Slider has gone off the rails - Motorola DROID A855 Android Phone (Verizon Wireless)

My husband and I bought Droids about six weeks ago. We loved them, thought they were very solidly built and generally were raving about them to everyone.

This past weekend I was out of town at a conference when I noticed my phone seemed to be sticking on something when I tried to slide it in or out. It wasn't consistent, more intermittent but sometimes it would slide easily on only one side. I noticed that the sticker on the back of the upper section (which I had left on because it wasn't clear that it could be cleanly removed, it seemed to extend under the screen and the Verizon rep who put my screen protector and case on when we bought the phone had left it on) had become somewhat torn and was sticking. I removed it but the damage had already been done and the tracks were no longer sliding smoothly. I decided to take it to the Verizon store when I got home. The day after I got home I used the physical to keyboard to type something, slide the phone closed, and it came right off the rails!! The phone still worked but was now in two pieces, tethered together only by the data connector.

I immediately took it to the Verizon store in our local mall, assuming that since it was it was only six weeks old and the damage had come from normal usage (ie sliding the phone open and closed as it was designed to do) it would naturally be covered under the manufacturer's warranty. Not so. Apparently because the phone was in two pieces it was "physical damage" and my only option was to file an insurance claim.

I felt this was ridiculous and decided to get a second opinion. I snapped the phone back together on one rail, went to another Verizon store and showed the tech how loose it was on the other rail. He said that it was a known issue and that Verizon would send me a new phone but that I had to call customer support to have it sent. I called them, they said that the first store had flagged my phone as having physical damage and that I would have to file an insurance claim (and pay the deductible) to get a new phone.

I went back to the first Verizon store where I dealt with a tech who was more sympathetic than the first one I dealt with but still said it was physical damage. I called Motorola and they said that if I sent it in without saying why they might take pity on me and waive the $75 repair fee or they might call and require a credit card to proceed.

I was so sick of all of them and unwilling to go without my phone for who knows how long in hopes that they would fix a know issue on a six week old phone that I have filed the insurance claim. If I had gone in when my slider was only sticking I believe I would have gotten a new phone without issue so please, if you phone's slider is sticking or is loose, learn from my mistake and go to Verizon immediately.

Please also be aware that Motorola does not stand behind their products and that if you have device with an issue they won't do anything about it until it reaches the point where we could all have a good class action suit. I will be leaving for AT&T as soon as my contract is up and I will no longer be buying anything from Motorola. I believe, based on the phoneWreck teardown of the Droid that it would take someone T6 screwdriver about 15-20 minutes (or less) to carefully disassemble my phone, pop the rails back on and close it up. I'm sure that's exactly what Asurion will do and our little exchange will have netted them my deductible for next to nothing, since they'll have another refurbished phone to send out to the next person this happens to. For the cost of a tech's time to do that Verizon and Motorola have both lost my business for life.