Ok… first of all I wan to say that Xbox Customer Support has been wonderful, they’ve apologized many times & have even sent me free goodies for my troubles. I give them much credit for trying to get this solved… unfortunately, the service center seems to be where the failings are…
The Back Story:
On March 25th I called Xbox Support (1-800-4MY-XBOX) and scheduled a repair as a fan on my $700 toy was failing (grinding sounds). They were great, told me all i had to do was wait for a box to show up (about 2-4 business days) and them follow the instructions in the box… all shipping would be paid for & my Xbox should be back to me in 6-10 business days at the most. (Note: as Xbox Canada does not actually “repair” consoles, they just check incoming broken consoles to make sure they have not been tampered with & are indeed broken & send out new/refurbished console the next day)
On March 27th a box arrived at my house. Int eh box was a plastic bag to cover the console in & two foam supports to place it in the box securely. Also provided was a pre-measured piece of tape, a shipping label (paid) and a piece of paper instructing me to:
- remove any game discs from drive
- remove the HD unit (and instructions, including pictures show)
- remove any custom face plate
- place xbox in plastic bag
- place xbox in foam inserts
- place in box
- use tape provide to seal box
- apply provided label
- call Purolator for pickup (the paper said i was responsible for pickup charges, but Purolator said i was not)
Pretty simple. So on the 1st I followed the instructions. Purolator picked up the package from my office & I waited for a response from MS telling me my console was received (via email….).
3 days later.. no email. So I called support… Support guy told me, indeed my xbox had been received (on the 2nd) & signed for but no further information was available… Please call back in a day or two if I’ve not received an email. It just may be a delay at the support center. I was cool with that… I’m a software developer so I know all about delays & backups…
2 Days later… no email. So I call again. Support guys is very friendly, tels me this is indeed very unusual & that he’d sent a request to the Support center to update the file. Please call back in a day or two. He apologizes for my inconvenience and assures me they will do whatever they can. Good enough…
1 day later (I’m impatient now), so I call again. The support gal says no response from Service Center, she will escalate the matter to the next level. Please call back in two days…
2 days later… Call again… same story.. escalated again… call back in two days…
2 days later .. I call again (irritated)… Still no word. The support guy assigns me my own personal case worker, who will cal me within 48 hours. *groan* Ok… sure…
1 day later.. MS guy calls.. get my answering machine (does not follow instructions to call my cell phone.. minor mistake, whatever).
2 day later… MS Guy calls again, gets a hold of me.. apologizes profusely, listens to me rant about how my xbox, my $700 toy that i also paid a service contract on, is STILL missing… that the service center has for all I know, lost it. He assures me, that if anything it is just misplaced he will contact them again with the highest priority, and will call me back in 72 hours (the maximum time the service center has to reply). For my trouble he offers me one of the following for free:
- Call of Duty 3
- Kameo
- Project Gotham Racing 3
- Wireless 360 controller
I take the controller. He verifies my shipping address & says it will be in the mail shortly (great.. so I’ll have a controller, but no xbox to use it with.. awesome 
) He apologizes again & assures me I’ll hear from him in 72 hours.
I go buy an Wii & Zelda… (I need some toy to play with! come one!).
3 days (70 hours really), later, he call me back. No word. if he hasn’t heard from them by end of day.. he’ll call MS themselves (apparently the support guys, nor the service guys aren’t actually MS, just sub-contractors or something) and they’ll “get it done”. He’s out of the office until this coming Sunday.. he’ll call me then…
1 day later (today) I received this email:
“Dear Customer,
We have received your Xbox at our service center. It is our priority to process your Xbox in a timely manner and to get it back to you as good as new. We will contact you as soon as we are finished so you can get ready to get back into the game!
Thanks,
Xbox Customer Care”
Right. I guess either the service center finally “found” my xbox or MS laid the proverbial smack down.
By tomorrow (if they, the service center, don’t fuck up further) it should be shipped.
I’ll keep you updated.
I was kinda hoping they’de feel real bad for me and send me an Elite 
…
PS: Zelda kicks ass & the Wii is really cool.. more on that in another post…
PPS: Again, I want to reiterate, that both the guys at Xbox Support & my case worker have been awesome. They put up with me whining about being without my xbox for about 3 weeks, and apologized and were nice and calm and took it all with a sweet voice. I think they are great. The guys at the service Center however need a kick in the ass.. but for all I know there could have just been a big backlog, or something else… but then again.. a company run by or for MS should have better SOPs that update their people and the end user as to the status (ie: “sorry, due to an unforeseen backlog, it is taking longer than anticipated to blah blah blah…”).
