So three days ago I witnessed my XBox 360 dying a horrible death; signalled by the dreaded "ring of death". I panicked thinking not only it would cost a bunch of money since the warranty expired but that I would have to figure out a way to get it to the US and back. Thankfully it turned out to be a much much simpler process...
The first thing I did after restarting the XBox a few times and witnessing no change, was calling XBox support in the US. Thankfully the 1-800 lines are free on Skype so the 15 minute hold time didn't really hurt. After explaining the situation to the helpful operator in India, I learnt two pieces of information - that the problem is covered by warranty even though general warranty expired (good news) and that I had to find a friend or relative in the US since they would not ship to or pay for shipment from Japan (horrible news). Just as I was starting to think of how to pack the XBox in my PS3's box (since I did not bring the box for it to Japan) I came across a blog entry by someone who actually had a similar problem and ended up calling XBox Japan.
What did I have to lose, right? So my friend Kota called XBox Japan for me and they were extremely nice. It turns out the console numbers are sync'd all around the world so you can get service from your local XBox group as long as they either offer to fix your XBox (instead of replacing it with a refurbished version which I hear happens quite a bit in the US) or they have an XBox from the same region as yours which they can use to replace yours. We got them to come and take the XBox just the next day without me having to bother with even packing which actually is faster than how it works in the US even (in the US they send you a box and you put the XBox in it and call for pickup). Now I am in the waiting mode. I have to get back to Lost Odyssey ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment