[ZenFone 2 General] grendude:
Ah, good times continue...

Unexpectedly, on Friday 1st of April / April Fool's Day, a knock on the door...

I answer and am surprised to see the same FedEx person from the other day.

And, of all things, he's holding a box. The same size / shape as the box I mailed the phone back in just yesterday.

"Sh*t," I tell myself. "It's come back!?!"

But, thankfully, it was not the same phone, but a new (refurbished) one.

"Ok," I think... I'll check it out.

Wrong color [light grey vs the dark of my original phone]

Obviously refurbished. Damaged screws.... but, all the screws are there.

Asus sticker, on the screw next to the camera, is visible but mashed with a screwdriver.

No scratch on the lens (outer protective glass-ish lens thing).

So, I boot it up.

Old software.

[Beside the point, but kind'a worth mentioning that ASUS repair can't be bothered to flash the most recent Rom]

Update software. No problem. Not a Frankenstein phone with parts from different phones that can't be recognized by ASUS's servers.

Shove in my SIM card. Recognized!

Properly set APN settings.

But, not connecting to T-Mobile network.

This is odd because I have a signal booster in the living room that is reading 7 (on a scale of 1-9).

LTE version that looks like this:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/at...el-fi-4g-lte-signal-booster-cellboxopened.jpg

So... I remove the sim / restart / dial #*#*4636 etc... (or whatever the number is...) turn off, wait, then on the radio.

Put in both a T-Mobile and AT&T sims.

Same problem with both sim card readers / the phone.

Restart. Reboot. Factory Reset. Etc. over and over again.

Also, I stand in the middle of my backyard where I get the strongest non-signal booster signals from both ATT / TMobile.

Restart. Reboot. Factory Reset. Etc. over and over again.

Email: stating the problems and asking him to call me ASAP.

"Michael B.

Asus Corporate Customer Care Team/Escalations Specialist"

from:	michael_b <techsupport@asus.com>

Call and try to get connected... This takes a while. Peon -> Supervisor -> ASUS hold music

I email Michael a 2nd and then 3rd time attaching screenshots.

[FYI: not 7:29/39 pm but instead 4:29/39, incorrect because can't connect to a tower and properly set the time. Ten minute time difference between screenshots gives you an idea of how long I was working on this / on hold.]

http://imgur.com/a/rJdrz

Finally, of all people, Michael answers the phone @ 4:49pm [40 minutes on hold].

Explain the problem to him quickly thinking he's out the door on a Friday at 5pm.

After I'm done, he tells me that he got my 1st email, but can't quite explain why he didn't call me?

Also, he's there till 6pm.

Aside: he also can't explain why he didn't get back to me yesterday [Thursday], as promised.

Also, he can't explain why he didn't email me back when I emailed him in the morning [Friday] asking him to update me, as promised.

Once again, I had to call ASUS Corporate Customer Care / Escalations North America

Weirdly, he had no idea that a phone had been shipped to me.

"I didn't authorize that," he tells me.

"Something odd is going on here, let me look into it."

We troubleshoot. He apologizes about 20x times over the 20+ minutes I'm on the phone with him.

"I'm still working to get a new, in box, unit shipped out to you," he states.

Me, obviously over it, "oh, you mean the unit you promised me, on Monday - the one I have an email from you that states would ship on Friday and be to me on Saturday - that unit?... Do you happen to know that day of the week?"

He does. He apologizes again.

End of the story for the week. Because nothing will get done on Saturday.

[Oh, I continually remind him that I can go to his website / Amazon / Best Buy across the street and order / pay for a phone and next day shipping / walk out the door, but ASUS at its highest level, cannot get a working phone to me.]

Background:

Original phone purchased with same day shipping: Feb. 26th.

Died: Feb 27th.

Today's date: April Fool's Day

Number of non working / damaged ASUS Zenfone 2s that I have personally had in my hands: 4