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[UPDATEx3] Microsoft Vs. immigration: Nobody can help.
Squirminator2k
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
UPDATED ON FEBRUARY 21ST
Major Nelson emailed me to let me know that nothing can currently be done. When I asked about some form of compensation, he chose instead to ignore the email. This, coupled with the emails and XBL messages I have received from various people, have convinced me to set up Xbox Strife, a site to catalog and report problems people are having with their Xbox Live accounts and their interactions with Xbox Customer Support.
The site has just launched, but I will be adding more information shortly.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I moved from the UK to the US back at the end of June, and made the rather idiotic assumption that I would be able to use my Xbox Live account in the US without any problems. I was, of course, Horribly Wrong.
Firstly, I can't pay for my account using my US bank account details. Inconvenient, I thought, but I can buy membership cards instead. it turns out that each region uses a different algorithm, or whatever, to generate their Membership Card numbers, meaning I bought a card I couldn't use. So I called the Xbox Live Customer Support line to see if I could perhaps get my account migrated over so I could enter my new US bank details.
This was a mistake.
They told me that they couldn't migrate my account, but they did offer these three solid gold solutions:
- Import membership cards from Amazon.co.uk, ignoring the fact that the price of a Gold Membership in the UK is approximately $80, plus shipping.
- Ask a friend or relative in the UK to pay for my membership for me. Again, this still works out more expensive, and if nothing else is pretty bloody cheeky.
- Go back to England.
So I started to email Customer Support instead. I explained my problem carefully and politely, and I also expressed the problems I'd had with the Customer Support phone line. They quite obviously read every word in my emails carefully and with due consideration before sending me the following advice:
Please call our Xbox Customer Support at 1-800-4MYXBOX (1-800-469-9269) at your earliest convenience, and we’ll be happy to help you. We are open everyday from 8am to 12mn US Central Time
Was this their grand scheme? To keep me in some kind of circle-jerk going back and forth between email and phone, getting angrier and angrier until my head explodes and they don't have to speak to me anymore? No, it turns out, because after I sent this email:
I wrote:People of the Xbox Customer Support email-reading team, please attend carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all.
You seem to be somewhat missing the point of these emails - I have called and spoken to Xbox Customer Support concerning this issue numerous times. Lots of times. Lots and lots of times. If I had $1 for every minute I had spent on the phone with Xbox Customer Support I would have a good few hundred dollars. You do seem to be rather missing the point, I feel. Calling Customer Support has so far got me no further on this issue, but has resulted in me being told to "Go back to England" twice. I didn't find this statement offensive before, but I could find it very offensive for the media.
You may notice I've CC'd a couple of people in on this email. Just drawing this to your attention.
Now, please do me a favour: Read this email. Read it from the very bottom right the way to the top. All the way. Every word. Please do this before you rush to click the "Reply" button to send me the very useful advice of "Please call our Xbox Customer Support at 1-800-4MYXBOX (1-800-469-9269) at your earliest convenience" because I've been told to do this before, I've done it, and I've been verbally abused, hung up on, and so on. I hate to tow the Discrimination line here, but this is discriminatory against me as an immigrant and I want something done about it.
Please.
Seasons greetings and the like,
~Ben Paddon
...I was sent this email:
Some robot at Microsoft wrote:his is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
XBOX_.X360.NA.00.EN.HAH.MNL.LV.T01.SPT.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 550 5.7.1 <Your e-mail was rejected by an anti-spam content filter on gateway (205.248.106.32). Reasons for rejection may be: obscene language, graphics, or spam-like characteristics. Removing these may let the e-mail through the filter.>
So either they find the word "discriminatory" offensive, or they've had enough of me and blacklisted my email address. Either way, this doesn't bode well. I've forwarded my correspondence to a couple of gaming media websites, but where can I go from here? What, if anything, can I do?
Jump Leads - a scifi-comedy audiodrama podcast
Squirminator2k on
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It's stupid.
Has no one at Microsoft even seen Brazil.
Good luck.
You deserve it!
But seriously: What you need to do I think is either keep harrassing customer support until you get someone who isnt a douche/idiot. Only deal with them on the phone too. Email is dismissed in 2 seconds. A phone call engages them more.
