Google Store gave me a locked device as warranty replacement | Hacker News Reader

Google Store gave me a locked device as warranty replacement

89 pointsvinicri39 comments

I have a Pixel 3XL, an old model I know, but very suitable for my mom's light usage. All of a sudden the device stopped working and a lock icon appeared at the top right of the screen.

https://imgur.com/sk0M6lX

We first tried fixing it by resetting the phone but all we see now is the welcome screen with the same lock icon. After conducting some research, I discovered that the lock indicates a remote device lock. This device was given to me by Google Store in replaced of another one that malfunctioned during its warranty period.

Now I'm waiting on Google Store to give a me . but so far it has being only a handful of back and forth emails with instructions to reset the device, that changes nothing, and questions if there is any liquid damage.

I'm very disappointed with their lack of effort to really solve the problem.

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My wife had issues with her Pixel 6 Pro almost immediately after delivery. It was stuttering randomly doing anything. My rough diagnosis after watching it/replicating it was hardware issue there was no doubt in my mind.

Google's help though? Basically wanted us to engage them in some sort of circus over a device 3 days old. We just straight up returned it and ordered a new one which has worked great. Google wouldn't even issue a straight replacement through their tech support and we did a Return + Purchase to get around their hoops they were trying to get us to jump through.

As all things with Google: they need to actually fix their user support. Even as paying customers of theirs they passed our concerns off and treated us like idiots. I've been using Google's phones since their Nexus line but that experience has made it so I'll be looking elsewhere when replacing my 6 in a year or two.

"they need to actually fix their user support"

Everyone knows about their customer service issues. Google must know it's a problem, but for some unknown reason (probably shareholder value) refuses to fix it.

They are never going to address their shitty customer service.

Customer support is not worth it. There is a reason companies in general don’t invest in it, as it is really just a money pit.

I work for a company that has decided that any contract under 5K ARR can’t get anything other than copy and pasted answers and certainly can’t get real help (even if they did find a real bug).

The support team are just told to give them the runaround until they leave, as by making a support request they become no longer profitable.

Can only imagine how true that would be of phones and user accounts.

Are practices like the above allowable under FTC rules?

What a short cited attitude. Eventuality, the bigger contracts will start to leave because they’ll have no idea if they’re above or below that profit threshold.

To where? Every corporation is going this route.

None of us are planning to be here for long, so anything that can work in quarters at the cost of the future is fine.

Why not charge for support? And waive those charges for clients above some (public) spending threshold (to reduce the perverse incentive of making the product difficult to use so you can profit on support)?

Because then they both lose out on that "free" 5k And reduce sales as a result of fee aversion and "unknowability of cost" issue...

Just google A/B testing done on this already. Consumer behaviours are well established in this regard.

Counterpoint. A few weeks ago I called support because one of my pixel bud pro buds was buzzing constantly, even after factory reset. The rep asked me to do a few basic things and then offered me a full replacement without any hassle, on the same call.

Perhaps Google support is bad, but it's not all bad.

"Inconsistently good" is still bad. It's just a kind of bad that makes it difficult for people to coordinate and realize that it's bad.

It even seems like it might be a strategic choice. If you want to reduce costs by 15%, you only have to nuke 15% of returns. The other 85% you can be nice to, and they'll go to bat for you when the 15% start complaining.

I actually had a decent experience with their support on my Pixel 1 with shoddy bluetooth. It was one call to tech support and they basically just said it isn't worth troubleshooting and arranged the entire replacement on the spot. It was a big reason why I went with a Pixel 3 and Pixel 6 on my upgrades.

Why we got the run-around treatment with my wife's device? Unsure. But I'm not willing to play those games down the line so we're going to find other devices on next replacement.

Yeah, I had a problem with a friends Pixel, sim tray snapped off which is clearly a design fault given how soft the plastic is, with a sim stuck inside the phone.

Absolutely hopeless support - only option was to send it back to them which requires a 7-10 day fix time. No option for a hold being placed on the card, replacement device sent and then the hold released when they received the new phone.

They've clearly realized this is unacceptable given newer phones now have options for in person servicing.

Yep. I am at the point I am one more poor Google customer service experience away from simply jumping ship to Apple.

Whenever I deal with an iPhone issue on behalf of my wife the Apple Store/customer service experience is stellar - an hour max and you're on your way with a new device. Google is like pulling teeth, and you likely will be shunted to third parties to boot. I value their warranty at $0.

My Pixel 7 Pro was returned to Google by USPS because they couldn't get signature (Though I was home when they were supposed to deliver). Google never refunded($1,086.41), there is no number to call for me.

As someone who uses other Google products for my business, I am afraid to chargeback since it can trigger some random process at google killing my business and no way to resolve.

That is how it is working with Google.

Edit: After this comment, I went back and used contact form and got the refund after 20 minutes on phone. I only dared to ask for refund since I know hackernews would force Google to do the right thing if something goes wrong after the comment.

Small claims court?

Might have the same effect?

Maybe, but I think this would have way better chances, as then google lawers would be involved and not an automatic algorithm doing a killswitch.

> As someone who uses other Google products for my business, I am afraid to chargeback since it can trigger some random process at google killing my business and no way to resolve.

This is indeed very wise. You are quite likely correct in how that would go, and it would be your business accounts and any personal accounts linked with them in even a small way, and maybe some of your employee(s) accounts (if applicable).

I generally think Google is one of the least evil of big tech, but this issue is massive and terrible, and they really need to do something about this because they're heading down the road to evil with these kind of practices.

You think a gigantic adtech company is one of the least evil?

When you’re afraid to do a chargeback with one part of a company for fear of another part being able to kill your business, that’s a sign that company needs to be split up.

"Feed it money, and ask someone else to split it up."

