Probably the most horrible RMA story I have ever heard...

[djheater]

It's not that hard to remove permanent marker with the right cleaner...

I doubt it was intentional.

He shouldn't have been promised that it wouldn't be harmed, but he should never have sent it in. Suck it up and pay for the artwork, buy a new one, swap cases send it in... Is that fraud?

If that's fraud just swap cases and auction the broken one (as broken...) you might get something for it...

 

[jpeyton]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Dumbass kid. They ship it to some factory where it gets manhandled, mixed up with other XBOX units, taken apart, put back together, etc., all by low wage workers. There are no "custom orders" or "special treatment".

If the XBOX was that important, he should have bought a replacement casing and swapped before he shipped it off.

 

[GoSharks]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark

"Permanent marker doesn't rub off easy."

That's a hell of an understatement. Permanent Marker requires a solvent to remove. Something alcohol-based at least. And even then it's not easy.

Sharpie is incredibly easy to remove using even diluted ethanol. I imagine isopropyl alcohol would work too. Both are very easily obtained and it is possible you have some in your house.

 

[Imaginer]

Probably shouldn't have gone with the long letter and tape a large note on the faces of the unit with do not clean or erase case, contains important markings. That or several coats of clear coat polyurethane on the case.

 

[her209]

Mmmkay.

 

[evident]

kids an idiot for sending away a collectors item, he coulda just sold the defunct xbox, or just bought a new one and kept hte old for sentimental purposes

 

[chuckywang]

Originally posted by: evident
kids an idiot for sending away a collectors item, he coulda just sold the defunct xbox, or just bought a new one and kept hte old for sentimental purposes

Part of the sentimental value was the fact that the Xbox worked! A broken Xbox with a bunch of signatures on it loses its luster.

 

[indamixx99]

Well the units are shipped to Mexico for repair... what else did he expect? Perhaps the guy servicing the unit couldn't read english and overlooked the letter..

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark

"Permanent marker doesn't rub off easy."

That's a hell of an understatement. Permanent Marker requires a solvent to remove. Something alcohol-based at least. And even then it's not easy.

I'd remove permanent marker from plastics a lot.

I used acetone.

Yeah...it will EAT the plastic if you aren't careful - but it will take the marker out.

 

[randay]

pwnt.

 

[silverpig]

It probably got sent to India for RMA where all of that stuff just looks like scribbles.

 

[Captante]

I feel sorry for the kid, but it was seriously dumb to send that X-box in to MS for repair.

 

[Lonyo]

Article:

Taking it apart would have voided the warranty so if his attempts at fixing it had been unsuccessful, he would have been screwed.

Letter:

Although the original warranty for my machine has expired some time ago

 

[herkulease]

Sucks for him but chances are just replaced his with another one. The matching serial numbers mean absolutely nothing. His case is probably sitting at the repair center.

I'm too lazy to pull out both of my 360s and take a photo. on one of them you can clearly see that the # was reprinted on the back. Its crooked and the font size is atleast .75 larger also.

The factory probably gets tons in a single day. Both of my RMA's the systems spent about 1-2 days there it was sent out. Chances are they simply processed his system as received, move it over to some station that checks for RROD to make sure it is that error then put in queue to send him out another one.

I highly doubt they'll will take his system in, open it up diagnoise problem(RROD is a general hardware failure after all) repair it and ship it out. It'll take up too much time to do that. Plus its more efficient to have a stock pile of repaired system all ready to be shipped out as next shippment of broken ones come in.

 

[TallBill]

Well he did get his box back

 

[Ricemarine]

I doubt it was THAT permanent since there are smudges when the case had signatures on it.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: TallBill
Well he did get his box back

Yeah no kidding. the worst RMA story has to end with the person not getting their item fixed.

Also, I am sorry but gathering signatures from game developers and design teams is kinda sad

 

[sygyzy]

As an early commenter pointed out, they did not clean his xbox. They swapped out the case.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
As an early commenter pointed out, they did not clean his xbox. They swapped out the case.

All the same he got a working item back. Bad RMAs are when you don't get a working item back. To ask that they return the same exact item that you sent in is going above and beyond their responsibility.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
As an early commenter pointed out, they did not clean his xbox. They swapped out the case.

Who besides some obsessed little kid would want those signitures? Surely not some tech who's probably sick to death with having to fix such a poorly design console.

 

[Amused]

I'm willing to bet that this was repaired in the same facility they repair refurb units for resale.

They have a standard procedure list, and they follow it. The people doing the work probably have no idea if the unit is a warranty repair, or a refurb intended for resale. People at the end of the line use the serial numbers to figure out which is which and ship accordingly.

For so many angsty teens on the internet to automatically assume MS acted out of malice is absurd and shows just how quick their pimply little knees jerk.

Schools REALLY need to teach objectivity.

It also shows how incredibly small their minds are. They seem to think MS receives the warranty repairs, and ONE person unpacks, carefully reads all included material, and then sits down like an old world shoemaker and repairs the unit.

Um, no. MS would go broke doing business like that.

The unit arrives, is sorted into a bin, the package is opened and the unit sent down a refurb line in which a different person with a different individual task works on it. The final task before final testing is probably cleanup. Dozens, if not more people work on the machine. None know anything about the machine other than what they need to do for their individual task on the refurb line.

Once the machine is done, the serial number is used to sort and reship the machines.

If he wanted careful, personalized service he probably should have coughed up the dough to have it repaired by a local tech.

 

[RandomFool]

That was dumb of the kid he should have taped the letter to the case. The people at MS probably just pulled the console out of the box and didn't even look at the letter in the box.

 

[legoman666]

Shit dude, I wouldn't be surprised at them completely ignoring the letter and sending him an entirely new xbox, but to have an employee spend the time to actually wipe off and clean the old one. WTF?

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: legoman666
Shit dude, I wouldn't be surprised at them completely ignoring the letter and sending him an entirely new xbox, but to have an employee spend the time to actually wipe off and clean the old one. WTF?

Did you even read my post?

 

[Spineshank]

While its a shitty thing what they did. Hes an idiot for sending it in. I would have kept it and bought another.