Some of you may be familiar with the Xbox360 and the term "red ring of death". The Xbox 360 is a wonderful gaming console and I have owned one since nov 21 2005 BUT this gaming system was POORLY built and is highly prone to hardware failures. Now, All of my Xbox360's have been purchased from bestbuy exclusively. Each time I purchased one I got the instore product replacement plan so when (not if) it fails I have the convenience of just walking into bestbuy and getting a brand new one right on the spot versus waiting up to 6 weeks for Microsoft to fix it and send it back. I have gone through 4 consoles each lasting roughly 8 months or so give or take. Each time I brought my console in I re-purchased a new instore warranty to cover the replacement at the cost of 60-80 dollars.

Well, yesterday I powered my console up and sure enough got the red ring of death. I did the usual call Microsoft and went through all the standard trouble shooting procedures in which I now know by heart. So the rep from microsoft as usual told me I had a hardware failure which would require me to send it in to them to have them repair it. So, off to bestbuy I go to cash in on my product replacement plan. I get to the store and go directly to customer service hand over my equipment and replacement plan paper work. The girl took my information and box so the store could verify that my box was in fact broken. So she asked me to go get a new one off the shelf while she typed everything up to send me on my way.

Heres where it gets interesting. We got all the way to the end of processing my new console and she said im sorry but im not allowed to give you this console and that im required to mail my console in so bestbuys repair center could investigate why it failed. I asked why they were doing this because I did not pay for this. She said it would take anywhere from 1week to 90 days to get a new console mail out to me. Im furious at this point BUT, I keep cool. I asked for a manager and when he came out he gave me a funny look and told me exactly what the girl did and ther is nothing he can do about it. Well I asked for my nbroken console back and told them I would take it up with corprate. Ofcourse corprate told me the exact same thing. I called a friend of mine who works fo bestbuy in another state and asked him what the deal was and he besicaly told me that bestbuy has labeled me as a "bad customer" and are suspicious of something.

From now on I will NEVER by ANYTHING from Bestbuy again. I am in the process of sending my console into them and mean while I purchased a used console to keep me gaming until my new one arrives. BEWARE people.. You could end up like me being labled a "bad customer" for mearly using a service plan they offerr. Thanks for reading my story.