When Google first offered the Nexus One in Canada (by making a GSM version for AT&T, which is compatible with Rogers, Telus, and Bell in Canada), I jumped on. I had my order in the day the web store was updated, and in my hands by the end of the same week. Despite the cost, I consider it the best gadget purchase I’ve ever made.
Fast-forward to last week. With my wifes birthday coming up, I thought it would be nice to surprise her with a trip to the local Telus dealer (her carrier) for a shiny new phone. After looking at their offerings (the only two real considerations were the Motorola Milestone and the HTC Hero), she decided that she’d come down with a case of Phone Envy and wanted a Nexus One as well.
So, no big deal – we ordered the phone and waited. Unfortunately, due to the stat holiday on July 1st, the phone didn’t arrive on Friday like expected and instead came in yesterday (the following Monday). I left the phone plugged in to charge, and when the light turned green to say all was well I fired it up.
And waited.
And waited some more.
The Boot Screen on my other, unlocked (and functional) Nexus One
After about five minutes of staring at the above picture (minus the lock on the bottom, as I hadn’t gotten around to doing that yet), I got the feeling something was wrong.
I powered off the phone by pulling out the battery, then booted in to HBOOT mode (hold down the VOLUME DOWN key while pressing Power). That worked fine, so I tried to enter recovery. Unfortunately, I was met with the same screen. I tried several more times for both normal mode and recovery without success. Then I gave up and called Google.
At this point, I’d like to point out that I’m fairly certain it’s just a software error. Unfortunately, the only way I could really do anything about that would be to Unlock the phone, which voids the warranty. As such, the call to support was warranted.
I called the number listed on the Google Phone Contact Support page (1-888-48-NEXUS) and after a few quick IVR choices I was greeted nearly immediately by a tech. He asked about the problem, what I had tried, and immediately agreed the phone was D0A and would need to be replaced. That’s when things started to go downhill.
The problem is that I live in Canada, and HTC has a different policy for international orders than their standard ‘send you a replacement and then send the old one back’ policy for domestic ones. If you live in Canada and get a DoA phone, you have two options:
- Send it back via their normal repair process and get a refurbished phone (no option for a new one)
- Initiate a ‘Buyers Remorse’ return, get a refund for the device, and then order a new one.
The choice was fairly obvious – I ordered my wife a new phone, so that’s what she was going to get. After gathering a little more information, the Google tech transfered me over to HTC support to process the return order.
As the new tech was going over the specifics, a thought occurred:
Me: Okay, so I do the return, and within 14 business days of you receiving the device and okay’ing everything, you credit the purchase price back, correct?
Tech: Yes, that’s correct.
Me: So what about the duty charge that I had to pay CoD?
Tech: Oh, that. Hang on. –Pause– Okay, I checked on that, and what happens is you’ll get some paperwork from us once the refund has been processed. Once you have that paperwork, contact Customs and they’ll be able to issue a refund.
So at this point, I may have to wait three weeks for credit from HTC (although apparently it usually doesn’t take that long), and then I can file a claim to get my ~$70CAD that I paid for taxes back.
All was said and done, and I prompted received a confirmation email repeating what the agent said. However, as of posting I still haven’t received a FedEx shipping label in my email as promised. I called HTC back, and they escalated the ticket and said they’d resend the label, so now I’m waiting on that. Once I’ve got the label in and the phone sent away, I’ll order another N1 and see what happens.
