Xbox Live issue

[tomster2300]

I'm pretty frustrated with Microsoft right now.

I just returned my second broken xbox 360 tonight and picked up my third at Best Buy (I'm a sucker for punishment). All I want to do is recover my gamertag on my newest console because my year long, paid xbox live subscription is tied to the account.

For the transfer to work, it wants the Microsoft Live ID email and password that the gamertag was linked to during its creation. Since I don't use this ID thing at all, it's always a pain in the butt to figure out, then make work, when my xbox 360 has its annual meltdown and has to be put down. Literally, this is the third one in three years. I guess I ought to begin writing it down.

You see, whenever you change the password (only way I can do it each year because I always forget it), it somehow messes up on xbox's side and gives me a ton of grief when I try the new login. I always seem to fix it each time, but this time it's seeming pretty hopeless.

Even though everything worked on my old console with the settings saved, now that I try to switch consoles, nothing works.

I went to xbox.com's website and called their support phone number. After 15 minutes of talking to a robot, I gave up. There was no "speak to an Indian" option, and you had to listen to every single FAQ / suggested solution before being given additional options. Shouting "human" or "real person" only confused the robot and restarted the entire process.

I then tried their email option, which brings up a new window with boxes. The drop down menu didn't work, and the second drop down box wouldn't refresh with choice appropriate options. I reopened and refreshed numerous times and still got nothing.

I wrote my spill, and it wouldn't submit. It said email error and suggested calling the support phone number, which in and of itself is hopeless.

Thanks Microsoft for your concern and openness in providing numerous means of human contact. I wouldn't expect anything less, especially with my Microsoft wireless keyboard set that randomly quits working, my Vista, which randomly deletes default peripheral drivers, and my three xbox 360s, which I'm sure will total four in a few short months. I wish Apple could develop everything. It wouldn't always work, but at least they would try to fix it for you when you called them.

[glc]

Call the support number and just keep punching "0" - you should eventually get in a queue for a so-called human.

[shadowpr]

Get a playstation. Make it a playstation 2 and save money.

[tomster2300]

I am going to keep a log of my entire experience so everyone can see how inept Microsoft is with handling customer support issues.

I woke up this morning, took glc's advice, and finally got in contact with someone from India. This guy had one solution, and that was to change my password on my Live ID account online. We did this, as well as the main email address, and nothing worked. He admitted to not knowing anything else, but offered to look through my account after I gave him my user and pass. I did so, and 10 minutes later the phone line cut out. Does some random person in India now have my login information? Yes. Strike one Microsoft.

Time so far: 30 minutes.

I dutifully called back and demanded to speak to the same man. They said this was not possible because there were no notes in the system under my name. I had asked the previous man for a case number, but was never given one. Good going Microsoft tech support. Strike two.

I then explained everything to this second man, who was very hostile with me. He directed me to an obscure Live ID support form, told me to fill it out, and that my issue was essentially not his problem. I have the wrong password for the account he said. I then explained to him the following logic:

I registered the Live ID with the email address tomster2300@charter.net, right?

He said yes.

Now, when you register Live ID accounts, they won't let two accounts have the same email address, correct?

He said yes.

So, if that logic holds true, then when you're inside a Live ID account and decide to change the account's main email address, it shouldn't allow it to be changed to an already registered email address...right? So, if there is a random account out in Live ID land registered to tomster2300@charter.net, then the account that I'm in shouldn't allow me to change my email to tomster2300@charter.net. Right?

He told me to fill out the form and have a good day.

Strike 3 Microsoft.

Time spent: 1 + hour

I dutifully filled out the Live ID contact form, picked the dropdown box topic of username / password error, and received a response informing me of the correct way to "optimize my browser" to make the login work. Apparently that's an issue for enough Microsoft victims that they have a five paragraph auto email that addresses it...

So, I responded with this -

Hey Max,

Your automated email response had nothing to do with the problem with which I wrote about. I have pasted the issue below, with some more information concerning my predicament:

I was directed here from xbox live's unhelpful customer service representative because of an issue I am having recovering my gamertag on my new xbox 360. My gamertag is linked to the tomster2300@charter.net Live ID, but when I attempt to recover the gamertag it says the Live ID is not associated with it. This is my third xbox, so when this happened last year I had to change my password to get back into the account. I also changed the main email address to a newer address (tomster2300@gmail.com). Since the issues have occurred I have changed the email back to tomster2300@charter.net to match the gamertag's info, but it still refuses to work. Xbox live's customer support has no idea how to help me, and told me it was not their problem. Thank you, Tommy

Update**: When I change my email address back to tomster2300@charter.net, it asks me to verify the account. When I do so, I never receive a verification email within my charter account. I logged into it and made sure that everything was working correctly (which it is), so I'm beginning to think that this could be the crux of my problem. If I were to set the Live ID username (charter email address) and password back to exactly what it was when I registered my gamertag, perhaps it would accept it. I know that it should accept any changed username / password as long as it is the same Live ID account, but it doesn't seem to be working.

