Ever feel like a company's technical support phone line was set up in a way that it twists and bends your mind until you wind up letting them get away with shenanigans? After this weekend, not only am I convinced Microsoft's Xbox phone support is designed to drive a caller up the wall, but it's also nearly useless compared to the support offered elsewhere.This all started when my girlfriend wanted to play a few levels of Sonic: The Hedgehog on Xbox Live Arcade. I had purchased the game two years ago, had beaten it, and then left it to sit on my hard drive untouched. In that time away, I've replaced my console numerous times due to faulty DVD drives. No red rings of death, just dead drives, but that's another story completely. Anyway, I should have known something this simple would go horribly wrong very quickly. No sooner does she start the game that I realize it's asking me to unlock the full version. Excuse me? Did I miss something here? I already started to mumble to myself as I followed the menu options to the marketplace where it clearly says that I've "already purchased this game" and that I could download it again. I downloaded it again and still received the same annoying message. I hate you, Microsoft.
I picked up the phone and figured I'd give Microsoft's Xbox phone support a try. I should have realized it was a holiday weekend and I had no chance of getting a call center in North America. I hope Microsoft saves a lot of money driving me insane as I try to communicate with people half way around the world who have no understanding of the Xbox Live system beyond what's written in their handbook. The first representative was completely lost and forwarded me to someone else almost instantly. This second woman decided that she needed to say "thank you" after everything I said. I'd say "your welcome" and she'd say "thank you", again. I had the speakerphone on and my girlfriend was hysterical laughing as quietly as she could.
With laughter in the background, my blood pressure rising, and an excessive amount of gratitude being given, the woman on the other end did everything from getting my console ID and serial number to having me clear my cache. The last step, by the way, involves losing all the game updates I ever downloaded, so every game I play now has to be updated, again. Best of all, none of this worked. I'm starting to really hate you, Microsoft.
After 30 minutes of complete failure, my case was moved up to a supervisor and she was the most useless of them all. At least the first representative admitted she knew nothing. This wonderfully useless supervisor simply asked me to fax over a copy of my receipts for when I exchanged my Xbox 360 at Best Buy. Slight problem: I don't own a fax machine and, right now, I don't have a printer to scan with. She advised me to use my "digi cam" to snap a photo of the receipts and use FaxZero.com to send the photo over. She was about to hang up when I kindly reminded her that she needed to tell me the number to fax it to. Slight oversight on her part, huh? I send the fax and decide it's time to go out with my girl and worry about this later. I hate you even more, Microsoft, and now I'm done.
Even leaving my house, though, I wasn't going to escape the grips of this horrible support case. The supervisor actually called me back four hours later to tell me the photo wasn't clear enough and I should try again and then, without much notice, she said "that's all we can do" and hung up. At that point, I was content with simply giving up and leaving the game broken. I wasn't going to let this Sonic fiasco do to me what Sega is doing the Sonic franchise these days. You must hate me as much as I hate you, Microsoft.
Today, however, in a moment of boredom and curiosity, I hopped on over to the Xbox Live forums and found the sub forums specifically designated for the Sonic arcade game. Sure enough, there was a thread about this exact problem and a solution given right there in the thread. All I had to do was use the new (at least to me) "License Transfer" tool to give my new console rights to the game. I followed the link and in three minutes I was finally up and running. All of that insanity with the so called "professionals" and I got nowhere. Five minutes online reading content from everyday gamers and all my problems are fixed. How can this be? How could the people getting paid for this not know about the license transfer tool? My mind is still lost as I search for this answer. All I know is that, for now on, I'm skipping Microsoft's help and going straight to the people with the answers: All of you. At least you won't thank me for every sentence I speak.
"Bang On" is a regularly occurring column written by Christopher Vendemio. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Neowin.net
fast forward 18 months and i see a 12 month subscription charged to my card - i check billing.microsoft.com and find that the old xbox live account is listed but with the other persons address - my card listed as expired yet still charged for this persons renewal
I spoke to the call centre and after 30 mins of trying to communicate with the person, the tell me that the account will be cancelled and details removed - i enquired about the refund and was told sorry thats not possible - at that point i suggested she spoke to her supervisor as it was only charged a week ago and that i would be refunded as it was their fault.
I have been told that i will be refunded and that the details have been removed - as of yet all i've been told is what i wanted to hear as nothing has happened and another phone call in a week will be taking place
fast forward 18 months and i see a 12 month subscription charged to my card - i check billing.microsoft.com and find that the old xbox live account is listed but with the other persons address - my card listed as expired yet still charged for this persons renewal
I spoke to the call centre and after 30 mins of trying to communicate with the person, the tell me that the account will be cancelled and details removed - i enquired about the refund and was told sorry thats not possible - at that point i suggested she spoke to her supervisor as it was only charged a week ago and that i would be refunded as it was their fault.
I have been told that i will be refunded and that the details have been removed - as of yet all i've been told is what i wanted to hear as nothing has happened and another phone call in a week will be taking place
Tell them you have contacted your lawyer and are going to be suing them and the other party for credit card fraud. That should get them to issue the refund pretty quickly.
fast forward 18 months and i see a 12 month subscription charged to my card - i check billing.microsoft.com and find that the old xbox live account is listed but with the other persons address - my card listed as expired yet still charged for this persons renewal
I spoke to the call centre and after 30 mins of trying to communicate with the person, the tell me that the account will be cancelled and details removed - i enquired about the refund and was told sorry thats not possible - at that point i suggested she spoke to her supervisor as it was only charged a week ago and that i would be refunded as it was their fault.
