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My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

9to5google.com

221–230 of 354 posts

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#221
post #17

If Google won't repair a manufacturing defect, consider a chargeback (assuming you bought it from Google). Services like American Express have purchase protection, but the limits I believe won't be enough to cover the Pixel. If you were sold a lemon and Google won't hash it out, go ahead and let the card company fight that battle for you. If enough people start doing this, you can bet Google will double down on custo…

I highly recommend against doing a chargeback unless it's your last resort. Talk with customer support where you bought the phone from first, telling them you intend to chargeback if they don't resolve the issue. Most businesses consider chargebacks to be a form of fraud and it may sour your relationship with the business.

Chargebacks that are disputed can affect your credit rating as well.

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#223
post #79

Google support and customer relationship is horrible. One day I enabled Youtube partnership out of curiosity (it was enabled for my country so I enabled it than on my account to see what it is about). Few days later I tried to login to my adsense account only to find it disabled! Problem is I have never enabled adsense on any website, I do not have or post youtube videos, or have done anything to violate the terms. I…

That, exactly that, is why I have made it a policy to not use any Google service beyond search and ads, no matter how enticing they might look.

They can't kick you out of search and it's pretty hard to hit issues with ads. But the other stuff. Whew! You could end-up with your wonderful Google-powered world disconnected overnight and no recourse to deal with it sensibly. Read stories about people losing their email accounts and more due to issues with other Google services.

One of our clients had an issue about five years ago and that was all I needed to understand that relying on Google can be deadly to a business.

He had over 200 domains parked at GoDaddy. And GoDaddy would place a page with ads on every single domain. These ads were powered by Google (said so on the page). They'd give you some insignificant percentage of the virtually nonexistent revenue.

Google launched a service called "Google for Domains". Park the domains with Google instead and get paid 100% of the virtually nonexistent revenue. So this guy decided "Why have a middleman?" and moved all of his domains to the "Google for Domains" service. This entailed listing them with Google and changing to the provided DNS. As you listed the domains Google went through some sort of a check and approved every single one of them. Presumably they didn't want obscene sounding domains or something like that (even though they -presumably- supported anything GoDaddy would thrown at them).

Three days later all of his Google accounts are suspended. The claim was "unexpected click activity" on the ads they placed on these domains. In other words, click fraud.

So, here's Google accusing a guy --who is doing 7 figures a year with his real business-- of clicking some ads to earn, what, twenty-three cents? The whole thing was surreal beyond all description.

Why did he do this if he didn't need to? Because he wanted to get the hell out of GoDaddy and when this announcement for "Google for Domains" came across his email he told his web person to just move all the domains away from GoDaddy parking. It was that simple.

There was no way to get through the Google customer-no-service wall. No way at all. The situation was final and without any sensible way to seek resolution. That one event, years ago, is what instantly made me decide reliance on Google was the worst business decision one could make. They would have to walk on water for me to recommend that anyone utilize their services outside of search and ads. What a horrible company.

This behavior isn't unique to Google. All the large web companies have such contempt for their users that they behave in totalitarian fashion and offer no sensible mechanisms for customer service or conflict resolution.

For example, if you advertise with Facebook, have no experience and run afoul of some of their nebulous rules your FB ads account could be permanently suspended or closed down. Again, just as the Google case, there is no real path to resolution. You can send in a form that probably ends-up in the hands of a petulant 24 year old child with no manners and devoid of the ability to deal with real human beings and get back a totalitarian "your account is permanently suspended" reply that helps nobody. Yeah, I've seen that one happen too. Once again, what a horrible company.

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate Apple Stores... wanted to go on a bit of a longer rant here... I hate the physical stores, I hate the App Store. 1) Lost my power cord while traveling, so I thought I'd jump into the Apple Store and pick up a new one. Should be an in and out thing... took 1.5 hours of me just waiting around the store for them to sell me a power cord. This was in Sydney. Once I actually got to talk to someone, it still t…

1.) Maybe that's a Sydney Store issue? Never experienced anything close to that myself. 2.) Yeah that's dumb. Maybe it's a stocking thing since it's Australia? Never heard of anything like that in the US. 3.) Almost everything on the mac store exists outside of it as well, but I agree it is somewhat designed more for consumers. You could use deployment tools if the source isn't App Store, or a 'family' account that s…

Was only in the Sydney store that one time, it took 1.5 hours to get a power cord. The line to get service was running out of the store. This was a few years ago, they had tremendous demand since -- if I recall -- they were the only Apple Store on the continent at the time.

The max number of laptops was in Austin, the store in The Domain.

