I woke up to some pretty irritating news yesterday.
Google, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that it doesn’t want to mail me my Nexus Q, speakers and speaker cables to the mailing address I have on file — which is an APO address. So it cancelled my order instead. (ED: At this publishing, Google reps were not yet available for comment).
This infuriates me on so many levels. First, there was nothing on the Google Play Store that appears to suggest that Google would not ship to an APO address. I looked. It’s also weird that, in the two emails I received from Google, Google kept referring my APO address as a PO Box. Maybe this is why it got confused.
Spaces are hard
Second, is Google Wallet really unable to make an address change after a customer makes an order?
I ask because, after the APO address shenanigans I just told you about, I decided to check out the status of another order that I made but hasn’t shipped yet. That’s the Nexus 7 cover I bought. Originally, I ordered it to my APO address. After seeing the Google confusion re APO and PO, I thought it would be a good idea to change the APO address to one Google would understand.
The only way to do that turned out to be to cancel my order and submit a new one.
No wonder the guy at Google customer service told me to just place my order again once they show up in the Google Play store. It’s a halfway decent solution, I guess, provided it wouldn’t also mean I wouldn’t be receiving the promised free Nexus Q.
At this point I’m at the mercy of the specialists over at Google. If Google’s going to sell things directly to customers, it needs to get its act together when it comes to customer service.
Have you dealt with Google customer service? How is it for you? Let us know in the comments or on Google+ as we reach Google reps for clarification on these policies. Remember to include your name, title, location and link back URL if you want to be in the story.
For aNewDomain.net, I’m Eric Finkenbiner.
these illustrations are GOLD (lol)
-RAP, II
im stationed overseas – just tried to order a nexus 10 for xmas. found out about APO the hard way… looks like they wont be getting my money after all…
Google needs to work on their customer service. Like Apple, they refuse to ship to APO addresses (and they claim to be a veteran-friendly business!). Also, be careful when buying their smartphone products. I had my Galaxy Nexus stolen a few months ago. Google told me that they could not help me recover it because they no longer support that model — even though I just bought it in October!
Very disappointed to see that such a great and innovative company embraces the status quo when it comes to customer support (or rather the lack thereof).