Xbox Strife

This opening post has been modified, largely because I was rambling about my own problem which is, at this point, largely irrelevant. Last night I spent about half an hour writing about my own issue. An issue which, as has been pointed out to me by many people, isn’t going to be resolved. Fair enough. But my own issue isn’t why I set up the website, and I guess when I was getting it set up and writing out the original version of this post I kind of lost sight of that.When I checked my email yesterday evening after work, I had yet another email from yet another person who had read about my problems with Xbox Live and had decided to email me about them. I received tons of emails just like this when my original issue became more widely known, but now I usually get one or two every week from people experiencing various difficulties with their Xbox Live accounts. This particular chap was named Chris, and he sent me this email:

Dear Ben,

I recently read your story about your troubles with Microsoft on GamePartisan. I have a rather big problem of my own concerning Microsoft’s service, or rather lack of. My story is that I had my xbox live gamertag stolen, the bottom line is it was down to negligence ( kind of ) on my part.

After doing some research on the web I discovered I’m not the only one. This has happened to many people and from what I understand, xbox support have been as helpful/unhelpful to them as they have to me. Surely they must be in control of the accounts as they are able to place a ban on them so I don’t see why they couldn’t redeem the accounts of those people who have had them stolen and hand them back. Microsoft have tracked my account, they tell me the password has been changed and the answer to my secret question was changed so clearly the whole account is visible to them. They asked me what the password was and when I gave them my password they said it didn’t match the one on the account any more. I can prove the account previously belonged to me as my address remains the same on the account. I can prove that I paid for the account but still they claim they can do nothing about it! What stops them from giving me the new password or taking over the account themselves and handing it back to me I don’t know because as I said, I can prove the account belonged to me. The way that the account was stolen is that I clicked on a link which directed me to a copy of the xbox live sign in page. As soon as I signed in my account was disconnected and when I tried to retrieve my gamertag it said it had been retrieved by another console. If this happened on Playstation network I might expect Sony to be not much help, but of all the companies, you would expect Microsoft to be able to deal with a situation like this easily. It’s not a matter of not being able to access the account, they simply don’t want to breach their customer privacy policy which is ridiculous. They protect a person who has cheated the system through fraud, yet offer no assistance to their loyal, paying customers. The stress of losing my gamertag on which I had spent hundreds on downloads and microsoft points is nothing compared to the stress caused by Microsoft’s lack of help. After days of painfully banging my head against the wall (speaking to someone who barely understands English let alone my problem ) I have set up a new account. Slowly I will build up my gamer score and my downloadable content, but there is no way I am giving up on my battle with microsoft. Maybe I’ll never get my gamertag back but I sure as hell wont rest until I have brought this problem to light because as I said, it seems I’m not the only one this has happened to. I’m not quite sure why I’m writing to you about this, it’s just after reading about your problem I’m sure you can appreciate the level of stress I’m experiencing. I would be extremely grateful if you could in some way help raise awareness of this problem.

yours sincerely

Chris Owen

TL;DR: Chris had his Gamertag stolen. His password and security questions were changed, and when he called Customer Support to report the theft they refused to speak to him because he couldn’t give them the password or answer the security question, and they were unwilling to show some initiative and actually put their common sense to use (although to be fair on them it’s probably more to do with the fact that they don’t have any common sense),

This problem is, in many ways, much worse than mine. I still have my Xbox Live account. I can still use it. I can, in a very roundabout way, still pay for it. Chris can’t use his. The content he’s purchased is no longer his, the points on his account can no longer be spent. He has lost his account. Chris is not entirely without fault in this incident, being as it is that anyone who uses the Internet should be very careful about where they’re entering their password to (always, always check the URL of the site you’re on to make sure it’s actually the site you think it is) but the way Microsoft have decided to handle the issue - or not, as the case may be - is utterly ridiculous.

This is the sort of issue I’m going to report on here - problems people are experiencing with their Live accounts, where Microsoft simply won’t listen. If you’re having a problem with your account and the Xbox Support team are unwilling to help, I’d love to hear from you.

Call Center Carelessness, Customer Disservice, Major Nelson

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