Phones Galore!

So a while ago Scott wanted a new phone, so he decided to look around in Hong Kong and see what he could find. Electronics are often less expensive over there, so we figured maybe we could get a good deal on a good phone. He looked around though, and they were comparable in price to what they have here, so he decided to look on the internet and see if he could get a good deal.

eBay is a beautiful thing.

Most of the time.

Scott found a decent deal on a G1. It was used, and the ad said it had a little cosmetic damage but that it worked perfectly, so we bought it for $130.

It arrived in the mail and it was WAY scratched up. This was not "a little" bit of cosmetic damage; this thing was thrashed. Scott put him SIM card in anyway, to see if it worked all right. The speakers didn't work at all, and the whole time he was using it (two or three days) he received no calls...which was a little suspect. It turns out people were trying to get ahold of him all weekend and no calls were going through, but he was able to place calls just fine.

Obviously this was not acceptable, so Scott tried to contact the seller to send it back and get a refund. Several times. The seller never responded, so he had to open up a case with eBay to get a refund through them. This took another week or two, but in the end eBay decided to refund Scott's money and told him to ship the phone back to the seller.

Scott sent it out, but when it got back to the seller, she never claimed it, so the post office just sent it back to Scott. When he asked eBay about it, they said just to keep the phone.

So, we ended up with a free phone...that didn't really work.

Scott put his SIM card back into his old phone and we waited for a while. Soon, Scott's contract with the phone people was up, so he could get an upgrade for a reduced price. He decided he wanted to get a new G1, and try to sell the old one (with a posted ad that said it didn't work well, because, well, we're honest).

All was well. We got the new phone, and Scott loves it!

However.

The phone comes with the original version of the software, and then in a few days after activating it it is supposed to (all by itself) update to the latest version. We waited...and waited...and then we went in to the store where we bought the phone to find out what was going on. The people in the store said it might take up to a month to get the update, which we thought was ridiculous, but what were we supposed to do?

So we waited.

A month.

No update.

So, Scott called tech support, and they were all like "Um, the store lied, you were supposed to get it already, I will open a ticket and make sure you get the update soon!" We were very happy that someone in the company was actually helping, and sure enough, in a day, the update came.

Which would have been awesome, if it hadn't FROZEN Scott's phone. It was stuck on the startup screen. Scott called tech support again and they tried everything, and apparently it was hopeless so they shipped a new phone. So while we waited for that phone to arrive, Scott put his SIM card back in his old phone.

But, in a couple of days, the new phone came and everything is working fine now.

So, before Scott sent the frozen phone back, we took a picture, so we could remember this moment forever.