Or just get a new US gamertag. I know you shouldnt have to but well, you might find after all this effort and complaining that it is impossible to get what you want because of policy/infrastructure of XBL.
XLive: Oronis
Steam BoardGameGeek Twitter
you will need a ticket number to get by the computer that picks up but the person that eventually answers is far better equipped at helping with hard problems
If it helps, you probably couldn't have that name even if you remembered the credit card number. If MS has closed that account then no one, not even you, can ever use YodaTuna ever again. Same thing happened to me. I weep for the untold thousands of gamertags lost to the 48 hour freebee cards of the original xbox's run.
Before I dial it, where does this number actually go? (By which I mean, 'Who is it for?" and not "What do I do with this number, duh, I don't know how a phone works.")
I wonder a lot about the "go back to England" comment... was it said in jest?
Around half of the calls I've made where I've asked to speak to a Supervisor lead to the adviser either hanging up on me or scheduling a call back which never happens.
And the comment might have been said in jest. The second person who said it added, "I don't know, it depends on how happy you are in America. Are you happy there?"
It's a number that will connect you with an escalation department. Basically this is the number they give people as a "you can call back at:" if you get escalated.
The loophole is that (at least a few months ago) you could call it as long as you got a ticket number from the regular unhelpful people at 8004myxbox because it the computer that answers immediately asks you for a ticket number in hopes it can connect you to the last person you talked to.
Also... the people on the other end are in the US, and speak English.
edit: when I called I kinda played dumb... and said it was a number I was given by my wife who tried to solve the issue but got escalated but didn't have all the right information... sure it's a lie... but IMO it's completely fair play when dealing with large companies and CS
Hm, when I migrated my XBL account from the oxbox to the 360, I didnt have my credit card info and the call support helped me out with no troubles. I guess it's just a matter of getting the right person.
OP: Have you tried asking for a manager or supervisor?
EDIT: Oh, guess you have. Man, i'd have been steaming by that point.
I must be the luckiest man on earth, I've yet to have a problem with MS' tech support.
Reading this topic makes me angry for you.
Only with the proviso that you wear your kilt and dye your hair red first. Bonus points for getting some bagpipes in there somewhere.
PSN: super_emu
Xbox360 Gamertag: Emuchop
Ah, here at least I have a headstart.
I think I'll have to.
Awesome. I lolled.
It would be jes' peachy-keen if you could.
Are you sure this is true? When I first set up my 360, I just used my first name as my gamertag as I didn't have an internet connection. When I did get one, obviously that gamertag was used on Xbox Live, so I just made up a new one that wasn't taken, and I thought I would lose all my saves and achievements.
However, I can access games and content that I've downloaded with my new gamertags on my original gamertag no problems, so long as I am using the same 360.
Might be worth looking into, if this was your only stumbling block.
PSN: super_emu
Xbox360 Gamertag: Emuchop
Or if you elect to continue, get a tape recorder. Some states- I don't know if California is among them- have laws that say you don't have to get the other side's consent to tape a call. If it's kosher, do it next call, and every call from here on in. Build a case, then present it to your favorite media outlet. (Obviously, if Microsoft relents, all this is moot.) Just keep hammering and keep turning up the pressure.
EDIT: Okay, go with Roland's suggestion first. But I'd still keep the tape recorder handy just in case THAT place tells you to go back to England too.
When I was in the UK, I had a 360. That went to my brother when I left the UK, and I bought a new once once I arrived in the US. I had to re-download all of my Marketplace and XBL purchases, and people who want to play those games have to use my Gamertag to do it.
Even so, the main problem here is that I can't update my payment details with my US billing address and card details, because when it asks for a "region" it only offers me England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Now, I will admit my world geography is not perfect, I'm fairly confident that these regions are not located anywhere within the US.
I'm getting really fed up of this situation.
We're the 51'st state. Just below Wyoming.
If only - would've made immigration a lot easier and much, much less expensive.
As Skype apparently lets you call toll-free numbers without charge, and as I use a program called PowerGrammo to recall my Skype calls for Podcasts, I think this shall be a very, very easy thing to accomplish indeed.