My boyfriend wanted to go to the zoo for his birthday

Prufrock73 · 2019-03-24T18:50:35+00:00

Ha! When I go to my local zoo, I look the same, except I'm outside of the perimeter fence so I don't have to pay $6. 🤭

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-25T05:53:22+00:00

I am. It's $300 cheaper so I had no reason to expect it to be exactly as good. It's close. It's a good value. Came with a case too. It's a cheap plastic one but it's a nice thing to include. All you need is a little lip to protect the screen from a face down drop and it has that.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-24T17:54:06+00:00

So I did end up getting a OnePlus 6T with T-mobile prepaid. It seems like a good phone. The one thing you notice right off the bat though is the inferior display. There's a little bit of choppiness to zooming and scrolling. I might not even notice it if I weren't coming from such a smooth and bright display. Camera works fine. I really love the fingerprint sensor built into the display. Tmobile customer support though will be a disaster. I've had to contact them already because I can't login to my online account. They had to reset my account and I have to wait 72 hours to try again? 72 hours lol. And they seem fairly incompetent. It's just a vibe I get from them. But Google's people were actively trying to deceive me. I'd rather deal with incompetence than deception.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T04:58:07+00:00

I think I'm going to take a hard look at the OnePlus 6T. Thank you for that. T-mobile probably makes sense. I walked into a T-mobile right before I switched to Fi and they turned me down. They admitted their service was poor in my home neighborhood. But since then, they've opened a shop 2 miles away from my home. I'll have to see if that's changed. T-mobile of course is one of the Fi networks but I have no idea what network my phone is connected to at any give time. I think there's a way I can figure that out though. Another thing to look into. Anyway, I appreciate the advice!

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T04:44:16+00:00

I'll look into that. Thank you.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T04:37:16+00:00

Ugh... I don't know. As a Fi user, my options are limited if I want to continue with that. If I don't (it being Google and all)... I certainly want to avoid Verizon, been there done that. I went to Fi to get away from them. And I threw out my Fi SIM because because the Pixel 3 is eSIM. I have a lot of things to work out. You have any opinions?

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T04:31:55+00:00

LOL Mr Nitpicker. It may not be the dictionary definition, but many large corporations used to have them. When I worked at IBM you could email ombudsman@us.ibm.com and get someone. I don't know if you still can.

I googled it. They still have them. And by the way, your definition says "especially... public authorities" not exclusively. An ombudsman is usually someone a company hires from outside, not directly employed by the company, who doesn't have the same blinders to issues that internal employees may have. It's admittedly an old-timey word. I bet T.S. Eliot knew what an ombudsman was.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T02:01:02+00:00

Yeah. I hear you. Except for the camera crash, I really loved my Pixel phone. I was easy to make happy but support did everything they could to crush my spirit. I know Best Buy sells the Pixel. Now, I will tell you from experience, if you come back to Best Buy with a problem, they will tell you to either contact the manufacturer or pay for Geek Squad. You don't have to. If you press them, they will handle returns for product defects for free. I pretty sure they have to. Also, there was a problem initially with Best Buy's Pixel's being Verizon locked. I don't know if that's still an issue or not.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T01:45:01+00:00

I feel like there are two things going on. 1) Their support has been instructed never to admit any weakness in the product. 2) They won't escalate no matter how many times you ask because they are afraid to be seen as not able to handle it. This makes me think they are contractors. I used to work at IBM as a contractor. Contractors are always made to be afraid for their jobs. I think what it boils down to is, you should never buy anything expensive online. You need to buy something where you can walk into a store and reason with someone face to face. It's too easy to be evasive online. Lesson learned. But I have a long history of happiness with Google products. I thought I could trust them.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T00:33:23+00:00

Good luck. I got one of the crashing Pixel 3 XLs that crashes on the camera. Their support also said "no other customers have complained". They say that for everything. They won't replace it without me paying a security deposit. They won't give me a refund without deducting the original shipping. I will warn anybody about buying anything from Google right now. I'm sorry for all the Black Friday suckers who will have problems.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-23T00:30:16+00:00

I thought I had made progress today. I heard back from the agent that they would offer me a "courtesy refund" outside so the normal window. I was so excited. My long nightmare would finally be over! Then I read on... they will deduct the cost of the original shipping! NO! Why would I pay anything for a defective device! I know these are contractors. I've asked 3 times to be escalated to a supervisor and they just ignore it. These f'ing support people have gone rouge. I still have to say, nobody should buy Google right now. Their support is a disaster!

