The head of the Microsoft Xbox operation in Australia, David Mclean, who is becoming famous for what he doesn’t say rather than what he does, is set to hear from yet another very “angry” Xbox 360 customer who is so angry with Mclean and his operation that he has packed up his second broken Xbox and shipped it directly to him with a letter that says: “Microsoft sucks you can keep your busted Xbox" . He also said that he will never deal with Microsoft again.

This year Microsoft has allocated over $1.3 billion to fix faulty Xbox 360 consoles with retailers reporting a console failure rate of up to 30%.

Marcel Ollmann of New Zealand claims in a letter to Mclean that he is now on his second Xbox 360 and like a lot of other Xbox 360 users who have had problems with Microsoft over their gaming consoles, it is not the failure of the Xbox that galls him but the " shocking" service that Ollmann received when he attempted to get his first Xbox 360 fixed.

He has also had major problems with Microsoft support and Microsoft Live. In a blunt letter to Mclean he states: " It is fair to say that for the past year Microsoft has treated me like shit" .

" Rather than following New Zealand law and providing replacements at a point of sale I was forced to call the Xbox support and get a resolution through a toll-free helpdesk. After jumping through various hoops over the phone with representatives that struggled with basic English I boxed my Xbox360 and at my expense sent it to Microsoft. From this point on, my xbox360 was never seen again. The helpdesk had no record of my console being received or processed for repair. I wasted countless hours trying to get a resolution from Microsoft. The calls to the Microsoft helpdesk were so frustrating that I never wanted to deal with them again" .

He added " When I started jumping up and down at the xbox.com forums with my friends Microsoft responded by sending me a new Xbox 360."

" I assumed that this was a new Xbox360 and everything appeared to be ok. I then purchased a HD-DVD drive to attach to my console. Then the new Xbox360 crashed and upon restarting exhibited the three red rings of death" .

After several attempts at loading games and movies I have been unable to get the system to work. In a letter to Mclean he claims that " at this point I think it is fair to say that I have simply had enough and as such I don' t want my xbox360 anymore. I don' t want to call your helpdesk and waste countless hours not getting a speedy or effective resolution. I don' t want to return my console to your " repair centre" in Australia for it to be lost again. As I mentioned before to countless drones at your helpdesk, the level of service that I have received from Microsoft is appalling" .

In his letter to Mclean Ollmann has also complained about the Microsoft Xbox Live service. He writes " I used to purchase game, movie and TV downloads from Xbox live. Then one day, the whole thing disappeared on me. The console no longer allowed me to purchase anything to do with movies and TV programs online. That was like a kick in my face. You really don' t want my money anymore?

" Recently my Xbox live account was suspended so I called the dreaded helpdesk to resolve the problem.
I informed them that I didn' t want to renew my membership because of how crippled the Xbox live marketplace had become. They said that I had no choice. When I said that I only wanted a silver membership after my gold membership expired, they wanted me to pay US$50 to revert my gold membership to a free silver one because they claimed " that is the only way the system works" ."

He concludes in his letter to Mclean " Please find my dying or rather dead xbox360 attached to this letter. I' m sure it' s safe to say this is my last purchase from Microsoft in my lifetime" .

As expected Mclean was not available to comment. However he was available to comment on Microsoft' s success with Halo 3.

Anybody else have this type of service or is this dude kind of going over board.

" Boss says" or " Boss hears" ? And ps3news.com?

Yeah I know it sounds funny coming from that site.


But this is the offical source

It sounds like bullshit to me. Im satisfied with the customer support in europe, friendly service from nice sounding eastern european girls (my last one was named Olga, normally that would be a unsexy name, but she sounded hot )

It sucks that they breakdown, seems like the one i have now is a lucky one, with my luck though, itll break down on me while im playing Mass Effect

Boss Told

You see, the official source got it right. Its not an uncommon sentiment though.

My friend had 2 break down on him, so he bought a ps3 instead. I' ve had to deal with MS customer support for Windows related problems before and it isnt pleasant.

Its the same with a lot of big company call centres though. Has anyone ever worked in one before? Its not a job I ever want to do again. I know I' d be angry too if my 360 broke, but imagine having to try to appease someone like that over the phone after you' ve just hung up on the last one of a hundred others that day.

MS should' ve made better build quality 360s, but theres not much you can do about farce that is big company customer service that comes after imo.

I' m on my 4th (and 5th) and it' s showing signs of imminent death.

Dude must really love his 360 seems like he was very angry about not being able to play it with out it breaking.

I don' t see anything in that quote above where the boss of the Xbox360 says it sucks, or even anything about it at all.

Seriously, prove me wrong. Unless " Boss" means something else outside of the US.

No, boss means boss even in Australia. Appears to be editorial spin, but then a lot of websites do that so not unexpected. There do appear to be a number of people who' ve got a bum deal out of the MS helpdesk. However just about all helpdesks are manned by the intellectually challenged who follow a basic script and they are unable to deal with real life situations. If the guy had been a bit more persistent maybe he' d have got something out of it rather than acting like a bit of spoilt child.

Referring to the other thread it will be interesting to see how Sony' s customer services deal with the 40gb problems if it is as bad as some reports say.

Maybe I' m using my 360 wrong, but I' m still on my first and its not far off its 2nd birthday.

Same here. My first is still chugging away and I managed to obtain it on the Australian release day.

ORIGINAL: Vx Chemical

It sounds like bullshit to me. Im satisfied with the customer support in europe, friendly service from nice sounding eastern european girls (my last one was named Olga, normally that would be a unsexy name, but she sounded hot )

VX beware, you know what they say...' If it sounds hot on the phone you add 5 stone.'

My mate had an issue with the M$ wheel, he called them up and they replaced it without asking for the old one back, on the whole I think M$ are quite good.

The " boss" didn' t say that the service sucks. A customer did, in a letter sent to the " boss" .

Lets try to avoid using dug articles or sites we' ve never heard os as sources m' kay!?

If it reads like it was written by a mentally retarded penguin, ...just ignore it.

Heh, sry Joe, my smilie was meant to be looking at the posts above that already established ps3news.com couldn' t decipher the simple source article title, which read, " Microsoft Service " Sucks" Xbox 360 Boss Told"

ergo

If it reads like it was written by a mentally retarded penguin, ...just ignore it.

...which is obviously what you did with my posts.

ORIGINAL: alijay034


VX beware, you know what they say...' If it sounds hot on the phone you add 5 stone.'

Who says that, and WTF does it mean??

I' m on my 4th (and 5th) and it' s showing signs of imminent death.

Check your inbox.

quote:

ORIGINAL: alijay034


VX beware, you know what they say...' If it sounds hot on the phone you add 5 stone.'

Who says that, and WTF does it mean??

It means about 70 pounds!

Lets try to avoid using dug articles or sites we' ve never heard os as sources m' kay!

Bet I can do that

Really? Youve failed at it so far.