Bad news, subjects of death threats and various online harassments: having someone tell you they're going to kill you via Xbox Live chat does not exempt you from gamertag change fees. Shame about that.
Dave "Zatz" Zatz writes on his own blog that he was on the receiving end of a death threat during a game of Call of Duty: World at War, one that even he admits was probably non-committal and free of any real danger. But, hey, if someone says "I’ll kill you in real life with a real gun." it might be time for a change from your uncommon last name to, say, LusciousHair8000.
More disappointing than some 12-year old making idle threats was that Xbox Live customer support "were pretty dismissive" about the threat, according to Zatz.
While we would imagine that everyone and their online shit-talkin' grandmother would be trying to bypass the 800 Microsoft Point fee for changing gamertags, it might not be a bad thing to have those concessions in place. We'd also recommend trying to exercise maximum anonymity on the customer end, too.
You know what? Screw it. Let's get some Friend Codes working on Live. Problem solved.
Xbox Live Death Threat Costs Me $12.50 [Zatz Not Funny via Gizmodo]