News Post Comments
My Xbox 360 Died Again!
By Lord d'Eath at Aug 8, 2007
Update (2007/09/22):
I should probably update this to say that on the 30th August I received a refurbished Xbox 360 from Microsoft that not only works (no problems thus far, and I've had many a 5-hour gaming session on it), but it also considerably quieter than my last one. So it would seem that contrary to what I had read elsewhere, Microsoft are still sending refurbished units out instead of fixing and returning people's original console. For me, this was a good thing, but for others I can imagine it wouldn't be.
Well, here we go again.
Let's start from the top (this time). A couple of months ago (late May/early June) my Xbox 360 started displaying a bright red/pink tint over games for varying periods of time. The exact times it occurred depended on the game, but it was more frequent in Oblivion than in Crackdown, and in FlatOut it only occurred for a few minutes, approximately 10 minutes after first starting the game, after which point it was fine. In some games it was even very clear that the game's HUD was unaffected by the tint, while the rest of the game was (though in some games, both were affected with graphical glitches in some ways - HUDs, including the Dashboard, gained faint vertical lines).
Witness some examples below:
I put up with this for a while, and I tested the console in various positions (to try to eliminate ventilation problems), with different A/V cables and on different monitors; which all led me to know that it was the console at fault and not a random accessory.
Because at this point my console was out of the 12-month warranty, Microsoft wouldn't have fixed it for free had I bothered to phone them. Knowing this, I decided to try contacting Amazon.co.uk, whom I bought it from, to try to get them to fix it instead. Unfortunately, it's pretty widely known that Amazon are very, very reluctant to replace or repair anything, regardless of warranty. This being despite their obligations to consumers under the UK's Sale of Goods Act.
Initially I just stated my problem and implied that them fixing it would be a good idea:
Quote
Me to Amazon
Hi,
As you can no doubt see from the order number I've supplied, I pre-ordered an Xbox360 console from you, and it was delivered in early December 2005. Eleven months later, in November 2006, it developed the classic Xbox360 "3 red light" error, which Microsoft fixed. However now, a further eight months later, it has started showing major image corruption while playing games - i.e. the entire screen becomes a harsh shade of red, leaving games entirely unplayable.
I've confirmed that it is the console at fault by running it on multiple displays and with a video cable that another Xbox360 in the house uses, and the corruption was still visible. I've also run a vast number of games on it, and they've all experienced issues, while the same games suffer no problems on other consoles.
I realise that it is now out of its initial 12-month manufacturer warranty, but I imagine that very few people would consider a £300 games console becoming unusable after less than two years to be "normal", especially when the array of other games consoles I own are still working fine despite some being almost ten years old. As such, you, as the retailer, are the only ones I can turn to for assistance.
Thanks in advance,
Andrew Gillard
Amazon decided to reply with a totally unhelpful, obviously stock email, telling me to check manuals or by contacting Microsoft; even going so far as to declare that because they sell a lot of different stuff, they're somehow exempt from UK law. (I've replaced various reference numbers and customer service rep names with strings of "x"s in all emails in this post).
Quote
Amazon to Me
Dear Customer
Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk regarding your order #xxx-
xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx.
We are sorry to hear that you have encountered an issue again with
this item " Xbox 360 Console".
We have found that many functionality issues can be resolved by
closely following the instruction methods described in the manual.
To help you to understand your new purchase, we also recommend you
visit our online Electronics & Photo Info Centre using this link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/154689/
In the majority of cases, we have often found that a fault is
recognised by the manufacturer and they will have a quick and easy
solution.
Due to size and variety of our catalogue, we are unable to provide
technical support or repair services for this item.
If none of the suggestions above are of any further help to you we
ask that you contact the manufacturer to try and resolve the issue
as they are in a better position to provide additional support
services for their specific products.
******************
You may contact "Microsoft" by using the following contact
information:
Tel: 0800 587 1102
Should you require to make a claim for any electronics item
purchased from Amazon.co.uk please inform them that you bought your
item from us.
You should find that they only require the following information:
* Serial number
* Defect information
* Place of purchase
* Date of purchase
* your contact details
Please be informed that all electronics item purchased from
Amazon.co.uk come with a 1 year warranty from the manufacturer.
Our Customer Service team can also be reached from Monday to
Saturday, between 8:00 am -- 6:00 pm (GMT).