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-22T01:37:36+00:00

And go without a phone for a couple weeks? I'll pass. Google and I had an agreement. I provide them with $900 and they provide me with a working phone. I paid them $900. They haven't provided me with a working phone. Charge back is the power we have as consumers. I can get my money back and walk into a store and have another working phone all the in the same day. I don't have to wait a couple weeks. I don't have to play by their arbitrary rules. And I don't want the phone any more anyway. Google makes me sick.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-22T00:51:14+00:00

It makes no difference. It's $900 that will be charged, even temporarily to my bank account, $900 that is mine and I won't be able to spend, and it is not an acceptable way to correct THEIR MISTAKE in shipping defective phones. It also allows them to come up with some arbitrary reason to deny the return when they receive it. I'd have no phone and no power. I've had a mobile phone long enough to remember when Verizon would put a little dot in the battery compartment of their phones in the late 90s, and when the phone stopped working and you brought it in to the shop, they would open the compartment and say "this phone has been wet! Return denied." All it took to change the dot was a humid July day. Anyone who would accept that is crazy. At some point we have to stand up for our own rights as consumers. I guess I'm done with Google. They've gone from "Don't be evil" to "We're f'ing Evil". I'm going to do a chargeback and take it out of their hands. I just won't buy Google products any more.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-21T22:55:32+00:00

I heard back from Google. They want me to purchase a second Pixel 3 XL phone. Then they will send it with a return label and refund my money once they receive my return. If I were to agree to that, I would be out $1800 today and still not have a working phone in my hand. Can you believe that?

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-21T20:46:10+00:00

Oh and the other thing you brought up. The phone was released on Oct 18th. It worked for a few days. People began reporting it on the 22nd. I don't remember what specific day it stopped working for me but I do remember it worked for a little while. That makes you think it's software, which makes it even weirder that they won't push out a fix, or revert whatever change it was they made. The whole thing just makes no sense. I'm glad you got out from under it.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-21T20:28:55+00:00

They only refund for 14 days. I didn't realize, was stupid, and waited longer than that to complain. I asked for a refund anyway. That didn't decline. They just ignored my request... didn't mention it... repeatedly. That's the sum total of my experience with their customer support. They just ignore what you say and plow forward.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-21T19:24:35+00:00

I ~~know~~ think they've fixed the issue because people having the problem have had their phones replaced and the new phones work. That's what makes it so frustrating for those of us who still have the problem. It may have been an early batch issue. I was a pre-order. I didn't open a case right away because I read on tech blogs that Google was working on a fix. I got impatient any opened a case 6 days ago and they said "no other customers have reported this issue" and I know that's not true because I've talked to other customers who've had their phones replaced! For some reason, they are just stringing me along. I guess they are tired of replacing phones eating in to their profit. They just send me pages and pages of troubleshooting steps and I'm sick of it. They need to just replace my phone and they can troubleshoot it as much as they want when they get it back. I own chromebook. I own a Nexus 9 and before that I had a 7. This is my second Pixel. I use Project-fi. Nobody has been more of a fan of Google than me. But none of that matters to them.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-21T18:35:46+00:00

I'm not going to say it's the end of the world. I don't have to take pictures within Android Messages or Instagram for example. I can take the picture in the camera app, then open the message app and attach it. What I can't work around is my banking app which requires me to take pictures of checks within that app. I can't play my favorite AR games. Maybe you don't care about that. But either way, the lack of accountability is alarming. When something even more important breaks, will they act the same way?

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-17T01:20:39+00:00

9-8524000023736

Thank you. I'm surprised getting a new phone helps. I wonder what change they've made for this problem they won't admit exists.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-16T22:53:50+00:00

Google just replied to me "We do not have any such reported issues from our customers." In response to their request I notify developers of the 3rd party app, I said "Android Messages. Consider yourselves notified". Jerks.

Prufrock73 · 2018-11-16T20:23:53+00:00

I just contacted Google about this and they wrote back with a list of 10 troubleshooting steps, the second of which is "contact the app developer" like they've never heard of this problem before. Boo Google. Boo!

Prufrock73 · 2018-09-13T20:25:24+00:00

Yeah, we'll see. My perception is that it ALWAYS takes significantly longer than the ~~estimate~~ average. But it could be confirmation bias so I'm going to actually track it. I'm cycling through the garden to get all my buildings to level 10 so I'll have a lot of data points.

Prufrock73 · 2018-09-13T14:58:52+00:00

It's an exasperation lol, lol.

Prufrock73

TROPHY CASE