Google Fi is a pretty good deal, on the surface. It's a cheap, flexible carrier plan that utilizes some fancy newer technology, and it's clearly been somewhat successful for Google.
But if there's one thing Google seems to struggle with, it's customer service. Not too long ago we had a write-in from one of our readers about a poor customer service experience with Fi, and that's somehow managed to happen again.
We're running this story to share this reader's experience with everyone else, although not necessarily as a dig or jab at Google. For those interested, you'll find Carl Halford's rough experience over a port-in credit below.
And if you've ever had a bad experience with Fi (or any other carrier!) drop a comment or email us. We love to hear your feedback on these things.
I would like to share an experience with Google Fi. I am concerned because in developing what is clearly the best wireless network service available, Google appears to have overlooked the key element to Fi’s future success – the customer.
On November 22nd I ordered a Google Pixel 3XL and took the first steps to transfer my cellphone service from another MVNO to Fi. At the same time I ordered a sim card for my wife’s iPhone. Our intent was to transfer both of our cellphone services to one family account with Fi. Immediately after placing the order for the Pixel, I completed the initial steps for the transition for my phone to Fi by completing the Join procedure on the Fi website. One of the steps in this procedure asks if there will be any other phones added to the family account. I provided the information needed for my wife’s phone, and an invitation was sent to her.
At that time we discussed whether she should accept the invitation immediately, or wait for the arrival of the sim card. We concluded that it was probably alright to accept now, but not knowing Fi’s full procedure, there might be a chance of a screw up resulting in her being without a phone until the card arrived. We decided to wait.
I received the Pixel 3XL on the 26th and completed the transition to Fi. It is a wonderful piece of technology, and I was very happy to be plugged into the best MVNO on the planet.
Then on Nov 28th, while we were still waiting for the iPhone sim card, Google announced that Project Fi had grown up, and was now Google Fi. I learned this from reading a number of newsfeeds that I monitor, and also learned that Google was offering a $200 credit to customer family accounts for iPhones that are transferred on the 28th. It begged the question – what is the definition of transferred? The phone being listed on the family plan? The invite sent? The invite accepted? The porting process completed? I figured that the best way to determine this was to ask Fi.
Early on the morning of the 28th, I used the Fi app on my new phone to request a callback from the Fi support team. At that time the estimated wait time was one to three hours. Early afternoon, no callback, so I initiated the callback procedure again. Estimated wait time – one to three hours. By late evening, no callback. I initiated the process again.
I got up early on the morning or the 29th, no callback. I once again initiated the request for callback, this time the estimated wait time displayed as 30 to 60 minutes. Two or three hours later no callback. So I initiated a request for a chat session (the chat option had been grayed out previously). I was listed as the 15th in the chat queue.
I checked on the progress of the queue throughout the day. It was extremely slow. I went to bed at 1045pm being number 5 in the queue.
I am an early riser, and on the 30th I happened to be awake at 620am, when I received a call from Fi support. The person I spoke to was unaware of the number of times I had requested help. I described the situation to her, and she was able to confirm all the facts – the purchase order, the sent invitation, the activation of my phone, the ordering of the sim card. But she said that I was not eligible for the $200 credit because the Join process for my wife’s phone had not been initiated on the 28th, that being done through my wife’s acceptance of the invite. I then asked, if I had been successful in contacting Fi support on the 28th, received this information, with my wife then accepting the invite, whether I would then be eligible for the credit. Oh yes, that would have worked. But, I said, I couldn’t have known this without speaking to support, which I tried to do, but support was unavailable. After several trips around this Catch 22, she remained firm in saying there was nothing she could do. I asked to speak to her supervisor.
I then went over the whole story again with the supervisor, and she confirmed exactly what the first rep had said. Had I been able to speak to Support on the 28th, and had my wife accepted the invite on the 28th, we would get the credit. But she was adamant in saying that there was nothing she could do. It was not that she refused to do it. There was no mechanism for her to do it.
I asked to speak to her supervisor, and she replied that I was speaking to the highest level of support available. I asked for contact information for the next level of support, she said there was none. I asked for contact information for customer support at the executive level. She said that there was no customer support management structure or procedure that was available to me. We ended the conversation with my relating to her that we would not be porting my wife’s iPhone over to Fi.
A quick note – both of the reps I spoke to were tactful, professional and, frankly, seemed like nice people. I have no beef with them, and understand they have a hard job. My beef is with the internal business structures and systems that Fi has built; or rather, not built.
