Thanks a lot for the email address there, Impersonator. I just sent Major Nelson an email, and CC'd it to a few media people as well, including Kotaku and The Consumerist. Below is the email I sent, which is mostly a recap of what you lot already know. Still, figure it might be worth reading:
I have somewhat of an issue concerning my Xbox Live account, and I was wondering if you would be in any sort of position to help me out.
Six months ago I moved from the United Kingdom to Los Angeles, California. I had an Xbox 360 in the UK and so I had an Xbox Live Gold Membership (gamertag: squirminator) on which I have purchased more than a few Live Arcade titles, expansions and add-ons for games, and what have you. When I moved to the US I bought a new Xbox 360 and transferred over my Gamertag. I was aware I wouldn't have access to US-exclusive material anymore, but I also discovered I had lost access to UK-exclusive material. Huh.
The Gold membership was about to expire, and as I was by this time working and earning money in the US I figured I'd enter my US bank account details. The system, however, refused to accept any address outside of the UK. Hoping to get this sorted I called the Xbox Customer Support line, who told me it wouldn't be possible and instead offered me three alternatives:
Import membership and points cards from the UK, which means I pay more for my membership than other US residents.
Ask a friend or relative in the UK to pay for me, which means I still pay more for my membership and what's more I become a burden to my friend or relative.
Move back to England. I'm not joking - not one but two of the call center staff on the Xbox Customer Support line have advised me to go back where I came from.
The first call I made concerning this issue was six months ago, shortly after I bought my new 360. The most recent call was on Friday. In the intervening time I have been fobbed off, given excuse after excuse after excuse, passed between departments, hung up, insulted, offended, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. Wait, no, that's the entry for "Vogons" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (although given my experiences with the Xbox Customer Support, I imagine Vogons would be a tad more sympathetic by comparison). The point is that the call center staff are generally being utterly unhelpful and, six months in, I'm no closer to being able to enter US bank account details and continue giving Microsoft my money than I was when I started.
It's not just the call center staff I'm having difficulty with, either. All attempts to email Customer Support are met with the words "It is advisable that you call Xbox Customer Support." Even when I send an email saying how utterly unhelpful Customer Support have been and please don't advise me to contact them again, they still advise me to call them. Naturally, this causes me to spend several hours staring at a wall.
I'm at my wits end, here. There are games on Xbox Live Arcade I want to purchase, expansions for games I want to pay for, extra songs for Rock Band I am unable to rock out to. All because I've moved from one country to the next, and I'm unable to enter my new card details and billing address. I'm sure you can appreciate how frustrating that must be. If there is any way you are at all able to help me concerning this matter, I'd be very, very grateful.
Here's hoping you had a great holiday season and a good new year ahead,
~Ben Paddon / squirminator
Yes, it's a bit wordy. But we're talking about six months worth of failure, here. I figured wordy was necessary (and I sprinkled in a few jokes, so if nothing else I hope the good Major got a giggle out of it).
Most of the time when you ask for a Manager your are going to get a Floor Manager (one that is responsible for reps in his/her team)
If their Floor Manager can't help, ask for an Area Manager (the one that usually is in charge of this particular call center).
If the Area Manager can't help, ask for a Regional/District Manager, or the VP. (usually Area Manager will take care of you)
Get peoples names and positions, that way if you ever get to someone who has power you can let them know of the service you've received, and maybe some of those will end up getting some sort of coaching and some will get the swift kick in the ....
How do you get a callback that never occured? Is that, like, some kind of twist in the fabric of space where (time becomes a loop... where time becomes a loop...) something happens and as soon as it does it ceases to happen, therefore negating itself like matter to antimatter?
Seriously, though... "Go back to England" is a fucked up response. I know you probably don't have any desire to talk to those stupid fucks, but I think the best way to solve this is through voice communications. Get a headset or a decent speakerphone and just sit on hold.
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0
The_SpaniardIt's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
edited December 2007
You know being told to "Go back to England" gives me a mental image of a black man calling up and being told to just "Go back to Africa".
Read the thread. When he's asked to escalate, he's gotten callbacks that never occured, abandoned on hold, and hung up on.
Well I don't work for this company, I also have never called M$ in regards to the X360, so I don't know all the little details to pay attention to when calling them. Sounds to me in this situation a normal rep. isn't going to be able to get his situation resolved. So if I were to call them back, the second I get on the line with a rep. I would politely say "I would like to speak to your manager". If they ask why "Sir can you tell me why you would like to speak with my manager, maybe there is some way I can help you", I would say "No, I'm sorry I would just like to speak with your manager", most of the time they will say "Can I place you on hold", say "No I do not want to be placed on hold, I will wait for the manager to come on the line with you".
