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Reader Comments (95)

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:21PM (Unverified) said

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Looks like even the pathetic MS apologists are thinning out - the types who for some reason blame fellow gamers first, not the company. "ZOmG u ideeioT ur on ur 4th 360 - u probably keep Ur XboX in the oven on the Broil seTting @ 350 degrees wrapped in a therMul blankit whicH is th3n wraPped in a down feather snoBoarDinG JacKett" You fuckfaces are like those punks in the movies who take side with the stereotypical Evil Government Regime instead of taking up arms with the rest of the civilians.
Not that MS is an evil regime, of course. Just that you guys are probably misaligned idiots, no matter what the situation.

You naysayers need to understand that the people complaining about the Xbox problems aren't MS haters - we're people who just want our 360's to work, which is why you see so many people looking for SOLUTIONS on Xbox-centric forums, rather than trolling looking to start shit (although I don't deny that there are a few of those too).

Face it, there's a problem. I've always had my systems in open-air environments with surge protectors, laying horizontally. You assclowns who assume that any of us who have had 360 problems are noobs, need to wake the F up. I'm on my 2nd 360 after the first one kept having DRE's after the first week of use on brand new discs. Second one still has DRE's, but just less of them, so it's not too bad now.

And the others who say "stop beating a dead horse, just leave the issue alone" are probably the ones who would willingly become Uncle Jesse's Prison Bitch in the penitentiary.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:30PM (Unverified) said

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I still have my launch 360, Ive never had any problems...

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:31PM (Unverified) said

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Forza 2 killed mine, and you know what? Who cares..

the ps3 game lineup is shit and their online service while free, is way behind xbox live.

I'll swap it in for a new one and keep gaming. The game selection on the 360 is the best this generation, so giving up on them because the console is a piece of trash isn't what real gamers do.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:31PM (Unverified) said

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I wonder, if there were no ring of death, would the consoles still die?
Does the fact that it does happen mean that the consoles were expected to die?

Why Microsoft?

Why did you create a console that was expected to die?

Why did you design such a colourful medium to portray the death?

You want us to suffer don't you?

Bastards.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:41PM (Unverified) said

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@#6:

Biased. BiasED. The word you want is BAISED.

A person HAS bias. It's a noun in this sense.

A person IS biased. It's an adjective in this sense.

Cripes! How many people are going to make this mistake?

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:47PM Triforceowner said

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My 360 has gone for 6 months and is still going strong. If you get the red ring of death it is just a warning (YouTube proved that). You shut your console down and let it cool off so that you don't melt anything.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:51PM (Unverified) said

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Oh come on! 11?!? That's a little extreme don't you think? How many of us out here have had 11 fail? While I have no doubts the failure rate is TOO high for a $400 product... I still do not believe EVERY xbox 360 is prone to fail a some point in it's life. I also would blame Microsoft's engineering in the first batch of 360's before the revised Elite.

I now own an Elite after having 3 fail on me... but with talks of 65nm units this spring, better repair service (including NO MORE refurbished and new heat sinks) what else do you what Microsoft to do? Granted it was a bad design... but stop with the bitching, whining and sensationalized stories already. The majority of xbox 360 owners don't come onto these blogs and complain. So reading numerous complaints on one site would very well make one believe the failure is a ridiculous 30% or whatever other shit number you can think of. Really people. If you don't want to gamble on the hardware before future revisions, then don't buy one til then. Otherwise live with your decision in adopting new technology and Microsoft's action to fix things through their service.

Another factor in all of this that should be addressed is the refurbished consoles that got recycled into the mass population with instances of consoles not getting fixed properly before being shipped back out. That could account for a higher than normal failure rate. Be an adult and quit bitching and fabricating these stories that have been played to death. I sure Microsoft is well aware of the hardware issues by now and is working to fix them. THE END!!!

