Man returns gutted Xbox 360 for cash

Oh WTF, I'll admit it. I did this once with a canon Powershot S200 from Circuit City. Mine was dead. My wife wanted one just like it. I bought a S230, took out the guts, put them in the S200 body, returned the "broken" S230 (which was really my old S200) for exchange, and we both still have the cameras.

I know, I'm going to hell.

not a games console , but one of the branches of my work got a £800 quid pc back fualty and the sales assitant didn't check it , got back to head office and found the tower had all the internals stripped out and two house bricks put in it to make up the weight, the person got a full refund and a free gaming rig . lol

this is exactly why retailers always think customers are trying to pull a fast one on them.

This obviously wasn't at a Gamestop at all, they actually do not take back opened new systems what so ever. It's the only policy on their list that they do not give any slack to for employees.

The clerk doesn't even have to check the system, if they can get the system out of the box, right there, they aren't going to return it.

Honestly, it's a great policy.

This would work at most stores, especially this time of year, or even better, the day after christmas. First of all, systems are so easy to repackage and pass as new it's not even funny. They aren't like games where they are shrink wrapped. If you go to a store like wal-mart or target where the employees don't know any better than to just open the serial # flap, scan the barcode and throw it into the return bin, this would probably go unnoticed all the way back to Microsoft. By then, it would be nearly impossible to track it.

However, stores are getting smarter at this. There is now a massive serial # registry that keeps track of which systems were purchased at an exact location, at an exact time. I know gamestop now uses it, in conjunction with stores like Best Buy and Circuit City and other big box retailers. I receipt is no longer needed to check if a system was sold by your store. All you have to do is scan the serial number and you can tell immediately when and where it was sold. MS/Sony/Nintendo all have access to it, and can tell exactly when and where you mfg. warranty began. I've heard that they may even begin getting ID info at the time of purchase soon. However, there are ways around this.

What this guy did IS illegal. My guess is that since it was caught at the store level, he's already been identified on camera and reported to the police. Smooth move ace. If he gave any sort of ID when paying, consider himself screwed. If he needed a new 360, then why didn't he just do the towel trick and force the 3-red lights? That's pretty much common sense these days.

I hope that guy got into an accident on the way home. What an ass.

I must say that doing something like this is pretty tempting. Normally I would not condone any such practices, however under extrenuating circumstances I think there is a certain principle to the matter.

Example: I own a launch 360 and it RRoD'd after the initial 1 year warranty expired and before MS announced the 3 year retroactive extension. Therefore, in order to save some money, I sent my unit to a PC repair guy and for 50 bucks he put my motherboard in a reflow oven and fixed it. I then stuck Talismoon aftermarket fans in the case (replacing the stock ones) to keep the board cooler to prevent overheating again. About a month later MS announced the 3 year warranty program. Soon after my 360 RRoD'd again due to the GPU still not having any type of heatsink, thus warping the board and pulling the solder loose again. MS wouldn't accept it for repair due to my "tampering" with the unit, so I was forced to send it in again to the PC repair guy. I tried explaining to MS that at the time I "tampered" with the unit the warranty was already void, so really I had not done anything wrong, but of course they didn't care. Now my 360 is again starting to act up (still due to the fact there is no GPU heatsink) and I'll be damned if I have to pay to fix it again. It is the company's fault the unit is dying, not mine, so in a case such as this, I think it is only just and fair that the consumer "sticks it to the man".

If you think taking back things that are broken is wrong, check out the goofy thing my brother did one time, while in undergrad. He lived in an apartment by himself and relatives were coming over. He didn't have a vacuum so he actually went to WalMart, bought a vacuum, cleaned, and then immediately returned. That's crazy man.

I had to return my shitbox360 because it died on me 9 times and I was eventually fed up with it and I shot it to death. Dam piece of crap and lame games.

Your store fails service desk

"This is what happens when you are out of warranty and you don't want to pay the $140 for the repair"

Interesting considering that it has a 3 year warranty and it's only been out 2 years. You fail. Have a seat retard.