====================================================================
Phone: 0800 279 6620 (from within the UK)
+44 20 8636 9451 (outside the UK)
Fax: 0800 279 6630 (from within the UK)
+44 20 8636 9401 (outside the UK)
====================================================================
Thank you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk.
Please let us know if this e-mail answered your question:
If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-y?c=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-n?c=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&q=ukff
Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.
To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our website.
Warmest regards
Xxxxxxx X.
Customer Service
Amazon.co.uk
=====================================================================
Free UK delivery on orders over GBP 15 (See details & conditions)
www.amazon.co.uk/supersaverdelivery
ref_id:=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Since this was blatantly unhelpful, I emailed them back explaining just why MS wouldn't actually help me for free. I also shoved in a bit of consumer law:
Quote
Me to Amazon
Hi,
As stated in my original email, my Xbox 360 console is 19 months old, so it is now outside of Microsoft's 12-month warranty, and, therefore, they are under no obligation to fix it for me - not without me paying them a small fortune, at least.
My contract as a consumer, however, is with Amazon, not with Microsoft. Under the Sale of Goods Act (and a few other pieces of legislation), the retailer is obligated to repair, replace or refund any product that is not of satisfactory quality, including lasting a satisfactory length of time (which pretty much everyone would agree is more than a mere 19 months).
Frankly, the "size and variety" of your catalogue is of little interest to me, here. You could sell every product on the face of the planet, but that still wouldn't excuse you of your legal obligations to customers.
Yours,
Andrew Gillard
But Amazon still weren't having any of it, and decided to tell me about totally irrelevant changes to Microsoft's warranty policy. Remember: when my old console had the 3-red-light issue, Microsoft fixed it, and it was no longer having that problem, but a different problem. Apparently this is irrelevant to Amazon:
Quote
Amazon to Me
Dear Mr. Gillard.
Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk.
Microsoft are now implementing an enhanced warranty program:
The general one-year console warranty continues and they now have a
three year coverage specifically for any console that displays
a "three flashing red lights" error message. Since you experienced
this issue and had the item repaired by Microsoft I would advise you
to contact them to resolve this issue. The best Microsoft number to
phone about this issue is 0800 587 1102.
Thank you for choosing Amazon.co.uk.
You can use the link below to contact us again about this, or any
other issue.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/email.
Alternatively free-phone us on 0800 279 6620.
Please let us know if this e-mail answered your question:
If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-y?c=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-n?c=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&q=ukff
Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.
To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our website.
Warmest regards
Xxxxxx X
Customer Service
Amazon.co.uk
=====================================================================
Free UK delivery on orders over GBP 15 (See details & conditions)
www.amazon.co.uk/supersaverdelivery
ref_id:=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
As I was obviously getting nowhere with Amazon I attempted to email Microsoft (it's less stress than phoning them and having to make yourself understood by a random Indian who you can't understand and who can't understand you...):
Quote
Me to Microsoft
Hi,
Last November (2006) my Xbox360 developed the standard 3 red light issue, which was fixed by you and a refurbished unit was sent out to me as a replacement (it's blatantly not mine, as the manufacture date is a few months after I bought my original). However that replacement unit has now started turning the entire screen bright red while playing games. It doesn't always happen, and I can sometimes get through a good few hours before issues occur, but other times I can't last five minutes without getting a bright red screen. This makes games totally unplayable, as even if I could peer through the bright red tinge, it's very blinding.
I've tried the games on other Xbox360 consoles, and tried my console with other screens and other cables (I'm using an official VGA cable, but I've tried the official component cable, too), so none of those are faulty. Therefore the console itself appears to be broken.
However, it's now 18 months old, so out of the initial 12 month warranty. The UK Sale of Goods Act should protect me, here, and allow me to have it fixed/replaced by the company that sold it to me; however that company is Amazon.co.uk, who are known for being incredibly reluctant to replace anything faulty, and they insist that I contact Microsoft (they even went so far as to point out your new 3-year warranty for 3-red-light issues, even though I made it clear that the new problem is NOT the typical 3-red-light problem).
Rather than argue with Amazon, I decided to humour them and contact you first. So, are you, or are you not, able to fix my Xbox360 for free (I'm not going to pay huge amounts for something that Amazon should do for free... 
)? If not, would it be possible to have a reference number that I can give to Amazon so that they can confirm that I have, indeed, contacted you?
