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Comment by infamousdutch | Hacker News Reader

If you bought it with a credit card, you might want to contact your card's customer service number. Most credit cards offer protection from this type of manufacturer "weaknesses".

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I was thinking about it, my credit card has always been extremely good about stuff like this. However, I use google for everything, my entire life is on it. I'd rather lose the $649 I paid for the pixel, then get blackballed from google services.

So for now, I'm just patiently awaiting their response and hopefully they'll give me the green light to mail it in for a replacement or something.

I think that the parent is saying that your credit-card company might be the 3rd party insurance, and you might be able to make a claim to take advantage of that insurance.

To add - many "good" credit cards provide "return protection" which allows you to make a claim against the card to get a refund within the first 30 days if the original vendor won't accept a return, and warranty extension which extends the original manufacturer's warranty a year. I have used both benefits quite a bit, and have always had a great experience.

Australia has really good consumer protection laws which protect against exactly this kind of problem.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...

Except the Google store does not sell the phone in Australia. It pretends to, but it sells it to you from Singapore in Australian dollars. You have no rights in regards to the Australian law in the case. If you buy the phone at an Australian store you have access to the strong Australian rights (and you pay their retail price). I bought mine on the day from the google store and paid 3℅ more than the local price as well as getting it a week after it was available in stores. Quite a bad experience and I would not recommend friends to deal with google directly.

FWIW, many also extend (sometimes up to double) the manufacturer's warranty on products you buy with the cards.

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