Hi everyone, an update that I too was issued a full refund for this phone, which I was pleasantly surprised about. I kept the phone in very good condition (minimal scratches, sturdy case, etc.), so that may have impacted the refund.
There were good workarounds suggested in this thread. I’m glad to see people are willing to help each other out. The bottom line for me though was that at some point this year these phones would no longer make calls, so I wasn’t interested in delaying the inevitable. I voiced this politely to them in my email, and they understood.
I can’t speak to their decision on selling this phone in the USA in the first place; who knows what they were considering at the time. They only recently started selling here too, which was probably a logistic hurdle in itself to overcome. Perhaps there are some legal concerns one could raise since we only got a short time to use the phone, but at least they’re making amends now. I’d rather a privacy-focused company like this one continue to stay alive and compete against Google.
Also, there are at least 12 users possibly impacted by this (I’m guessing more since there are a lot of views for this thread but not as many chiming in). I’m very glad they are willing to work with the few of us affected in the USA. Even though we had this mishap, I still think they’re a reputable company trying to do the right thing.