Blake Ruff

Koneesha

Orionsaint

Eville1

v00deux

Akmed

subterfunk

Stop trying to ruin the gaming business!

Streeks1984

I think I'm going to be waiting in line for my XBox 720 before it's resovled, though.

Nekura20x6

planetidiot

Spoony Bard

Spoony Bard

Kathleen probably reads an inbox though. Bill, however, has his communication filtered by dedicated staff.

Jabbertrack

RPGr

Wouldn't have bought it from Dell normally but it came with free HDMI cable and Halo 3 and it was the Holiday Bundle (Forze / M:UA 20gig HDMI model). So almost free $100.

It wasn't the normal 3 or 4 red rings that launch models got. Mine was an internal thing, either a cable or disc drive based on the error code that came up. Still, I figured an HDMI model would be kind of reliable and it'd be safe to order it online. Screwed the pooch on that one. Never buying a console online regardless of the bundle / free stuff it comes with after this.

KirbyMorph

What does he care?

Biscuitcleaver

mizzle

Me, I don't need a cure for AIDS just yet, but I've been around enough to recognize that some day I'm going to piss off the wrong racist teenager on Xbox Live and wake up three days later in a dumpster in Manhattan. That's when I'll trade on the goodwill I'm cultivating by paying full (well, OEM) price for Windows every third or fourth copy I use. Yup, that'll be a nice shower.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: Happy birthday Dick Cheney, and God bless.

HonusWScruggs

HonusWScruggs

DigiMish

The new console was making some funny noises from the DVD drive... I chose not to hear those noises and keep playing. The picture was awful.. Thousands of corpses of what days before were healthy games discs were laying on my desktop, completely scratched, there was no salvation for those braves soldiers. I once more called the Repair center to get told that the unit would be exchanged for a new one, but I had to wait TWO WEEKS (from mon to fri, cuz there are no real days over the weekend, weird) to get again my new console. November, 2nd was the day i finally shipped my beloved console over again to Germany (That's where the repair center is located for Europe) and almost 4 weeks later, UPS knocked on my door and my face suddenly changed from sad blue, to joy yellow, and suddenly became FURY red when I realized that I had been tricked. Those !·"^*··$%·*[¿!·" had sent me the SAME CONSOLE I shipped 4 weeks earlier, wait for it... AND NO REPAIRING HAD BEEN DONE! I receive the typical letter that told me ''dear xbox enthusiast, blah blah blah, we found the following failures (list with hardware parts above)" No part was checked, what means there was no repairing service going on.

I switched on the console, to discover, horrified, that not only the DVD was making the same weird noises, and was keeping my games from being played (This disc is crap kid, clean it or GTFO! ) but it was also showing a new issue there wasn't there when I sent it to the RC.

If the phone transmitted anything else than voice, my rage would have hit them with the strength of ten thousand suns.

After what I call ''the calls of doom'' a Supervisor told me i would be getting (again) A new console as soon as 10 work days... Two weeks after that, UPS Knocked again at my door with a cardboard box full of doubts, and expectation. When I opened the package... You won't believe this... No, you won't, you CAN'T.

It was again the same console (Same serial #, games purchased from XBLA working offline) repaired.

December, the 15th: 18:30. Home: I call for the 9,999,999th time and explain the issue carefully, calmly, dying inside, but cheerful and comprehensive with them. I can't remember exactly what I said, cuz the vein on my forehead was so swollen that barely any blood could reach my brain.

We came to an agreement. Wait for the christmas to be gone, call them again, talk to the supervisor, and make them send me a NEW (ohpleasegodletitbeNEW) console. I really decided to let it be, and keep my current console, because it was really working. They changed the DVD drive and it was smooth as silk. But suddenly, a week ago..

You bet, my console crapped out again: Sound? Check... Loading Games? Check... Hey... where's the image? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VIDEO SIGNAL!? BLACK SCREEN

LOST IN HELL...

I'm right now waiting for my ''new'' xbox360 to arrive here between friday and monday next week... Wish me luck, pals.. Wish me luck.

(PS: Please don't kill me, I know my english is not veryt accurate, just hope you understood the whole pie)

Mr. Pie

Purple Dave

Let's just assume the tenet of the story is true and Mr. Gates himself reads his email and responds to it. I doubt this is the real case, but alright.

If I emailed Bill Gates and got my repair accelerated, I might regale my friends with the story, but I would never try to make it public knowledge. I would be doing him and his, the person who helped me despite his immense wealth and power, despite the fact that he could ignore it and not offend anyone, a disservice. Probably the greatest disservice a person in my position could do.

Really, what sort of individual would that make me? Microsoft has already taken responsibility for the 360 failures in the form of the 3 yr warranty, and it's the responsibility of the support staff to deal with the customers. To suggest Bill Gates, who is retired, has a direct responsibility to 360 consumers? Pretty silly.

Now you might argue that it's unfair that he helped one person at random while others with equally bad situations languished in the queue, but that's a different discussion entirely. Point is, he had the power to help someone and did. When you do that it is called a good deed.

rateoforange

thespyderboy

bigdonthedj

Ignited_Impulse

Sailorcancer

tamago007

Edge of Blade

P.S. To sum everything up by now, iv spent 400 euros on xbox 360, 750 euros on games, and 650 euros on phone calls to get my console fixed (total 1800euros or $2 650.5) which is my right under the warranty agreement , and all I got was insults lies and broken promises. So Microsoft get your act together and call me or send me email of who I should call. Oh and I also sent my full story a month ago to Kotaku, Major Nelson, IGN, 1UP, Microsoft, and now one posted my story or guided me what to do.

mp3

Gutzman

If consistency really is at question here, I'd assume MS may be outsourcing their customer service to other countries, i.e. Canada, Philippines, India, etc.

