Drift

My daily driver is a 32GB black Moto X Pure. It is a fantastic phone and I am fairly vocal about how much I like it. My previous daily driver was the 2nd Gen Moto X, which I had similar thoughts about although the Pure was a definite improvement. With all that said, after the month of March, I will not purchase another Motorola/Lenovo device, nor will I ever recommend anyone do so.

I was going to leave this be after everything was resolved, but it seems I am far from alone ([1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]) and I want to add my voice to the pile and hopefully force Motorola to fix their practices.

March 2, 2016 (Wednesday)

On March 2, 2016, I experienced a failure in my phone. The phone restarted randomly without user interaction and when it turned back on, it wouldn't make it beyond the boot screen before the screen would go black. The screen would stay on indefinitely and occasionally the status bar would flash at the top of the screen. The phone itself heated to an extreme level within a few minutes, enough that it hurt to touch.

After work, I tried some manual debug work. Using the various tools in the Android SDK, I went into safe mode and experienced the same issues. I rebooted the device's bootloader to the same effect. I tried to charge the phone while it was turned off as well but that failed with a battery icon that had an exclamation mark in it. As a last ditch effort, I wiped the device. This allowed me to make it beyond the boot screen and initiate the Android setup, but Wi-Fi no longer functioned and I still was unable to charge the device.

Admitting defeat, I submitted a repair request to Motorola, was given a FedEx sticker, and a promise that the phone would be returned to me 5 business days after receipt.

March 3, 2016 (Thursday)

The following day, I dropped the phone off at a FedEx store. The employee in the store was extremely helpful and packed it very well. FedEx tracking showed it shipped that day.

March 8, 2016 (Tuesday)

The phone arrives at Motorola's facility at 12AM

March 9, 2016 (Wednesday)

Motorola emails me a confirmation of the delivery at 4PM. That seemed very slow to me. That was a day and a half between receipt and confirmation. I've worked in a warehouse before and that turnaround time from delivery to informing the employee their package had arrived would have been absolutely unacceptable.

March 11, 2016 (Friday)

Two days later, I go to the Motorola website and try to find the status of my repair. The tool is either completely broken or Motorola neglected to enter my repair into their system. Worried that something had been lost in the system, I contact their online support. In the form for starting that chat, it asks for what you want to contact them about and one of the options is "Repair Support and Status"

My conversation does not go as hoped. I told them their online tool was not working and I wanted to know the status. Instead of helping, they simply say that this was a technical support chat and they do not handle repair support here, despite the site indicating they do. I was told to call phone support instead.

March 15, 2016 (Tuesday)

I decided to wait until the five business days was done before contacting support again, figuring I should give them a fair chance. On the fifth day, I called the phone support. I was told by this agent that my device was being worked on and would be shipped out on March 17, which they said was 5 business days after receipt. I would receive an email on that day and I was instructed not to call back until then.

March 19, 2016 (Saturday)

Thursday came and went and I heard nothing from Motorola. On Saturday, I called again. This time, I was told my phone was being replaced, not repaired. This was the first I had heard of this in two and a half weeks. The agent said they were out of stock of my model but they would ship out a device by Wednesday or Thursday of the following week. So I waited some more.

I'd like to note that my specific device was available for sale on these days from Motorola and Amazon. I have not seen the device out-of-stock since I sent the phone in. I checked several times a week during this period of time.

March 29, 2016 (Tuesday)

After a further week and a half without any contact at all, and the Repair Status Tracker still not working, I called phone support again. The anget picked up the phone and I could hear them breathing on the other end and I could hear the other people in the call center too. I said "Hello?" several times and after about 30 seconds of this, they hung up on me.

I called back immediately and this time was on the phone with a woman with an extremely heavy Indian accent. All other contact had been with an Indian call center as well, but they had been mostly understandable. Several times, I had to have her repeat what she was saying and the only thing of value she said was "a representative from the repair center will call you tomorrow."

March 30, 2016 (Wednesday)

This should come as no surprise, but no one from Motorola contacted me.

I contacted online support fearing I would not be able to control my frustration and anger on the phone. Again, they try to push me off saying they do not handle repair support and status. This time I pressed them. I demanded answers. I complained that I had gone nearly a month without a phone and was on business day 16, three times the estimated amount. After repeatedly trying to get me to leave, the agent finally said I would be contacted the following day by a representative from the repair facility.

At this point, I posted a few tweets out of frustration, messaged Motorola on Twitter, and made a Facebook post about it.

Motorola's service department is bad enough to make me never get another phone from them again

— Josh Janusch (@Apocalyptic0n3) March 30, 2016

I sent my Moto X Pure into Motorola for a battery replacement a freaking month ago. Cannot even get an update out of them. No more Motorola

— Josh Janusch (@Apocalyptic0n3) March 30, 2016

@Moto_Support messaged me and told me to email the details of my repair to mailto:supportforums@motorola.com and they would help me out. This was the first bit of reaching out that Motorola did in a month. I sent an email immediately.

March 31, 2016 (Thursday)

I receive an email back from that address saying they are looking into it and would contact me soon with more details.

April 1, 2016 (Friday)

After another 24 hours with no reply, I emailed them back and asked for an update. They responded a few hours later and said a phone would be shipped out in the next few days.

Later that night, I received an automated email from Motorola and another from FedEx informing me my new phone had shipped.

April 5, 2016 (Tuesday)

After more than a month without my phone, I finally received the replacement.

From what I have read online, this interaction with Motorola and the complete disregard for their customers is commonplace at the moment. I love my Moto X Pure. I loved my second generation Moto X. But I will never purchase another device from Motorola/Lenovo after this. They have a severe problem that they need to fix.