Google Closes Your Accounts If You Resell Your Pixel Phones?

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If you own one of Google's Pixel phones, you might want to read the terms of service agreement before you resell the phone. You could end up like these people who are now unable to access their Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos accounts after selling their phones. :eek:

Members of moneysaving site Dan’s Deals are reporting that they’ve been shut out of their Google accounts over the past few days — that means no Gmail, no Google Drive, no Google Photos, no nothing. Not having access to your primary email could also mean being unable to authenticate sign-in attempts for other accounts as well. About 200 people have reported being shut out, and have received e-mails stating that their data will be deleted if they don’t successfully appeal the suspension.
 
All the phone affected were bought via ProjectFi and sold through the Dan's Deals site...Sounds like there's something else going on here. Has "Dan's Deals" been doing something shady?

If it were something in the service agreement, it'd be impacting phones sold on eBay, Swappa, etc.
 
Maybe the people used employee discount codes or education discount codes when they weren't eligible / the real recipient for the codes in question. Those coupon / money saving websites sometimes get pretty shady on their forums. Just a guess though.
 
I can see both ends of the argument. There's a great possibility that Fi hooks deep into your account though, and I don't know if there is a mechanism to remove a Pixel phone from your account, even on Google's end.

It is in the TOS though, so, really, the sellers can whine all they want.
 
I have no problem with it if it stops people from scalping new phones.

If - however - it impacts people selling used phones, this is heinous.
 
This doesn't affect normal honest customers.

Some asshole doing the free financing option via the Fi site, selling the phone and defaulting on the financing en masse is what's going on.

If anything, this will lead to the financing option becoming a pain in the ass for normal customers.
 
I got rid of my Project Fi Nexus 5x with no issues, don't know why the Pixel would be any different.
 
Bandalo said:
All the phone affected were bought via ProjectFi and sold through the Dan's Deals site...Sounds like there's something else going on here. Has "Dan's Deals" been doing something shady?

If it were something in the service agreement, it'd be impacting phones sold on eBay, Swappa, etc.
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phones on ProjectFi are sold at a discount, so when you sign up for ProjectFi get a phone on discount, but then decide your not going to keep or pay for the service, and just sell the phone, you violated the agreement.
 
Holy shit turn off your ad blocker and check out how completely plastered with bullshit this site is:
http://www.dansdeals.com/

they bought the Pixel phones through Project Fi and shipped them to the same phone dealer in New Hampshire, who paid them a profit on each phone.
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LOL
 
liiroy said:
phones on ProjectFi are sold at a discount, so when you sign up for ProjectFi get a phone on discount, but then decide your not going to keep or pay for the service, and just sell the phone, you violated the agreement.
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Maybe if you used some type of promo code you get a discount, otherwise Project Fi just charges you the normal price for the phone. They do allow you to finance it but I've not bought a phone that way, I bought the 2 phones I have outright.
 
I have no problems with this practice, honestly - it's about time some seller or manufacturer stepped up and realized that there's a sub-market out there with people that buy phones only for the specific purpose of reselling them immediately for a massive profit because whatever device happens to be in short supply and the popularity (and low availability) prompt such bullshit in the first place.

Now with Black Friday coming next week this shit will take on a more rampant course of action all over again - probably by Friday morning at 8AM I'll see hundreds of ads on craigslist here in my area of items that people are selling that they haven't even been able to purchase yet or they'll be selling off positions in lines in front of retailer outlets, it's pretty fucked up nowadays.

I'm still surprised that retailers allow this kind of shit to happen but I point the finger at Apple more than anybody else because they started this kind of crap with the iPhone releases and allowing people to literally camp out in front of their locations for days, sometimes weeks before the release date.

Whenever I see such shit happen all I can think is those no-life losers wasting their precious minutes and seconds planting themselves on a sidewalk some place for whatever device(s) they think are worth it.

Humans... Infinity itself is pretty jealous of just how stupid we can truly be. ;)
 
Does this also include a private sale of your phone to another party after you pay it off?
 
Ruoh said:
I can see both ends of the argument. There's a great possibility that Fi hooks deep into your account though, and I don't know if there is a mechanism to remove a Pixel phone from your account, even on Google's end.

