Xbox 360 repairs are complete: our first unit comes home

It’s returned home.

Our Xbox 360 that suffered from a severe case of the dreaded three red flashing lights arrived on Friday and is now up and running.

Well, not exactly the same Xbox 360: we were informed that the unit we received was a replacement unit, but it’s in fine shape. (Let’s hope that this one doesn’t scratch game discs.)  All told, we waited about five weeks from the first call to the Customer Service centre to this week when UPS showed up with a plain white box.

Not that anyone missed the gaming system today: it was a gorgeous day with baseball, bike rides and much more filling the schedule until late this evening. We had just one session of Dance Dance Revolution on Friday before the kids headed to bed.

What else was in the box: instructions included with the unit were helpful, and it was nice to receive a letter from the Xbox team (in English and Spanish, thank you) apologizing for the issue.  And the bonus of a free month of Xbox Live that many people called out in mail to me was included in the return shipment.

Which is a wash as the unit was out of service for just over a month.

Update on another unexpected bonus: as you may have seen in an earlier post, our older Xbox 360 just went south (a month after the standard one year warranty expired). Good news is that I purchased with a credit card that automatically extended the standard manufacturer’s warranty by one year. That means the $99 repair fee should be covered… a small victory and good reason to keep that plastic.  So check your card agreements and see if you’re covered (some exclusions always apply).

Case in point: I saw recently that Costco extends the manufacturer’s warranty on new computers and televisions to two years from date of purchase. But Costco does not, it seems, extend this offer to video game consoles.

Tags: Xbox 360, customer support.

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