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 1:59PM (Unverified) said

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5 minutes and 22 seconds of my life that i will never get back.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:00PM (Unverified) said

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@Salt Water Taffy

Have fun gaming on your Xbox 360 during the month it is in for repair... I know I am. :(

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:21PM (Unverified) said

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I work for a video game company and also an active forum member for a private message board that is invite only to video game industry/developers. Another member posted a poll on whether their 360 broke - this includes debug kits, dev kits, and retail. After a week of votes from my industry peers this is the number that came up:

Broken Retail 360 - 65
Broken Debug 360 - 17
Broken DevKit 360 - 26
My Retail/Dev/Debug 360 never broke - 81

The numbers were intriguing since these individual votes came from people that work with 360s everyday in some form or fashion. The poll was by no means scientific but it shows you there is a problem.



Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:03PM (Unverified) said

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@56

In your case its not even 30% it’s about 300%

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 3:45PM (Unverified) said

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I am going to be on my 5th now. Where is the class action lawsuite to sign up? This really needs to be done.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:13PM cc123 said

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Saw this posted on NeoGAF

For the doubters:

"Euro Repair Company Halts 360 "3 Ring" repairs: Claims Fault is "Endemic""

Company Website:
http://www.micromartltd.co.uk/

Story:
http://www.n4g.com/xbox360/News-48129.aspx

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:24PM (Unverified) said

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Hey, guys, it's Philip Kollar, the guy who wrote the story. To the number of individuals commenting that Justin "MUST" be keeping his 360 in a spot where it overheats and then calling him an idiot... he's not an idiot. If it seems obvious to you that he should've moved it and tried more and more ventilated spots with each broken 360, trust me, it probably seemed EXTRA obvious to the guy actually having to deal with repairs.

Yes, this is an extreme case. No, it's not fake.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:24PM sand0789 said

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To some of you that believe the failure rate is near 50%, get real. That would mean one in every 2,041 people would be on their 11th console. That would mean over a thousand people on their 11th console. MS has claimed to sell or ship like 10 million systems, meaning there would be less than 4 or 5 million users if 50% were accurate, and like 4 million people bought Gears.

Also, an individual with 11 consoles is a poor indicator for justifying statistics. He may have been misusing his system.

You really need hard numbers that only MS really has to get the true values. 3-5% would be as high as their quality problems should get.

Including myself, I know 8 people with 360's. I am on my third system, but one of them quit shortly after I dropped it sorta bad, so I am willing to disregard that one. So, I'm on my second. All 7 people I know are on their first. Therefore, the failure rate is 13%.

I know a Gamestop employee that said returns were quite common on the 360 the first year, but have subsided considerably. He feels they have solved the issues they had.

The failure rate is high. But to say 50% is just stupid. It is was probably 10-20% initially and has dropped below 10% with revisions. Just wait until this holiday season and the issues will be resolved and the games will be plentiful.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:26PM Rajko said

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Your comments: I'm on #4, with probably an average of 2.5 hours on with phone supportfor each one. I don't know how this guy isn't a basket case aftergoing through it 11 times.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:36PM (Unverified) said

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I would just like to state my 360 that I have had since I won the Mountain Dew contest still works and never had a problem with. 6/8 of my friends that purchased 360s have had to replace theirs.

Posted: Jul 1st 2007 5:46PM Hardcore1 said

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When are the class action lawsuits going to start? MS is so good about siccing their pack of lawyers on everyone, it's time to start making them bleed.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:47PM (Unverified) said

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Got my 360 on launch day and it hasn't even locked up once on me (Yes, I do play with it). That all said, I know of some people who've had the red ring of death. I just know more people who haven't had any problems with it yet.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 7:59PM (Unverified) said

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360 suck. They break all the time and dont last. Ps3 dont have any problems. Sony cares about there costumers and give them a well made product. Microsoft are greedy bitches.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 2:52PM (Unverified) said

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Eleven broken 360's is rediculous. I bought a 360 around launch time that was DOA of of the box and luckily MS handled it nicely...but if it fails again, it's over. I don't see why people are putting up with faulty hardware time and time again. I really feel bad for those that are shelling out $140 to repair a flawed piece of hardware only to receive another flawed item in the mail two weeks later IF they're not running low on coffins that month. I love my 360, but this is madness! Madness, I tell you!

