Apologies in advance for the long post - the situation is kind of a long story.
Just looking for a bit of advice here. I bought an HTC Nexus One from hitechmobiles.co.nz last year. It had intermittant issues with the digitiser, and a few months ago they started becoming more frequent.
I sent it in to mobilefone rescue (the warranty centre for HTC in NZ) and it was send back saying no fault found. I used it for a few days and found the fault still persisted so I sent it back. It was swapped out with a replacement unit. The replacement unit had a dead pixel, so I sent that one back and it was replaced again.
Now here's the awkward part (for them). I was contacted by the manager saying that my phone was originally an import and shouldnt have actually been swapped out by them at all, and would need to go through the original place of purchase. They said I can either send back the replacement phone and they can send me my original one back, or I can keep the current one but the warranty on it will effectively be void.
Being that I'm such a super nice guy (and considering my luck with the warranty faults so far) I sent it back to them and got my original one back, and sent it to hitechmobiles for a warranty claim. I found them to be extremely unprofessional and frustrating to deal with. They said they would contact me, but never followed through, multiple times. The only information I got from them about the job status was from me calling and asking. Eventually the phone was swapped out and sent back to me.
However, the swapped out phone was in less than great condition, there was dirt in the usb port and headphone jack, and some around the edges of the screen. The part that concerned me the most however was that the bootloader was unlocked and it had been rooted. Now if this was a swapout from HTC there is no way this could have happened. What it appears to be is that they had a second hand phone just lying around and just sent it to me. The phone came back with no paperwork, no job sheet or any reference at all.
I have emailed them multiple times with no reply. I have called and been told someone would get back to me, however no one has called.
So I contacted HTC directly. After a few emails back and forward, they advised me to send it in to their warranty centre in Taiwan for assessment. If the fault was caused by user damage the warranty would be void and I would be liable for repair charges. I am still in the process of clarifying this with them as I don't think they understand the situation in it's entirity as this is not quite what I had asked them. Of course if it was sent in they would find the warranty to be void, because the unit that I have been sent as a swapout does not have a valid warranty (due to the rooting but also the warranty void sticker has been removed)
I contacted hitechmobiles again, and finally got a reply. They just said "please send it back to us so we can have a look at it".
So I guess this is what I'm asking advice about - Do I send it back to them? Can I trust them or would they just do another dodgy swapout? What do you think my chances of a successful outcome with HTC are?
Sorry for the long post, thanks to those who read it. I would appreciate any advice anyone can offer.
Cheers
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