My (horrible) Experience with Xbox Support

This post may get a little long but the short version is this: do not purchase an Xbox One, and throw your warranty information out the window if you have already done so. In addition I highlighted problems of my story at the end.

I'll start with my story. 2 weeks ago I decided I needed to send in my Day 1 XB1 to be fixed because it was freezing often, slow to start up, and had become too unbearable to play. So I called support, setup an advance exchange, and happily continued to try playing at 30 minute intervals until my Xbox would freeze and I would restart it. This advance exchange costs $16.20 but I pay it thinking that I will just be happy to not have to stop gaming.

In a few days (quick, yay!) I had received a new "refurbished" console to replace my broken one. I am stoked about it so I throw Battlefield 4 in and try to start gaming. At which point I here the infamous launch day disk grinding. The disk does not read and continues to grind when I remove it from the XB1. This faulty disk drive also warped the disk so I am unsure if it is playable and it looks as if it won't be. At this point I still have a level head and just call support again to tell them. They told me I was going to be escalated to Xbox Global Escalation Support. Sounds great right? I have heard about this team, able to deal out free stuff and do things normal support can't do, so I am relieved and told I will be contacted in a few days.

A few days turned into the weekend which eventually turned into Monday which you could attribute to business days but based on the first email I have to say what the hell were they doing for 4 business days that required so much time? Anyways a week later I receive something along these lines:

My agent said that she had called me and left a voicemail which she did not because I was sitting next to my phone all day and had no voicemails. Apology, apology, apology. Then, this is key, I am advised to send my Day 1 XB1 back and complete my advance exchange. I am told to email back with a shipping number (which I do same day) and then I will be contacted within the next 7 days.

The reason sending my Day 1 XB1 back is such a big deal is because that console ACTUALLY PLAYED GAMES! The replacement console eats disks instead of playing them! So now I am stuck with a useless XB1 until I am contacted again. The "within" 7 days turned out to be 7 full days (big surprise huh?). During that 7 days time, I received a notification the my Day 1 XB1 had been received and twice I was contacted asking if it would be ok to close that case and if my issue was resolved. Each of these times I responded with "No, my issue is not resolved and I have a new case number, can you please help me fix my new issue" but after the 3rd generic "Has your issue been resolved? We are closing your case" email I gave up trying to talk with them.

So after 6 days I had grown extremely impatient and decided to call and tweet support. In both cases the support team asked for my case number and pretty much told me they couldn't do a damn thing. Apparently the base level of support, does have have a phone number for the Global Escalation Team LOL!

Finally after the full 7 days I receive a half-assed response which solved only one thing. I was being refunded my original $16.20 for the advance exchange. Now here's the kicker, the agent wanted me to set another one up! So I would once again have to pay $16.20! Are you kidding me!? It is all your mess in the first place but let's make the customer pay for it! Oh and retribution for your console warping my BF4 disk? They offered me 1 of 5 first party titles, none of which I have interest in. So let's tag on $60 for a new BF4 disk that I will have to pay. Lastly we end the message with another apology and a note that lets me know the agent won't be in until Monday.

I have been a loyal Xbox customer since the original Xbox, went through 4 Xbox 360 RRoD, and still purchased an XB1. Now instead of being rewarded for my loyalty I am faced with inconsistent responses, poor problem solving, and a "I have all the time in the world to solve your issue so please just sit tight with a broken XB1." I'm a college student who had a month to game before starting summer school and returning to my nose in a book. That month completely disappeared thanks to this issue.

Problem Highlights

1. Slow and freezing console 6 months after launch

2. $16.20 to replace a warranty issue which I think should be free regardless how you decide to fix the issue.

3. Faulty XB1 replacements are being sent to customers apparently.

4. Incredibly slow response times from Xbox Global Escalation Support

5. No communication between the Xbox Support team, which customers are easily in contact with, and the Global Escalation Support team which seems to contact and solve issues whenever they feel up to it.

6. Poor problem solving. My biggest issue is that I can't play games and there is still no plan to get me a working console. In addition I have a warped BF4 disk which they "cannot" solve for me.

And in conclusion just too much apologizing and not enough problem solving!

I had a somewhat similar issue with the original Xbox. My disk drive went bad and I sent it in for repair, which I had to pay for because it was out of warranty, and the unit they sent me back experienced the same disc drive problem within a few weeks. I lost all the saves on my hard drive in the exchange and after the second one died I just gave up and played PS2 and PC. When my Xbox 360 Red Ringed I got to keep the hard drive and the (free) replacement unit worked fine, so that was a better experience. But yeah, Microsoft needs to get their support act together, in general, and most importantly their manufacturing process needs to be better.

I have no recent experience with their customer support, but it was fine for me back with the 360. I had to send that thing in about 3 times, and I always had a replacement within two weeks and had to pay nothing. Sucks that you had such a bad experience.

On a separate note, I recently sent in my PS4(at no cost) to get repaired. It was randomly turning itself off several times a day. I got a replacement in about a week and a half, and tried to continue playing Watch Dogs, but it won't work. Everything else works fine except the Watch Dogs disc. It just keeps trying to read the disc, then spits it out and gives me some error message. I tried the disc on my cousin's PS4 and it works fine, so I called Sony again and will be sending my replacement PS4 back to them tomorrow. Hopefully, my third PS4 will be fine, right?

@metalbaofu:

Of course not. It's a PS4. The 4th one will work right.

@bigsocrates: You got a chuckle out of me with that one. Sad part is that you are probably right.

I feel for you, OP. I had similar trouble with customer service back in the RRoD days. They were very nice and polite, but kept me on the phone for 45 mins before realizing themselves they couldn't help me. Ended up just buying another 360, which is probably what they wanted all along. The Xbox forums were similarly unhelpful, when I complained about lack of Skype on Kinect, paywall for Hulu, advertising all over the place with XBL Gold, overpriced digital games and other problems - I got trolled by fanboys. The writing has been on the wall for years though, Microsoft have been abusing customer loyalty too much, they have so many easy ways they could improve their service but they don't, and the alternatives are much better now. I gave that company hundreds of dollars and they treated me way too badly to warrant sticking with them. /rant

That's some rotten bullshit, man. The few times I have dealt with their customer support were generally pretty poor experiences. About 6 years or so ago, I had my identity stolen, including somehow having my Live account hacked. Someone bought $60 worth of MS points through my account. I called up MS and explained the situation. They transferred me to different departments and ultimately gave me the run-around, saying that it could take up to like 2 weeks to "investigate" my case. In that time, my bank was infinitely more helpful, setting me up with a new account and new card immediately and without hesitation. Eventually I was contacted by MS again, only for them to tell me that they didn't find anything and therefore could not refund me the $60. Yeah...great. At the time, I was struggling with money and that was a lot to me, so the fact that I was out 60 bucks combined with the ineptness of MS's absolutely fucking worthless customer support made me pretty upset.

I stuck with them throughout last generation and gave them a lot of my money, but there are more than a few reasons why I have moved on from them.