I’m sending this story because I have great concerns about Fi. It’s not about the money. Any number of elements of this story indicate that while Fi has engineered the best network service offering from the technical perspective, it has neglected the key element essential to a service that survives – the customer. It should have been no surprise that support would be busy this holiday season, especially when management decides to offer substantial discounts on equipment and services. It’s really bad practice to have a widget on a webpage that gives the customer inaccurate information about wait times. It’s crazy to have customer support call a private residence at 620am. No big deal for me since I’m an early bird, but for most of my friends, being awakened like this would have started the conversation off on a bad note (I also confirmed that the support callback I received was initiated within the same time zone where I live – west coast). And most critical, the supervisor told me that the management structure at Fi has no method of problem resolution for customers.
I think I am like most customers. The price point of a service is important, but not determinative. I am willing, and do, pay a bit more to assure that help is there when I need it. The dealership where I have my car serviced is not the cheapest place, but they provide outstanding service. We have stayed with the same insurance broker for years even though cheaper products are probably out there, because we know we can pick up the phone and get expert advice. And I even left one of the big name cellular networks and transferred to an MVNO because of terrible customer service. I am concerned for Fi. For now I will be keeping my Pixel 3XL on the Fi network, but having been bitten once, I am cautious. If this is the norm for Fi, I will be leaving. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.
Have you had any similar experiences with Google Fi in the past? Let us know!
I’m having a really bad experience with Google Fi support and I seem to be running in circles. I thought this was a high tech software company, but I’d get better support from the local car dealership than with them.
My phone has a broken screen. I paid for their insurance and I ordered a replacement phone. It’s been three weeks now and it hasn’t even shipped. Apparently it’s “stuck in the system”. I can’t cancel the order and neither can they. Google Store support washes their hands and says you need to talk to Google Fi. So here’s my nightmare dealing with the support obviously outsourced to another country:
– Phone support does not work because of COVID19 (every other business seems to be able to work from home),
– they can’t help me via chat as it has been escalated to the “specialists”
– after a few days their “specialists” emailed me with the most irrelevant questions: do you still have the problem? Can you cancel your order? Did you get your phone yet? Please wait a few more days,… They should perfectly be able to see my support request history. Isn’t Google a software company?
So my question is: Can I escalate this to somebody in the US with authority and/or knowledge to solve my issue?
By the way, this is not the first time I’m dealing with this with Google FI. I contacted them in the past for a technical question and they had no answer either… Sad
This is exactly the issue I’m having!! How did you get it resolved???
Absolute nightmare with Google FI. Mind numbing experience dealing with their clueless customer service in the port in process. Finally gave up after three days of no phone service and cancelled service. Tried to go back to my old carrier. They could not get Google to release number to port back out. Finally after six days of no service, I had to change my number.
Google Fi customer support is a nightmare, unbelievable incompetence. I am now on day 38 August 6 2019 dealing with their broken system. It all started June 24 when I walked into a pool with my Motorola G7 and killed it, stupid I know. I had damage insurance and applied for it by chat June 26. After no promised response in 24 hours, I called the support line. Everything seemed good, they would send out replacement and I send the damaged phone back. The problems started when the replacement phone was returned to Google as undeliverable since I was not home to sign for it, nobody told me I had to be there to sign.
It’s a long, miserable story, I’ll try and hit the highlights from here. First, they lost the phone where it was returned back to, they said this is a recurring problem. But the system recorded that I received it, meaning they couldn’t send me another because they already assigned a new IMEI number. Finally after several escalations to supervisors as they call it, they finally sent out another phone which I received July 16 after initial claim. Next problem, they billed me twice for the deductible, more calls to resolve. Then July 25 I get an email saying they have shipped me a second replacement device. Google support said there’s nothing they can do, instructed me to refuse the delivery. I called Fedex and asked them to cancel the order.
Next lowpoint, I had to return the damaged phone by Aug 5 or get charged the full phone cost, I sent it with the Google supplied waybill July 24. I called support on Aug 5 to make sure they had received it, they replied yes. Today Aug 6, I get an email saying they have not received the phone and they are charging me the full cost. I call support again today, he checked the record and assured me it had been received. An hour later, I get email from Google fi specialist saying it’s not been received and I am being charged. I used the tracking number on the Fedex receipt, it shows it was delivered to the Google facility July 25.
I doesn’t look so bad now reading though my troubles, I was without a phone for 3 weeks, was having withdrawal issues, that I could deal with. But the aggravation and frustration of 8 to 10 hours on the phone over the past 5 weeks is unacceptable. The good thing about support, there is always someone there to talk to after 2 mins on the phone, unfortunately as others mentioned, they seem disconnected from the system, are not able to resolve the various fires that were popping up. I’m not expecting this nightmare is over yet, expecting at some point soon they are going to send me a bill for the second phone they sent and I had Fedex return.
