My poor experience with Nextbit customer service

TL:DR - It took 3 months to get a replacement phone

This is a report of my experience with Nextbit Customer Service.

My sister and I took advantage of the $150 Black Friday sale on the Nextbit Robin. She was lucky enough to get a properly functioning device. The device I received was faulty. I made a timeline that you can find here of the entire exchange. You can find the whole email exchange here: and part 2 here: As a warning they do something weird with their email threads and the printout, just as it appears in my inbox, is a total mess

Here is a breakdown:

Dec 29, I noticed the speaker start to have problems. This was clearly known issue. I found this forum post: https://community.nextbit.com/t5/Audio-Speakers-Headsets-Volume/For-People-Facing-Speaker-Issues/td-p/22046

At this point I sent the first email (point 2 on the timeline). I was planning to move to Arizona from NY at the end of January. I had a hardware issue on my last phone, a 2013 Moto X. Motorola took a credit card deposit and shipped me a replacement, then I shipped back the faulty unit. Once they verified that the phone had a hardware flaw I got the money back. It was my original hope that this would be the same case here and I could get a functional device before I drove across the country. (I think it is worth noting too that they asked for my address before they told me I would have to ship my dysfunctional device back first, which reinforced this expectation)

Unfortunately they first made me perform a series of tests before they would send the replacement (points 3-7 on the timeline). I was busy packing and taking a long time to reply and was sent an email asking if I still wanted help(8). I told customer service that I would wait until I was in Arizona proceed. (9-10).

Once I had arrived and was partially settled I gave the address of the friend I was temporarily staying with (11). Nextbit answered that I would have to ship back the bad phone at my expense first (came out to ~$8) before I could get a replacement. Unfortunately in the move the sim tray of my 2013 Moto X had fallen out and gotten lost. To have a working phone I would have to buy a replacement tray for another ~$8 for my barely functioning 4 year old phone. I was very displeased and sent an email expressing that displeasure (14). Nextbit responded that they would not doing anything to help (15). After that I spent a while tearing apart my car and house looking for the sim tray. When I could not find it I ordered a replacement.

Once the tray had arrived (16) and got some free time at work, I tried to send my phone back to get replaced(17). Unfortunately that was around the time that NextBit was acquired by Razor. I got the package back to my mailbox several days later as Return to Sender.(18) As it turns out they had failed to let USPS know that they had changed addresses.

At this point it had been almost 2 months since I first emailed them about the phone being a bad unit. I was extremely upset that it was such a hassle to get a replacement on a phone when there is a well known defect. I sent an angry email to Nextbit and got a reply with prepaid shipping. (19-20).

Unfortunately at this point there was an unexpected death in the family and I had to take a last minute flight home, delaying the return of the phone another week (21). I finally was able to send the phone in on March 8th (22). On March 20th I got an email from Nextbit saying that they received the phone and were inspecting it (23). On March 31, I got an email saying the replacement had been shipped (24). On April 6th, I finally got the replacement Robin in the mail (25). As an apology for taking so long they threw in some accessories, including a fastcharger. This would have been a great apology, except they sent an EU charger and I live in Arizona.

In total it took 90 days from the time I sent the first email to the time I got the replacement. I understand that quite a bit of the hold up was on my end with moving and the funeral, but failing to notify USPS and sending the wrong charger shows that Nextbit customer service is extremely disorganized. I would recommend avoiding Nextbit.