So, since I didn’t really want the Undertow freebie that Microsoft offered to it’s XBox Live Gold Subscribers to make up for the downtime, I thought I would give a call and see if I could get a refund for the downtime or at least get Microsoft to extend my 2 Xbox Live accounts for an additional month.  I paid for this service and Microsoft failed to provide the service I paid for.  Makes sense to me, but I guess not to the Microsoft representative and supervisor I spoke with.

I called and got a rep on the phone.  I explained to him that my service was down for almost 4 weeks and that I would like a refund for the downtime since I paid for something I didn’t get.  He told me that Microsoft’s policy is not to give refunds, but they gave us a free download.  I told the rep that I didn’t download the game, nor did I want it, but I wanted to either get a refund or have my memberships extended for an additional month for the downtime.  Regardless of my argument,   the rep who sounded like a broken record kept saying unfortunately, there was nothing he could do.  I then asked to be transfered to his supervisor.  The first rep was courteous and professional, but couldn’t come to grips with the fact that I paid for a service I didn’t receive and felt I was owed something more than a game I didn’t want.

I then got a cockier version of the rep on the phone who claimed to be a supervisor named Tony.  From my experience with this support call, it appears that to be promoted to supervisor you have to have an attitude about you that you are being annoyed by having to take a phone call from one of those, what do you call em again, oh yeah….  Customers.  Tony, (If that was his real name) then proceeded to explain to me how Microsoft Terms of Use say that the service is provided as is and if the service doesn’t work, then you are just out.  I told him that I paid money to access XBox Live and that I was not able to access it and that I either wanted a refund for the time period or my service extended for an extra month.  He told me they didn’t have to do that because of their terms of use and that the policy was the policy.  I told Tony that I felt like money was stolen from me because I paid for something I didn’t get.  I questioned him point blank saying I paid for a service and you didn’t provide it to me and you are telling me that you will not give me my money back for the service you didn’t provide.  To quote Tony “That’s Right!”.  He said their policy is their policy and there is nothing he could do. I then asked him for the contact information for someone who could help me and he told me that there was no phone number in all of Microsoft that could help me.

The conversation went back and forth for quite sometime, but the end result was that I am just screwed because I was foolish enough to believe that if I paid Microsoft for something I would get the service I paid for.  SO, read your terms of use carefully cause in reality if you don’t get the service you paid for on XBox Live it is your problem not Microsoft’s.