Despite the nightmare that is Google fi customer service, the actual phone service worked fine, I was happy with it, just don’t ever, ever, ever damage your phone and try to make a claim, you’re looking at a world of mental frustration and anguish.
I’ve been trying to port my number over to google fi for 5 days now. My wife has a pixel phone and has been using fi for several months so we thought best to be with the same service. Attempted to port three different times and have connected with support through chat at least twice a day since beginning this process, looking for some kind of status update. They just tell me that there is a delay and my concerns have been escalated and that I will hear back from someone within 24 hours. No one has reached out to me and the chat support can’t help with anything. We tried using the request a call back from support feature so that we could talk to a real person and no one has called us. We’re both planning to check out t-mobile. Google’s lack of responsiveness has been absolutely mind boggling.
Google support is the WORST there is for literally every single product and service that they offer
tech support is non existent and customer support may as well be
the story in the article sound like every experience i have ever had dealing with this shifty parasitic monopoly corporation
from the play store to the google store to google express ,, exactly the same experience across every area
you may as well be speaking to robots ,but google is too cheap to pay for robots so they just hire biological androids instead
they will not even bend one inch on anything and have authority to access anything , their jobs are worthless they are completely useless , they are even worse than useless , if they had no support i would have the hundreds of hour s of hours of my like i wasted back
people should try to avoid doing any kind of business with this company at all costs
they refused to honor my warranty on my nexus 6p , phone has major battery issues with 6 months left on the warranty and they refused to honor the warranty , placed literally hundreds of calls to “support” that went nowhere , my experience was very similar to the one in the article
same goes for the play store and trying to get a refund for an app purchase, or to have the app licence transferred to another account
same goes for google express , they sent me a defective item and then they refused to do an even exchange replacement
all i wanted was the identical item in working condition and they refused to exchange it and i contacted right away after receiving the item
placed about 50 calls and got nowhere with them
they DGAF about their users/customers and they are tighter than a ducks a$$ with a alum suppository shoved up it
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8d0cd14e5d83f8ebad7cd11748e76c65775206442315221f095a4fb5ad61fa8.jpg reoyhur
I would like to share my experience with Google support:
On November 25th I placed and order for a Pixel 3XL and the order was confirmed. I also ordered devise protection for the Pixel 3XL at the same time. On November 26th I received and e-mail that the order was shipped with a scheduled delivery date of Dec 5th. I was really looking forward to using the new Pixel 3XL as this was replacing my two year old Nexus 6P. To my surprise the devise was delivered on Tuesday Dec 4th @ about 10:45am. Signed for the package from FedEx. I noticed that the top of the package was double tapes and when I opened the package the security tape on the Pixel 3XL was broken. Everything was in the box with the exception of the phone, I reported that the phone was missing within 45 minutes of the delivery. AND this included me replying to the e-mail from support with photos of the packaging.
As of Friday the Dec 7th I haven’t heard anything from support and called them again. On Saturday the 8th I received an e-mail saying that support needed to contact their shipping partner on my behalf and conduct a brief investigation. Asking that I confirm that ‘I am the original purchaser and I did not receive the item”. I replied “I CONFIRM”. After that point I’ve had NO CORRSPONDENCE with anyone in support.
Google Fi without a doubt has the WORST product support in the WORLD. When I first reported that the phone wasn’t in the packaging. ANOTHER ONE should have been sent out immediately.
Finally on Dec 16th with no further contact with Google, I requested a refund. THAT they responded to the next day.
What a lousy way to do business.
This is remarkably similar to what I experienced.
I bought a phone from them $800, with $200 off if I activated within 30 days. I activated right away. Apparently, though, I gave a different email address than when I ordered the phone. My bad.
However, well within the 30 days I got in touch with them about activating on the Google Account that they expected me to use. I spent hours on this, and did everything they asked. Finally they sent me a new sim card, but it would arrive after the 30 days. They assured me this would not be a problem. But, after 30 days, they put a $212.50 charge on my credit card.
Like the author, I tried escalating. But they can’t/won’t address the issue. Their own Terms of Sale indicate that a delay that is beyond the reasonable efforts to avoid won’t be held against the customer. But they just won’t respond to me. They won’t address the substance of my problem. They seem to be automatons. THEY DO NOT CARE. I cannot recommend Google Fi, even though the plan, price, and wifi/cell handoff are just what I want.
