OP here, update since the last post...
The hold has disappeared from my credit card, so I'll take that as a positive sign.
There's nothing on my Fi account page to indicate anything abnormal, and despite having placed a note with my contact information in with the dead phone, I seriously doubt I'll ever hear anything about what went wrong.
Someone mentioned a shorted digitizer... yep... sounds pretty accurate. And yes, I know the phone isn't waterproof, merely waterresistant. Either way, I don't plan on dunking it any time soon.
Thanks for the replies and karma... it seems to be resolved. Google/Fi stands behind its product.
I've discovered that as soon as I bring my return to my UPS Store and get my receipt, the hold disappears on my bank account. It appears that the Google Store gets the notification that the return is in possession of UPS and then drops the hold.
I've discovered that as soon as I bring my return to my UPS Store and get my receipt, the hold disappears on my bank account. It appears that the Google Store gets the notification that the return is in possession of UPS and then drops the hold.
Mere minutes after posting yesterday I got an email from the Google Store "thanking" me for returning my dead phone, so I presume the hold was released as the email was automatically generated. As I mentioned before, I still doubt I'll hear anything unless they determine I broke the phone, however there was not a single mark on the phone and I expect they'll simply toss it in the "rebuild" pile.
Hard to believe I went more than 3 years with a Galaxy S7 without a single hitch until a string of bad luck resulted in THREE visits to uBreakiFix in a few months. I hope this was just a fluke.