Kotaku: Customer Service

Don't You Dare Pre-Order A Game From EA Then Move House

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:30:00 MDT

Here's a tip: if you pre-order something from EA directly, don't change your address. Especially if the game you're pre-ordering is a limited edition release. Otherwise, it'll end in tears. Consumerist reader Micah pre-ordered the shiny collectors edition of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning a while back, but recently moved house. When he moved, he let EA know that he'd moved, and asked if they could sends his game to the new address. Which - and only after a bunch of ridiculously inept customer service emails - it turns out they can't do. What they can do, however, is get rude and cancel his pre-order entirely. Hit the link below for the full story; haters of big business and automated customer service emails alike should get a kick out of it.

Electronic Arts Can't Process Address Change, Cancels Your Sold-Out Pre-Ordered Collector's Edition Of Warhammer [The Consumerist]

Activision Now Offering Refunds For GHIII Wii

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:30:00 MST

So you bought Guitar Hero III on Wii, you got it home, and found out it only played in mono. Urgh. From there, things only got worse. Well, if you're jack of the whole fiasco, Activision are now offering you the chance to hit the big shiny red button on the whole sorry mess and bail out. If you visit the company's support page you're now given the option of a full refund for your purchase, which you can then take, return to your nearest gaming store and buy a game that doesn't give you months of customer support drama.
Guitar Hero® III Wii Refund [Activision]

Busted BioShock Big Daddy Buyers Rejoice!

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:40:33 MST

When word broke that many of the Big Daddy figures included with the limited edition version of 2K Games' BioShock shipped damaged, the publisher did its best to make good on addressing the problem. Simply register your complaint, return your busted Big Daddy, then wait patiently for your replacement and complimentary printed art book. A six- to eight-week process, I'm sure.

Today, those afflicted with borked Big Daddy syndrome were delighted to learn that 2K will not require gamers to return their Big Daddies (with Battle Damage!), noting that constant watch of the mail carrier is all that is now required. 2K wrote to its customers: "In the next two weeks, we will begin shipping out a single package containing both the replacement figurine and the art book to customers who enrolled in the program by November 12th. There will be no return box or need to return the broken figurine to our attention."

Your old Big Daddy can therefor be used for rooftop parachuting experiments and the creation of a wide variety of dioramas.

Live Call to EB Customer Service Ends in Toothgritting

egauger — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:20:55 MDT

In an extremely irritating live recording of a call from what sounds like a radio show to the EB GameStop customer support phone center, some galoot harangues a hapless phonemonkey about Hawaii's $50 trade-in policy. Which, while kinda outrageous, does not warrant the ill treatment of some $8-per-hour shmuck.

I once worked at a mail-order birthday party supply company in the phone center. They didn't let us read, draw, or surf. We were to sit, stare at our screens, and wait for calls. Nothing else was allowed.

Since then, I have realized the pointlessness of interrogating these poor, caged beasts. Eliza Gauger

Hear, and be Annoyed [AllGames, via Digg]

IGN Just Lost One Tough Customer

egauger — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 15:40:23 MDT

In a world where IGN hides your credit card information from you, automatically sets your account to auto-renew, and nothing is as it seems...one man must face incredible odds to cancel his account, protect his money, and make things right.

But please, learn from my mistakes. Check http://my.ign.com to make sure your account is set to not auto-renew if you have IGN Insider(Guess what: the default value for autorenew is set to TRUE) or check http://my.fileplanet.com and make sure that your subscription is cancelled, and your credit cards are out of their system. Because these people will ever get my money again. Horrible customer support, deceptive billing procedures, and awkward and hidden hoops you need to go through before you can cancel your account.
Gamespot, here I come.

This time, it's personal.

In all seriousness, though, it's revolting to see these sorts of business practices. With any luck, this will spur reports of similar experiences and trigger some change over at IGN, similar to AOL's recent evolutions. Eliza Gauger

IGN Just Lost a Customer [Blogspot]

Consumerist Needs Help Fixing XBox

brownlee — Wed, 03 May 2006 12:40:25 MDT

If Kotaku is the charming, sexy ubermensch of the Gawker network, our brother site The Consumerist is the absorbed yet still sentient fetus that was cut from our side, pickled in brine and stuffed on a jar on our trophy shelf.

Nevertheless, they have an interesting email from a reader up, detailing his frustration with Microsoft's XBox repair service... specifically, the inanity of Microsoft selling XBoxes under warranty in countries and territories that Microsoft can't ship fixed XBoxes back to.

Quite a few of our unluckier Kotakuites have probably thrashed an XBox or two, so if you've ever been in the same boat, maybe you can go over and give Jorge some advice on how to resolve his problem.

Puerto Ricans Can Buy XBox But Can't Get One Repaired [Consumerist]

Cheap Ass Gamer's 360 CS Nightmare

brownlee — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 09:40:44 MDT

Over at Cheap Ass Gamer, there's a frightening portent of what you can expect if your 360 ever dies on you under warranty. It's a horror story: Microsoft's blubbering CS department responds to a broken 360 issue by first claiming the customer should buy more accessories. When they ask the customer to send his 360 in, it goes missing in the mail. But after Microsoft finally receives the system, they send the customer back a Core 360 package instead of the Premium 360 he sent in! And when the proper 360 arrives, it's not fixed after all!

If Microsoft's customer service during this debacle is anything to go by, if your 360 ever gives up the ghost, you can expect a two month circle-jerk trying to get it resolved. Just what you want to hear when you're talking about a $500 piece of electronics!

Xbox 360 Customer Support - One Man's Story [Cheap Ass Gamer]

How to: Return Your Xbox 360 to Microsoft

lsmith — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 13:40:05 MST

Vigilant Kotaku reader, David, sent us this photocopy of a photocopy of the instructions on how to return your Xbox 360 to Microsoft (once you've gone through the Microsoft-mandated channels). David's story is after the jump.

"Attached is the photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy that Microsoft sent me along with an empty cardboard box. It's instructions for packing up and returning my buggy xbox360. :(

I had a 360 pre-ordered from EBGames since August. Received it the first day. And have since gotten it to crash on every game I've run through it at least once. It's the full freeze-up thing, where you need to do a hard reset. Def not related to heat. The biggest crashers are Madden and Perfect Dark Zero. But I've had Kameo, PGR3, CoD2, and King Kong go down. Tiger Woods was the most stable, but even that hung once or twice.

After calling 1800-4-myxbox and getting thru to a polite agent in 2 minutes I was actually quite pleased with customer service. Until they told me to remove the hdd and "try and make it crash." Thankfully, Madden crashed within running 3 offensive plays so I could quickly call microsoft back and let them know that the hdd wasn't the issue and they wasted more of my time. So they sent me an empty box with the instructions (which was supposed to come in 1 day but took 2)...BUT they forgot the return packing slip. So now my xbox360 is in a cardboard box and I have to wait another day or 2 for the freaking shipping slip...and then wait "5 business days" (which at first wasn't a big deal) to get my repaired/new box.

Anyways, just wanted to share my personal experience of what it takes to return a buggy xbox. Its a process that has become more annoying every day, as most customer support is."

Doesn't really sound like a horror story, hope you get a replacement box quickly, David.