, and I can tell he's reading the notes with some sort of conviction. He asks me to kindly verify all my personal info. Fuck it, I just want my Xbox fixed at this point-- so I oblige. I didn't complain or bring up any of the issues I have with this, just kindly oblige. The moment I verify the last piece of personal info, the motherfucker hangs up on me.

So, I call back.

I call back and get another foreign dude named "Paul" (cough). Paul is at least kind enough though to see me through the whole order to get the Xbox replaced. He seems competent. The only weird thing was that he said I had to have my own box to send my Xbox in and that the shipping label would arrive by e-mail within 48 hours.

I swear, if the address to ship this thing is some foreign country I'm just going to buy a PS3.

Fuck this shit.

-Ox.