NokiaUSA.com - Failure, Again
I tried ordering an N95 from the NokiaUSA site on Thursday, and canceled the order today. They had placed it on hold (it was supposed to arrive yesterday actually, but I was at Mobile 2.0, more about that later). I never got a notification or anything, but when I went to the site to check on the delivery info I saw that the order status was “requires customer contact”. Not nice, I would have expected an email or a call.
So I called up, they transferred me around, and then asked me another set of questions about where my sister owns property. They asked me a different invasive round online, now I had to do it live over the phone. Unfortunately I have no idea where my sisters own property, there are three of them and they’re almost as unpredictable as me. So screw it, I canceled the order. For a company that produces a few billion handsets a year, or whatever that number is, you think they would also understand how to get them out into the market.
I was even nice enough to wait through the 10 minute hold to speak to a manager about how the order process broke down for me. Not to get my order completed, I just wanted to be a nice citizen and help Nokia learn why they can’t get units out into the US market. He wasn’t interested though, he just wanted to tell me that ordering an unlocked phone in the US is different then ordering a laptop or other high ticket item. Is it? That’s a new one to me.
So Nokia, and I know there are a few of you out there reading this, this is your final message from me. I hope you can get your crap together around internet services in the US in a way you haven’t been able to get your handset business together (Hi Charlie! Good luck!). Personally, I’m waiting for the next OpenMoko spin to upgrade my phone. I feel kinda bad bashing the online store after Nokia NSeries was a big sponsor of Mobile 2.0, but surprisingly not that bad. I put in the effort, even was willing to upgrade to a phone I’m not that sure about just to see if my opinions could be shifted. But I think I’ve been jerked around enough to legitimately call it quits.
October 16th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Hmm, I bought my N95-3 on mobilecityonline 2 weeks ago, at $649 ($50 less than NokiaUSA.com). Delivery was speedy and trouble-free. No affiliation, except as a satisfied customer. Only problem was that the headset was broken out of the box, so I did just have the misfortune of dealing with the NokiaUSA folks, who were indeed not too polite and clueless to booth (support rep kept trying to insuate I was using some third-party headset, even though I repeatedly told him it was the one that came *with* the phone *in the original box*, so clearly a Nokia headset — and he really should know which model headset that is, rather than having me try to find the (very well hidden) model number.
Having said that (and on a positive note), I really love my N95, in fact had I known we could have synced up for a demo yesterday at mobile 2.0, though there wasn’t any shortage of N95s there. Coming from a E61 I do of course miss a full keyboard, but not as much as I expected (have a Think Outside BT keyboard I use when I am stationary and T9 gets too painful). Camera, GPS et al are wonderful, as is the extra CPU horsepower (finally a S60 device that doesn’t feel sluggish) and memory.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
[...] sexy beast. I certainly hope they manage to get this out into retail outlets quick, seeing as how Nokia can’t manage to sell me things online. I did actually consider for a while if my disgust should extend to the Linux devices as well, but [...]
November 20th, 2007 at 11:16 am
[...] the N810 is on shelves somewhere. I’m not going to frusterate myself by trying to order it from NokiaUSA however, that would just be stupid. But it’s supposed to be in Best Buy and CompUSA. Neither [...]
January 11th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
[...] like Eric Rice is experiencing some frustrations dealing with Nokia. Not the same frustrations that I had when trying to get my N95, but the theme is familiar. Nice to know I’m not the only [...]