This is very funny, I would definitely donate something just to see it happen.

whats with all the dead 360's? does the ps3 have the same problem? i see frozen PS3's at the stores. but i have met plenty of people with brick 360's. myself included.

I usually hate internet shenanigans. but this is incredible. I'd donate, but I wont.

Friggin brilliant!

I want this too work... I want them to drive a shipping container around. Imagine the logistics that would have to be created to support returning all of the Xboxes. It could be awesome.

~PEACE

This guy is profiting off of this, no question.

M$ has balls bro....

no other console has ever been put together so cheaply and broken so bad... and then when it breaks, what? lets be an ass about it....

if your console broke early, lucky you but if it broke after DEC7 fuck you says M$....

Nicely done. If all else it shows how badly MS has handled the 360 early systems (and people are saying the PS3 feels rushed) and that they are jerks about it.

If all I heard was this then it would be hysterical anyways. What a great way to a ship the 360's back MS.

This will probably go nowhere...Microsoft will get the kid a new XBOX360, kill the momentum, and quietly go back to selling broken XBOX360's to the rest of the world. I guess the saying, "you get what you pay for" is really applicable to the durability of the system. How can a system be on the market for over a year and still face the same malfunction? You think they would have solved the problem by now.

How about throwing your money at something that's actually worth something:

http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html

Anyone who gives money to this moron is an ass.

I'd have to strongly agree with #9.

This guy is a total douche. He gets no sympathy from me for the way he acted in the phone conversation. Anyone who puts money towards his "mission" is putting it to a worthless cause.

Another one: http://savethechildren.org/

That's the one my wife and I donate to regularly.

Do something useful with the money you plan to waste on this.

dammit i wish i thought of that. My box died while the free round trip shipping was still offered. Then the replaecement box arrived and it was dead too - and I was informed I would have to pay to ship their dead box back to them.

Complaints did no good (and I work for another support group - its great being lied to while you are reading the notes they put in your case, really :). So I was out shipping to fix their mistake.

DAMMIT i wish I had thought of this. And if MS fast tracks him a new box, i want one too (the #3 replacement they sent only works about half the time now and they say warranty is up), and the shipping i paid to fix their fugups

I hope nobody at MS sprains their pen changing the policy to set a maximum return fee they will cover.

I disagree, Blink. While Red Cross is nice (and yes, I've donated substantial sums to them in the past), we don't pay bloated prices for malfunctioning electronics, just to get ripped off even more. Sure this is a publicity stunt, but it's an anticorporate one, which I am hugely FOR.

they will return it in a new box, throw the shipping container in a lake, no question about it.

#16, this is not China ;-)

this guy must have been a total ass on the phone. when i called them my waranty had already expired and without me even bitching at the dude he backdated a new waranty for me and then my 360 got a free ride. by far the best experience i have had on the phone with a rep. thats just me i guess

"17. #16, this is not China ;-)"

oh, you are right. they will carefully pack his new 360 in the shipping container and bill gates will personally carry the container from wherever they get repaired to this guys house wearing flip-flops, a spedo, and a "who farted" hat. you are correct.

if they dont give a free replacement this should be covered under law.

An easily detected defective product must be covered under any circumstances. Since it was such a defective product Microsoft must replace all broken ones that are designed the same as the ones that are know to get the ring of death.

Next time you all get a console get it from Best Buy and get the PSP warrenty, (not playstation portable) Ive gone through 7 Xbox 360's. Bad luck I guess but fuck it as long as Laquwanda Jackson or Shamika or whoever works in customer service keeps replaceing it, Im happy.

MS knew about the problem with the caps / termination resistors. They shipped anyway. Can't say how I know but I know.

The amount of time some people have to earn douche bag points astounds me.

F**k this guy.

Don't you Americans have something like us Australians, such as a Department of Fair Trading? The gist of it is that if you buy a defective product, and the company won't exchange it or help you, you can go to the DFT and they will investigate it further. It's a pretty decent system that gets things worked out, and I can guarantee if you said to Microsoft, "Well, I'll be seeing the DFT", they will shit their guts through their nose.

It happened when I bought a Compaq laptop a few years back, and no more than 2 months into it the CPU burnt out. I took it in for replacement, it took 4 weeks and then 1 week later the screen died. I took it back, another 3 weeks, then got the laptop back only for the network card to die. Things sort of ran smoothly until the warranty ran out and then the harddrive had a massive failure - I lost all my files that I didn't back-up (thankfully I backed most of them up last time the laptop died). The strange thing is I take very good care of my things, especially that laptop, it was never dropped, moved whilst turned on or anything, and it died every other week. Calling tech-support did nothing, just got me on the phone to out-sourced barely English-speaking people and they would not replace the obvious lemon I bought for AU $2500. Cheap, crap hardware from a company I will never buy from again: Compaq.