But who knows?

Zero2007

@KirbyMorph: If your 360's been in for repairs more than a month, but that's longer than how long you've actually had it, it would mean that it's under 30 days (at that time anyways), and depending on where you bought it, you could have brought it back to the store to get a new one, under the store's return policy.

..I'll repeat what an annoying assistant manager at my best buy says to you:

Shame shame you:
1. Didn't purchase a product replacement plan/performance plan (Cost of it versus the cost of you waiting how long is up to you as an individual)
2. Didn't shop at best buy, where we have a 30 day return policy on most items excluding cameras, camcorders, and computers (14-days on those items, and a 14% restocking fee for computers).

She does have a point on some things like the 360. Despite their extended manufacturer's warranty, whether or not I'd want to sit around with no console to use is one thing, but I'd buy a store plan for a product like the 360 that has a high failure rate. That way I don't have to put up with customer service and the long ass wait to just play a video game.

..but yeah, you should have tried returning to where ever you bought the 360 first, and then tried the warranty.

Zero2007

JackTretton

Katorok

Keegs79

deviantCharles

AstrayPenguin

cybereality

Brian Ashcraft

Here's an example of not enough space, i think..
[kotaku.com]

Just pointing it out..

Katorok

He does have people checking some of those for him, and he does have an internal e-mail, although he rarely needs it for himself. At least, that's what I have been told.

He is reported to get at least 4 million e-mails a day on those addresses. So do you really think he's reading all of those?

Spoony Bard

psychicfriend

chinesedentist

VP gets email and is annoyed he has to deal with actual customer type people, tells supervisor to do it. Dept. Supervisor it freaked because the VP told him to do something and he wants to kiss ass so he gets the manager to do it. Ditto for the Dept. Manager so he pulls some scrub customer service peon to dedicate to the issue. Peon takes care of issue because he doesn't want to get fired.

There are legitimate issues and such, but it's still a horribly abused system.

Lowbar

Eliasoz_01

bangbangblah

Funny that some of you guys think its actually his REAL e-mail address. If anyone is reading these e-mails, its definitely not Bill Gates. :)

henhowc

Orionsaint

JustThisGuy

Chances are that these email addresses are carefully filtered by a legion of temps, and the communiques are forwarded as needed to different departments--escalation, CS, tech. Gates' real email address is probably well-hidden. I mean, it's all pretty standard OP in almost every large/major company.

It's not like these email addresses aren't public knowledge to begin with, and millions of folks probably already knew them--they're not hard to find.

JustThisGuy

Or maybe it's cleverness is concealed in it's obviousness!

Jetter

KirbyMorph

It's been 3 months since my 360 broke. I got back a broken 360. On sending it back, some confusion happened and it was assumed by the idiot on the phone. That my power supply was the problem. So they sent back the same broken 360, but a brand new power supply. This time I sent it with a note that reads the following,

THIS SYSTEM IS BROKEN!!! PLEASE STOP SENDING IT!!! SEND ME A NEW WORKING 360!!!

Orionsaint

Wonder if I should try shooting Bill an e-mail begging for a new 360?

kable

You have Carlos Slim's e-mail address...?

Citizen Kang

red

hoding the mouse over a pic gets you an address "http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/default.mspx" example for steve ballmer, so you take whatever name is after exec/ and /default add a @microsoft.com and you get that person's email address.

Wow that is stupid IS management for a company specializing in IT/IS products...

Im gonna look for these types of pages on other annoying companies in the future, I might just tell Hector from AMD that his lack of competence is running the company into the ground.

BigBadBlender

a customer service representative fixing the problem is called being responsible; the friggin billionaire boss actually reading your e-mail and responding to it instead of blowing you off is a good deed.

bobafett356

YoYo

My parents died leaving me with no money and my Xbox just red ringed. May I please have some of column A and a new of column B?

Thank you,
Little Johnny

Double J

Aethyr

superbeast1370

cactaur

My launch Xbox crapped out last month but I opened it :(
I tried the "X-Clamp fix" a couple days ago and it works fine now.

Tohdman

"So someone high up did a good deed, and their reward is to be endlessly spammed by email."

good deed? you mean fixing a problem created by their own company is a good deed? I thought it was called being responsible.

NeoAkira

Covert_Knight

However, the hardware failure rate is still unacceptable. Good thing we've got all those amazing games to play in the meantime.

DangerChimp

BohlBERG

DigitalHero

MistahJGM

charliescene187

Grumpz®

Eman311

Marked

Sometimes (actually, all the time), it pays to be a savvy consumer. Example: Guy by the name of AlteredBeast, a reader over at Kotaku blood-brothers The Consumerist, was having Xbox 360 troubles. Like, he was on his sixth unit after things like the red rings of death and poorly-handled refurb units (they'd arrive having been broken in the mail). When he called MS support to complain, he was bumped all the way to the top of the customer service chain, at which point he was told there was nothing he could do. Oh, wait, there was something he could do. He could email Steve Ballmer. So he did, and two days later got a new, working 360. Let's hear it for the little guy!

LittleBigPlaneteer

bloog

LittleBigPlaneteer

rateoforange

featherblade360

ethic

Xander