You say that, but the power button stopped working on my Pixel 2 XL and I went into a branch, the girl took my details and pulled up my order on the system, then took my phone and checked the IMEI number and then looked at me and said "this isn't the phone we sold you".
She went on to describe the fulfilment process within their company and how they would never get something like this wrong etc. and she would also slip in "this isn't the phone we sold you" every now and again.
I was thinking, okay, this is the phone that was delivered to me 4 months ago.
Then she went on to point to the screen saying this phone belongs to "Bob Smith" [made up the name] but she actually showed me a real customers name and address, a guy based in London.
Data protection issues?
Turns out PC World and Carphone Warehouse are sister companies and there was an issue when PC World moved some stock over to Carphone Warehouse - found out later that Carphone Warehouse entered my phone into their system as "phone accessories".
PC World ended up sorting it and giving me a new phone.
This is a true story;
Probably 8 or 9 years ago my Dad, John Robinson (first name changed!) bought a new phone at the o2 shop. Set it all up and off he went. He got a welcome text saying "Thankyou for joining o2 mr John Robertson". He assumed it was a typo on entering his name and didn't think too much of it.
3 hours later, phone stops working. No signal, no service, no nothing. Phone o2 and give the usual name, address, DOB, etc.
"Sorry sir, they don't match our records". Cue back and forth arguing, how can they be incorrect - they are literally the details I've given in your shop this morning, etc etc. Absolutely nothing they could do - the address & DOB were completely wrong.
So, off back to the shop. The sales assistant remembers him, pulls up his details and - lo and behld - nothing matches. Everybody at this point is absolutely stumped. He has a phone in his hand, he knows he's signed up for it, the people in the shop know he has, however the number is coming up as registered to the right phone but to John Robertson and not John Robinson, at a completely different address....it was genuinely a case of "what the hell do we do now??".
After much, much digging over many days, the outcome was...there had been a highly, highly unusual error where two o2 sim cards had been printed with the same phone number (i think it has an identifier name name like IEM number or something?). Anyway, one had been bought by my dad and registered to him at a shop near us...on exactly the same day, Mr Robertson up in Newcastle had also been sold the matching SIM, with exactly the same phone handset, and having an almost identical name to my dad! It was absolutely crazy.
If anybody had told me that story themselves I would say it was absolutely impossible and implausible but I was involved in it myself as I helped my Dad set up and buy the phone. The chances, especially with almost identical names, must be tens of millions to one!