It is in the TOS though, so, really, the sellers can whine all they want.
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There's nothing special about Project Fi in this respect except that Google happens to know exactly who the customers are in this specific situation. The provision in the TOS is pretty clearly there so that Google can go after people gaming the system and since they know their Google accounts they can actually punish those "customers." Being both the manufacturer (or at least the company responsible for the phones being manufactured) and the service provider gives them this power which is somewhat balanced by the increased risk if they offer financing or a discount - since the phones are sold unlocked, the second buyer can use the phone on any of several other networks and Google might never see another dime after shipping.

I strongly doubt they'll be using this section of the TOS to go after people who honestly buy the phone from them, use it for a reasonable period of time, pay off Google in full, and then decide to sell the phone when they upgrade.
 
Babbster said:
There's nothing special about Project Fi in this respect except that Google happens to know exactly who the customers are in this specific situation. The provision in the TOS is pretty clearly there so that Google can go after people gaming the system and since they know their Google accounts they can actually punish those "customers." Being both the manufacturer (or at least the company responsible for the phones being manufactured) and the service provider gives them this power which is somewhat balanced by the increased risk if they offer financing or a discount - since the phones are sold unlocked, the second buyer can use the phone on any of several other networks and Google might never see another dime after shipping.

I strongly doubt they'll be using this section of the TOS to go after people who honestly buy the phone from them, use it for a reasonable period of time, pay off Google in full, and then decide to sell the phone when they upgrade.
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I concur. I will say though, as a user of Fi, there's some funky stuff when it comes to managing devices and services. Like re-ordering sim kits and such... can't be done through the Fi service, you have to back out and use the Play store.
 
Ruoh said:
I concur. I will say though, as a user of Fi, there's some funky stuff when it comes to managing devices and services. Like re-ordering sim kits and such... can't be done through the Fi service, you have to back out and use the Play store.
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I've been a Project Fi user since August 2015 (bought Shamu from a friend when he upgraded) but since I haven't had to change phones or deal with any other unusual situations, I don't know about dealing with new SIM cards or the like. In any case, I have no upgrade fears if I decide to make a change.

Also, what's the deal with this specific site that I've never heard of? Is it wrong that I immediately suspect someone on that site was encouraging people to order Pixel phones from Google as part of a scam? I know that when I was scanning the computer section of Craigslist on the regs, there were always unbelievable deals on brand-new Dell systems that were clearly financed by people who either a) didn't care about their credit score if they could get fast cash or b) were using other people's identities to get the financing.

I suspect Consumerist would find more interesting information by investigating "Dan's Deals" than by sitting around waiting for Google to e-mail them with their position.
 
There is most definitely more to this story. If you paid full price up front for the hardware, it's yours. Google isn't stupid enough to not allow the phone to be resold. More than likely these are phones that were financed, and still have an outstanding balance. If this is the case, suspending someone's account seems obvious.

EDIT: https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/17/google-blocks-pixel-phone-resellers/?sr_source=Facebook

First paragraph pretty well sums it up. They were trying to make a small profit by dodging sales tax.
 
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As other's pointed out above: Nothing wrong with Google going after persons involved in a scheme to increase the consumer prices, although one can discuss the severity of the penalty.

Another interesting comment from Dan's:
I find it hard to understand why Google only allows you to download your data if your account is active. They claim the data belongs to you, but if you violate any of their terms you will lose the ability to retrieve your data.
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Here I'm with Google.
* If you rent a storage locker the stuff you put in it is yours... until you stop paying the rent. If you wait too long to pay the storage owner can open the locker and sell your stuff.
* Google don't own the data. They don't even have the data. They only have a copy of the data. (I've read in this very forum, as well as other, the opinion that copying isn't theft...)
 
Skirting taxs is never a good idea... although I'm not sure what this really has to do with google to be honest. I doubt their terms of service seriously say you can't buy a used phone. Its their responsibility to control sales to possible resellers at their till (could you imagine Costco or some price warehouse raiding every mom and pop shop marking up their crap... or I guess it would be more like casing the mom and pop customers out the door and asking to see their club cards and cutting them up lol)... chasing the items down after they have been resold and punishing people that likely paid a premium for your product is not good PR. It seems they had other legal options open to them that involved going after the middle man dealer.

In any event its terrible press for google. Nothing like reminding folks they don't own anything they have on gmail/doc ect. I almost considered not renewing my personal domain this year... I have owned it and ran my own servers since my university days in the 90s. A few months ago I considered letting it go... I barely use email anymore and hey google is pretty solid free and integrated with everything. I'll remember this story in a few years when I have to reup my domain name again, the pittance it costs to continue owning my online identity is worth it.
 
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