Thanks in advance,
Andrew Gillard
Their website's email contact form attempted to give me some kind of reference number, but it was actually blank, and since I didn't have a reply from them almost a month later I can assume that their contact form doesn't actually work, which is obviously helpful.
So, it was back to Amazon:
Quote
Me to Amazon
Hi,
I contacted you a few weeks ago regarding my Xbox 360 console, but it seems that I left it too late to reply to the actual email replies you sent. The first email's "ref_id" is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, and the second's is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
My problem is that my Xbox 360 has started displaying a bright red/pink tint over the entire screen when playing games. Its effects tend to vary between games, with some games only displaying the red tint for a few minutes at a time, and other games displaying it constantly, sometimes changing it to a purple or green tint.
In the past emails you advised me to contact Microsoft to get it fixed; however because it is out of the 12-month warranty, Microsoft will charge me a considerable sum of money to get it repaired, and that is a charge that I don't think is justified, since it is common knowledge that Xbox 360s are extremely prone to failure. Yes, Microsoft have extended the warranty to 3 years in some cases, but this is only for the "3 red lights" error, which is NOT the problem I'm having.
Thank you,
Andrew Gillard
... Who still weren't interested in abiding by the law. Why was I not surprised? The interesting twist in this email, though, is that they decided to address me as "Mr Andrew"...
Quote
Amazon to Me
Dear Mr Andrew,
Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.co.uk.
Firstly, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience you
experienced regarding this issue.
We currently do not offer an extended warranty on the electronics
items sold on our website.
All electronics item purchased from Amazon.co.uk come with a 1 year
warranty from the manufacturer.
I'm sorry that, in this case, only Microsoft can provide you a right
solution.
Please note that we are also unable to provide you a replacement for
this item as you have purchased it in the year 2005.
Please note that as per our policy we will be able to provide you a
replacement for the defective item if it has been purchased from
Amazon within a year, from the date of purchase.
I hope you would understand.
We recommend consulting the manual that came with the package for
warranty and service information.
Should you require to make a claim for any electronics item
purchased from Amazon.co.uk please inform them that you bought your
item from us.
You should find that they only require the following information:
* Serial number
* Defect information
* Place of purchase
* Date of purchase
* your contact details
We hope that you find this information helpful.
Once again, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this issue
has caused you.
Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance, and thank
you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk.
Please let us know if this e-mail answered your question:
If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-y?c=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-n?c=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&q=uksn
Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.
To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our website.
Warmest regards
Xxxxxxxxx X.
Customer Service
Amazon.co.uk
=====================================================================
Free UK delivery on orders over GBP 15 (See details & conditions)
www.amazon.co.uk/supersaverdelivery
ref_id:=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At this point I was getting rather bored of the whole situation, so threw more Sale of Goods Act references at them. I was so bored, in fact, that I didn't even bother to address or "sign" the message properly as I usually do:
Quote
Me to Amazon
Okay this is getting very tiring.
If your policies are to only to give a 1 year warranty on electronic items, your policies go against UK law. Under the UK Sale of Goods Act (plus a couple of other laws) the retailer (Amazon.co.uk) is obligated to repair, replace or refund any product that is not deemed to be of satisfactory quality. "Satisfactory quality" includes lasting a reasonable amount of time, and most reasonable people would agree that a £300 games console should last more than the 18 months - in fact, since Microsoft has admitted publicly that there are inherent faults in the Xbox 360's design, so that immediately proves that the console I bought from Amazon at the launch of the 360 was not of satisfactory quality.
Now, this is when it all gets interesting. While waiting for Amazon to reply to that email, Microsoft issued a Dashboard update to support wireless guitars. I had no idea about this until I turned on my console and got the old "an update is required to proceed; if you decline it you will not be able to sign into Xbox Live" message:
Without so much as thinking about it, I accepted the update... and then just as it was finishing, the console rebooted and presented me with a single red light on the Ring of Light and an exciting "E 74" error message on-screen. Thank you, Microsoft; your mandatory update has bricked my console!
The mildly ironic thing is that the display corruption even presented itself while the console was downloading the update:
You can't see it too clearly in that above image, but look carefully at the top of the Guide, around the "06:27 PM" and you'll see some vertical lines and other marks that shouldn't exist.
