gzt: Assuming it is genuine then it is clearly a stuff up. It is not impossible that a returned product ended up in the supply chain every retailer sees it occur sometime.

I would have another chat with WS get some kind of manager person and explain the situation. The manager can work with the supplier to investigate and figure out if the phone is in sequence with the rest and maybe if it was first used elsewhere prior to purchase.

Sometimes a snail mail is a better way to get to where it needs to go.

nzgeek: There are a couple of possibilities I can think of.
The one you can check the easiest is whether Fonefix are actually looking at the phone you bought. Do you have a copy of the IMEI our serial no anywhere? It's on stickers on the box, and it should be on the WS receipt. One call to Fonefix should be enough to verify if there's been any sort of mix-up.
A less likely option is that yes, you were sold a bad phone. It could be that the salesperson grabbed the only box they could find, not seeing that the phone was a return. Our it could be that the box was opened very cleanly, and nobody noticed that it was a return. Unfortunately, I can't think of any way to verify this theory.

nakedmolerat: It could be a case of they mistakenly swapped with the wrong phone prior sending it to the repair shop.
Check the serial again.

nzgeek:

comp80:

nzgeek: And even if your mother is the type to ask you all technical questions, she may have seen this as something she could take care of herself.

This give me a quiet chuckle :) But I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt here, for so many reasons... and yes I did ask her. It's also been in a rubber+plastic ma-hoosive case since she's had it.

Haha fair enough. At least you (and the rest of us) know that she's got nothing to do with the problem. But how the phone got in that state is still a mystery.

I find it unlikely that you bought a used phone. I bought a Moto G2 as a Christmas gift last year, and you can't open the box without breaking some pretty obvious stickers. (I remember trying, as I wanted to update the firmware before the recipient got it.) If the phone was used, you would have noticed the box being open.

There are a couple of possibilities I can think of.

The one you can check the easiest is whether Fonefix are actually looking at the phone you bought. Do you have a copy of the IMEI our serial no anywhere? It's on stickers on the box, and it should be on the WS receipt. One call to Fonefix should be enough to verify if there's been any sort of mix-up.

A less likely option is that yes, you were sold a bad phone. It could be that the salesperson grabbed the only box they could find, not seeing that the phone was a return. Our it could be that the box was opened very cleanly, and nobody noticed that it was a return. Unfortunately, I can't think of any way to verify this theory.