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 3:08PM ill trooper said

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It's proven itself to be inferior hardware. But the games are bonkers. So Microsoft has us by the balls. Again.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 3:35PM (Unverified) said

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I always thought this was true: http://xkcd.com/c202.html

Until i started reading Joystiq comments.

(And for the love of science h. science i know everyone has seen that comic)

On my 3rd xbox. They sent me a replacement two days ago that was made in July '06. Had scuff marks on it and everything. But it plays Forza. I moved my 360 from the bottom tray of my oven to the middle tray to stop it from overhating. Thinking about replacing my power cable since it has baby teeth marks on it from my 2 year old cousin. Exposed wires shouldnt be a problem since it just means more elctrons flying around (more power!). I also pee on it, apparently.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 4:14PM (Unverified) said

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Wow, so many people commenting in here have had multiple RRODs or gone through many 360s, and they still have nothing bad to say about Microsoft. Is it just a hatred of the PS3 that keeps these people sweet, or are there subliminal messages in the Dashboard sound effects? I'm still on 360 #1 (a launch model), and if it ever fails, the repair money is going towards a PS3.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 4:43PM (Unverified) said

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sony deserves it.

As for the 360 yes it has its issues but I think a lot of people especially on Joystiq are full of shit. In addition the story about the 11 broken xboxes is beyond ridiculous and obviously this guy is a dumbass.

Anyways back to DOA4. I'm loving this game so much right now...

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 8:20AM (Unverified) said

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I was just getting home from work one evening about 2 weeks ago when i was met at the back door by Maggie, my 5 year old dachshund, and she told me that we had the 3 red ring error on the 360 which i got back around xmas. Since my son had done a soft mod on the thing, my warranty was shot, so i am having to eat this one...

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 5:05PM Supino said

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this isn't good at all. I bought my 360 over a year after launch - hope they sorted the problem by then.

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 5:07PM (Unverified) said

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I'm going to ccryogenically freeze mine until bioshock comes out.

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 12:25PM (Unverified) said

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Thank you Jonnyboy - you have proven yourself to be a prime example of one of the assclowns mentioned in my earlier post.

Exhibit A, FTW

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 4:53AM mt1 said

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Its fiin embassasing, Ms should hang their head in shane not that they are.. anyway im only on my second one but a few people at work are into gaming and have they they will simply not get a 360 due to the asmount of failures, they are aware of the 360 but for all the wrong reasons..

Its frankly discusting behavior from MS they are obviously inherrent design faults in the system

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 5:18PM Boiglenoight Darkstar said

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My 360 recently died while playing Forza 2. I took it back to Best Buy because I had a Product Replacement Plan. If I hadn't have purchased it, I would've been SOL as the console was 20 days out of warranty.

Anyway, at the customer service desk they offered to swap out my hard drive. I was surprised and said "seems like you really know what you're doing. Do you guys get a lot of 360s returned?" The girl doing the exchange said "I can't even count them."

"Do you mean to say you get a lot?"

"Oh yeah."

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 5:21PM (Unverified) said

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Say what you want about the poster, but I just got the 3 rings of deaths right now. I got my console two months ago. Now I'm seriously rooting for the PS3. Stupid piece of crap, STOP BLINKING AND START WORKING!

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 5:40PM Crazy Goat said

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"That's ok, if my 360 dies and I have to send it in to get replaced, I have my Wii to keep me entertained... And I got them both for the price of a PS3 :O"

Two half-assed consoles for the price of one!

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 6:44PM Lord Minogue said

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Here is a distribution curve indicating the proportion of users on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

1: *******************************************
2: ************
3: **********
4: *******
5: ***
6: *
7:
8:
9: *
10:**
11:*

Posted: Jun 27th 2007 6:47PM Mikeo said

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@Kyle K:

Corrected:

Two half-assed consoles for the price of a quater-assed one!

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 7:22PM (Unverified) said

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So, this is how they sell consoles.

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 12:29AM GoonieGooGoo said

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While he may have a recording of 11 broken consoles....i find the whole thing dubious at best.

Could he be a person intentionally breaking his console for attention?....yes.

Could he be using the disc tray as a Cup Holder?....yes.