The time the manager gets on the line, I'll ask for his full name and position (to make sure he’s not just a team lead). Then my next question would be "Who is the Area Manager?" Sometimes a manager will try to act like he is the last point of contact, but they aren’t. If they start trying to ask me how they can help me before answering my questions, I'll tell them "I'll get to that, but first I want to know "..."". Then before explaining my main problem, I will go into my previous customer service experience. I will let them know how frustrated I am and use words like "I want to get this resolved". When Quality listens in on recorded calls they listen for key words. If you are using the same words they use, and things don't get resolved, that rep is probably going to get low stats, end up getting coaching or lose their job, etc.
There are only so many managers that work for their CC dept. If a manager hangs up on me, I would be sure call back and make sure that I start speaking with some sort of Area Manager and report the last people I was speaking to. I'm personally very persistent and don't like being hung up on.
Re: purchasing VC/Live games in different countries:
I can understand that the initial purchase of games would be restricted to your current geographical location, because of taxes/laws/licensing which differs from region to region, but when you move, you should be entitled to update your details and carry on as a resident from your new location!
The weird thing I have heard about Xbox Live is that if you end up on a new machine, your content is restricted to only your Gamertag, not your physical machine. This is fair enough, Steam games require you to be using the account under which your purchased. It enables you an amount of freedom in transferring your content to new machines as your situation changes - which is an important factor in digital distribution I believe.
Except if I move country or replace my machine I can still use my Steam as I am entitled to without having to jump through hoops in order to use content I have paid for. Same with iTunes. I believe this is a critical flaw that MS needs to address.
I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with our customer support. I understand that you would like to change your account from a United Kingdom account to a United States account.
I am sorry, but this is not possible. You cannot change the country in which you want to be billed. After you have selected the country when you created the account, that field is locked and cannot be changed. If you want to be billed in another currency, you need to cancel your account and then create a new account by entering the appropriate country.
I deeply apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding.
Understanding? Understanding. The only thing I understand is that Microsoft are being wholly, entirely, completely and utterly shitty about this entire scenario. On a scale from one to ten, this is shit.
I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with our customer support. I understand that you would like to change your account from a United Kingdom account to a United States account.
I am sorry, but this is not possible. You cannot change the country in which you want to be billed. After you have selected the country when you created the account, that field is locked and cannot be changed. If you want to be billed in another currency, you need to cancel your account and then create a new account by entering the appropriate country.
I deeply apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding.
Understanding? Understanding. The only thing I understand is that Microsoft are being wholly, entirely, completely and utterly shitty about this entire scenario. On a scale from one to ten, this is shit.
Sounds like shit to me... how hard is it to click some buttons or type in USA into the required field. Sucks man
I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with our customer support. I understand that you would like to change your account from a United Kingdom account to a United States account.
I am sorry, but this is not possible. You cannot change the country in which you want to be billed. After you have selected the country when you created the account, that field is locked and cannot be changed. If you want to be billed in another currency, you need to cancel your account and then create a new account by entering the appropriate country.
I deeply apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding.
Understanding? Understanding. The only thing I understand is that Microsoft are being wholly, entirely, completely and utterly shitty about this entire scenario. On a scale from one to ten, this is shit.
Sounds like shit to me... how hard is it to click some buttons or type in USA into the required field. Sucks man
This reminds me of a similar problem I had with PayPal. Evidently, you cannot set up to have something shipped to an address in a country you don't live in. Why? Because it auto-fills the country with your country.
Seriously, how fucking stupid is that. Take away a simple dropdown box that PayPal doesn't even have to deal with. All they have to do is send the info to whomever I just payed.
Anyone notice how some things (mattresses and the copy machines in Highrise) are totally impenetrable? A steel wall, yeah that makes sense, but bullets should obliterate copy machines.
I don't know about you, but I always buy a bullet proof printer. Its a lot more expensive, but I think the advantages are apparent.
Yeah, I wanted to change my info to Canada for PayPal as well, but they won't let me. And since the card is tied to a US bank and US PayPal account, I can't seem to use it for another.
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I had a similar problem with PayPal, which I gave up on because it's not like I lose anything by setting up a US account and simply not touching the old one.
