Calling Microsoft out onto their own green carpet…

It’s been over a year since I made the decision to move from my home in the UK to Los Angeles, California, and very nearly a year since that first piece of paperwork arrived through my letterbox. I was nervous. Terrified, even. I didn’t really know anyone in the States. I didn’t know what LA would really be like. I didn’t know if I’d be able to find a job, or what my long-term plans were when I got there. My decision to leave - a decision I’d made a couple of weeks before I broke up with my girlfriend - was largely made on a whim. I often wonder if the only reason I left is because my Dad did the exact same thing. It’s a little weird that we flew out almost exactly ten years apart, and that my flight number then was exactly the same as his was back in 1997.

I expected a number of difficulties when I immigrated. I’d have to sort out health insurance. I’d have to open a bank account. I had no idea how the American Tax system worked. But I didn’t expect to encounter problems with my Xbox Live account, and I certainly didn’t expect these problems to drag on for over six months.

I didn’t have a 360 of my own when I was in the UK, but my Friend Chaz did. He lived at my Mum’s place for the bulk of 2007, and so did I while I was preparing for my immigration. Naturally we spent a lot of late nights staying up, playing Gears of War or whatever game happened to be The Thing at the time. As it was the first time Chaz had the ability to connect his 360 to the Internet he bought a Live Gold account. Eventually I did the same thing, and those nights playing Gears of War didn’t just involve us anymore - they involved friends and strangers across the Internet. Because I had money to burn, I ended up buying stuff on the Xbox Live Marketplace. If I’d known I’d run into the troubles I’ve had, I wouldn’t have bothered.

I arrived in the States on June 26th 2007. Within a few days, I called Microsoft to see if they’d be able to transfer my account from the UK to the US. The problem is that as my account was registered in the UK, it will only allow me to enter a UK-based billing address. This means that now my UK-based bank account is no longer in use, I have no way of paying for the account. I’d ideally like to pay for it using my US-based account, which makes sense considering I live and work in the US now. You’d think this would be an easy concept for Microsoft to grasp. It wasn’t.

I was offered two possible solutions at this point. I could either ask a friend or relative to pay for the account for me, or I could go back to England. Go back to England? I laughed, and politely asked to speak to a Supervisor. After a lengthy discussion he too advised me that migrating the account is "not possible," and suggested I set up a new account and use that instead. Of course, doing that means I lose access to all of that lovely Marketplace content I’d purchased in the UK, as Microsoft locks Marketplace content to the console it was purchased on and the Gamertag it was purchased with, meaning I can use that content in the US, but only if I’m logged in with my current Gamertag. That I actually had to explain this to a Supervisor in Microsoft’s Customer Support is indicative of the quality of person they hire in their overseas call centers.

After some coaxing, pleading, and promises of Scooby Snacks, he eventually advised me that I "should be able to just buy the Membership and Points cards from Best Buy or wherever." With that in mind, I went out and bought myself a brand spanking new Xbox 360 with an extra controller, a wireless adapter, Guitar Hero II and, of course, Gears of War. I also picked up a 13-month Gold Subscription Card while I was there. I was rather pleased with my purchase, and although the plastic on the back end of the console wasn’t connected properly (a rather questionable dent on the packaging suggests that the box had been dropped at some point) I didn’t care. So long as it worked, I was happy. After spending a few minutes getting it connected up and connected to the Internet, I decided to try out that Gold membership card.

• A lengthy telephone call later, I discovered that:
• The card had already been used (It hadn’t, and you’ll discover why shortly).
• I should take it back for a refund from the place of purchase (to which I asked the Call Center Biscuit, "If you worked in a store that sold a product like this and someone came into your store with an apparently used one, would you issue a refund?").
• The US cards don’t work on UK-based accounts.

Why wasn’t I told this at the start of the call, before all of the other misinformation? No, even better - why wasn’t I told this several bloody weeks ago when I first inquired about immigrating my account? Angry, I began discussing the migration issue again. And the Call Center Biscuit, apparently just as angry as I was, decided to do something about the issue - he hung up on me. Great, now I’m stuck with an Xbox Live account that was about to expire, and I’m stuck with a 13-month subscription card I can’t use. Lovely.

