BenPaddon.co.uk

This is an article I originally wrote for GamePartisan back in August. It appears that they’ve chosen not to run the article, probably because the Editor in Chief is trying to stay in Microsoft’s good books for now (tch), so I’m posting it here in its entirety. For reference, the issue still hasn’t been resolved and I’m on the phone with microsoft as I type this to get this issue resolved now.

---

Immigrating is a huge undertaking. As well as all of the legal paperwork, you have the ordeal of uprooting your life and transplanting it into foreign territory. You say goodbye to friends and to family not knowing when you’re next going to see them. It’s difficult, it’s stressful, and it’s expensive. But, provided you’re doing it for the right reasons, it’s all worthwhile. I say this in confidence because on June 26th of this year, I moved from the UK to the US; from Luton in England, to Los Angeles in California. It took months of preparation, no less than two trips to London (one medical, one interview at the US Embassy), and a flight that ended up costing me three times as much as it should have done. But I’m here now, and I honestly wouldn’t change a thing.Perhaps the most difficult part of the transition has been telling companies that I don’t live in the UK anymore. I live in the United States, which as you may be aware is an entirely different country altogether. The iTunes store was remarkably easy - it took four clicks and less than a minute to enter my new address before I was registered as a US member. Microsoft, unfortunately, have not been so easy.I didn’t own an Xbox 360 in the UK, but my friend Chaz does. I set up an Xbox Live Gold account as he’d allowed me use of the console, and I was rather enjoying playing Gears of War online. I even bought some games on Xbox Live Arcade. All in all, I was pretty impressed with the service and the console as a whole, and I decided that after I moved to the US I would buy one myself. I did, and I bought a 1 Year Gold Membership Card at the same time, as I knew the Xbox Live website would only allow me to pay by credit or debit card if the card was assigned to a UK billing address.

Really, I should have seen that as the first warning sign.

After setting up my 360 and getting it online, I transferred my Live account to the new console and proceeded to cancel my old payment method and set up the card. Bizarrely, the card number was rejected. Confused, I decided to call up Xbox Support who very kindly informed me that as my account was a UK account and the card was purchased in the US, it wouldn’t work.

“Oh,” I said. “Well in that case, can we migrate my account to the US servers, or something?”

“I’m afraid not,” said the thickly-accented Support assistant. “Your account was set up in the UK and so you cannot access US-specific content.”

“Yes, and I’ve noticed I can’t access UK-specific content, either.”

“Indeed you cannot, sir.”

This wasn’t helpful. I asked for further information and was informed several times that it just “wasn’t possible.” I politely explained once more that I no longer live in the UK. I live in the US, and as such it would be peachy-keen if I could have my account migrated. The answer was the same. I asked, then, what I should do about the Membership card.

“I would take it back to where you bought it and get a refund,” suggested the Support assistant.

This rubbed me the wrong way. “If you ran a business,” I said, “And someone came into your store with a Membership card that they’d already Scratched To Reveal and said it didn’t work, would you give them a refund? I wouldn’t. There’s no way to verify it.”

“True,” said the assistant. Then there was silence.

I became frustrated at this point. I refused to believe that there was no procedure in place to allow customers who have moved from one country to another to migrate their Xbox Live account accordingly, and I told him so. He advised me that it’s a standing policy not to migrate accounts, and suggested I set up a new Xbox Live account of US origin. Ha! If I do that, I lose access to all of the Xbox Live Arcade games I’ve purchased, I lose all of my Achievements and Gamerpoints (not strictly speaking the most important thing in the world, but a loss is a loss especially when I’ve paid money for this account), and I lose my friends list. I estimated that I had spent approximately $300-500 which would be lost by discarding my UK account and setting up a new one.

The next brilliant suggestion - “Do you have a friend in the UK who can pay for your account for you?” That is great, isn’t it? Ring up a trusted friend or family member and ask them if I can have their credit or debit card details to pay for something for me which, let’s be honest, I should be able to pay for from my own bloody bank account. Infuriated and short-tempered, I demanded to speak to a Supervisor.

I was then informed that it’s a standing policy not to migrate accounts - people, for example, set up accounts every day where they accidentally choose the wrong country, and they are told the same thing. Yes, all very well and good, but I hadn’t chosen the wrong country, had I? I didn’t accidentally select United Kingdom instead of United States. I had chosen the correct country, and then moved away from it some five months later. It’s not Rocket Surgery. I asked no less than twice more to speak to a Supervisor.

When I did get my Supervisor, he sounded exactly the same as the previous gentleman would sound if he were lowering his voice to try and sound like someone else. I ignored this and decided to repeat my plight. I was told again, in no uncertain terms, that there was no way in Hell I would be able to migrate my account. The Supervisor even offered the utterly ingenious idea that I go back to England! Such simplicity! The scales have fallen from thine eyes! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Here I am in the Land of Opportunity, mere days away from starting a job at one of the most prominent studios in Hollywood*, but I should throw all that in and move back to the UK because I can’t play Gears of War online.

I was more than a bit pissed off at this suggestion, laced with implicit racism as it was, and so I asked to speak to the Manager. I was promised a call back and, haha, didn’t get one. So the issue remains unresolved. I am utterly pissed off with Microsoft, who are in my opinion a confederacy of dunces whose sole purpose on this Earth is to make my life and the lives of people like me more difficult. All I want to do, and I don’t think this is a particularly taxing demand, is to be able to play the games I have bought online. Is that really such a huge request? I’ve given up trying to call them for now, but I imagine once the current Gold period runs out I will be forced to ring them once again, and I will probably end up in another game of verbal Ping-Pong.

Microsoft have caused me no end of grief. They have decided me continued use of goods and services I have purchased. They have offended me with potentially racist remarks, and they have, indirectly or not, discriminated against me as an immigrant. I am not a happy bunny. I am most certainly not an appeased lagomorph.

---

* Well, I say Hollywood. Anyone who knows the Entertainment Industry knows that most companies are actually set up in Burbank. This is where I work, and it’s not too far from where I live. Fun, eh?