Thanks again for any and all help in this matter.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I then made sure that my Charter email account (which I no longer use directly, but forward to gmail) was still working. Guess what? Charter sucks too. Apparently, when you send an email to the account and finally get it to show up, it deletes itself after clicking the inbox / get mail button three times.

No joke.

The kicker is if you view the message three times, an error occurs and explains that the contents can no longer be displayed. The email is then gone when you revisit your inhox.

Thanks Charter. I clicked through every possible preference to see if this was due to some obscure setting, and it is not. This is just Charter being Charter.

I went onto their live help and explained my issue, and was promptly given a phone number to call. The online woman said she had no idea how to help me, and stopped talking.

Total time spent: 2 + hours

...

So, now I'm stuck with no gametag access, which has my xbox live subscription ($50) tied to it. I have no way of accessing said gamertag and recovering my paid subscription.

I'm not a nut who wants his points back, or whatever they're called, but I would like the subscription that I paid for to actually work. I bought a $100 wifi adapter for the 360 last night so I could finally play online in my room. That has yet to work out.

I have had no human response from Microsoft besides the duo from India. The former has my account login information (which I changed after speaking with him). He told me that there is no way of unlinking the gamertag and relinking to a new Windows Live ID - everything is supposedly permanent. And finally, to top it off, Charter email doesn't, and apparently hasn't, been working at all for the last year.

The only joy I've found throughout this entire process is this article online while googling my issue - Charter erases 14,000 email addresses. It made me laugh and cry simultaneously.

More updates to come soon. I hope.

[Brad the best]

thats great , i now have the three red lights flashing ring of death . im so excited for what is to come .

there goes all the saved games . do they actually try and fix your xbox or do you just get a new one ?

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by Brad the best thats great , i now have the three red lights flashing ring of death . im so excited for what is to come . there goes all the saved games . do they actually try and fix your xbox or do you just get a new one ?

Well, it depends. I have my warranty through Best Buy, who gives you a direct exchange for a new xbox. They said they would let me keep the old hard drive if I did everything in store, but the new pro box has a 60 gig hard drive compared to my old 20 gig. I decided to just get the extra storage space over my game data.

Since this is my third xbox, I've gotten used to starting over on all my games. It's going to make me cry though when I boot up Grand Theft Auto IV...

They don't have the right cables in-store to do a data swap, which is kind of ironic since they are an electronics store. If so, I would have gone that route. The manager last night was kind enough to let me get store credit for the remaining $100+ because the price difference between what I originally paid and the current price was so large. It let me buy a new warranty essentially for free, and paid for 2/3 of a wifi adapter (the remainder came out of pocket).

[tomster2300]

Does anyone have any other ideas on who I can contact to help resolve this? I'm tempted to close down my windows live account and make a new one to see if that would work or not. I'm kind of afraid of doing so though.

[Brad the best]

trying not to hijack , but future shop is making me deal with Microsoft even though i bought there extended warranty . im so mad , i want a direct exchange i bought a 80$ extended warranty for basically no reason , there telling me because its a three red light issue they wont replace it and i have to send it off to Microsoft and it will take a month .

im never buying warranty again , if i didn't have warranty i would of bought a brand new xbox with hdmi and a bigger hard drive . this is so frustrating , and after i just bought a 50" HD plasma from there not 2 weeks before . thats the second one in the house from there .

never going to future shop again , they are terrible with here warranty , don't even get me started on ipods

[doubledragon5]

Sorry your having some many issues tomster, I have had my live email account for 6 months with out any issues.. One thing I have learned is to find a password that is easy to remmeber and stick with it.. I'm known to forget passwords, so now I use my complete birthdate, and that is what I use no matter what I sign up for.. I was thinking of buying a Xbox 360 now I'm not to sure if that is a good idea..

I called MS once to help me with my SP3 issues for XP, and all they did was mess it up and I had to redo windows again. Hopefully someone will have a answere that will help you out good luck..

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by doubledragon5 Sorry your having some many issues tomster, I have had my live email account for 6 months with out any issues.. One thing I have learned is to find a password that is easy to remmeber and stick with it.. I'm known to forget passwords, so now I use my complete birthdate, and that is what I use no matter what I sign up for.. I was thinking of buying a Xbox 360 now I'm not to sure if that is a good idea.. I called MS once to help me with my SP3 issues for XP, and all they did was mess it up and I had to redo windows again. Hopefully someone will have a answere that will help you out good luck..

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say don't buy an xbox 360. They're great fun when they work...just not so much so when they go on the fritz.

I'm now on the phone again, and have found two knowledgeable people that seem to be helping me. My phone died on the first person, but this second guy seems to know what he's doing. They told me that my ID had expired and I could link it to a new ID, so I'm in the process of making one and hopefully relinking my gamertag to it. Why the former two reps didn't suggest this, I don't know.