I suppose that's a possibility, but that's going to be the last thing I ask for. If I can transfer my account first, I will - if nothing else, I'd have no idea how to transfer my local game save data from one gamertag to another, which is also fairly important-ish.
Yeah, I wanted to change my info to Canada for PayPal as well, but they won't let me. And since the card is tied to a US bank and US PayPal account, I can't seem to use it for another.
Another really fucking annoying thing that can't be changed is the fact that they choose your bank account over credit card as the default payment for everything. I bought something from woot.com, using paypal, and they didn't even ask me if I wanted to pay by bank or credit card. It just went straight from my bank.
Sent them an email and they said it's impossible to change the default payment. I'm sure that's impossible. Fucking liars.
I had a similar problem with PayPal, which I gave up on because it's not like I lose anything by setting up a US account and simply not touching the old one.
In my case, I lose the ability to use my other account, unless I want the hassle of trying to tell people not to send what I paid for to an American address.
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I'm thinking of setting up a dedicated website to cover this problem and similar problems other people may have had with Xbox Live. As I stated earlier, I refuse to believe that I'm the only person who has run into this problem. There must be others.
I'm thinking of setting up a dedicated website to cover this problem and similar problems other people may have had with Xbox Live. As I stated earlier, I refuse to believe that I'm the only person who has run into this problem. There must be others.
I would be more than happy to provide all the info about the shit I've had to go through. Not the same issue, but other retarded and backwards MS thinking on the 360.
Oddly enough, I've been having some decent customer service with 2-3 calls every week regarding the status of my 360 repair (3rd time), along with being sent brand new power suppply/cable stuff.
However, I just remembered the one time the lady for my first repair talked to me for like a half an hour, telling me how I was a rich boy and she wanted to move to the States to live with me and my money. I think I ended up telling her that I couldn't cry because I got into a car crash at a small age and ended up hanging up when she finally seemed like she was done talking.
Good luck squirm. I've been a defender of Xbox Live as a pay service since its inception, but when they can't get the billing details of a pay service right, that's just a fucking joke.
Oddly enough, I've been having some decent customer service with 2-3 calls every week regarding the status of my 360 repair (3rd time), along with being sent brand new power suppply/cable stuff.
That's console repair. Everyone has to deal with that. But, according to Microsoft, I am the very first human being who has moved from one country to another. it's unprecedented! No wonder they don't have a policy or procedure for it.
As I understand with your concern, setting a new Xbox Live using billing address of your current address seems unfavorable. We apologize for the inconvenience.
It is Microsoft's policy that the customer to should use their geographical location as billing address due to the following reasons:
1. Beginning in May 2007, the Xbox LIVE service will restrict the download or purchase of content based on geographic location of their console.
Xbox LIVE will determine the user’s geographic location based on their console’s IP address upon login. If the content the user is trying to obtain is restricted in their geographic location, Xbox LIVE will block the purchase or download from occurring.
Upon blocking content, the user recieves the following error message:
This item is not available from your current location.
...
We regret to inform you regarding the possibility of your previous Xbox Live account to become unuseful. However, we will evaluate all the suggestions and comments sent in by our members and Xbox enthusiasts. And hopefully your comments or suggestion will be taken into consideration in the near future.
Again, I apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.
I hate that phrase, it seems to me like a "ha ha hope you enjoy the shit you gotta put up with ha ha".
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0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited January 2008
This incident alone has really shown me how much of a drone people working tech support are. Y'know, instead of thinking outside the box with, "Huh, this is a really unique situation, better start checking in with the higherups to get a solution," they look at their little booklet of possible problems and durr durr about it.
As I understand with your concern, setting a new Xbox Live using billing address of your current address seems unfavorable. We apologize for the inconvenience.
It is Microsoft's policy that the customer to should use their geographical location as billing address due to the following reasons:
1. Beginning in May 2007, the Xbox LIVE service will restrict the download or purchase of content based on geographic location of their console.
Xbox LIVE will determine the user’s geographic location based on their console’s IP address upon login. If the content the user is trying to obtain is restricted in their geographic location, Xbox LIVE will block the purchase or download from occurring.
Upon blocking content, the user recieves the following error message:
This item is not available from your current location.
...
We regret to inform you regarding the possibility of your previous Xbox Live account to become unuseful. However, we will evaluate all the suggestions and comments sent in by our members and Xbox enthusiasts. And hopefully your comments or suggestion will be taken into consideration in the near future.
Again, I apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.