So back to the story, if you Americans have something like the DFT, you should get them to investigate.

You know, MS can always change their return policy again..

I'm on my 4th Xbox 360 and I think this one is legitimately fine. When I called MS about getting the second one fixed, I, too was told that I would have to provide my own box. Frustrated, I ended that call without starting a repair service. I called again a couple days later and was told that MS would provide the box. I asked about the discrepancy. The fact is that by paying for the initial repair, I had also gotten a service agreement good for 18 (?) months. Under the service agreement, MS sent me an empty box. I sent in three machines and MS provided me with a box for each. It's possible that policy has changed, but when you're on the phone with a rep it's worth asking if you've got a service agreement that provides you with a box. Apparently it's not immediately obvious on their screens -- though you'd think it would be.

Here is a list of consumer protection agencies for each state. http://consumeraction.gov/state.shtml
Call them up and ask what they can do for you.

I just had a 360 repaired last week. I sent my own box in to the McKinney office in Texas (don't know if all repairs go to the same facility), and the 360 was sent back to me in a different box than the one I shipped it to them in.

This project is just a waste all around. Suck it up and pay the $8 it takes to get your $400 piece of equipment repaired. Seriously, it's an insignificant amount compared to your initial investment.

On a side note, it only took 6 days to get a replacement, and I got what looks to be a brand new 2006 box. As this was a replacement for a launch box, I really was quite impressed with their service. I even got a English-speaking American on the phone, actually residing in the US!

I hate to be a buzzkill here, but I sent my 360 in after the policy change, at my charge, in my own box, and MS sent me back a new unit in a *different* box. The supervisor pulled that second little policy out of his nethers to sate our protagonist (antagonist?) and get him off the phone.
Besides, if you send a 360 to Texas rattling around loosely in the back of a cargo container, your warranty is instantly void.

donating money to charity is a good cause guys, but come on, sometimes in life you have to let a little bit of the sense of humour enjoy the light of day.

good for him, i think this is a brilliant idea. and i'd love to see it take off.

Ergh, i hate this guy. "something isn't working, and the company are doing everything they are legally obliged to do, yet i feel i deserve stuff for free, even though the only thing i've done to earn it (and i use the term 'earn' very loosely) is be mildly inconvenienced."

I hate that mentallity. Things break, it's getting fixed. You gotta buy a box and pay for postage. Deal with it. You agreed to accept the conditions of that warranty when you bought the product. You didnt have to buy the product if you didnt like the warranty conditions.

GAH.

Sorry, i work for the abovementioned Department of Fair Trading. I hate it when people expect shit for free, or they complain when they've already accepted the terms and conditions of the warranty (by purchasing the product) without actually reading it.

I would just like to point out that at least this guy is telling us what he'll do with the money, which is more than I can say for Red Cross. To everybody who mentioned Red Cross, I'm not sure if you know where their money goes. After the World Trade Center bombing, people donated their asses off to Red Cross, and with good reason. They wanted to help the injured survivors, the families of the deceased, and the search and rescue efforts to make sure nobody else was lost under the rubble. But where did the money go? Red Cross gave the money to the U.S. government to invade Afghanistan. Those Red Cross donations didn't help those in need. The money went to revenge.

Also, after Katrina, I knew somebody who volunteered with Red Cross, and they gave him hundreds of dollars for nothing. He spent most of the time in a hotel eating expensive food, maybe helped for 5 minutes, and came home and bought a NINTENDO DS. Yes, Red Cross donations pay people to help... to help themselves to video games and food.

Fuck Red Cross.

"But where did the money go? Red Cross gave the money to the U.S. government to invade Afghanistan."

Uh, wanna provide a source for this?

This won't work. Best case scenario is Microsoft's repair depot, which is likely outsourced to a 3rd party, will simply refuse the box and send it back to him. Worst case, his Xbox doesn't get returned. And I laugh.

The kid here acted like a real jerk to the phone people. I used to work as a T2/manager for a major computer company, and jerks like him were what made the job awful. The people paid to answer the phones ONLY GET PAID TO ANSWER PHONES. They don't make the policy, and they don't receive the damaged goods, and they don't care WHAT he does. They just want him off the phone as soon as possible.

If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, donate it here: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

Plus, it's tax deductible.

If he's unhappy with the service, he should write MS exces and complain, or go buy a Wii. This guy is a moron, plain and simple.

WOW Joystiq posted a half negative comment about Microsoft. I thought after officially declaring the PS3 dead after two months of launch (funny Joystiq didn't hammer on the 360 when it wasn't available for months, or the fact that its so damn loud?!?) Well the only question is................will Joystiq post this, because the last comment I made (albeit 360 critical) was never posted..........funny I thought Joystiq was multi. Oh well I get my point out anyways. HELL even IGN is less biased than you guys. I loved your site once, when it covered all news without biased. When did you guys kiss Microsoft and Nintendos ass?

