Getting an N97 was the worst investment
I made in my whole life
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...and I made quite a few! For sure we’ve had them all — the ever-leaking liquid soap dispenser, lost-in-time-and-space weather forecast station or a multi-plug universal phone charger that turns out to have all the attachments except the one you need. When I put all these useless possessions together, and multiply their uselessness by 1,000—the N97 still comes out as the worst investment I have ever made.
The saga
started in July this year when I bought N97 in an authorized Nokia dealer
shop whilst on holiday in New York. From the moment I switched the phone
on, bugs became a regular occurrence. The phone would lose network coverage
just by moving off the street into a shop, widgets would come and go from
the home screen for no apparent reason, the phone would restart itself
at least once every couple of days, and I could not get GPS to work regardless
of where I was located or how I held the phone (Nokia suggested holding
the phone as not to cover the internal antenna :) The suggested handling
technique is as absurd as a car manufacturer asking you to drive your
new car without holding the wheel — just in case you damage it.
And it gets worse…
Day after day, new bugs appeared and
the phone became more of a nuisance than a useful gadget. Originally installed
e-mail application could not read HTML mail, my phone would not receive
SMS messages for hours and only after people called me to say they’ve
written to me, would I restart the phone to receive all the messages missed
in the last few hours.
By the time I returned to Europe, the
list of bugs has reached a full A5 page in my business diary. I decided
to contact Nokia Care US via the toll-free number advertised in the box.
You want it repaired
- pay for it!
The helpline
operator was ’surprised’ I was having problems with my N97, saying I could
send the phone for repair within warranty, but it would have to be sent
to a US repair centre at my own expense. Only then I realized Nokia issues
different warranties for different parts of the world — so someone in
my situation is not entitled to a free repair in Europe. This is regardless
the fact their salespeople confirmed to me that buying an unlocked phone
form an authorized US dealer made no difference if I were to take it to
Europe.
I had two
options now: repair the phone in Europe at my own expense (because my
warranty was for US only) or send the phone to US and pay for postage
there and back. Both options involved spending at least $100 more. For
a phone that just cost me $700 and I’ve had it only for a month? You must
be joking!
I rung Nokia
Europe, my local Nokia shop and Nokia US for the second time just to confirm
— and I understood right the first time — Nokia was totally uninterested
to fix this phone without further investment from my side. This was not
fair at all.
I then turned to the shop where I bought
the phone and after 11 phone calls and 28 e-mails, 6 weeks after my first
contact, I received the full refund for the phone I returned. I am still
waiting for the postage refund, but have been assured this will be done
within 5-7 days.
Explaining it to a brick wall
In the meantime,
I continued contacting Nokia. I wrote a letter to their Executive Manager,
Devices (Dr. Kai Öistämö) and sent it via recorded post. More than a month
later still no reply.
I also wrote e-mails to Nokia USA Customer
Care, who’ve offered to pick up the phone from a US address for free and
take it for repair. I couldn’t have been more clear in my e-mail when
I wrote that the phone IS IN EUROPE and there is absolutely no way can
I send it to them from a US address, and neither was I willing to spend
another cent to get it repaired.
Their replies
were really amazing—totally ignorant of the facts I clearly emphasised
in my mails and written with a dose of politeness that borders with mockery.
“We do offer a Preferential Repair service for our customers
owning a Nokia N97 phone. With this service, we provide free shipping
via UPS to our repair facility. Your phone must be less than a year old
and within the warranty guide line.”
said one of the e-mails.
Less than a year old?!? IT’S ONLY BEEN OUT FOR 2 MONTHS!
Regardless
of how many times I mentioned the complexity of my problem, their response
always included a solution for shipping the phone within US. It was like
trying to explain my problem to a brick wall.
My name is not Joel
Furthermore, almost all e-mails were
cleary copy-pasted from a pre-written set of answers about N97 (obvious
from different font colours for different paragraphs). At one instance,
their ‘E-mail Specialist’ wrote “Joel, sending your Nokia
device to our authorized repair center in USA will be a risk because of
the following: ...” - nothing
wrong with this sentence apart from the fact that my name is not Joel! Obviously, they’ve
had similar enquiries from abroad before. After my response to this e-mail,
they even apologised: “I
sincerely apologize for calling you Joel. With regard to your inquiry...“
wrote the ‘e-mail specialist’.
After nine back-and-forth e-mails, they
wrote “we
would like to inform you that we will be forwarding your concern to the
proper department for an immediate response and further assistance with
regard to this matter. They will be getting in touch with you in 24 to
48 business hours or approximately 3 to 6 working days. We are hoping
for your kind consideration and patience with regard to this matters.
“ What?!?
24 to 48 business hours, or 3 to 6 working days? Do these people know
how many hours there are in a day?
blackohole@nokia.ignore.ignore.ignore.com
Well, this last mail arrived on October
4th and I have not heard from them at all ever since. Despite another
2 e-mails I wrote, still no response from Nokia.
Luckily,
whilst all this was going on, I was in touch with the shop who finally
gave-in and took the phone back for a full refund. Had I relied on Nokia
only, I would still be stuck with a faulty $700 phone and dead silence
from their customer ‘care’.
The only
way to let everyone know what they might get themselves into by buying
N97 was to create a site like this. Judging by the number of posts on
different forums on the web, there are many people out there quite unhappy
with their N97, and just like me, they'd like people to hear about it.
If you are
planning to buy this phone, I suggest you read this first...
If you have already bought the
phone and are unhappy with it, here is what you
can do...