I decided at that point to use the last of the money on my UK-based bank account to add a one-year subscription and a few points. At that stage I just wanted to be able to play my games, and I was confident Microsoft would eventually be able to help me get this issue resolved. Again, this hope was misplaced.

It has been six months since that incident. During that time I have made phone calls to Customer Support, I have sent emails to Customer Support complaining about their poor Customer Support call centers, which usually ended in the words "We advise that you call our Customer Support Team," usually in emails where I have said "please do not advise me to call your Customer Support Team." I often wonder if the Customer Support email center is largely there to enrage and confuse customers with problems. Eventually, after much complaining and another instance of a Call Center Biscuit advising me to return to my home country (punctuated with the statement, "I mean, I don’t know if you’re happy in the US or not, but it’s definitely an option.") I started CC’ing my emails in to various friends, family, and people within the industry. I also started tracking my progress on the Penny Arcade Forums in a thread entitled "Microsoft versus immigration: Why I can’t use Xbox Live anymore".

At the advice of some of the Penny Arcade Forum regulars, I emailed Major Nelson, explaining at length the issue I was experiencing, the incompetence of the call center and email support teams, and the way I felt about the issue. I didn’t get a response.

"How do you feel?" I hear you ask. Go on, ask out loud. I can hear you, I have ears everywhere. The answer is that I feel hurt, offended, and discriminated against. It feels very much to me that, as an immigrant to the United States, Microsoft is treating me differently. If I choose to, say, import membership Cards from the UK, it means I’ll have to pay more for the Xbox Live service - almost twice as much as other customers in the US. They have been evasive, rude, bigoted and downright offensive to me on the phone and by email. This was punctuated by a conversation yesterday between a Microsoft rep and our Editor in Chief, Jonny DeViney, where Microsoft effectively asked DeViney to drop me from the editorial team to “remove any potential sources of contention” between GP and Microsoft.

In an act of defiance, DeViney backed me instead of Microsoft. That couldn’t have been easy considering the potential repercussions. I’m exceptionally thankful for his support, and the support of everyone else here at GP, during this six-month tribulation. But it’s very clearly not over yet. I’m going to push Microsoft as much as possible. Their activities are wholly iniquitous, and I’m not the only person who feels this way about it. During my email conversation with a variety of generically-named Customer Support people, I made a point of emailing them a link to the aforementioned thread on the Penny Arcade Forums, including a smattering of quotes from the thread, including one person describing it as "the single worst story I’ve heard concerning XBox Live ever."

Some people have already contacted me and suggested I start taking donations for a new account, but if I do that nothing really changes - Microsoft still wins. They still crush the Little Guy, and they still end up getting more money. That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to just set up a new account - I’d have to re-purchase my Marketplace content and Live Arcade games, which means Microsoft get paid twice for the same service from one person. More importantly, it’s the principle of the matter - I feel that as an immigrant I am being treated differently. I feel as though Microsoft are somehow punishing me for moving from the UK to the US.

I didn’t have this problem with Apple. I went into my iTunes account details and within minutes they had my new US-based address, bank account details, and I was able to access the US iTunes Store. That took three mouse clicks and a few seconds to type in my new details. I’m hardly a Mac zealot, but Apple get that human beings are not stationary creatures. They accept that people may want to leave the wet little island they came from in search of something new, and that’s something Microsoft simply doesn’t get. I’m glad I didn’t buy a Zune when I had the opportunity to back in the UK - I would’ve been double-shafted.

If you want to help, you can spread the word. Share the link to this article, and to the Microsoft category on my blog, where the ordeal is also covered. Tell your friends, regardless of which consoles they own, even if they don’t own any. And, if you feel like it, feel free to add me to your Xbox Live Contacts List. The Gamertag is squirminator, and I’m always happy to meet new people.

Microsoft should not be allowed to treat people this way. I never fell in with the "Microsoft is evil" crowd before, but I sure as Hell do now and they are not getting another dollar from me until this issue is resolved. You can bet on that.