This is partially question, partially rant. I got tired of being treated as annoyance by Nokia post-purchase team and want to tell my story and ask community how can I complain to Nokia company (not Nokia Poland - they are not even trying to be helpful).

I have place my order for n900 in the beginning of October and received phone on 2010-11-23. It was working OK but after few days it started rebooting. Yes, it was famous 32wd_to bug. I changed power settings and for the price of limited battery life and problems with WiFi connections phone was working. After PR1.1 problem got worse, so I decided, as many people affected by this bug, to send phone to get replacement. I phoned to Nokia Poland, phone was answered by off-shored call center. After long talk (trying to explain technical details to non-native speaker takes some time) I was advised to go to Nokia Care shop in my town and leave phone there. I have written 1.5 A4 page document explaining problem, including URLs of Maemo bugzilla and what was causing the reboots (watching flash for more than 10 minutes with energy saving turned on), and took phone to the service point. After few days I got to know that phone was not send to Nokia, but to other company - Regenersis. They send phone back after 10 days. Their "solution": "software was reflashed and phone is working according to specification".

Of course phone was not working correctly - it was still rebooting. First reboot was during charging, when I turned on the GPS unit. So on the next day I took the phone back to the service point. After 10 days phone's status was still "in repair" so I started phoning Regenersis. The only answer I was getting was "phone is still being investigated". After I demanded return of the phone so I can send it
to Nokia and got my money back I got answer "we have exchanged device", and two days later I got SMS: phone is waiting for pick-up.

After I got to service point I was told that only motherboard was replaced - so Regenersis is lying to their customers. Reboots went away but FM transmitter was not working.

In case name "Regenersis" rings some bells - this it the same company that become infamous for refusing to service iPhones claiming they were damaged by water - while the only water was coming from condensation.

After that I was tired of dealing with service and wrote to Nokia Care Poland. I do not think they know something about this new thing called "Internet" and email. Communication with them takes really long time. When I send them email, I need to wait two weeks to get reply. So in my opinion someone just takes emails, prints them and let poor saps from Nokia Care to answer without letting them near big dangerous computers. Replies are in form "You can find enclosed our reply" and email contains Microsoft Word DOC file with answer. What?

After exchange with them I leaned that it was pointless. Their responses were not written in Polish but in legalize, so I had to print them and read few times to understand. In summary:
1. As phones are not services by Nokia but by external companies Nokia does not respond for anything. Very convenient.
2. I should be glad that I received my phone semi-working only after two repairs and one month
3. Regenersis was right telling phone was replaced - according to Nokia Care Poland replacing motherboard is equivalent to replacing entire device. This wins my personal award for the most creative use of Polish language of the year.
4. If I am unhappy with repair I can send it back to service company.

As I prefer not to use my alleged masochism in contact with legal entities,I ignored the last advise, and decided not to bother Nokia Care Poland with my unworthy existence.

After some time PR1.2 came. I could not use OTA so I have reflashed device. After this FM options were not even visible in the "Settings" menu. Few weeks later infrared diode stopped working. I grounded my teeth and decided to go to another service point.
I shortly described problem and left phone there. What is surprising is that this service point sends Nokia devices to another company - to Sacel, not to Regenersis. Very strange indeed. After 10 days I received SMS "phone is waiting".

After getting there I turned phone on and tried to check FM ransmitter options. There weren't any! Service info claimed "software reflashed, phone working according to specification". NOOOOOOOOO! AGAIN?

Hello? Has anyone in the service thought about turning device on and check if it is working? Also - this is not Windows 95, format and reinstall does not cause problems to go away! Or maybe they thought that after I got my device back I will be so happy that I stop complaining that problems are still not solved?

The funny thing is that when I was trying to determine what was done, three employees of the service came and also tried to do something. I should have record them. Nobody even new where the option to turn FM radio was supposed to be. This was official Nokia Care point which was given award for the best customer service in 2007! Three people were not able to deal with the n900 - and they are paid to help Nokia customers to deal with their phones.

I have not even left the store and had device send back to the service. So far (since 2010-07-08) status of the phone is still "in repair".