Just looked into the Volume Purchase Program as suggested in another post... interesting but doesn't help me 3 years ago when I had the problem. Glad they've made moves to fix it.

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#225
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying Apple service is any good. (See: bendgate)

Apple service is next to perhaps only Amex, if any. Perhaps.

Try to close your AMEX account, then watch the veil of friendliness drop. I had two accounts and called to close one. The lady yelled at me (yelled!) because I didnt feel like I needed to give them a reason for closing the account beyond "I dont want it anymore".

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple doesn't have the best customer service They don't? Who does then? Now if you want to say they're not perfect and they've had their problems, I would agree with that.

Sennheiser. I had a pair of reasonably expensive (~$250) headphones and the left ear went a week after my 2 year warranty expired. I knew it was basically just the cable (which was detachable), since it worked with a spare. But the official cable has an angled, custom fit and so it sits flush. I filled in an online form, printed the pre-paid label, dropped it off at UPS. Within a week, no questions asked, a brand new…

I had an entirely different experience. I had a similarly priced Sennheiser headset and they were great. I had the exact same issue as well with headset's left speaker stopped working couple of weeks after my warranty expired. I called them up and they said they cannot do anything and I will have to a buy a new one. In the end, it turns out that a connection got loose so I fixed it myself. But I was slightly disappointed with the reaction from their customer service.

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#227
post #153

"but in fact had never taken the plastic “screen protector” off of the display when I received the device" Notwithstanding the awful condescending tone from the CS rep, I once did actually have this issue. I purchased a cheap smart phone for an around the world trip since my CDMA/Sprint phone would not work overseas. I knew that the camera would not be iphone quality, but I felt that the images (8MP) could have been…

I've seen devices where there was no mention in the "unpacking and setting up" section of the manual that you should remove the protector, and there was no tab or flap sticking out to make it obvious to do so. Given that there is a thriving market for third party screen protectors, it is not unreasonable in such a case for the consumer to think, "Cool! They included a screen protector so I don't have to go buy one my…

People read the manual? ;)

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#228
Very sorry to hear anyone going through this kind of trouble, but at least for US users and most readers of HN, they should be getting up-to-date iPhones on the Verizon network.

The costs are minimal and it helps to avoid hassles. I've had iPhone 5, 5s, 6+, 6s+, 7+, ever since iPhone had LTE on Verizon.

Each phone version is an improvement on previous models and the Verizon models are now much improved over the ATT/T-mobile, using the Qualcomm baseband modem over the Intel version. But Verizon has more spectrum in NYC at least and they have been investing in their network whereas AT&T has not been so much.

There are yearly upgrade programs offered by Apple and Verizon and perhaps others.

That said, I've had to bring iPhones into the store and they were replaced 3 times. The store is 10 mins from home and work and the service is excellent.

The only time there are problems with getting phone support generally is after they release the new iPhones in late Sept.

I've also had great service on Mac laptops since 2011.

If for some reason, you must use Android, then by all means....

But if for some reason, you do not absolutely have to use Android, then iPhone on the Verizon network is the way to go.

As for shopping, at least in my local store, it is very easy to just purchase something. If you want, you can also purchase things for in-store pickup.

In NYC where I live there is an Apple Store open 24/367 which shows Apple's dedication to service.

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#229
post #8

Waiting to see when this crops up here, and how it'll fly considering Consumer Rights [0]. It falls into minor, so Google will have to: * free repair, (with a repair notice describing the fault) * replacement (must be the same condition as the purchase, so no second hand!) * refund (the same amount you have already paid, provided in the same form as your original payment.) And of course, the kicker: > You are entitle…

It's probably cheaper for Google to ignore the complaints and foot the lawsuit bill when/if it ever comes due. They have the cash, and it seems like the attitude of companies like Google is to "ask forgiveness, not permission."

Re: My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

#230
post #209
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't cost them too much, they just don't have an incentive. They've got a virtual monopoly on the search market. If there were 5 different search engines with market share split between them all, you can bet that they'd either need to provide superior support or superior margins to maintain their market share. This is a symptom of a monopoly, not a symptom of the market/an inability to make money while providi…

Sure, they could afford to hire support personnel, but they would be deluged with inquiries on day 1, even if less than 1 percent of Google's users contacted them every 5 years.

1% of ~2 roughly billion users = 20 million users. With one request every 5 years that'd be roughly 10k support requests per day. Considering that a lot of the cases can be answered very quickly (or possibly automatically) you can easily handle that with a couple hundred employees. The cost of that would be roughly 1/1000 of Google's annual income.
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