From: Eric Hyland
To: <snipped>
Subject: The Pre incident.
Hi Lulu,
I had a very odd experience buying my Palm Pre Saturday and I think you'll be very interested in hearing about it.
I called the Western Center Radio Shack 6/12 and asked if they had a Palm Pre available. There was apparently one on 'reserve' and I was told if the guy didn't pick it up by 7PM, they'd sell it to me. Well 7:00 comes and goes. Then, on Saturday morning, they call me around 10:00 to 10:30, saying they have located a Pre, and ask if I was still interested. I was, so I drive over and purchase it.
On closer inspection at home, I find some odd things. First of all, beneath the factory cellophane (used to protect the screen), I find another clear screen cover with adhesive. More on that in a second.
After removing the cellophane and the additional clear cover, I see something wrong with the screen on the lower right. It looked like the screen was 'bubbling.' I had thought it was simply the adhesive, but it was, in fact, under the glass (Please see attached photos 1 & 2).
I knew then that I had to take it back. But before I did, I decided to explore a bit more. I opened up Pandora, and instead of asking me to sign in or create an account, it just started playing music. That's odd. When I tapped on the button on the upper left, an account was already logged in (see attached photos 3&4)!
WTF?
The account name was <snipped> (sound familiar?). I did a google search on that, and the first result was your twitter page. And wouldn't I know it. You had tweeted about returning a defective Palm Pre not 6 hours before!
Now I see that Radio Shack had neglected to remove the the clear cover you had most likely placed on it, and just put the cellophane film over it.
When I confronted the manager about being sold a repackaged Pre, he said there was no way that was possible. Even after showing him that an odd account was already logged into Pandora, he denied it.
The good news is they did replace my Palm Pre. However, the bad news, in a totaly separate independent issue, is that the ear piece on the new one doesn't work.
To Radio Shack's credit, they are replacing this one as well and they are having Sprint waive my activation fee. However there should be no excuse for reselling a returned phone.
From your Twitter page I found your blog. If you'd like, feel free to post these pictures and my story. This could make a good "buyer beware" story on digg.com or consumerist.com or something.
Let me know and I'll keep you up to date on any farther developments.
Best,
Eric
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