This year Microsoft has allocated over $1.3 billion to fix faulty Xbox 360 consoles with retailers reporting a console failure rate of up to 30%.
Marcel Ollmann of New Zealand claims in a letter to Mclean that he is now on his second Xbox 360 and like a lot of other Xbox 360 users who have had problems with Microsoft over their gaming consoles, it is not the failure of the Xbox that galls him but the "shocking" service that Ollmann received when he attempted to get his first Xbox 360 fixed.
He has also had major problems with Microsoft support and Microsoft Live. In a blunt letter to Mclean he states: "It is fair to say that for the past year Microsoft has treated me like shit".
"Rather than following New Zealand law and providing replacements at a point of sale I was forced to call the Xbox support and get a resolution through a toll-free helpdesk. After jumping through various hoops over the phone with representatives that struggled with basic English I boxed my Xbox360 and at my expense sent it to Microsoft. From this point on, my xbox360 was never seen again. The helpdesk had no record of my console being received or processed for repair. I wasted countless hours trying to get a resolution from Microsoft. The calls to the Microsoft helpdesk were so frustrating that I never wanted to deal with them again".
