Continuing Carl's phone story

I posted a couple of weeks ago about Carl's phone problems (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2025/08/oooohhh-technology.html). At the time I posted that, UBreakIFix had diagnosed the problem, we had re-contacted Google Support, and the fellow I spoke with there indicated that they would get the failing phone back from UBreakIFix, and send Carl a new one and it would arrive by 23 August (we had to ask him to repeat this about 5 times as we didn't understand that he was saying a date, and it sounded something like "23rd o'clock"). 

We are not sure where the miscommunication occurred, but... that didn't happen. The phone was supposed to go to Carl's son's house, and it didn't arrive. I contacted Google Support again (this time via chat so I wouldn't have language problems understanding and I could have a copy of what was communicated). They indicated that there was no order for a phone replacement in their system -- they did see a replacement that was done back in 2023 and it happened to have been shipped to arrive 23 August 2023 (could the previous rep have seen that and not notice that it was not for a current issue?). However, she indicated that we should pick up the phone from UBreakIFix, and send it in to be evaluated, and, if they found that it was indeed a hardware failure, that Google would replace the phone.

So, thankfully, we weren't too far away from the UBreakIFix (suppose we had already moved on to another state?), so we picked it up and took it to FedEx. Google Support provided the shipping, so we just had to provide a box, and we happened to still have a box for one of the Pixel phones in the rig. They said that it could take 10-12 business days for the phone to be inspected and the replacement to arrive... with the Labor Day holiday, we had 6 business days before we would be leaving the area near Scott's house (where they were to ship the replacement). We anxiously watched the updates on the Google support site...

Even though FedEx said that the phone was delivered on Tuesday, they did not mark it as "received" until Wednesday. The "inspected" message was saying "Device being inspected" for multiple days, Wednesday through the Labor Day weekend. We were losing hope that the new phone could get shipped and arrive at Scott's house by Wednesday (as we were leaving on Thursday morning early).

Eventually the update came indicating that his old phone had "power problems".

They also indicated that a replacement, this time a Pixel 7, was being shipped. This happened on Tuesday -- would it arrive by Wednesday?

We had shipped the old phone to Grapevine, Texas for inspection. We were surprised that it arrived overnight from Elgin. Maybe, just maybe, the return trip would be just as fast?

When we looked up the FedEx tracking information, we were surprised to see that the package was coming from Schaumburg, Illinois (bummer, wish we could have just picked it up!) -- but, although it was scheduled as a two-day delivery, it was coming on Wednesday! Hurrah!!!

Sure enough, it got delivered on Wednesday, and we went by Scott's house the evening before we were to leave and picked it up (also getting to see family and exchange hugs one more time before we headed out).

Carl was very nervous with the new phone having no case -- so we looked on Amazon to pick out a case like the one he had before (the form of the phone changes every new release, so a previous case won't fit a new phone). We found one, and we looked for a place to have it shipped -- there were no Amazon lockers near Park City, Kentucky (where the Thousand Trails was), and, although the Thousand Trails would allow us to ship the package there, it would not arrive until the day we planned to leave... 

So, I found that there were Amazon lockers near our next campground in Lexington, Kentucky. We like using lockers since, if the package gets delayed, or we end up not being able to get there, the order will be sent back after 3 days in the locker. I checked, and indicated that we didn't need "rush" shipping, so it was to arrive at the locker on Sunday -- since we planned to arrive in Lexington on Tuesday, that would be within the 3 allowed days. Unfortunately, they applied the rush shipping anyway, and the order got to the locker on Saturday -- uh oh, how do they count the 3 days? Would the package be sent back before we got to Lexington to pick it up Tuesday afternoon?

We headed to the new campground on Tuesday -- driving to arrive after check-in time of 2pm. I had a couple of potential fuel stops identified that would honor our OpenRoads fuel card, and we decided to go to the later one, very close to the campground. Carl did the fueling, and I got a reminder from a calendar entry I had created that we needed to go to Speedway to pick up our Amazon package... 

Speedway? We're at a Speedway! Is it the right Speedway? 

 

Yes, it is! 

So, Carl is happy to have his new phone, and the protective cover for it!

He had done a lot of the setup on his new phone, installing the backup that he had of his old phone. He still needs to log in to all of the apps on the new phone, so he is slowly working through that (most now have 2-factor authentication so that adds additional time to each log in). But, after 4 weeks of using his old, 7 year old Samsung phone, he likes his new phone (so far), and it appears to be a new factory built (not reconditioned) phone, so we're happy about that too.