Could he be stupid enough to actually not get an extended warranty on a 1st revision of a brand new gadget (Iphone sheep....sooo staring at you)....or buy with a Credit Card??

Could he be stupid enough to go through 11 repairs when after the 3rd in most states he has a legal right to just get a new system??....yes

So dubious to me.......

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 12:44AM (Unverified) said

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Anyone here ever actually study statistics? It sucks to be in the middle of a probability bubble like this, but it doesn't prove anything other than that this guy's life sucks.

I have three systems. 2 purchased day 1 in 2005. The other is a new Elite. All working fine. Which proves nothing except that mine are still working.

The Internet is a great magnifier of everything -- bullshit included. Count up every story of failed Xboxes (Xboxen? Xboxs?...) and compare to the number sold. I would be amazed if you got anywhere near 1%.

Posted: Jul 2nd 2007 7:16AM (Unverified) said

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#82 (GoonieGooGoo)--

I'm not sure what getting an extended warranty (or purchasing with a credit card) has to do with any of this. Justin's story doesn't involve having to pay for replacements.

And he did request new consoles. In fact, that's mentioned VERY specifically in the article. You should probably actually read that.

Also, I see no logical reason why he'd use this to get "attention". At most this article has given him a half-second of internet fame from hardcore gaming sites. In other words: no one cares. He just wants a working 360.

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 12:56AM (Unverified) said

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lol...theres 11 million xbox 360's sold...to 3 million ps3's...its not like the ps3 isnt having problems...when you got more consoles out theres bound too be problems....anyways...#81 made me do a spittake...is it consumers or costumers..#81 confirms the fact thats there are 3 million idiots willing too buy their product and gladly bend over and take it

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 10:43AM (Unverified) said

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I know someone who is on their 7th 360 and another person who has sent his 360 back no less than 4 times & they are waiting for it to be returned from the fourth repair - I'm on my 2nd 360 already...MS do something or your fan base will evaporate!

Posted: Jun 28th 2007 11:16AM (Unverified) said

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That guys voice was putting me to sleep....

Posted: Jun 29th 2007 11:41AM (Unverified) said

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I blame us =)

not that i'm not jumping at the bit to hate on microsoft, but seriously, had people not criticized the original xbox for being so large, maybe microsoft would have shipped in a bigger case with more adequate cooling and less fan noise =)

take my ps3 for example, it's nearly 3 times as large as my 360, and the console has so many problems, not a single person has gotten around to criticizing sony for that =)

Honestly =) this all stems from microsoft trying to escape years of criticism over the first xbox...

i criticize fat girls, not fat gaming consoles. why can't you people love fat gaming consoles? :)

Posted: Jul 2nd 2007 6:37AM (Unverified) said

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Ok, I work in a major retail video game store as a manager, and I've certainly seen 360's come back, but 11 consoles? I hate to be the cynic but that recording does nothing than confirm 11 or 18 or whatever service tickets, not that he had 11 or 12 consoles. Every time you call you could get a new ticket number if you wanted to fabricate a problem.
I hate to call someone a liar and I am not doing that, but that recording does not confirm he's had 11 consoles. It just seems wildly excessive and I've never seen anything close to that in very high volume stores where we move hundreds of them.

Posted: Jul 3rd 2007 12:10PM (Unverified) said

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Wow I thought my story was bad, but this doesnt mean he went through 11 consoles, I hade multiple service ticket numbers for each xbox, heres my story...

2/15/07 Launch (or second release) 360 gets the 3 red light ring of death.

2/16/07 Call xbox support and they tell me my console is exactly 30 days outside the year warranty, and that I would have to pay for the repair. I ask to talk to a supervisor and after waiting along time I do get to one. The supervisor says they can give me 50% off the repair and give me free shipping. I told him I thought they should repair it for free, and then the supervisor ends up hanging up on me. I call back and get to a second supervisor who say he can escalate to there level 3 people and possibly get me a free repair. He informs me I will receive a call from some on within 48 hours.