I always try to use the same handful of words for passwords so I can remember them more easily. The problem this time seems to be on Microsoft's end though. At least I hope so.

[Masaki 7-11]

To anyone with an Xbox360 that is worried about having the console die on them, I would recommend getting something like an intercooler (one of the names for additional fans that snap on to the case), it is kind of noisy, but moves a lot of air, and reduces the temperature of the console by a good amount.

I've had problems with the wireless add-on for the Xbox360 while I was using WPA security on my network; the Xbox wouldn't even identify my router. The solution to this was to change my security to WEP, after this the Xbox easily identified and connected to the router.

I currently have my Xbox Live ID tied to my Hotmail account, so it is quite easy to keep track of my username, password and Live ID info.

I've never had to deal with tech support before, so I can't really comment on that, but there are some things you can do to prevent problems from happening; at least from my experience.

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 To anyone with an Xbox360 that is worried about having the console die on them, I would recommend getting something like an intercooler (one of the names for additional fans that snap on to the case), it is kind of noisy, but moves a lot of air, and reduces the temperature of the console by a good amount. I've had problems with the wireless add-on for the Xbox360 while I was using WPA security on my network; the Xbox wouldn't even identify my router. The solution to this was to change my security to WEP, after this the Xbox easily identified and connected to the router. I currently have my Xbox Live ID tied to my Hotmail account, so it is quite easy to keep track of my username, password and Live ID info. I've never had to deal with tech support before, so I can't really comment on that, but there are some things you can do to prevent problems from happening; at least from my experience.

Yeah, I definitely understand the prevention, but two xbox's aren't supposed to die on you in a row (at least not statistically had they been quality products). The people at Best Buy were surprised that this was only my second one that I had brought back. The guest service woman's brother was on his sixth.

Update: Scratch the second guy being useful - he was pretty confused when I told him about the situation and then accidentally hung up the phone on me. Back to the drawing board.

[Brad the best]

so phoned xbox for half an hour . now i get it sent away for 3 weeks . so tempted just to tear into it and fix it myself from what i have read on the Internet .

[tomster2300]

Forty-five minutes and counting on the phone now (with this one rep, longer if you count the other time spent with the previous three reps this afternoon). The man says canceling my current Live ID account and re-linking to a new one can be done, but he doesn't seem to be sure on how to do it.

I think I've exhausted the help support.

[Brad the best]

well it is bedtime in india . i wish they had some one i could understand .

[tomster2300]

I thought I'd give a quick follow up and an explanation on how I finally got my issue resolved. I tried the phone support once more and finally got my issue bumped up to an "investigative team" (I laughed at this), who said they would call me with any additional information. I didn't believe them, so I went ahead and posted on the official xbox live forums a thorough, polite post explaining my issue, my attempts to resolve it, and the unhelpful service I had experience thus far. Within the hour one of the xbox live program managers responded and offered to look into it for me. Within another hour I was told my account was corrupted and beyond recovery, but I was given a free year of xbox live service. He also looked into the status of my phone support inquiry and said they were waiting on me to call them back so they could give me a free year as well. He said to call them and redeem that one too.

So, within two hours of posting online I was given acknowledgment of my issue and one free year of xbox live. Compare that to one month's worth of weekends calling tech support, during which I was given the run-around and frequent disconnections. I finally received one free year of xbox live that was redeemable upon me calling them back, but even that was the complete opposite of what they told me to do during our last conversation.

I am very appreciative of the two free years of service, and I made sure to respond to both the manager and in my xbox thread concerning his quick resolution. Regardless of this, I still feel Microsoft has dropped the ball. I understand their size makes it difficult to fully serve each customer, but their current and recommended form of support / contact is a complete and utter joke. Before their big winter xbox update, the contact email form on their support page would not even work. It would show an error message after clicking send, despite the amount of time you spent logged into the site.

I hope they get their act together soon, although I highly doubt they will.

[shadowpr]

Good to see you at least got something out of it for your troubles.

[Jester]

this is one of those cases where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. When it comes to customer service if I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am right I will fight tooth and nail for a resolution. I am the bane of CSRs.

[fiery]

Were you able to re-download any games connected to your gamertag?

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by Jester this is one of those cases where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. When it comes to customer service if I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am right I will fight tooth and nail for a resolution. I am the bane of CSRs.

What's sad is that you have to in this day and age. I flat out got laughed at when I explained my problem to one of the tech support people over the phone. They told me it was a Microsoft Live ID issue, and wasn't their problem. I really wish Bill Gates could call his company's own tech support and see what a mess the situation is.

Originally Posted by fiery Were you able to re-download any games connected to your gamertag?

He offered to replenish any Microsoft points I had lost, but I've never given Microsoft that much of money. I did lose all the achievements and free game add-ons that I had downloaded though. That kind of made me angry.