The Google Store’s trade-in problem is fixed
TheGoogle Pixel 7 Proand its smaller siblings were an absolute steal when they launched. By trading in the right phone, you could lower the price significantly, allowing you to enjoy your brand-new phone for much less than the $600+ asking price. But it looks like the process isn’t without hiccups. Multiple people claim that even though they went through the trade-in process on the Google Store website when they bought their new phones, Google doesn’t have any recollection of that.
Thankfully, the company promised a solution for those who are affected, telling us that it is working with impacted customers to facilitate trade-ins without them having to return their Pixel 7 units.
What happened?
When you order a phone in the Google Store, you could optionally add your old phone for trade-in. Depending on the condition and which product it is exactly, you can get a big sum of money back. Some who wanted to make use of Google’s great trade-in deals when the Google Pixel 7 just launched had to go empty-handed, though.
People claim that they added their trade-in units during the order process and that everything looked like it went through correctly, only to notice that they never received the trade-in box that they need to send away their old phone in. After investigating, these people then found that their trade-ins just weren’t part of the order summary, as if they disappeared after making the purchase. There aremany reports of this on Twitter, including incidents that affected former and current members of the Android Police team.
It deserves mentioning that this isn’t the first time we’re hearing reports of botched trade-in deals—it’s been something attached with other Pixel phone launches. It’s also possible that some of these lost trade-in deals came together due to user errors, like people accidentally removing the trade-in or forgetting to add it. However, given the big number of reports on this, it’s plausible that there are some technical issues with the trade-in process—and Google confirms as much to us.
After a lot of back and forth with support, Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii, who was also affected by the issue, was offered an unsatisfactory solution that would have him ship back his Pixel 7 unit only to buy another one with the trade-in. We can confirm this was also offered to others:
To start with, I know this is not the most ideal scenario that we would want to be in and Google is always by your side to help and guide you in the right direction.
Ideally any order on Google store can be canceled/edited only within 60 minutes after placing the order. Therefore, the system won’t let us edit the order on your behalf.
I have got this checked with my experts team and upon checking the details it seems that the trade-in was not selected while placing the order. Hence you did not receive an email regarding the trade-in kit.
However I have a work around here for you. I see that your order was delivered to you on October 13th and you have a full 15 days to return the device as per the standard return period. I would suggest you return the device and once we receive it you will get the refund. Meanwhile you can place a new order with the trade-in.
The problem with this is that many early orders also included other goodies, like headphones, special trade-in deals, or in-store credit, which may have expired by now. This will leave many people with fewer products than anticipated or with a higher price tag than what Google would have offered otherwise. Even when confronted with the high number of failed trade-ins, support initially remained adamant that the trade-in option wasn’t selected during checkout. Thankfully, this policy has changed now.
What’s the solution?
We reached out to Google ourselves about this issue, and after publishing our story, a spokesperson got back to us, telling us that the company is working with impacted customers to facilitate trade-ins without forcing them to return and then re-order their Pixel 7.
We can confirm that one of our team members was able to contact support and manually initiate the trade-in process for the Pixel 7 he already received, retroactively adding the trade-in to his purchase after it disappeared during the initial checkout.
If you’re affected and support hasn’t reached out to you yet, we’d recommend contacting the Google support team proactively. Your mileage may still vary depending on how well the support agent is briefed on the issue, as a few readers have informed us that they were still not helped with their problem despite the statement.
For anyone who still wants to order a Pixel 7, the Google spokesperson says that the trade-in problem is now fixed altogether. Google also changed the order workflow, with users now having to explicitly add or decline a trade-in when they check out. In any case, the issue is said to have affected a small percentage of buyers only.
UPDATE: 2022/10/31 07:23 EST BY MANUEL VONAU
Updated with Google comment and resolution
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