Okay. Before I start my tale, I should say that I am a big XBox360 fan. A really like Xbox 360.
It’s a very well designed piece of equipment. A little too much fan noise, but overall a VERY well built user experience.

I like it so much, I have two. Yes. That’s two xbox360’s. It’s actually a bit embarrassing, but for the sake of full disclosure, I admit I have a problem.

I had developed a VERY heavy Oblivion addiction problem. I also got tired of competing with my sons “Call of Duty” shootout sessions. So in a moment of Circuit City dementia, I walked home with another 360. I mean, I had 2 HDTV sets, why not two 360s?

I’m also a Big Live Arcade fan. Xbox Live Arcade is a very slick, and a clear cash cow for Microsoft. I’ve purchased at least a half a dozen games, and have clocked too much time on “Outpost Kaloki” that I wish to admit.

So when XBox announced their video download service, I thought it was a slick move on Microsoft’s part.
As I was sitting down tonight to finally try to save Cyrodiil from Daedric invasion (I’ve been taking my time through all the quests - I’m a level 32 battlemage!) I noticed the “V for Vendetta - Get It Now” message.

Cool. I haven’t seen that movie before. Let’s check this out.

I spend some time surfing through all the TV and Movie offerings, trying to decide which item will be my first official download.

There a few TV shows, but most of what I like I’ve already seen.

I haven’t seen “V for Vendetta”. It’s been on my “watch” list for while. I have the graphic novel. I’ve been interested to see what the film will be like.

And now I can see it HD! Sounds better than getting the DVD. $6 is a little steep, but not too much.
So after some discussion with the kids, it’s decided. Let’s try the rental.

Famous last words.

So first I have to buy some more points. I always leave my points at the absolute minimum I can get away with. No reason to leave excess points in my account. A quick $6.25 and I’ve got another 500 enough for a rental.

Then I notice that the file size is 6.1G!
Okay, not a huge problem. I spend some time cleaning out all the previous video downloads. Delete a demo or two. Dump about 400Mb worth of Oblivion saves (I save frequently).

Now I have 7.1G free. I’m completely ready to rent!

So go back to the market place. Find the movie, and hit the “confirm” button and wait for the magic:

And I get an error. I don’t remember the exact message, but it said there was a “Digital Rights Management download” problem. And that my 480 points have been deducted, and I need to contact customer support.
Ouch. Damn. And error message that says “contact customer support“. I don’t like this. But it’s launch day. We can be SLIGHTLY forgiving. A quick call is all that I need, and I will be ready to try again. Poke around the Xbox 360 user interface. There doesn’t seem to be any information on HOW to contact customer support.

So I get out the computer, go to xbox.com, two clicks from the home page, and finally get a phone number.

It’s now about 8:50 PM EST. Wed 22nd. Website has very nice posting. Customer service hours are until 1AM EST. Great. Let’s call.

I call in and get the evil speech recognition engine. It has a name. “Max”. It takes a few minutes to get through all the messages until I can finally get transfered to a message queue. Now things get weird. I’m listening to your standard “wait” music, but I keep being interrupted and the voice is now speaking to me in spanish. Something about my call being “importante” and that “wait times” are “something” “something”. I’m in a spanish language queue. Did I hit the “spanish button” by mistake?

Hangup. 4 minutes wasted.

Try again. Same evil “Max”. I answer the same. I have to yell at my kids to quiet down, since they have lost patience and have started wrestling on the floor in front me. (Dad won’t let them play on the Xbox!).

Okay. I got rid of “max” and I’m waiting for a live person.

Again with the spanish! Okay. I assume that I am NOT the only person, on “Video marketplace” launch day, who is calling into customer service. I figure the english call queues have overflowed into the spanish language call queues.

Finally, 10 minutes of waiting, I get an live human. Now he’s friendly enough, but he has a VERY thick spanish accent, and seems to have problem understanding me. It takes us over 5 minutes for him to FIND MY account. I figure he doesn’t understand my english well enough. After I confirm my account, I proceed to explain what has happen. He asks to put me on hold. I wait. He comes back and asks me a few more questions. Asks me to wait. It’s clear that NONE of these service reps know what to do.

My kids have abandoned me for the down stairs Xbox360. They are watching a DVD. That seems to make so much more sense at this moment. I stick to my guns. I’m getting this rental.
Then - crisis. The battery in my cell phone dies. (Damn thing has NO warning beep!). Curses! 39 minutes and the call is lost. Argh.

I find the charging cable. It’s a Blackberry 8100c, which is normally a wonderful device but it has ONE annoying feature - it won’t just run off the charger. I have to wait 5-10 minutes until there is enough of a charge for it turn the antenna back on.