Just don't feed it money, no? Bad comapny = no business. + Tell everyone who asks it's a bad company and why.

Then maybe you have bigger problems than Google's $1000 refund?

> only dared to ask for refund since I know hackernews would force Google to do the right thing if something goes wrong after the comment.

A chargeback is not the same as asking for a refund, so I don't know why you were worried about that, at most they would've denied a refund.

I mentioned this in another thread here before, but I've had 3 Pixel 5a devices completely die on me. Dealing with Google support was such a pain I gave up. My first one died nicely within warranty, and they sent me to a "local" authorised store. Who confirmed it was dead, complete motherboard failure, and then told me that google was refusing to ship them the parts they needed for a repairs. Google sorted out returns after a little badgering, and then the device just sat there collected but not being processed at all, no indications of progress or whatnot until suddenly a new device arrived.

Then my wife's one died a few days before the end of her warranty. They sent us to the local store, who again confirmed same issue. Motherboard dead. Google told them they'd follow up with us, and then after a few days I reached out to them but because that was now out of warranty they refused to replace the device. I completely gave up at that point. It wasn't worth it to get a replacement device that would likely die just like our previous two had, so we bought a non-Google replacement. That argument with google over warrant was so ridiculous and so frustrating, for an amount of money that they'd blink and not miss, we just swore off buying google hardware ever again.

Then just a month ago, my warranty replacement died in exactly the same way. Technically speaking I could get a replacement, as I understand it. No way I'm going to go through all that hassle again.

Imagine if that was a $150 (x3, x4) mistake instead of a $1000 mistake, though.

I gave up on Google phones when I found out that my phone had all the hardware necessary for the 3G -> LTE transition but that Google refused to release software that enabled it.

Yeah Google Fi/store is pretty disappointing. I bought a brand new phone once that died within 30 days; they fought me tooth and nail to replace it with a refurb.

Then their system ignored the returned phone delivery status and proceeded to charge me full new price for the refurb phone after the 'deadline' passed.

https://killedbygoogle.com except it’s your phone

*I'm waiting on Google Store to give a me a viable fix

I had a problem where an android device I had purchased from eBay was "locked" after a week. I could still operate the device, but not connect it to a network. It was apparently through the carrier with the IMEI and it didn't matter that I had a valid SIM that worked in the old phone. The phone was not carrier locked, but apparently, the old owner hadn't released it and could still make it dead/stolen.

I went back through the seller, and they refunded the purchase and I got another that worked fine. They said it's a risk of buying phones from individuals even if you check status at the time of purchase. Luckily, I still had my old phone and retransferred all the data back over again and lost little except for a few calls/SMS messages.

Whoa. I've seen some weird stuff on the Pixel 3 regarding how bootloader unlock is handled, and I thought I knew a lot about the Pixel 3 but I've never seen this.

Can you not finish OOBE? What is the actual effect of it being "locked" like this. Or does OOBE want you to login to the previous Google account?

(There is a bypass for that, and Pixel 3's can become bootloader-unlockable if they are updated and connected to the net. It sounds weird, but true). But I'm not sure this icon represents either of those cases.

I'm quite curious.

Actually, I think it is FRP. I can't remember exactly which bypass method I did but... This might help https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rpMv76zOcSg The method I used felt very akin to using the Win98 Login Help system to bypass login.

But also, Google's becoming quite inept at running Android. I've had it completely screw up notification handling where it says one thing, but does another - literally yesterday I missed several new WhatsApp convos because the system decided every new convo was going to be "silent" and hidden. I had major lockscreen bugs that took 5 months from "fixed" in Issue Tracker to being shipped. They've removed all ways (for me?) To direct contact Device Support (I'm 99% sure they advertised this when I signed up for Google One). And frankly they're useless and deceitful to communicate with, and often immediately want you to factory reset, which is awful because they've put zero pressure on the Android ecosystem to properly sync account creds, so it takes a solid two hours to fully reset a Pixel.

Oh right, and the multiple times that I had shipping confirmation of a return, and they even accidentally told me they'd initially received the device, but either had internet theft or just lost it and then put a $700 charge on my card for weeks until they finally fixed it. I'm still upset about that.

Luckily, certain "dating apps" that I use have all basically become web-based now, so I might actually have a transition path away from Android...

Grindr’s not a dating app ;-)

Seriously though, that sounds like your phone is no longer serving you. Google really has moved away from its roots.

I was being tongue in cheek, you got me, hah, but rather surprisingly it can be. My best experience lately turned into a 2 hour WhatsApp conversation talking about Audre Lorde quotes and setting up a coffee date. :)

Since I use jmp.chat for SMS, Matrix for everything else, and can use ride share apps and OSM from any browser... I think I'm going it a shot soon. Every corner of my digital life is plagued by proprietary crap lately, and AOSP builds are just a nuisance with SafetNet nowadays.

Why not try GrapheneOS?

I probably will try it again, or go back to Lineage OS depending on how my other attempts go. It does irk me to use Android, and then not be able to use Netflix, banking apps, etc, etc. At some point, it's literally just easier to use Linux+Firefox.

Man, the longer I'm around the less willing I am to trust Google with anything that's not a core part of their business — search, gmail, docs. Everything else seems like it will be shut down or unsupported at some point.

I'm giving up on Google phones. I kept believing in Google phones but they got me very frustrated. I am moving on to iPhones which have proven to be very reliable. I've been using Google Pixel phones since the first gen, and now with a 6A with many problems (drop calls, no signal, can't receive calls, unresponsive screen sometimes, messages don't send/receive, ...). If someone wants to use Android, Samsung phones have better value, quality, and software support nowadays.

I'm guessing this likely end up with you filing with the state attorney.

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