Overzealous Play Store Replacement

Posted by Seanybills on January 31, 2013 05:40 pm 10

I'm going to preface this with how pleased I am with Vox/The Verge's forum posting system. It's very impressive to this first-time poster.

I bought a Nexus 4 from Google back when they were first released. Unfortunately, the charging adapter that came with it was broken; in its place, I used the one from my Nexus 7. I've been missing having a charger for each of my devices and decided that, with the Nexus 4 back in stock, I should get my charger replaced. After a quick and painless conversation with the Play Store help rep, she quickly apologized and offered to replace my phone. I thought she had heard me wrong, so I reiterated that it was just the adapter that was broken. She then explained that they don't replace pieces, and the only way to get a new charger was to get a whole new phone, but she did sympathize and seemed to agree that the situation was not ideal.

Anyone else run into this? I am quite surprised that this is the only way to get a charger. I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, as I essentially get the last few months of wear and tear on my phone taken off for free, but I'm not exactly looking forward to setting up a new phone. I plan to ask if I can just send Google back the broken charger and the new phone when it comes, but I'm assuming the return is tied to the IMEI.

To make long story short: I know Google is doing well, but their replacement policy seems wasteful.