Yes, this is a great great idea! I'd donate but its too much trouble :p After reading phone conversation I think that this guys an idiot but this is still funny :)

Seriously, how old is this kid and when is he getting out of short trousers?

Fully agree with #31 - whenever you buy a product, you agree to the terms and conditions within. If you didn't like what you read, then you don't buy it.

They are offering to repair/replace the unit. All he has to do is get a box for it. Someone explain what's so difficult about this situation?

All the while, he's without an Xbox - had he just sent it in, he'd probably have it back already.

FWIW, those of you who continually have problems with consoles and other electrical goods, get an electrician to check your mains power.

@Dirk Dorkelson, dammit. I swear I've read that about the war-funding before, but now I can't find it. So, I fully retract the first half of my comment. I swear I've read it, and from a reputable source, but since I can't find it now, I'll assume it never happened.

But while looking for that, I found this other dirt on them anyway. They took way too many blood samples for 9/11, and had to destroy thousands of units of excess blood, and then used $50 million of the donations to start a new blood-freezing program so their blood donations would last longer than 42 days. Also, they had so much extra money that they just started passing it out to families in Manhattan, rich or poor, whether 9/11 affected them in any way or not. When people found out about this, all they did was fire the woman in charge at the time, Dr. Bernadine Healy, and GIVE HER A 1.5 MILLION DOLLAR SEVERANCE PAYMENT. She got paid $1.5 million to take advantage of everybody's charity. Here are links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Red_Cross#September_11_controversy
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/WTC_red-cross.htm
http://www.counterpunch.org/scaramella2.html

This guy is a complete waste of time. He's put no logic into his mission (if MS has changed a policy once, it can easily change it again to circumvent such a strange cost) and was a total douche on the phone. I'd imagine that customer service representatives have to deal with idiots like this all the time, and the fact that he expects to make money off of his jackassery even worse.

Honestly, some people have such an inflated sense of entitlement, it's scary.

When I returned my xbox the guy specifically said NOT to use my original box as it would be returned in a DIFFERENT box, which it was.

I sent my old Xbox (not 360) box back and got a lovely brown box back.

They sent mine back last week in THEIR box. I had to provide my own and put a label on it but it came back in a cardboard box designed for the 360.

Cute.

The guy should have just called back and spoke with someone else. I just sent my 360 in for its second repair last week. How did I ship it? In a box they shipped me. They even paid for the shipping.

This guy is a moron.

donate to the Darfur Charity if anything, there is a genocide going on and we refuse to acknowledge it and go on with our oil war

To all above who suggested charities, SHUT UP. People don't need you telling them what to do with their money.

Sheesh. The dude payed more for the domain name and hosting than he would have payed to just buy a freaking box!!! I mean, he payed like $300-$400 for the Xbox and he just refuses to buckle down and pay a couple of bucks for a box from USPS.

We American's live in such a great country and yet some of us just have soooo much free time and want to make a big deal out of everything just to get recognition, make a statement, be jerks, ...whatever the reason may be. It's people like this that sue McDonalds for giving them hot coffee.

This is cool. I would love to donate just to see the look on Microsoft's faces!

What the hell? Microsoft just sent me a box to ship back to them. I'll be sending it back to MS Monday. They did the same for a friend just a week earlier. This guy must be outside the U.S. or something.

Question...where are all of the reports about the PS3 breaking down? As much mud that has been slinging around concerning the PS3...SURELY there has to be some reports of massive failures of the PS3. I have seen next to nothing on this, wonder why. Maybe Sony learned it's lesson from the crappy Playstation and the equally crappy PS2. Crappy meaning the quality of the sytems durability. The PS3 does not feel cheap, it looks like a quality product.
And yes #43 pattyblades it is a shame that the Genocide going on right now with the Janjaweed death squads backed by the Sudanese Govt. and noone seems to care. The ironic thing here is the darfur region is mostly chritian...and the are being wiped out by muslims.
And I thought Dubya cared about his fellow christians...oh wait a minute, they are not white.

Funny thing. Today is January 20th. On January 19th I contacted Microsoft for a friend who's xbox was malfunctioning (probably his own fault) and Microsoft is doing what i'm familiar with. They are sending him a box through DHL. Just like they did with my original xbox. Looks like policy has already changed back.

#48 seems to also have the same deal. Something is up. Contact Microsoft again or if your outside the country...Good luck because I don't know.

FinalDelerium, I dont understand how you can defend microsoft in this case. and since when can you agree to warranty BEFORE buying a product!?

MS is shipping units that they KNOW will fail under NORMAL usage. any other company would have been brought to it's knees and shot for this.