Xbox 360's failure rate is gaming's holy grail no more. Numbers from all sources are coming up - retailers giving their estimates and users offering their educated guesses. In Microsoft's repair center in Havant, 1,500 to 2,500 units are reported to be sent back daily.

Not only does that shed a light on Microsoft's dark secret, but also reveals that there are some fishy processes going on when UK owners send their consoles back for repair. Lee Sherman testified to 360-Gamer.com about his frustrating experience.

This unsatisfied gamer suffered three weeks without his 360, no thanks to the not-so user-friendly customer reps who weren't able to help. Constant calls asking when he'll get it back only gave him the answer it'll be “returned shortly.” Unable to resist, he asked for the repair center's number but was told that there are no phones directly to where his machine was.

Upon investigation, he found out that the person on the other line did indeed lie - repair center had a number. What's worse, it was in Prague and not in Havant. Lee stated:

A shocking statistic we found out though is that between 1,500 to 2,500 consoles get sent to Havant by three UPS lorries per day, to then be shipped to Prague for repair. [We] phoned up Nora the [customer service] supervisor again, who then admitted my console was in Prague and hadn’t been looked at yet – she seemed amazed that we knew!

I just spoke to the customer support people because my 360 has been gone since the 8th of June. Apparently because of the backlog in Havant they’re sending 360s to repair centres outside the UK! And that because of this Microsoft are legally allowed an additional ten days to get your 360 back to you.