So, no.
So it's based on ip at login? How hard would it be for it to, you know, do that at every log in? Sounds like lazy design. Either way, the idea that Microsoft can't make adjustments to their own software is foolish.
So wait. If it checks your IP at login to see if you can buy something... and you formerly had a UK account... and you now have a US location but can't register your account as such... does it let you download things from XBL?
(Also this is a tremendous crock of shit and I'm surprised I haven't seen anything about it anywhere else)
if i were you i´d call the media and tell them you have huge problems with ms support being racist
i work for a german newspaper and we have 10+ people calling every day reporting problems with their ISP, garbage guy, cable, whatnot. Calling their Press Relative going "this is the towns newspaper speaking, we have a reader having a terrible experience with your customer support" works for those guys like a charm.
there is nothing a huge company fears as a "X screws poor innocent customer with racist / stupid / whatever comments" headlines
If I were to guess I'd say they designed the gamer tag infrastructure to be as simple as possible and migrating a tag to a different country was either something deemed rare enough to not be worth the risk or it was just a design oversight. Either way, it sounds like the customer service reps don't have the ability to make the change and it wouldn't suprise me if even the tech guys working on the internals can't even do that for you. It probably is impossible to do in the current system.
Assuming it isn't possible for them to migrate the tag, I'd suggest coming up with a clear idea of how you want it addressed and then presenting that to the next rep you talk to. I'd go for a new tag and a request that you are reimbursed all points spent on your old one. Your saves won't transfer, which sucks, but at least they can still be accessed via the old tag, right? I think you'll have better luck asking for something that the reps can do than repeatedly asking them for something they have no way of dealing with.
Or you could keep complaining loudly and if lucky the right people will hear you and decide it is important to have the programmers working on xbox live eventually put a system in place to properly migrate tags. I'm not saying that sarcastically... it is a perfectly valid thing to complain about, but I wouldn't expect them to get around to making the change any time soon.
If I were to guess I'd say they designed the gamer tag infrastructure to be as simple as possible and migrating a tag to a different country was either something deemed rare enough to not be worth the risk or it was just a design oversight.
I vote for design oversight/asshole decision. Immigration between first-world countries is fairly common. Immigration between same-language first-world countries is even more common. Immigration between same-language, first-world, closely-allied countries happens all the time. :P
Posts
Thanks a lot for the email address there, Impersonator. I just sent Major Nelson an email, and CC'd it to a few media people as well, including Kotaku and The Consumerist. Below is the email I sent, which is mostly a recap of what you lot already know. Still, figure it might be worth reading:
Yes, it's a bit wordy. But we're talking about six months worth of failure, here. I figured wordy was necessary (and I sprinkled in a few jokes, so if nothing else I hope the good Major got a giggle out of it).
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...After me, obviously.
Edit: Oh, and feel free to add my gamertag to your Friends List if you like.
No promises, but I'm going to see if I can help. Squirminator, if you want, send me a PM and I can give you some contact information.
Rep can't help, ask for their Manager.
Most of the time when you ask for a Manager your are going to get a Floor Manager (one that is responsible for reps in his/her team)
If their Floor Manager can't help, ask for an Area Manager (the one that usually is in charge of this particular call center).
If the Area Manager can't help, ask for a Regional/District Manager, or the VP. (usually Area Manager will take care of you)
Get peoples names and positions, that way if you ever get to someone who has power you can let them know of the service you've received, and maybe some of those will end up getting some sort of coaching and some will get the swift kick in the ....
Good luck to you.
Steam BoardGameGeek Twitter
Seriously, though... "Go back to England" is a fucked up response. I know you probably don't have any desire to talk to those stupid fucks, but I think the best way to solve this is through voice communications. Get a headset or a decent speakerphone and just sit on hold.
Well I don't work for this company, I also have never called M$ in regards to the X360, so I don't know all the little details to pay attention to when calling them. Sounds to me in this situation a normal rep. isn't going to be able to get his situation resolved. So if I were to call them back, the second I get on the line with a rep. I would politely say "I would like to speak to your manager". If they ask why "Sir can you tell me why you would like to speak with my manager, maybe there is some way I can help you", I would say "No, I'm sorry I would just like to speak with your manager", most of the time they will say "Can I place you on hold", say "No I do not want to be placed on hold, I will wait for the manager to come on the line with you".