I didn't really have much choice but to phone Microsoft to get it fixed at this point, so off I went... I had a nice interesting conversation with yet another Indian woman who proceeded to mis-type my console's serial number, thus decided it wasn't registered. So we spent a good 15 minutes with me trying to give her my details, only for her to read out everything she'd got down, and me to notice that she'd got one digit of the serial number incorrect. I pointed this out, she changed it, then realised that, in fact, it had been registered after all. Wasn't that a nice waste of time?
Anyway, she said that 1 red light indicates a general hardware failure which I already knew thanks to Wikipedia, and that it would cost €75 to repair. Since I actually wanted a working console (before Halo 3 is released...) I had little choice but to accept their extortion and have them repair it. I even pointed out to her that it was Microsoft's update that broke it, so charging me to get their mistakes fixed seems ridiculous, but she couldn't do anything about it, apparently. So yes, MS now have my £~51, and once I get UPS to pick it up on Friday, it should apparently take "20-25 business days" to be fixed and returned to me. Hopefully before Halo 3 is released... We'll see. I also mentioned the original red screen issues, which she added to the notes of my account and then blamed on the 1-red-light issue (unlikely, but I wasn't prepared to argue with someone that couldn't understand half of what I was saying). If it gets sent back with that problem still existing, though, someone is going to get yelled at.
Incidentally, Amazon have at last replied to my fourth email to them, but are still remaining oblivious to their obligations. This email was even from someone with a non-Indian-sounding name!
Quote
Amazon to Me
Dear Andrew,
Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk
Firstly, please allow me to apologise for the problems you have
experienced with this console. We can fully appreciate your
frustration with this situation
However, I am afraid that my colleagues were correct in stating that
we do not offer an extension on our one year warranty. In this case
you will need to contact Microsoft directly for further assistance.
Please contact Xbox Customer Service on 0800 587 1102 or visit the
following link:
http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/support/contact/
If you do need to contact us again regarding this particular order
then please write back to us at the following link:
www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-mi?comm_id=&q=xxxx
We hope that this issue is resolved to your satisfaction soon.
Thank you for taking the time to write to Amazon.co.uk
If you do have any further questions or comments then please contact
us via the following link:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html/
If you would prefer to contact us by telephone, Customer Service can
be reached from Monday to Saturday, between 8am and 6pm on:
Phone: 0800 279 6620 (from within the UK)
+44 20 8636 9451 (outside the UK)
Fax: 0800 279 6630 (from within the UK)
+44 20 8636 9401 (outside the UK)
Alternatively, if you are a UK customer, you can use the link below
to receive a call directly from a member of the Amazon Customer
Services team;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/contact-us/call-me.html/
Once on this page you will be asked to sign in -- you can skip this
stage with the button on the right of the page if your question is
not related to a specific order. On the following page a pop-up box
will ask you to enter a phone number and a time when you wish to be
contacted, from "Right Now" to "15 minutes". Once you click
on "Submit" we'll call you.
Please let us know if this e-mail answered your question:
If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-y?c=gtuavvxu3423274190
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-n?c=gtuavvxu3423274190&q=uksn
Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.
To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our website.
Warmest regards
Xxx Xxxxxxxxxx
Customer Service
Amazon.co.uk
=====================================================================
Free UK delivery on orders over GBP 15 (See details & conditions)
www.amazon.co.uk/supersaverdelivery
ref_id:=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The good news about paying them to fix my console is that they give me a 1 year warranty on the repaired/replaced 360, as well as an "Xbox Live Gold Card" - though she didn't specify the duration of it (probably a month, since she said that it was supposed to compensate me for the period of time I was unable to use my console). If it's a 12-month Live subscription, it'll actually be worth me paying them £50, as those cards are over £40 each, but I doubt it'll be nearly so long.
I'm still pondering my next course of action. I'm very much not happy about having to pay them to fix something that they broke (neither was Kevin Ray when the Autumn 2006 Dashboard update bricked his console - and many others), and Amazon need dealing with, too. Unfortunately it isn't really anything that Amazon can help me with any longer: I very much doubt that a software update could be considered 'inherently faulty', thus wouldn't be something that Amazon would have to help me with. I will probably end up replying to Amazon's latest email to tell them that I shall no longer be pestering them, but that their policies blatantly go against UK law and should be changed before someone sues them - not that they'll listen to me, of course.
Two Xbox 360s down, nine to go? (Actually they've started adding extra heatsinks to consoles when they go in for repair, so maybe this will actually be the last of the problems I have with it...)
