I cannot express with enough frustration and anger how ridiculous this process is. If you were to pay me minimum wage for the number of hours I have spent getting this stupid piece of garbage replaced I would have been able to buy 3 or 4 of them. This is the worst customer service on the planet and precisely the reason why nobody should ever trust Google.
I have gone through this process 2 times over 2 months and still have not received the replacement.
At Tier 1 support (which is undoubtedly designed to make it so unbelievably difficult to get replaced that you eventually give up), I was told to do the standard series of things like turning it off and on, performing a hard reset, and entering into recovery mode and resetting from there. None of them worked at all. Not the first two times that I tried these things, not the third time under instruction by Google Support, and not the 4th time also under instruction by Google Support. It still didn't work.
But then they had me take a video of me trying to recover the device through recovery mode. I did that (twice now). Then they wanted me to take pictures of the serial number which is literally 4pt type in white on a white background. Not easy to do. But after about half an hour of messing with it, I got a decent picture. Then they wanted me to write down a numeric code they were going to give me, take a picture of my hand, the code, and the device with the serial number visible. I asked if I get bonus points if I am standing on the other hand, wearing a clown's nose while reciting the pledge of allegiance. It's that stupid.
So I thought I was done but then I get another message from Tier 1 support saying that Tier 2 support wanted me to take a video of the device with the original power cord, plugging into a different outlet. Are you serious? So I have now taken 3 additional videos showing a) a GFCI outlet, b) a regular outlet with a surge protector, c) a standard extension cord. They already have the first video of me plugging it in to my UPS where it was plugged in when they bricked it.
So after this long drawn out series of hoops to jump through, I think I'm done and actually go to sleep for a couple of hours. When I wake up, there's another support message telling me that I need to verify the account I used to setup the device. I click the link and I'm told there's no pending return. I try to reach the woman who was my support agent, but she'd gone on vacation and never filed the request. When she gets back, I ask her what the deal is and she asks me to go to the same link. I do and get the same results. No pending returns. I had to go out of town for a week and when I returned, I checked the status, no return processed. No further information available.
SO I start the process again and spend two days jumping through the same hoops though she can see the original request and all of the materials (like videos and photos) are clearly available for her to submit with my request. But no, I have to redo everything.
At this point, I am still waiting for a response. Absolutely the worst customer service ever.
At this point, I guess most people give up. They obviously don't want to replace the pile of garbage and they are just trying to get me frustrated to the point that I give up. But mark my words, I have documented every bit of this process and I will be filing a complaint with the FTC over their intentional bricking of all of the series 1 devices. This is unbelievable customer service and I am not going to roll over like I bet 90% of their disgruntled customers do.
Google has enough money to replace these 100x over and they should. I mean these were early adopters, the ones that suffered through the bugs and remained dedicated to Google. They are just dicking us over and it's pathetic.
I cannot imagine buying anything from Google for myself, my extended friends and family who rely on me for tech advice, or the lab of around 30 computers I manage. It is unacceptable and Google doesn't care.
