Four months ago, Steve bought one of the very last Nexus Ones. Remember? The Google-designed phone that was supposed to change the entire mobile phone industry and instead just showed the world that Google didn’t know how to sell tangible objects? Its successor, the Nexus S, has arrived, but it seems that late Nexus One adopters like Steve can only exchange their defective devices for another refurbished Nexus One. This would be acceptable if HTC hadn’t sent Steve three defective phones in the course of a month.

He writes:

I was one of the (un?)lucky people who got in right before the Nexus Ones sold out. I got mine sometime towards the end of July. I had a problem with the device 3 months in — it no longer got anything but 2G GSM (no data, whatsoever). I tried all the fixes for it, different sim cards, etc and they sent me a swap a few days later. That swap worked great, for 4 days. It froze and I rebooted the device…or tried to. It never powered on again. I had to wait a week to get another swap. Out of the box, that one rebooted when it got to the android setup screen, and continued to do so every 2-3 minutes. Waited a week to get another swap.

HTC can’t screw this one up, can they?! Worked great for a few days, and then it rebooted and never powered on again.

All support can do is send me another swap. This all started at the beginning of November, and we’re at the end of December now. I’m moving to Germany in 6 days, and want a working Nexus before I go. Each time I do a swap, I have to wait a week for them to receive the previous one and open a new ticket. It’s ridiculous!

I filed a BBB complaint, only to get someone who can’t do anything other than another swap (which wouldn’t work, it’d arrive days after I leave for Germany).

So, 4 Nexus Ones, broken. I’m an linux engineer by trade, I work for one of the larger linux distros. I’m not incompetent.

So, I paid $600 for 4 months of Nexus One, and hours of my life on support calls. It’s no longer manufactured, so there’s a limited supply of refurbished devices (which don’t seem to last very long!)…and they won’t do anything like a refund or a different device.

I’m stuck with a nexus one that won’t power on and zero help from HTC.

We reached out to HTC’s media relations department, and will let you know what they had to say.

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