The time the manager gets on the line, I'll ask for his full name and position (to make sure he’s not just a team lead). Then my next question would be "Who is the Area Manager?" Sometimes a manager will try to act like he is the last point of contact, but they aren’t. If they start trying to ask me how they can help me before answering my questions, I'll tell them "I'll get to that, but first I want to know "..."". Then before explaining my main problem, I will go into my previous customer service experience. I will let them know how frustrated I am and use words like "I want to get this resolved". When Quality listens in on recorded calls they listen for key words. If you are using the same words they use, and things don't get resolved, that rep is probably going to get low stats, end up getting coaching or lose their job, etc.
There are only so many managers that work for their CC dept. If a manager hangs up on me, I would be sure call back and make sure that I start speaking with some sort of Area Manager and report the last people I was speaking to. I'm personally very persistent and don't like being hung up on.
I can understand that the initial purchase of games would be restricted to your current geographical location, because of taxes/laws/licensing which differs from region to region, but when you move, you should be entitled to update your details and carry on as a resident from your new location!
The weird thing I have heard about Xbox Live is that if you end up on a new machine, your content is restricted to only your Gamertag, not your physical machine. This is fair enough, Steam games require you to be using the account under which your purchased. It enables you an amount of freedom in transferring your content to new machines as your situation changes - which is an important factor in digital distribution I believe.
Except if I move country or replace my machine I can still use my Steam as I am entitled to without having to jump through hoops in order to use content I have paid for. Same with iTunes. I believe this is a critical flaw that MS needs to address.
Understanding? Understanding. The only thing I understand is that Microsoft are being wholly, entirely, completely and utterly shitty about this entire scenario. On a scale from one to ten, this is shit.
Sounds like shit to me... how hard is it to click some buttons or type in USA into the required field. Sucks man
This reminds me of a similar problem I had with PayPal. Evidently, you cannot set up to have something shipped to an address in a country you don't live in. Why? Because it auto-fills the country with your country.
Seriously, how fucking stupid is that. Take away a simple dropdown box that PayPal doesn't even have to deal with. All they have to do is send the info to whomever I just payed.
XBL: LiquidSnake2061
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Another really fucking annoying thing that can't be changed is the fact that they choose your bank account over credit card as the default payment for everything. I bought something from woot.com, using paypal, and they didn't even ask me if I wanted to pay by bank or credit card. It just went straight from my bank.
Sent them an email and they said it's impossible to change the default payment. I'm sure that's impossible. Fucking liars.
In my case, I lose the ability to use my other account, unless I want the hassle of trying to tell people not to send what I paid for to an American address.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
However, I just remembered the one time the lady for my first repair talked to me for like a half an hour, telling me how I was a rich boy and she wanted to move to the States to live with me and my money. I think I ended up telling her that I couldn't cry because I got into a car crash at a small age and ended up hanging up when she finally seemed like she was done talking.
That's console repair. Everyone has to deal with that. But, according to Microsoft, I am the very first human being who has moved from one country to another. it's unprecedented! No wonder they don't have a policy or procedure for it.
Edit: Cheers for the good word, Monaro.
So, no.
I hate that phrase, it seems to me like a "ha ha hope you enjoy the shit you gotta put up with ha ha".
So it's based on ip at login? How hard would it be for it to, you know, do that at every log in? Sounds like lazy design. Either way, the idea that Microsoft can't make adjustments to their own software is foolish.
(Also this is a tremendous crock of shit and I'm surprised I haven't seen anything about it anywhere else)
Steam BoardGameGeek Twitter
i work for a german newspaper and we have 10+ people calling every day reporting problems with their ISP, garbage guy, cable, whatnot. Calling their Press Relative going "this is the towns newspaper speaking, we have a reader having a terrible experience with your customer support" works for those guys like a charm.
there is nothing a huge company fears as a "X screws poor innocent customer with racist / stupid / whatever comments" headlines
Assuming it isn't possible for them to migrate the tag, I'd suggest coming up with a clear idea of how you want it addressed and then presenting that to the next rep you talk to. I'd go for a new tag and a request that you are reimbursed all points spent on your old one. Your saves won't transfer, which sucks, but at least they can still be accessed via the old tag, right? I think you'll have better luck asking for something that the reps can do than repeatedly asking them for something they have no way of dealing with.
Or you could keep complaining loudly and if lucky the right people will hear you and decide it is important to have the programmers working on xbox live eventually put a system in place to properly migrate tags. I'm not saying that sarcastically... it is a perfectly valid thing to complain about, but I wouldn't expect them to get around to making the change any time soon.
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