This Aggression Will Not Stand ... Man!

I guess the only way to put what I want to say it to say: I just keep getting more and more pissed off! I am trying to figure out why this is the case. I have never been an angry person. In fact, most of my old friends would say things like: "I've never really seen Mike get mad."

That's probably true too. Before the last couple of years, I really wasn't an angry person. To be honest, I probably wasn't all that emotional of a person at all. But here I am, pissed off. I don't want to be a whiner. I don't want to blame everyone else. God knows that I have found ways to contribute to the situations in which I find myself. But when it comes down to it. If I really have to toss the truth out there. The reason that I am pissed off is because I HAVE BEEN PISSED ON!


Here's the small situation that actually is a nice little microcosm for the big sitations.

Last year, it was my birthday time. We didn't have a ton of money, but Kim really wanted to get me something that I wanted. I actually didn't have a ton that I wanted, but there was one thing that got stuck in my head. After being at friends house and being coaxed into playing around with it, I kind of fell in love with the xbox 360. Actually, I mostly fell in love later. There had been several times where I was with friends and they were playing Call of Duty 4. They were having a blast. I was having fun just watching the game. But when they would ask me to play, I could barely run in a straight line and was getting killed everywhere I went.

Every time I played it, I would think to myself how fun it would be to play this game on my own and not have to be embarassed while friends watched me suck. What put me over the top though was the news that I was not only going to be able to play COD4, but Netflix had signed on with xbox to let their movies stream onto Microsoft consoles. When I heard that news, I was thinking that even if I never played a game on it, the netflix thing was crazy cool. I had to have it.

So about a week before my birthday, we went to my favorite pizza place, and Kim told me that she wanted to pick up an xbox for my present. I suggested that we go to the Target right across the street. I am a long time fan of target. Target is right next to a gamestop. Because I have never considered myself a "gamer" I was not as comfortable in gamestop as I am in Target.

So we went to Target, I looked and asked questions about the game consoles. I chose the one with the 20gb hard drive, thinking that I would never really need a larger hd on one. When we were about to check out, I asked about the rumors about xboxes dying and the red ring of death etc. Brandon, who was with us this night, assured me that if I bought the xbox at gamestop and got the red ring, they would exchange it over the counter same day, if I bought a warranty with it. Overhearing this the Target guy told me that Target had the same deal and their warranty was cheaper. Only $30. We asked if it was the same deal, and he told us that yet it was. I even checked with him about if the warranty would work if we happened to move to a new town. He just told us that we had to have the warranty card and we could exchange it over the counter, same day. He told us that in many places, you have to wait a month or two to get yours back from Microsoft.

Sold!

Perfect. I bought the thing at a store I like. I can rest assured that I will not have a hassle if I get some red ring action.

Guess what. One year and 10 days later, I get a red ring. I laughed. No problem, we'll swing by Target and get a new one tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes. I box the thing up, and head over to the closest Target. The customer service lady tells me I first have to call the number on the warranty card. No problem. I call. Then problems start. They inform me that they will send a shipping label. I will print that off and package the unit at my own expense. After receiving my unit (in Pennsylvania). I get to wait 3 weeks to receive my new one.

This is not what Target told me.

I asked, when I bought the thing. I was going to get one next door at Game Stop, but the guy told me I should get it there at Target.

I complained at Target. They gave me a customer service number. I complained to her. She said she could file a complaint. I asked her if Target Co. would take responsibility for the actions of their employees and she told me that they Can't.

I then went to the Target where I purchased the unit. Same story.

So now I am stuck. I am in the middle of a move and don't know when I will have an address to mail the thing to. I also am without xbox for at least a month.


Here's how I contributed to my mess. I didn't read the fine print. If I had investigated the warranty info that Target had given me, that was sealed in the spiffy little packet that you buy at Target; I would have seen that this was an outside warranty company and that everything that the employee had told me was only half true at best and totally false at worst.

I also could have purchased the unit from the Game Stop next door. It was the exact same price, but the warranty was like 10 dollars more. I'm sure that the Game Stop employee would have warned me why the 10 extra dollars would have totally been worth it at game stop. I really had no reason to believe the Target guy didn't know what he was talking about. He seemed to know what he was doing. What I am saying is that, it is my fault for not reading the fine print. It is my fault for trusting that the employee was not lying or misinformed. It is my fault that I did not investigate deeper before making this purchase.

Now I have a choice. Do I:
Bend over and send my xbox to the warranty company. Wait a month or so to have it shipped to who knows where in WA.
or
Do I purchase a new one, switch the outside casing and serial numbers and return my old one in its stead and get my money back?

Either way, this aggression from Target will not stand... Man!