Warranty & linked email account

RobertFoster · 17-10-2021 6:43am #1

I got my uncle a Pixel 3a in 2019 when Vodafone were selling them for €180. In the last few months he's had poor battery performance with the phone draining in a few hours. His son-in-law tried a factory reset in August to see if that'd help, it didn't so he ended up on a second hand iPhone.

As I'd bought it initially I offered to take the phone and see if anything could be done with the warranty. It wouldn't even charge or turn on for me and when I took it out of the Spigen case I realised the battery had swollen.

Google support took IMEI, name, address, pictures, etc. but then wanted me to contact them from my uncle's email address as they were "unable to confirm device ownership" with mine. I contacted them again using my uncle's current Gmail address, but that wasn't the right one either.

He's used multiple Gmail addresses over the years so I'm wondering is there a way to find out which one is the one linked to the device that'd confirm ownership? I'm told when they did the factory reset in August they logged in with his current Gmail, so I'm assuming Google are looking for the account used at initial set up in 2019? He recently gave up his vintage eircom.net account, would he have been able to use that to set up the phone initially or does it have to be a Gmail account?

I can just about get into the bootloader (that's how I got the IMEI) if that's of any use. Other than that I think it's stuck in a boot loop.

Del2005 · 17-10-2021 7:39am

Have you contacted Vodafone? They sold you the phone so have to deal with it and try to repair /replace / refund. A battery while a consumable should not expand.

You need a Gmail account to register with android.