This is happening to me right now regarding a phone that broke under warranty. They say I ordered it under a different email address, but will not tell me which one. I’ve tried every email address I can, including the one I know I used, so the mistake must be on their end. They will not acknowledge and eventually terminate the chat. The supervisors email and say the same things. One rep finally gave me an email address they said was connected to the account, and it’s neither a google one nor one that I’ve ever had in my life. So, obviously I cannot contact them from that address. This is in spite me sending screenshots of the phone purchase I made from my Fi account.
Here’s my Fi CS tale.
I ordered the Moto G6 as part of the launch promotion as a replacement for my wife’s old Virgin Mobile phone. As part of the conversion, I set up a separate gmail account for her to get the data backup separate from mine. This not only seemingly negated the promotion for the $200 giftcard, but also left a Fi account on my gmail account that resulted in a $53 cancellation charge for not activating the phone.
Online CSR failed to budge on any relief and refused to give me a contact to escalate my issue. Just the regular Fi phone# so that I can spend another fruitless hour.
Called the number and got a recording that “we can’t talk now”. Great!
Im having similar issues. I did a 2 pixel 3 for 799 promo and they are refusing to credit me the 799 saying i didn’t meet their terms. I was told there is no one above a supervisor and they will not escalate me. Ive done email, chat and phone, they look at the ticket history and just say i see you have been answered already.
I can not believe how bad thier customer service is.
They have signed me up with a different and ignored my transfer request. I have been following up every 24 hours and every day they say 24 hours for the past 10 days. A complete waste of my time and I feel like talking to robots but and they do get upset if you try to complain like customers have no right to do so.
The funniest part is that they provided me an option that if I am not happy I can cancel the service. Yup I am not happy customer service is the worst ever and that what I’m going to do. Cancel and pay double somewhere else for another carrier that appreciate customers
I have had amazing customer support through Project Fi, even with complex issues with carrier problems they could solve everything in a timely manner.
Google Fi however has the worst customer care I’ve ever dealt with. I upgraded my phone under the travel promotion and upon activation I couldn’t send or receive calls/texts. After two weeks and hours spent talking with their chat team nothing worked. From factory resetting to what they could do nothing worked from December 11-26. Thing is I was flying out of the country to South America and I needed a working phone. I switched to T-mobile out of necessitie and I’m being told I’ve voided the promotion. When Google Fi never met terms of activation.
It’s now January 8th and Google Fi still has not fixed my account. Email contact with their experts hasnt yeilded any tangible explanation or agremagre to resume the travel credit promotion. Google Fi is taking no responsibility and are not honering their customers at all.
I placed an order with fi for a pixel 2 on December 11 and an additional order for a ThinQ on December 12. The pixel arrived within a few days, no issues. It’s been a complete customer service failure on the ThinQ. It was supposed to arrive on December 27. On December 21, the status changed to “A problem with shipping”. For eight days I have been unable to get through on the phone, even when their customer service link says a 4 minute wait. None of my emails were returned. I used the chat and was told “I assure you the phone will arrive on the 27th”. On the 27th I used chat again. I was told that the phone was shipped on the 21st and would arrive the 28th. I requested a tracking number and was told I would receive an email shortly with the tracking number. The email never arrived. I contacted chat again on the 28th and was told the order never shipped and was escalated to the next tier, and would receive an email shortly describing the problem and resolution. After waiting over 24 hours I received no email and used chat again. I asked to be put in contact with someone with direct knowledge of the shipping issue. This was refused. I asked for an email address or phone number of anyone in shipping. Again, I was refused. At this point, I’m ready to send my pixel 2 back and cancel the service entirely. Verizon might be expensive but at least I can get problems fixed.
I’ve been a Fi customer for over a year, have had contact with customer service twice and the experience had been wonderful. I am sorry to hear about your bad experience, but I do want to caution against grading a business solely based on how they failed at their worst hour. The same reason you don’t rate an airline just based on how long it takes to reach their customer service after a major snowstorm, it’s also unfair you rate Fi based on experience during an one-off holiday promotion right after a major expansion of their service.
I bought my Nexus 6P through Google Project Fi, and not through Google, like I had erroneously thought. They weren’t as lenient with their trade ins as Google was apparently. My Nexus 6P had a flaw where the microphone didn’t work properly. Callers on the other end complained my voice was far away or muffled. I called people on the mobile network, I called them on wifi, inside and outside and I got the same results. I called Google and they directed me to Project Fi and because the phone was out of warranty (less than a month!!), they couldn’t help me. Whereas, Google was allowing for trade ins for the same issue ans well as the early shutdown. I know they weren’t required to honor my lapsed warranty. It was a known problem, though. It was a bad product. And Google/ Project Fi wouldn’t stand by it.
That’s actually probably the worst customer service screw up from Google that I’ve ever seen, tbh.
