I have a story to tell about getting what you pay for.  I love saving money and when I can save a couple bucks on something, why not, right?  About a year ago I needed a new smartphone because the one I had was getting slow.  I purchased (my wife purchased) the OnePlus 3 for me and at the time it was selling for about $550 – $600.  A bit of background, OnePlus is a Chinese phone company that was founded in 2013.  Its aim is to build high quality phones at lower price points.  


With the phone I got, the hardware specs are pretty good and the price is very attractive compared to what other smartphones were going for.  I didn’t realize I get what I pay for until a few months ago.  The phone’s rear camera stopped auto focusing and I get blurry images whenever I take photos now.  I searched online and I was not the only one with this issue.

 I reached out to the OnePlus customer support asking if they would fix this for free since this looks to be a manufacture defect.  Their response to me was I had to pay for the fix if they determined it wasn’t a product defect.  Basically, I had to send the product in to them first and they would assess whether it was a product issue or not.  If the phone issue turns to be my fault, they would send me a quote and I would need to pay for costs first.  If after knowing what the cost is and I decline the fix then I would sitll need to pay for the shipping back.  So all of this run around, there is a chance that it could be an expensive fix and I would be out of a phone for 2 weeks.  

My wife had the Nexus 5x for two years.  She got it for about $500 and the hardware specs was considered about high end of mid-tier when it came on the market.

About half a year ago the phone decided to reboot itself every now and then.  She contacted Google’s customer support and after explaining the issue, Google offered to send her a brand new Nexus 5x.  A little while later, the customer support rep realized that all the Nexus 5x phones were sold, and instead, offered to refund us the full amount we purchased it for.  My wife had been using the phone for two years and to offer a full refund (after we send them our broken one of course) means she has been using a Nexus 5x phone for free.

It is a big contrast in customer service between Oneplus and Google.  The Oneplus 3 set me back about $600 but I was carrying around a very fast and responsive phone.  But I paid for it with a wonky camera.  I ended up trying to fix it myself by searching online and buying the tools on Amazon.

Social Investing Update

I started a social fund that donates to charity in August last month.  A couple days ago, the charity: Museum for Human Rights mailed me a gift and recognized me as a “friend” of the museum.  I didn’t expect it and it is pretty cool:


There really isn’t much to update on the stock performance at the moment.  The company continues to pay dividends and stock price has barely moved.

New Writing Gig

I’m also excited to announce that I recently started writing for a finance and business website called Born2Invest.  From there I will be writing about investments, real estate, and other noteworthy topics.  The topics I cover at Born2Invest will be more board while the things I write here will be more focused on investing and  passive income.  The website has already posted two of my articles and you can read them here: Greater Toronto Area Still Has Strong Real Estate Fundamentals and Investing for Retirement? Consider These Boring Stocks.  


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