Anatomy of a RROD

As many of you know, I purchased my 360 the best part of a year into the products lifespan - back in August 2007 - the 26th to be precise. That was just over 9 months ago, and I bought it in what was then the Virgin Megastore in Southampton, for a cool £250 with a copy of Bioshock. I was made up - there was already talk of the 3 year warranty extension and I figured if anything went wrong with it in the first year, I'd just take it back to the shop and get it swapped out. Right?

Well I finally got proper RROD last week - Friday 6th June, and thought I'd just stroll into Zavvi, as it is now called, and get it replaced. Oh no. No way. I was firstly quothe a line about how they only cover faults in the first 28 days, and that after that the console would have to go back to the manufacturer. I gave them my understanding about the Sale of Goods act 1979, which, summed up, says the buyer has a right to expect things to last a certain time and be of a certain quality based on their price. I was then referred, by the Zavvi manager, to the online 'contact us' procedure on the zavvi website. I sent a large missive to them last week, outlining the details of my complaint, and such gems as the manager telling me that 'there's a really large problem with the 360', something that I mentioned might have been nice to be informed of when it was sold to me.

He also told me I'd have to give back the whole thing - 360, hard drive, all accessories, if I wanted to return it to the store. I could probably live without my gamesaves, and my profile is all on Live anyway, but I don't see why I should go through this.

The end result of my wranglings with Zavvi are that I really feel the onus has been left, wrongly, on me to get my faulty goods sorted out, something I have been able to do painlessly via the very kind loan of munchk's spare 360 (I have your HDD, too, I meant to say!) UPS came to collect my packed-up 360 yesterday, Wednesday 11th June, and you can track its' progress here, using the tracking number 1z5w33f99163119786

I was told zavvi's complaints department aimed to reply within two working days, and so far I have heard nothing at all, four working days having already passed since my complaint was lodged. I'm, frankly, never shopping there again, but that is by the by.

I know, "get a blog".