SNtradersonline.com sold me a used phone as brand new

[khara]

So I bought a Galaxy s Vibrant (T-Mobile) from sntraders to use on wind mobile. The box was open, but one of the staff told me that's just to unlock the phone, and that the phone is brand new. I paid for the phone, and was happy with it at the time. Long story short, I discovered some things that indicated that the phone is used, AND it has the usual GPS hardware problem that the older vibrants had.

Note that this is the first time I ever buy a cellphone. I didn't notice that the box was missing the headphones and the SD card until later on, when I noticed things are off.

The next night, I was playing around with the phone and noticed two folders: MSN droid and msntalk. I haven't installed either of these apps. Inside the msntalk folder, there are 3 chatlogs, one of them says " I just bought a vibrant in nyc for 250$, can you help me unlock it?". This obviously raised a red flag that this phone is used.

I went on youtube and searched for a TMobile vibrant unboxing video. I noticed that 1: the box is not the same, the box they gave me was for the international version. 2: The phone is missing the headphones and microSD card.

I emailed the store, verified that their phones are supposed to be brand new, and told him about my findings. His response was:

"It might have been synced to root it ( as told by our rep) so it might have some files from a previous backup we had on the system.
Lemme know if you are ok with this and about the headset our rule is to inspect and then take the goods from the office."

I then decided that I want to get an exchange, and he told me that I can get it exchanged within those 15 days. I went in on a Monday, and I had to argue with the person that sold me the phone for over 30 minutes about this before she finally agreed to exchange the phone. She first wanted me to leave the phone there, but I said I'm not leaving it there unless I get my money back. She said that she will instead call me on Tuesday (the next day) because that's when they will get a shipment. She agreed that she will hold it for me til wednesday, since I couldn't go in until then.

I never got a call from her. I went in on Friday (still within the 15 days), and talked to someone else. He said that she had a death in the family, and that there are no vibrants in stock right now, and that he will call me on Monday. Monday came and went, and I got no phone call.

To further prove that the phone is used, I installed a custom ROM (Axura) to see if that would fix the GPS. The GPS wasn't fixed. Later I installed PingChat, and when I made an account, it automatically picked a username for me, which coincidentally was the same name as the one I found in the chatlogs. Since I installed a new ROM, the phone was formatted, so there's no way this was from their "custom ROM for rooting".

I'm relatively happy with the phone. I can apply the hardware GPS fix if I want, but they were clearly giving me the run around trying to get rid of me, not wanting to honour their 15 day policy. If I wanted to buy the phone used for a cheaper price I would have, but I wanted a BRAND NEW phone. I already emailed them again to inform them that I'm going to post about this online a few days ago but got no response.

[Moderator HF 38]

Sorry for the late reply.

If the transaction happened through HOFO, you should leave a feedback for this transaction and we may also move this thread to public to public warning or informative purpose if issue never been resolved.

[khara]

Transaction wasn't made through HoFo, but I did end up deciding to buy from them due to the fact that their store is listed in your marketplace.

As for the issue being resolved, sntraders have made posts in their forum, and I've already went in twice before to deal with the issue, not to mention PMing them a couple of times about it, and they are not responding. I don't see the issue being resolved

[Moderator HF 38]

We can move this thread to public to get more attention from the seller and public if that's something you want to do.

[khara]

Thanks. It seems this isn't the first time they pull something like this off:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...rom-SN-Traders

They're also completely ignoring me. I'm kind of disappointed, I didn't do as much research as I normally would because it was listed on this site's marketplace, and I knew hofo is a relatively trustworthy place. Lesson learned I guess

[canadagsm.ca]

Dear customer(s)
Sorry to hear the issues you guys have faced and inconvenience caused. Please do advise us if there are any unresolved matters pending. We will try our best to solve pending issues and any complaints. Thanks for your understanding and Please email us directly at [email protected] or call 9056251100 or visit us at 1325 eglinton ave E, Unit 213 Mississauga, ON, L4W4L9. We do have products in stock at wholesale prices and latest models. You can inspect the products before buying. .

[khara]

lol, are you kidding me? Apologizing about it 3 years later, nice. Yeah, it's still unresolved, you ripped me off by pretending a used phone was brand new.