The kids wanted to play XBOX 360 this evening and so while setting it up for them I noticed an advertisement in regards to a new game called Fallout 3.  The picture was pretty interesting and I'm all about shooting games so I selected it.  Trying to rush so as to avoid having the children nag me about "when is it my turn... ad nausiam" I clicked NEXT | NEXT | NEXT thinking I was downloading a DEMO.

After the kids had worn themelves out I decided to get back on and take a look at this hot new game.  Well, I was shocked to find out that A) It was only an add-on to the original game and B) I had evidently paid 800 Microsoft Points (their version of money to confuse you of the actual cost of things - this works out to be around $10).  Realizing the mistake I did what any normal consumer would do... I called and begged for a refund of the 800 MS Points.

Three customer service representatives later and a manager later I learned that I was not allowed a refund FOR ANY REASON.  In fact, the manager was so brazen to even quote me something like, "Sir, according to section F, paragraph 3, in our TOS customers can never receive a refund, for any reason, for a purchase made on XBOX Live Marketplace".

Well, as most of you know, this is the point where you want to reach through the phone and begin to smack the person on the other end with a huge slimy fish until they are subdued into assisting you to your satisfaction.  Of course the law of physics just doesn't allow such a thing... yet.

So the "manager" said he would have his manager call me back within 3-4 business at which point they too will quote the TOS and refuse me a refund.  But that's OK because I'm already prepared.  I've already called the credit card company and asked them to do a chargeback on my XBOX Live purchase on the grounds that MS is greedy and even though I made an honest mistake they refuse to refund my purchase.

If they call me before the bank does and refund me the money out of the kindess of their blue screen loving hearts then all I've to do is call back the bank dogs and we're all good.  But if they don't well I hope my credit card does what its supposed to do and protect me from such scrupulous charges.

Has anyone else out there experienced this problem with XBOX Live Marketplace?  Maybe I should withdraw my stock investments with Microsoft as well.. that'll show 'em!

UPDATE:  I never did get a call back from Microsoft's XBOX Marketplace Support Team Management.  But, I did get a call back from my credit card company (Thank you Chase Bank!) who agreed with me on the issue and gave me a full refund.  There is justice in the world.  1 point for the little guy - 0 for Microsoft.

I have my own business (sole proprietorship) on the side in which I do some information technology consultant work.  You can get more information on my website: http://www.DatSure.com

Well, one of my customer's has a Small Business Server 2003 Edition that sends me a weekly report about its overall status (number of emails sent/received, backup report, hard drive space, error messages, etc).  Well, last week I received the regular report and it had some errors on it that stated, "The delivery process for message <id: {2F42CBF3-091D-4B99-B961-ACCE5ED7AE82}> finished with one or more errors." & "The message <id:{2F42CBF3-091D-4B99-B961-ACCE5ED7AE82}> can not be delivered. The error code is: -2147220979."  Well of course I logged into the server and took a closer look at the logs to figure out what was going on.

Well, in the Application Logs I had the following:

<sub>Source: POP3 Connector
Type: Error
Category: Delivery
Event ID: 1056
User: N/A

Description:  The message <id:{xxxxxx-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-}> can not be delivered.  The error code is: -2147220979.

For more information....

The xxx are actual numbers and letters and if you need them for some reason let me know and I'll display them.

Right after this error another error shows up in the event log as follows:

Source: POP3 Connector
Category: Delivery
Type: Error
Event ID: 1053
User: N/A

Description:  The delivery process for message <id:{xxxxxx.xxxxx.xx.x.xxx.x.xxx}> finished with one or more errors.

For more information....</sub>

Well, sure looks like the problem is related to the POP3 Connector being unable to deliver a message to one of my users.  The problem could have been attributed to downloading the message from the actual mail server (hosted on my server at MochaHost) or if it did download the message than it's having a problem delivering it locally.  So I did what any sane person would do... I logged into each account on my mail server via webmail to see if there were any messages stuck on there that the POP3 Connector hadn't downloaded.  If I found it, I would have deleted it.  But as you can no doubt guess... I didn't find anything.  So, on to checking the local Exchange server.

Well, the easiest thing for me to do is to follow the Microsoft KB article that explains how to troubleshoot the POP3 Connector.  I found that very article here.  But I'll paraphrase some of it for you to save the trip:

_{POP3 Connector overview}

_{When you use the POP3 Connector to retrieve e-mail, the following mail-flow process occurs:}

1. _{The Connector for POP3 Mailboxes service connects to and logs on to the remote POP3 server.}
2. _{The Connector for POP3 Mailboxes service downloads e-mail messages and stores them in the following folder:}
   _{%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\\Networking\POP3\Incoming Mail}
3. _{When all the e-mail has been downloaded from the remote POP3 server, Collaborative Data Objects (CDO) on the Windows Small Business Server-based computer retrieves the e-mail messages from the Incoming Mail folder. The headers of these e-mail messages are modified to indicate that the e-mail messages will be directed to a local Exchange mailbox, and then the e-mail messages are saved to the following folder:}
   _{%PROGRAMFILES%\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\PickUp}
4. _{If CDO cannot move an e-mail message to the PickUp folder, the e-mail message is put in the following folder instead:}
   _{%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\\Networking\POP3\Failed Mail}
5. _{If an e-mail message is corrupted, it may not be moved to the Failed Mail folder. In this scenario, the corrupted e-mail message remains in the Incoming Mail folder.}
6. _{All the e-mail messages that are in the PickUp folder are processed by the local SMTP service and are delivered to the appropriate recipient.}

_{When you use the POP3 Connector to retrieve e-mail messages, those e-mail messages are not processed by any of the following Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 components:}

• _{Recipient Filtering}
• _{Sender Filtering}
• _{Connection Filtering}
• _{The Intelligent Message Filter add-in}

_{Because the POP3 Connector uses CDO to transfer e-mail messages to the SMTP PickUp folder, these e-mail messages bypass the filtering mechanisms that Exchange 2003 contains.}

Well, I navigated to the Failed Mail folder and sure enough there were a bunch of undelivered messaged there.  To speed things up for myself I clicked SEARCH within the folder, pasted in the message ID, and sure enough it was in there.  I took a quick look at the contents using NotePad++ (I highly recommend this FREE program) and it was nothing but a SPAM email.  Well, since there were no other newer messages within the folder I just blew all the contents away (translated - sent all of them to the trash).

After doing this I went to the POP3 Connector management interface and forced another retrieval, waitied a few minutes, and then checked the Applications Log again.  TADA!!!!  There were no more errors and the problem was solved!

Well, I hope that this helps someone else who might run into these problems.  If you need further help on this situation don't hesitate to click on the contact me thingy at the top of the page!  Have a great rest of your day!