Returning my G1

[akarol]

Don't worry, I'm getting another one back. I just really couldn't deal with the creaking my brown phone had and the horrible keyboard. I just thought it was really poor planning to have a silver keyboard with white backlighting. Common sense. Any other color would have worked. Also, when comparing to my friend's and brother's black phone, I could not notice any creaking whatsoever on theirs.

I called T-Mobile and they said as long as they have a tracking number, I should be able to get the phone at any store at the discounted rate. I will be returning mine tomorrow and hopefully getting a black one shortly after.

Before I ship my phone, anyone know if any store in Orlando will accept the exchange? That would save me a lot of hassle.

Thanks in advance...

[tiki]

im in FL too and will be doing the same thing- i checked out the black one in person, liked the look and am exchanging due to the keyboard color. Otherwise I would have kept the bronze as i actually prefer the color scheme-

but they should have made those keys entirely light up rather than just the letter part (again like a sidekick.. they should send one to HTC to check out HAHAHA)

[Shel]

I actually walked into my local store last night and exchanged my Brown G1 for the black one, as well.

The store had the black one in stock.

I couldn't see the keyboard in low light conditions. Mine didn't creak though....

[akarol]

Did u get yours preordered or at a store? I don't understand why we can't simply exchange it at the store regardless. I feel that having it preordered should give us an advantage over those who didn't but that is entirely not the case. Instead we have to go through the hassle of shipping it back and waiting for a new one. I'm really peeved off about that.

The local stores told me they couldn't do it for some reason but I feel that if they really wanted to, it wouldn't be a problem since they can ship it back themselves.

[tread]

Did u get yours preordered or at a store? I don't understand why we can't simply exchange it at the store regardless. I feel that having it preordered should give us an advantage over those who didn't but that is entirely not the case. Instead we have to go through the hassle of shipping it back and waiting for a new one. I'm really peeved off about that.

The local stores told me they couldn't do it for some reason but I feel that if they really wanted to, it wouldn't be a problem since they can ship it back themselves.

when i asked, its basically because they do not have a system in place for interchangeability of stock between customer service/online and their inside stores... each individual store goes by profitability, and the amount of returns they have in their store and sent back to t-mobile is a demarc directly on their stores profitability...

this in turn affects directly the pay of the manager and the employees of that store, this is what i'm told... thus if they were willing to return everyones preorder phones, you're basically indirectly docking their pay... so until t-mobile sets up a system directly for stores to do this, i don't blame them for turning people away...

people don't realize how much a year it costs a company to repackage, refurbish, resell all these phones customers return... on top of that they have their own warranty systems in place, sometimes insurance making this part of their industry alone a huge money soak

[akarol]

But how would they lose money if I'm purchasing the replacement phone from them? The only money they would be losing is the return shipment, which I'm sure, as a corporate store, is nothing at all. Basically, they would ship the phone back while letting me purchase the new phone immediately from them. If they are affiliated to T-Mobile, they can prove that the phone was indeed return prior to it arriving at the return department.

[tread]

lots of things that entail a return...

big corporations like t-mobile have something called campus ship membership with UPS... obviously they can't send it back themselves, so theres some money right there... i'm mainly talking about the time invested into getting your return phone back into the market...

so from the store, they spend money on packaging it, logging it thorugh their systems however they do it, returning it via ups, sending it to their national return center, and going through a whole process there... i wouldn't be surprised if it costs t-mobile 80 - 150 dollars per handset after costs are broken down to a per phone basis... thus retail stores are urged to help their customers with their existing handset and keeping it, and since it is put upon their shoulders to do so, it negatively impacts their stores profitability... if they weren't held liable in some sort of way, then they wouldn't care and i'm sure returns would increase by a small percentage...

corporate locations like this are analyzed in hundreds of different ways to keep them profitable... money management is obviously key, and i'm sure they have a monthly budget that they get, and have to make up for it by selling products etc...

take for another example, in a report i read the average call to t-mobile customer service costs t-mobile 7 dollars per call... thats a lot of money... same thing with returns

[akarol]

I guess you're right. I just hope that giving T-Mo customer care the tracking number is enough for them to honor my discounted price at a local store. They said it should be no problem, but I'm worried that the local store won't even bother trying it since, as you mentioned, they're pretty independent. I hope to get this resolved tomorrow. I'll keep you guys posted.