Header image: Red Telephone Boxes, Covent Gardens 26-3-2013 by Martin Pettitt (via Flickr) – Used according to its Creative Commons 2.0 license.
September 9th 2016
My phone arrived at the repair center the day before, so it was probably already being inspected. In the evening I get an email from the OnePlus International Support. Woha, that was fast! Did they already know what was wrong with Due?
Well, no, actually it’s S from the Returns, Repairs and Replacements team, who would like me to confirm the IMEI of the phone I sent them, because the phone that they received had a different IMEI than the one I gave them when I opened the Service Request.
But, how? I was puzzled, and started thinking of the process I did early that week. I did not specify any IMEI! I remembered clearly, I only swiped through my orders list, picked the only OnePlus Two I ever bought, and opened a Service Request for it, how could I give them the wrong IMEI?
Then, suddenly, the epiphany stroke me: I did not buy my OnePlus Two. Remember? I did not have an invite! I bought it through a friend’s account!
I continue reading the message from S, it’s also very reassuring: “there’s no need to worry”. I guess that, due to the invite system, this is a common problem and they’re used to cope with it.
I message my friend, it’s a bit late at night, but not that much. In a couple of hours he finds my order in his account, and sends me the order receipt and the phone IMEI. I immediately reply to the support ticket 6xxxx5.
About 15 minutes later, I get another reply, this time it’s V, from the International OnePlus Support, and asks for my shipping address. This is easier, so I quickly reply, always asking if I can provide them any other information they might need.
14 hours later, Y from the OnePlus Internation Support writes me again. It looks easy, they have to coordinate with the repair center, cancel the existing RMA, and create a new one. To do this, they also need the order number.
Half an hour later I reply and attach a copy the order receipt to the email. I also point out that the order is not associated to my account: I don’t want this to cause issues.
About 4 hours later, Y replies to me that since I’ve given them the right information, this won’t a problem, and they will update me when the repair center cancels the previous request.
September 15th 2016
Having heard nothing, I decide to write to the repair center directly: after all I have they email, since they sent me the shipping label. I write a nice email explaining the story, and provide all the details and numbers I have. The only reply I got from them was an automated email, telling me that the would reply to me in a couple of business days. They never did.
September 16th 2016
I discover OnePlus has an Italian Support Team, and decide it might be easier if I ask them to check the status of the process. They seem very nice, I give them all the details they might need, and wait. They tell me they’ll contact the support center and ask them for updates, which is exactly what I wanted, so yay!
September 24th 2016
I receive an email from A, of the International OnePlus Support team, informing me that they have received my phone, but the IMEI did not match with the one I gave them… I felt a bit lost reading this. My hope was that A was referring the IMEI I initially gave to the support, and not the new one. I told A that they had already all the information they needed, because in the previous days I had attached the order receipt and communicated the right IMEI, in addition to my shipping address. I don’t know if S (who is now responding to my emails) is too lazy to go through the conversation and search for the information, or if the process requires that these details must always come from the customer, but S asks that I give this information again. To avoid having to go through all this once more, in addition to the IMEI, I resend the order number, mobile phone and shipping address. But apparently is not enough and S also asks me to confirm that the IMEI I just sent them, is actually the IMEI of the phone I shipped a week before, which I confirmed yet again. At the same time, S also asks for the tracking code of the package that brought my phone to the repair center, which I also send.
The tracking code part scared me. Did this mean that they no longer knew where my phone was? It must have arrived to the repair center, otherwise how would they know that the IMEI code I gave them did not match the one of the phone? So, the phone was definitely arrived, maybe they wanted the tracking only to help the service center track down Due, which was probably sitting on some bench over there.
S replies to me one final time, to tell me that they will contact the repair center and update me when they have some news to share.
That, unfortunately, did not happen soon.
Always Settle 