2/19/07 I get a call back from Microsoft on my issue. They inform me I will have to pay. I then asked them what level of agent, I.e. L1, L2, L3. They inform me there are an L2 which is the same as the supervisor I talked to the evening before. So this is messed up that they were lying to me. So anyways I pay the $70 repair fee since they are still willing to give me 50%.

2/26/07 I received the box. Before packaging it up though I took a Sharpee and put a couple marks on my case, and they void warranty sticker to see if they actually open the case. Then I package it up and ship it back.

3/9/07 I receive my console back. I plug it in and guess what, it kept freezing and would still sporadically give the red ring o death. I look at the case, it is the same one and guess what, the marked void warranty sticker is still marked which means they didn’t even open mine up to do any kind of repair.
I then proceed to call them again. I talked to another supervisor and requested a refund since they did nothing, he kept saying he couldn’t.... anyways they send me out another box.
At this point I actually filed a case with the BBB about the horrible service I have received. And request a refund for the repair along with a new 1 year warranty.

3/12/07 the following workday day I receive a call from Helena (or something like that). She is calling in reference to my BBB case and apparently she only read half of the notes because she only referred to my request for the warranty being extended which she refused. Then she gave me the tracking number of the box they were sending me.

3/19/07 so I finally receive my shipping box and send it in AGAIN.

3/29/07 after another long wait I receive the box back, this time it looks like UPS has dropped it off a 2 story building. I open the box and the faceplate is broken and there are loose parts inside the xbox.

3/30/07 the following day Helena calls me again to make sure I received my xbox back and see if everything was ok. I explain that this one is broken due to shipping issues. She says she will send me out a new box. I then ask her if they can refund me for the repair and she says "we can look into it if the NEXT console is messed up". I then ask what assurance I have that the next one will not be messed up. She explains to me that my specific issue has been "Flagged" so it won’t happen again. She also informs me that they will give me a 1 year warranty on this next console (which I really don’t believe is going to happen since they can’t put it in writing). LOL.

4/2/07 the Following work day a get a call from Helena with the tracking number for the next return box, and then a couple days after that I receive the box, I package it up and put the loose broken parts in a zip lock bag and send it all back.

4/26/07 after waiting again I receive my xbox back AGAIN. I open it up and at this point I am hysterically laugh, after all this I lost it, I can’t even be mad over the issue. THEY SENT ME THAT SAME CONSOLE WITH THE BROKEN FACEPLATE. Minus the little plastic bag with the loose parts. Also there were still loose objects inside the xbox.

4/27/07 the following day Helena calls me again to see if I have received my console and its working. I didn’t answer her at first instead I ask her if they sent me the same console I had received previous to this. And she says yes. I then ask her what they actually did to my xbox to repair it, and she says she doesn’t have notes on that. BS. Then she asks me "why is there something wrong with it", and I explain they did nothing to repair it, except take it out of the box and put it in a new one and ship it back to me. She then informs me the MIGHT be able to get me a new console rather than a refurbished one. I told her that would be fine if they can also refund me my money for the repair since they obviously didn’t repair anything any of the times. She says she can’t do it. Then I ask if I can get Elite in exchange for this one and of course she says no. I then demand a refund since I haven’t got any kind of repair and they are wasting my time with all of this BS. So anyway she informs me that she has to send a case to their corporate office to get it approved for a new one, and this will take 48 hours. I then ask her if they can expedite the shipping which of course with their service they refuse. I also ask if they can at least send me the return box now rather than wait for the approval for the new console. And she refuses this also.

5/1/07 I receive another call from Helena two business days later. She says they have approved me for a new console, I ask again for a refund and/or expedited shipping, and of course the only thing that comes out of these monkeys mouths is the words "I'm sorry but I cant do that"(at this point I'm pretty sure I've heard that response at least 30 separate times.)

5/2/07 the next day I get a call from Helena and she gives me the tracking number of my return box. And a couple days later I receive it and ship it back.

5/15/07 yesterday I get a call from Helena and she informs me they have shipped me a new xbox and gives me a new tracking number

5/22/07 I finaly receive a working xbox after over 3 months


This is great, over 5 1/2 hours on the phone and more than 90 days later....

Mr. Moore, I love your assurance of receiving GREAT service. Thank You.


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