UnrulyCactus

[Rant]

So... about three months ago I picked up a refurbished 360 arcade from Gamestop. I mostly just played Oblivion, Devil May Cry, Fallout 3 and Soul Caliber IV. I do all my online gaming with my PC so I never bothered to even setup XBox Live. Well, the other day my friend let me borrow Left 4 Dead and I wanted to give it a try on XBox Live.

I had some problems. It would test the network settings and get all the way up to the point in which it said "XBox Live is up and running" and then Fail. After MANY MANY calls to the ridiculously inept tech staff at the Xbox 1-800 hotline, I found one competent service rep that actually cross referenced my error codes like I had asked every other rep before.

And what do ya know.... Banned. I know it wasn't me, since this was the very first time I had hooked up my 360 to the outside world. So, Gamestop sold me a Banned 360. I called Microsoft, asked for a manager/supervisor, and explained the situation. Being the helpful folks they are, they said "Sorry... can't do anything about that."

Severely frustrated I go to the Gamestop in which I purchased the 360. I spoke the the manager there and explained the situation. While seemingly sympathetic to my situation, he said since it was after the "30 day warranty" his hands were tied and he would have to speak with his District Manager. He said at the factory that refurbishes the units, he's fairly certain that they don't check the consoles to see if they're banned. He gave me his card, and he said I would hear from him.

Needless to say, this has been very frustrating for me. Microsoft doesn't even ban the Gamertag, they ban the console itself. It essentially only places a financial burden on the person that violates the TOS. All one has to do is grab a new console and you can use your old Gamertag. Isn't that just shoddy logic? What about the refurbished console market? There are tens of thousands of those units waiting on shelves that could potentially be banned. All you have to do is check the serial number for a console and you would know if it's banned or not, yet the facilities that refurbish these units don't even bother to take that fundamental step.

If I had some sort of hardware failure after 30 days, that would be one thing. I was, however, sold a piece of hardware that was defective from the moment of purchase.

Anyway.... I just wanted to vent and see if any of you guys out there have had a similar situation or if you have any advice to share.

Thanks in advance.

[/Rant]

mtbiker033

bad situation for sure, but how does a console get banned in the first place?

couldn't you just wrap it up in a blanket and let it overheat then rma?

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ikillerzi

it gets banned if you hard mod your 360 for online play

BiG O

Most likely hacking of some sort.

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Weedvender

So basically they sold you a faulty product. This should over rule that 30 day return.

s0nniez

Agreed, they should give you another 360.

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-iceblade^

threaten to tak them to court over that, they might see the light

second hand or not it should not be faulty. and if it was they should have disclosed it to you when selling it.

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ProjecT TimeZ

Sucks dude.
Sell it back to them?

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KamuiRSX

Uhm well bud...if I were you....I would ask the store manager for the district managers phone number. I would call him and ask for his regional manager's phone number and then just go off on them. The one thing about regional managers is that they don't want to deal with crap that should have been taken care of at the store level. Selling a banned unit is not a refurbished unit. By definition a refurbished unit is a unit that has been fully stocked back to factory standards and last time I checked, MS doesn't send out banned 360's.

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videoman5

Did you by chance ask for Battletoads?

That sucks on MS's part, they messed up and they want you to buy a new one, that's bs.