Broken Promises and guarantees

I have exhausted so many means of solving my issue and am contacting Microsoft in hopes of some sort of resolution.

In short, I was advised online, verbally guaranteed, and multiple times promised that my Xbox 360 console would be returned to me before I left for Japan on January 7th. When I am writing this, it is now January 5th, the past two days
I have spent in excess of 6 hours on the phone with Xbox hardware customer service representatives, supervisors and one who addressed himself as a manager, time that could have been spent with family and friends on my visit home, and it seems that it would
now be impossible to keep the timetable that was given, and reiterated to me before up until three days ago.

I am not sure if this is a case of the hardware department not notating or communicating correctly, or if someone in the service center was not doing their job, taking over a week to process a received shipment, but this is neither my fault nor concern.
I did everything I was advised to do, following all directions given.

I can see at least two ways that Microsoft can rectify the situation; paying for the shipping cost to send a console to my home in Japan, or contact the service center in Japan and have them send me a US region locked refurbished console. The former would
cost more and shipping would take longer, shipping-wise. The latter is most cost and time effective, the Texas service center already has my console and would pay the same amount of shipping if they were to do what they were supposed to anyway. Either way,
I don’t think it is fair that I, or my family, should have to be responsible for something that is not our mistake.



I would like to elaborate on the whole issue a bit more because I have gone through a lot of time and frustration up to this point.

I have been a longtime Xbox 360 customer, picking up my first console a few weeks after the initial launch in 2005. I used that console until it stopped working in the middle of 2011, at which time I bought the Xbox 360 Slim console that is in the hands
of the Texas service center as I am typing right now.

I currently live in Kyoto, Japan working on my graduate degree at Ritsumeikan University. As such, when my console stopped reading discs it was a big deal because I can not easily ship it to have it repaired. Now, if I may, I am going to start to outline
what has happened up to this point.

For reference, my Service Request Number is 1227209024.

Late November:

The console stopped reading discs which, after searching online, seems to be a common issue among the Xbox 360 Slim consoles. I troubleshoot according to steps on the Microsoft support website to no avail. I get in contact with online support and go through
further troubleshooting, which does not fix the problem. They give me the number to call for the hardware department. I then go through more troubleshooting over the phone and they recommend that I place a service request because it is still in warranty.

I explain my situation that I do not live in the US at the moment but I will be visiting friends and family from December 24th to January 7th. The representative tells me that it shouldn’t be a problem to get it fixed within that timeframe
and to call again a few weeks before my departure to process my service request and print a FedEx label for shipping.

December 14th:

I call the hardware department again to start the service request. Initially they said that the regular turn around time would be adequate going to and from New York. Because I was still worried about the timeframe I requested and paid for expedited service.

December 24th:

I land in the US and ship my console with FedEx shortly after landing. I call Xbox to make them aware that it has been shipped and to repeat my situation and that I need it returned as soon as possible. I was told not to worry and they would have it back to
me before I left. I even packed the console with Japanese newspapers to make it easily identifiable.

December 27th:

According to the FedEx tracking number the console is delivered to the service center. I call Xbox to make sure that they know this and tell them again that I don’t have much time. They say that the service center will decide to repair the device or send me
a refurbished system, either way it shouldn’t take much time.

Dec. 29th to January 3rd:

I check online and at first it shows that it will be returned Jan 2, 2014 – Jan 7, 2014. It changes to Jan 3, 2014 – Jan 7, 2014 at some point. I call a few times just to check on the progress and to make sure that it is notated that I need it returned before
January 7th, and each time I was guaranteed that I will receive it before then.

Jan. 4th 10:00am:

I receive an email from L: *** Die E-Mail-Adresse wurde aus Datenschutzgründen entfernt. *** letting me know that “we have received your console at our service center.” This was alarming to me because I know from the FedEx tracking number that my console was received
on Dec. 27th. What have they been doing for over a week??

I spend over 4 hours, throughout the day, on the phone with various representatives, most of the time on hold. I know that if it isn’t shipped that night it would be impossible for me to receive my console before I leave for Japan.

3 different supervisors send emails to the service center. The first supervisor said that he would ask about the progress and that I should call back on Monday (Jan. 6th), which makes no sense to me since that would be no help to me. The second
supervisor said he would ask to have my order expedited (even though I already paid for the service), he also asked for a contact number and said that he would call to let me know even if the response wasn’t positive (I never received a call). The third supervisor
said that there was no way for him to contact the service center directly until I mentioned that others had emailed, then he reluctantly sent an email also asking about progress.

Today (Jan. 5th):

I have spent over two hours on the phone today just to try and find out what is going on with my console. The first call, around noon, I asked for a supervisor and was told that many things had been mishandled on my account. He also stated that he was a “manager”
and that he was the most powerful person in the building, and that he could contact the service center directly. After being on hold for quite a while he said he wanted to give me a solid answer, would work on it for me, asked me for my contact number and
that he would contact me in the next one to two hours. I still haven’t heard from him.

After waiting for three hours, I called back. I was told that there was no way for me to get back in contact with the person I talked to earlier today, also that they have never heard of a way to contact the service center directly, or of a manager position.
After being very cold and unhelpful over the phone, the supervisor said that there was nothing that he could do and I just had to wait. This was the last straw and prompted me to contact you.

This is completely unacceptable, and has been one of the worst experiences with a gaming company that I have ever had. I really hope that something can be done and no more time, money, or energy needs to be expended needlessly by myself or my family.

