This feels like the best sub to share. From the time the device was broken until replacement arrived on our doorstep was just shy of eight weeks.

The first week was no fault of Google Fi but a fault of my own for not having money on hand to order a replacement within the 3 day window. For those that don't know they have to hold the money in your bank account to make sure you send the old device back.

At the start of week two when I had money available I called in to order my replacement device. My claim is denied and the representative is just as perplexed as I am. You see I got the Pixel Pass for my significant other just after Christmas and you pay a single monthly fee that includes the device, a bunch of cloud services, AND an upgrade at end of two year sub. Sweet. This monthly fee also includes device protection as part of the package. Even better. The representative escalated the matter to a different team and we hung up.

In the flurry of calls from week two to week four I find out a lot of things. For one my claim was being denied because the device was "not covered at the time of incident" or something to that effect... While I was paying for device protection. I also found out that Assurant is the company which actually makes the decisions on the claims and that noone at Google Fi has access to override claim decisions for any reason at any level.

SO my concern got escalated to Assurant as a defect in their claim decision process. So all parties involved at this point agreed that the decision was wrong and nobody can correct it until Assurant fixed their stuff.

At this point I am mad, making daily calls to check the status and bring told that due to escalations I have to communicate via Email and that noone on the phone could help me due to that fact.

Let's break away for a second. I also learned that this was an internal change at Google Fi where upper level support ONLY communicates via email. You cannot get a human on the phone for any reason, but the people who do have the phone can talk to the higher support via a chat IM.

So I had to use email. This would not have been a big problem if every email I sent didn't go to a whole distribution of people and I had a different person respond every time thinking this is a brand new issue. This caused much confusion and here's the kicker. These people replying to my email are asking for a secret support code you get through the app; it is eight digits and only good for 30 minutes. When it takes you 50 minutes to respond to my email (shortest I had) of course the code will not be good anymore!

Early on in the process I was getting daily updates from the upper tier support team. This stopped after about 5 days so I started calling in again and kept getting redirected to email. I was vengeful though and I know it. I still called and burned 1-2 hours of the call centers time whenever I could just trying to get visibility on the issue. I figure if I am costing your company money you would want to get my issue fixed faster. I got one person to really feel my pain and he told me (not sure if he actually did) he would raise my concern with his supervisors at the weekly meeting they have. I stopped calling as frequently after that.

Around week six and seven I start getting competent people on the phone exposing options to me I had never heard about. There's an option to get your phone fixed by mailing it off. Unfortunately that was denied also so still waiting on Assurant at this point, but why wasn't that option available from the gate? More on this later.

FINALLY Assurant did something I get an email stating I can place my order. 7 weeks in and they still want to good onto money in my bank account. I go back and forth on the phone and in email. The email lady is consistently responding to me, but being very dismissive of everything I state.

I feel like I need to rewind again. This is not my first device replacement with Google Fi. I have been a loyal customer for years and accidents happen. You won't catch me sporting a partially paid $1000 phone without accident protection because I do not use protectors. In the past this $1000 hold had been problematic. The Google store link they send you is a one time use, and if your bank denies it you cannot just retry, you have to reach back out to support. In the past EVERY SINGLE TIME this happened someone AT THE CALL CENTER placed the order for me without asking to hit my bank account a second time. I expected the same thing again, especially in this case, but because of the restructure this is no longer possible I guess and I was informed noone on the phone would be able to do that. So I go to email and I shoot off a bit providing SEVEN examples from past Google store orders to the email lady. I get shot down there too. I guess change is good?

I got someone on the phone and explained how I felt that I should not have to pay for this replacement after all this struggle. Tough luck, but there is an option to send your device in first so they don't have to hold my money. Fine we do that. But once again why was this not an option from the gate? I feel like my claim would have been approved back on week 2 if I had willingness to send them my device first.

And in all of my calls with the call center I was told that a service credit would be due for my hardship but only after the device replacement was completed. Essentially I was informed they would only want to issue me a single one time credit as opposed to some now and some later. So I am eager to see what it is after all said and done.

I wait two days while the phone gets set up and tested before I reach back out, just to be sure no lingering issues or need for another device. Everything is good, I call in, get redirected to email and the email lady states:

"Thanks for writing in and letting us.

For the inconvenience caused we can help you with $10 service credits which will be applied to your upcoming/future bills.

Let us know your consent so that we can go ahead and process the service credits"

Wow, just wow.

Mind you it has been eight weeks, I have paid for the Pixel Pass twice, which is $58.75/month, but we have not had a Pixel Pass. I fully expected at least that much back. Ideally I believe the $149 deductible would be on the house too. Not to mention if I didn't have a spare phone laying around, would have expected compensation for the line at $35/month. I may have high expectations, but $10 feels like a spit in the face.

I pushed a bit more after this and there is a line they teach all the support people at Google Fi: "I am the highest level of support". I heard that over email and over the phone from various representatives. And that comment being used behind something to the effect of "that is all I can do"... As a customer it makes me feel belittled. It makes me feel like everyone is running around with no manager and no accountability. On top of the fact that you guys are subletting your claims out to a different company and but even holding the accountability yourself.

I fully expect this to be removed, but gonna copy paste it anywhere I can so good luck.