Okay. Power back on. It’s now 9:44 pm. Call back.

Now it’s “Max” the Speech Rec thing again. I now offically hate him. I just start hitting the “0″ button - the universal button meaning “give me a live person”. But no. Max won’t listen. I must respond to his questions. This time, I ask for the “Accounts and billings” department, since I figure this is a billing issue. Give me my 480 points back.

More time on hold, but this time - ENGLISH! I get to hear advertisements over and over again telling me about the great new wireless headset and the great wireless controller. Finally I get another live person.

It again takes 5 minutes to pull up my account. What is up with that? Why does it take so long to pull up my account?
He finally tells me I have to talk to the XBox Live support team, not “Accounts and Billings” so he transfers me.

I wait some more. More hold music, but it’s still in english. Finally I get a NEW person. This time it’s woman. She’s pleasant enough. I think she even has a spanish accent, but we don’t have any problem understanding each other. But for some reason it STILL takes almost 5 minutes to find my account. What is wrong with looking up an account? I explain my problem. Again.

We talk for about. She get’s off and puts me on hold. It’s clear that everybody is putting people on hold, and running around asking somebody else what to do.

At one point she tells me that Video Downloads can be re-downloaded as much as you want. I tell her, no, that’s Video Purchases. This is a rental. Anyways, when I go to “Download and try to “redownload”, the market place complains that I don’t have enough points left to rent the movie. It’s CLEARLY trying to bill me again.

I want my 480 points back! I want my video rental! So finally, she gives me a reference number and transfers me BACK to the accounting department, for what I assume is my points refund.

I get a NEW person. Now I have to actually GIVE HIM the reference number. But no. That’s no good. He needs my Xbox Live account. It now takes, - that’s right ANOTHER 5 minutes for him to find my gamertag and account. Do I have a some sort of lisp when I spell my gamertag name? Am I that hard to understand?

Now I have to explain my problem ALL OVER AGAIN. They KEEP putting me on hold.

I go into “speakerphone” mode on the phone, and I’ve try to start up another oblivion session while I’m waiting. But the rep wants me to look at my “Download History” and I have to kill the session. It is now over 50 minutes into my second call.

Finally, after 90 minutes of waiting and talking and waiting, the representive tells me that I need to call back after the holidays!

It turns out - There are no supervisors on staff. Nobody who can authorize a 480 point refund. They have all gone home for thanksgiving.

Okay. I am usually a cool customer. I don’t tend to get angry. I explain that I have now spent 90 minutes on hold trying to get my points back, and I’m told that there is clearly not adequate customer support. If they can’t issue me a refund, than they clearly cannot support my needs. And this is on LAUNCH DAY!

I work in the telecommunication business. I’ve spent the last 15 years building mission critical systems. You don’t turn on a new service without having a full support staff waiting by. Instead it seems that all the supervisors are home, getting ready to eat turkey, leaving clueless support staff to navigate what seems like a complete customer service nightmare.

This is Microsoft’s BIG LAUNCH. It’s the FIRST real HD video download service. With real movies from real studios. It is a critical piece of their long term business strategy. And they go home?
Now I’m fuming. I find myself yelling at the poor hapless rep on the phone. I ask him a simple question: why should I have to call microsoft back? I have already been on hold for 90 minutes of call service time. I have given microsoft all the information they need. Why do I have to call them AGAIN? I don’t want to spend another half an hour on hold waiting to get a refund here. Enough is enough. If you can’t take care of me now, than take care of me on friday or monday. But don’t make me wait through another call!

Sounds like a good idea, right? I’m a good Xbox Customer. I’ve dumped thousands on consoles and games over the years. They can call me back. I feel empowered. This is going to work.
The rep is really trying the best he can, in what seems like a horrible situation. I TRY not to take it out on him, but it’s really hard not to.
He agrees to see if he can set this up. Can I wait on hold while he sees if he can schedule a call?
OMFG. Okay. Go ahead. Put me on hold again.

So here is the kicker. How long do you thing I wait?
30 minutes later, he returns. 30 minutes. My plan has totally backfired.
Although he does tell me that Xbox Live representive will call me back after the holidays to resolve my problem. I thank him and I quickly get the hell of the phone.

That makes a total of 2 hours of my life, spent trying to order a video rental.
The MOVIE is only 2 hours and 12 minutes.

I still have no rental. I still have no 480 points. And I haven’t even BEGUN to try and download the monster 6G file.
Let’s see what happens. Keep posted. I’ll officially announce on here when I finally hit play . Any one want to take bets on when that might happen?

Update: I got my refund! - more here!