I hope someone is able to help, no luck so far.

Sincerely,

Andrew M. Corbin

:)

 

Did not get a one month for Halo MCC

they released a broken game and I guess the free one month live is a broken promise to some players!

 

Wasn't Avatar Kinect due out today?

Its just more broken promises from MS....

 

I don't know why but it removed all paragraph breaks, which makes it a bit more difficult to read, sorry about that but please help.

 

Hey there

Welcome to the forums

.

Unfortunately the only thing you can do is complain to their supervisor and they will be able to retrieve all of the transcripts of the calls you made to Xbox support. From there they would investigate the issue further. I do know tat allot of Microsoft
was closed over Christmas in many countries which could explain why it has taken so long. I know this because we have had no Moderation staff from Microsoft on
https://forums.microsoft.com

So it has been left to us Community Moderators to handle abusive threads and comments.

.

As for the rest. There is nothing much you can do apart from submitting a complaint into the service, but the supervisor should give you the relevant contact information for that.

.

As for your post. If you use rich formatting it should be structured like you write it.

.

I hope this has helped you with your issue, sorry I can not assist you further with your issue. However it is now left with Microsoft and what they would like to do with this issue. I am only a community member

Regards,

 

I just received a call back from Hardware and they told me that I would have to call Fedex to have the destination address changed on their end. They gave me a tracking and shipper's reference number to give to Fedex. They also told me that Xbox would bear
the responsibility for the shipping charges.

Finally I thought I had the resolution I needed... until I called Fedex and they told me that the tracking number that I was given was for the Dec. 24th shipment and they gave me more information about it, such as the exact time it was received (9:33am on
Dec. 27th) and who signed for it. But they said that there was nothing further they could do with the tracking number Xbox gave me, and I would have to call Xbox back to discuss this with them further...

My frustration continues.

 

Now after calling back to Hardware, they're telling me they don't know why I was told to call Fedex and there is nothing they can do...

 

For Xbox claiming that "We take pride in creating lifelong engaged relationships with our customers by exhausting all resources in providing the utmost epic customer support."

They are epically failing.

 

What is also frustrating is that the last "supervisor" was either extremely ignorant, or just blatantly lied to me to try to end the conversation. He said that there was no way for "us" (Hardware department) to contact the service center, despite three other
supervisors sending emails to the service center, and other representatives confirming this. He also said "We can't ship it to your Japanese address because of
international regulations, just like we can't sell US region games in Japan." Shipping with the intent to sell and shipping with no plans to sell are two different things entirely. It is no different than if my
family would be sending it to me, which is the only option that he said was available to me now. So I guess the verbal guarantee of more than 10 representatives means nothing...

 

As a current graduate student studying international business and relations between countries regarding international law and trade (specifically between Japan and the US), I can guarantee that that supervisor had no idea what he meant by "international
regulations", he was just hoping that using that statement would end any further questions. Customer service taking yet another hit to quality of service because of representatives not wanting to do their jobs.

 

I apologize to the community, I'm not actually seeking an answer at this point. I'm just documenting my experience so that corporate (who has emailed me, and said that they tried to call me but has not answered three calls at the beginning middle and end
of their stated availability time) can see exactly how one of their loyal customers, who has followed directions and trusted what their company had guaranteed, has been treated.

 

I honestly don't know how you realistically expected a complete turn-around time of less than 2 weeks from Microsoft over the holidays. You do realize most major companies are shut down for like around a week this time of year don't you? My sympathy on
your console breaking but if you want an American Xbox 360 console in Japan you have to pay for importing it.

 

I honestly realistically expected a complete turn-around time of less than 2 weeks because that is what every single person I spoke with at Xbox guaranteed me up until January 4th. I was reluctant to do the whole thing because of the time crunch, but every
single time I called in every single representative I spoke with reassured me it would be done. I wouldn't have done it at all if a single representative had said anything other than "It will definitely be done and back before you leave on January 7th, don't
worry."

 

As for the American region locked Xbox in Japan thing, the service center in Japan can change the region lock of any console. I was originally going to send in my console to the Japan service center and pay the out of warranty fee, because the American warranty
doesn't cover the console when out of the States, until I was told that I shouldn't do that and send it to the US service center by both the representative that I spoke with when I called in November, and his supervisor after he asked his supervisor about
it. I wouldn't have done this if I hadn't believe what had been told me by Xbox.

 

To clarify, I never said to Xbox /angry voice/ "You have to have this done in Two weeks!!*@*#*$" /end angry voice/

I said

Me: "What should I do?"

Xbox: "If you're going to be in the US from Dec. 23rd to Jan. 7th then you should send it to us then and we'll have it back to you before you leave. Shouldn't be a problem."

Me: "Are you sure?"

Xbox: "Oh yeah, with the regular shipping it will be fine."

Me: "Okay, well I'll pay for the expedited just in case."

Xbox: "You don't need to but If you do that, then it will definitely get to you before Jan. 7th!"

Then between Dec. 27th to Jan. 3rd whenever I called in to check it was like this

Me: "I'm just calling to check to see what the progress is looking like for my console. Are you sure everything is okay?"

Xbox: "Well we are showing that the service center has received it, and my system shows that you will be receiving your console between Jan. 3rd to Jan. 7th. So don't worry it will get there!"

and then on Jan. 3rd I got a very rude representative who almost yelled at me saying, "I GUARANTEE it will get to you before Jan. 7th, OKAY SIR?!?!?!"

So yeah, I honestly expected to get my console before I left for Japan.