The Google Pixel 7 Pro and its smaller siblings were an absolute steal when they launched. By trading in the right phone, you could lower the price significantly, allowing you to enjoy your brand-new phone for much less than the $600+ asking price. But it looks like the process isn’t without hiccups. Multiple people are claiming that even though they went through the trade-in process on the Google Store website when they bought their new phones, Google doesn’t have any recollection of that.
When you order a phone in the Google Store, you can optionally add your old phone for trade-in. Depending on the condition and which product it is exactly, you can get a big sum of money back after you’ve sent it in. Some who wanted to make use of Google’s great trade-in deals when the Google Pixel 7 just launched had to go empty-handed, though.
People claim that they added their trade-in units during the order process and that everything looked like it went through correctly, only to notice that they never received the trade-in box that they need to send away the phone in. After investigating, these people then found that their trade-ins just weren’t part of the order summary, as if they disappeared after making the purchase. There are many reports of this on Twitter, including incidents that affected former and current members of the Android Police team.
It deserves mentioning that this isn’t the first time we’re hearing reports of botched trade-in deals—it’s been something attached with other Pixel phone launches. It’s also possible that some of these lost trade-in deals came together due to user errors, like people accidentally removing the trade-in or forgetting to add it. However, given the big number of reports on this, it almost seems plausible that there are some technical issues with the trade-in process, too—especially as some people are affected who went through multiple successful trade-ins before and were careful to select the correct options.
Google’s response to these people who now still have their old phones in possession can come across as tone-deaf. After a lot of back and forth with support, Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii, who was also affected by the issue, was offered this solution, which we can confirm was also offered to others:
To start with, I know this is not the most ideal scenario that we would want to be in and Google is always by your side to help and guide you in the right direction.
Ideally any order on Google store can be canceled/edited only within 60 minutes after placing the order. Therefore, the system won’t let us edit the order on your behalf.
I have got this checked with my experts team and upon checking the details it seems that the trade-in was not selected while placing the order. Hence you did not receive an email regarding the trade-in kit.
However I have a work around here for you. I see that your order was delivered to you on October 13th and you have a full 15 days to return the device as per the standard return period. I would suggest you return the device and once we receive it you will get the refund. Meanwhile you can place a new order with the trade-in.
In essence, the only remedy that the company could offer was to ask people to go through with another purchase and add a trade-in then, while asking them to return the unit they received before (if they are still withing the 15-day return window, that is).
The problem with this is that many early orders also included other goodies, like headphones or special trade-in deals, which have now expired. This will leave many people with fewer products than anticipated or with a higher price tag than what Google would have offered otherwise. Even when confronted with the high number of failed trade-ins, support would remain adamant that the trade-in option wasn’t selected during checkout.
We can only hope that Google will find a better resolution for this situation, as sending a new phone back and then waiting to receive another one just to trade in your old phone is convoluted and unnecessary.
As much as you should absolutely be able to rely on a company’s workflow when you purchase its goods, this might serve as a reminder that you should document the process when making an expensive purchase like a new phone. Turning on your screen recorder to have proof of what you’ve done while going through with your purchase could do wonders when talking to support the next time you order an expensive item with a seemingly lost trade-in. It also doesn’t cost you anyhting if everything goes through just fine.
We reached out to Google for comment, but the company didn’t provide an answer.