So time for not so nice summary:
1. In 300,000 people city Nokia has two service points which sole purpose is to send devices to another companies. People in those points are not even able to reflash firmware, as this is what first part of both "repairs" consisted of.

2. Depending on luck device will be send to one of the few service companies not tied to Nokia. As lady in service point told me asking for my personal data "they do not have access to Nokia data and details about customers and devices". Rather strange - different companies can try to repair the same device and will not know about what was done in previous case.

3. Personnel of those companies is unable to read. When complaint is
"FM transmitter and infrared diode are not working" they do not even
try to turn phone on and check if "repair" solved anything.

4. "Format and reinstall" is still alive as way of solving problem in many companies.

5. Nokia Care Poland is more interested in drinking coffee than responding in non-glacial intervals.

6. n900 is supposed to be "4 of 5" and treated as the last prototype.
In my opinion every prototype that shows problems (like, I do not know, reboots connected to power saving, non-working FM transmitter, infrared diode that stops working) should be investigated and taken care of. This way next device will be more reliable. Instead n900 gets send to various companies which do not even share expertise.

7. In some countries people have their devices replaced without any
problems when they do not work - in other customers, after they split with their money, should go away and do not complain, suckers.
This reminds me of recent problems of another phone company, that
also (I think) has something in common with fruits.

So my question is - is there any way for me to officially complain to Nokia Finland (or other part of company supervising Polish wing of Nokia)? What can I do to have my faulty device replaced with the new working correctly, like many other people had?

The most funny thing is that I realised that I like Maemo. Now I am
using replacement phone and I really miss many Maemo features - this is the reason I still have hope that I can get working n900 unit and
need not to look for Android device.

Regards.

wow you traveled in time...

as your phone is from the future, your warranty doesnt apply yet...

Sorry to hear of your problems.

I would certainly be asking for a new replacement.

Phone in and ask to escalate your case and ask to talk to a supervisor. I believe most companies will offer replacement if you have suffered more than 2 or 3 repair attempts. This is a customer satisfaction issue.

If the first support person you call won't pass you up the management chain, keep phoning till someone does.

Good luck.

Well.. That sucks. I share your pain. My n900 has been in service for almost 2 months already. Nothing to do with Nokia Care though. I used my mobile operators service and they sent my phone to their service partner. They repair all models from Samsung to iPhone and Nokia and are official service partners with all major manufacturers.

They did fix the original problem the first time but gave new issues. So I just visited the store the first time to look at the phone and handed it back. Waited 3 weeks. That problem fixed, another one arrived. Waited 2 weeks. Another errorneus service. This time I didn't want to give them my phone anymore so I went to the nearest Nokia Care to get the previous errors fixed. I don't want to go to specifics, but only the first issue was Nokia hardware related. Other returns were caused by faulty service.

You know my secret! Now I must to do something with you (or your
grandparent - I must consult the Time Lords manual). For now please try not to remember that time travel is possible - if people would know that in the next 154 years it means trouble.

Hey There:

Sorry to hear fo your problem.

Did you try these phone no:

Nokia Head Office

Keilalahdentie 2-4
P.O. Box 226
FIN-00045 Nokia Group
Finland
Tel. +358 (0) 7180 08000
Fax. +358 7180 34003

or

Nokia
ul. Sienna 73
00-833 Warsaw
Poland
Tel: +48 22 821 8210
Fax: +48 22 821 8220

I think they can help you.

I suppose my problems with FM transmitter and infrared are also related to repairs. I suppose they put incorrect motherboard (IIRC Greece n900 do not have FM transmitter) or messed something with flashing low-level software.

In my case however Polish Nokia Care is rather unhelpful - this is why I decided to ask here.

Hey There:

Sorry to hear fo your problem.

Did you try these phone no:

Nokia Head Office

Keilalahdentie 2-4
P.O. Box 226
FIN-00045 Nokia Group
Finland
Tel. +358 (0) 7180 08000
Fax. +358 7180 34003

or

Nokia
ul. Sienna 73
00-833 Warsaw
Poland
Tel: +48 22 821 8210
Fax: +48 22 821 8220

I think they can help you.

http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/...anagement-team

try those numbers and ask for one of the big fishes maybe?