That’s the worst one in these comments, tbh.
I’ve been with Google Fi / Project FI for a few years now, and had always received impeccable support from them. Things changed radically, however, around Black Friday this year. Over the past few weeks, I have encountered several issues with Fi and had to contact them. They no longer respond to emails promptly (at times they do not respond at all!), reaching them by phone is a pure nightmare (it took me nearly two hours to get someone on the phone last time I called them), and they seem to be messing up orders now (I received screen protectors for a Pixel 3 instead of my new Moto X4). I think the issue here is simple: they did not plan their transition from “really small” to “really big” carefully. Period. Hopefully, they can adjust quickly to this new pace. If not, they risk losing a good chunk of their diehard customer base.
Very helpful article and comments, confirming my concerns that I would probably be wise to wait and see if their customer service gets better before signing up. Thanks.
How many times have you seen a local business sink millions into a renovation.. Only to reopen with the same terrible customer service as before the renovation… I am convinced if they spent 80% on the renovation and 20% on focusing on retraining and customer service standards or even zero on the renovation and 20% on the service standards that would always be the biggest bang for the buck. Business all over this country have lost their way.. Sure a great big beautiful building is pretty cool.. But if you still have someone with such low respect for themselves that they cant even look you in the eye and say things like please and thank you.. You have lost the game.. I have Google FI for years.. Fortunately I have never had to reach out to customer service.. As of now… I cant be happier with my 2XL…
I purchased a Pixel 3 XL for the Travel Promo on the 28th, and the phone was stolen during shipping last week. Luckily I had the delivery guy wait while I opened the clearly empty, poorly retaped box. I refused the shipment with the proper FedEx code, and have photos of the box AND the delivery guy’s badge! Luckily this isn’t one of those “accepted an empty box” scenarios. It’s now Tuesday and while the agents themselves are pleasant, they can’t really do a lot except make promises that “the shipping department” is working on it. It’s quite an ordeal to get ahold of an agent in the first place. (dropped calls, one way voice-not my fault). The agent told me the only way they can contact their own shipping dept is through email, but that I should email them, and they couldn’t help.
I have yet to get a reply to ANY email I’ve sent to Fi’s customer service.
Sundar Pichai needs to give the Fi leaders a wakeup call instead of wasting time with Congress.
Same thing happened to me. GFI was not ready for the influx and failed miserably. I moved my phones back to att. No call back, no chat, zero ability to have any questions answered. Most businesses would honor their offers knowing that they screwed miserably, the one thing I will never recover is the time that I wasted trying to do business with them.
I had a very similar experience. While my first rep was great, the supervisor escalated the tension. She insisted it was my fault, I should have known, and she had no record of me trying to contact them. I got the same spiel about there not being anyone else I could talk to. I do hope that someone fixes this part of support. I’ve been a loyal – and very happy – customer for 3 years, and this is the first time I’ve had to contact support. The experience made me question whether I would continue to be a customer. I recommend you keep trying support. I eventually got someone who said he’d give me the corresponding credit. I took a screenshot of that chat so if I have to go back to support with it I at least have proof this time. Good luck.
The only thing that has not been excellent lately is the fact that calls took a bit longer. I had nothing but praise for Google Fi support. I had to return a phone and make an inquiry on another issue and both were handled perfectly fine and in a timely manner.
I’m not saying they are perfect at Google Fi, but if a callback keeps “failing” there is a chat option that the customer could have initiated (and once successful) then request a phone call if chat was not sufficient.
Still not a good experience at all.
The challenge with that is that the chat button was actually unavailable on the 28th, and for several days after.
Ugh, that’s why I prefer email as an option, it’s a great paper trail. Sorry you also went through a similar experience.
I have had problem after problem with Goole customer service not only on FI but with Gmail and YouTube. I was worried I had been hacked and Google literally told me they had no direct mechanism for dealing with the issue. I had to write a letter to legal or copyright departments. It was as if their process was more important than my safety. I use Google products because I am used to them and my life is engrained with them. They also happen to be the better option in terms of tech and funstuon va he competition. That said, they dont seem to be a human company .They are more concerned with the bottom line. I wanted to work for Google for a long time. If they were to approach me today I would still consider it but as a customer I still feel like they don’t prioritize me nor really humanity. It’s about process not people. At least that’s the impression I have. Happy to be proven wrong Goggle. With love.
I don’t even know where to begin with the issues I’ve had with Google these past 2 and a half weeks, but it falls right in line with the issues this customer had seen. They need to fix their customer support because waiting 3 hours to chat with someone when they aren’t responding to my callback is unacceptable.