I have been told that i will be refunded and that the details have been removed - as of yet all i've been told is what i wanted to hear as nothing has happened and another phone call in a week will be taking place
Tell them you have contacted your lawyer and are going to be suing them and the other party for credit card fraud. That should get them to issue the refund pretty quickly.
Better yet call the bank and get the charge reversed. That usually cuts out the annoying calls to the merchant and get stuff done a lot faster...
Visa and the other Credit Card banks have a lot easier time taking their money out of company accounts than you ever will.
-Rich-
This reminded me of something
And then?
And then?
(....)
And then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then???
And then?
And then?
(....)
And then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then???
and theeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnn?????? :p
Thank you.
Meanwhile, here is my experience with Apple support. "Hi, my keyboard does not work anymore." "Is it under warranty?" "Probably not, I bought it 2 years ago, but the keys do not work anymore." "Thats not a problem, we'll advance you a new one, and just send us back the old one in the provided shipping container." Next afternoon, I have a new keyboard.
My Mac Mini only cost me $500. (Not that I'm one to defend Apple's overpriced hardware, just setting the record straight. I'm an avid PC/Windows user, however.)
I wanted to exchange it. The first guy (american) said no problem, had another system built for me. When I would receive the new system, I would be able to mail back the original even though it was past the return date by the time the new one arrived.
Got the new system. Thankfully the buzzing didn't exist with the new one.
I called them so they could email me the return label. They had "No records" of the extension of the return. After trying to reason with someone in India for 20 minutes, she finally "found" something in my file, but wanted a tech support case number for when I called. I told her that I never gotten one as I knew what the problem was and I wanted an exchange and refused to send a brand new system in for and that the tech support agent said they did not deal with exchanges.
She was completely useless. She was saying it was my fault and that she couldn't do anything and that the buzzing was not a defect and was normal (hmmmm... then when do I have 2 machines side-by-side and one makes it, the other doesnt...)
Called back 3 more times and finally got through to someone who was willing to work with me and was able to process the exchange
It helps to think that the person on the other end of the phone is just a normal human being who wants to provide a better life for his or her family. I get annoyed by the thick accent as well but they speak better English then I speak Hindi or one of the dozens of languages spoken in India so I deal with it.
Well, nobody is hiring you to do Hindi customer service I hope.
If 90% of the job is speaking, they better speak well. Makes sense?
Thank you.
Nov 19 I updated to the Xbox 360 NXE. After a reboot I got an RROD. I jumped online and looked for a solution but nothing worked. I registered on the Xbox Live support site and arranged a collection/repair. UPS turned up the next day, took away the console and returned it four days later. Pretty good.
Monday afternoon I switched on my PS3 but it wouldn't ready any disc I put into it. Again I checked online for a solution and it looked like it was going to be another repair job. I went to the Sony website to book the repair but they don't offer an online service. After spending literally *minutes* searching their website for a UK support phone number I called them up. After waiting twenty minutes to speak to a human being, the operator asked a few short questions and decided to book it for collection and repair. Despite only being a Monday afternoon I was told that my PS3 would be collection a week on Friday - nearly two weeks away! After waiting the said two weeks, the courier finally turned up and collected the PS3. A week later it was returned repaired.
The morale of the story? Support works better when humans aren't involved.
This works great when im at a mates and we want to play an arcade games I own but he doesn't.
The licence transfer tool worked great for me, bear in mind you can only use it once a year.
Oh, honey...
Thank you.
(first was a launch, sold it for one with HDMI when it came out, sold that for the one with the 60GB drive when that came out)
Anyways, he explained everything to me in detail (guess he was on hourly). So he explains that the xbox communicates to the hard drive and checks if it is registered to that console (during the sign up process of your gamertag).
I ended up having to create a new gamertag, get the microsoft points redeem numbers 2 weeks later and enter tham to re-download all the content. That was about 2 years ago, and not sure if the samething applies today.
This ONLY happened when the console was disconnected from the internet, if it was connected, all content would work fine. Of cource I had to troubleshoot it myself, and no one in the tech support would tell me why it was happening, or confirm that the console being disconnected was the problem
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemus...censemigration/
change to en-US to en-GB if youre in the uk.
yes i know he states it in the post
lol
It was the BEST support I have ever had, and he was the BEST rep from any company I have EVER spoken to.
I hope the next xbox is more reliable, as I've had the RROD 5 times (granted it isn't as much as some people).
I also hope the 360 has a lot of life left in it. I suspect so, especially with the economy.
I had this brand new answering machine and it would play my recorded message garbled and wouldn't take messages so it was useless. Since I couldn't find the receipt I couldn't return it so I called the manufacturer and they said no problem and sent it to them at there expense. I was happy at this point because the I spoke to a local not someone off shore. I got it back and to my surprise it didn't work still -_-'
I would hate to get a rrod on a 360 send it in and find out on its return they didn't do anything
Thank you
Sonic the Hedgehog - which I'd bought previously on another Xbox 360 - after selling it, and getting a new one over a year later, got my account back, downloaded the Full version - and it still says it's a demo.
I can't be bothered going through all this rigmarole for Sonic the Hedgehog though. But it's odd that I have the exact same issue.
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