[Desire General] quicksite:
REQUEST for local buyer in Netherlands to purchase then ship to me in USA!

QUESTION: Are there any readers here who are in the Netherlands who would transact and place order for this silver model, if I sent you total cost of phone + shipping to USA via paypal, in advance?

According to the sales rep I spoke to, these SHIP OUT from their store starting April 9th, that's a solid date. They ship free to customers in Netherlands, so I do not know normal ship time from, let's say, April 9th, til the day someone local received it in NL. I have not seen many examples of these kinds of "please buy for me and I will pay you for the costs" requests other than for the Canadian version of the HTC hero -- which came out in October 2009, and which carried the USA's AT&T 3G bands -- so there were many many requests on this site and at HowardsForum where USA buyers were asking Canadians to please buy for them and ship.

Rightfully so, various Canadians here at XDA and at HowardsForums, said they would add a small handling charge for their time to go drop it off at a shipping service to then re-send to person in USA.

So, if anyone here is willing to do that, would you please calculate what your total cost would be to buy it from PDAshop.nl, then ship to USA ?

NOTE: Re Warranty: I was told by sales rep at PDAshop.nl that their, as a vendor, only provide warranty service to people in Netherlands and this is handled by some HTC-outsourced company that handles Netherlands and Belgium territories. I asked "but doesn't HTC warrant their products for a year no matter where you purchase?" He wasn't sure.

I can only say that I bought my European GSM Hero via an internet supplier (Integron) and the model shipped to me was local to Czech Republic & Poland. That was fine. Turns out I *did* have a warranty issue (and still do), and I called HTC USA and they honored the warranty, no problem at all. However, their policy, and maybe it is same all over world for HTC offices, is they REPAIR not replace units. My Hero had a motherboard swap out and was returned to me by HTC USA, but same problem persisted, and I called to say "same problem exists, will you now provide a replacement?" (it's still within 6 months of original purchase date). They said "No, our policy is we repair, not replace." ... Then I remembered, I had purchased supplemental insurance from the 3rd party Warranty Company "SquareTrade", and they had no problem paying me the cashout for the return of the phone. And this is what I am using to help m now buy the HTC Desire; (I am pretty clear now that I will forego the better looks of the Legend in favor of the higher-performance processor Desire).

The question there is, will SquareTrade allow me to purchase a "brand new item" warranty for an unsealed, but re-sold item initially purchased by customer in Netherlands. They are pretty darn good as a company, so I may check into this. They are based in San Francisco where I live.

Editorial on Breaking the Stranglehold Power of USA Carriers: GENERAL THOUGHT: Isn't it NUTS what kind of pyrotechnics we all have to go through to get these phones -- which are leaked as early as November 2009 -- then we have to wait wait wait to see who will carry them, and when they go on sale? I understand marketing because I work in that field, and I understand the value of building up anticipatory desire, like salivating... However, I can live with the delays before Europe announces its release dates. What drives me nuts is the goddamn USA market, and the way those dumbass carriers make their deals.

It seems clear that T-Mobile USA will not carry the Desire at all, because it will cannibalize Nexus One sales for Google, and I am sure that was a Term of Agreement with Google before T-Mobile got the initial exclusive to carry the Nexus One. I also theorize this is also why T-Mobile USA did not carry the HTC hero, one of the most poplar android phones of the year 2009... Just nuts, on the face of it. But I am sure it was all part of the exclusivity deal jockeying, and what side deals are made between manufacturers, carriers, and Operating System owners. For example, I am certain T-Mobile opted to carry the Motorola CLIQ instead of the HTC Hero, because Motorola had already gone exclusive with the DROID to Verizon USA, and Verizon made a deal with HTC to carry the Hero as the Verizon Eris. This left T-Mobile with few options other than to bid for being the initial exclusive carrier of the Motorola CLIQ.

Well great, T-mobile, I hope that dumbass decision got you what you wanted, because who in the world boasts of owning a CLIQ? To me T-Mobile USA should have passed on the CLIQ and gone with the Hero -- letting Motorola go to Sprint or ATT to offer them exclusivity on the CLIQ -- a phone already obsolete in my view... with terrible build quality.

Anyway, just underscoring all the crap we CONSUMERS have to go through to play the stupid Carrier One-upsmanship marketplace games in USA.

Though I think Google has been arrogant in their methodology of offering the Nexus One online, to anyone, by refusing to offer phone support even when they were lambasted all over the world for being out of their league in dealing with a consumer electronics marketplace culture, they may, in the end, be helping to CRUSH and STAMP OUT these arcane USA "who gets which phones" practices. As many who have followed this know, Google got a HUGE THUMBS UP from many after they tried and tried to negotiate deals with AT&T to carry their Nexus One with a cell phone plan etc, and AT&T kept refusing wanting a sweeter deal in form of subsidies.

Well **** AT&T, because Google decided "F. Y." and just decided to offer the Nexus One on the AT&T 3G bands as an unlocked phoned sold via Google's website -- so hah hah AT&T, this is one of the first signs that with Google's clout, we may see an end to the era when CARRIERS made all the decisions.

Consumers in USA hopefully, within a year, can stop having to play all these stupid games that penalize consumers by locking them into contracts with ****ty carriers -- just to have access to great phones. And soon maybe just maybe when HTC announces their followup to the HTC Desire, they will offer it in all BAND-flavors, inlcuding the 3G bands for T-Mobile USA, and just let us buy the phones direct, without all these dumb games that help carriers maintain some form of competitive edge, while penalizing those who pay the bills -- the consumers.

/editorial