In another example of how our pay-to-play society privileges the extremely wealthy, they won't say things like that because they could get sued for it, and even though it's a totally accurate description of the behaviour, they might not be able to survive the process of being sued, whereas Google would just use the lawyers they keep on retainer as part of their cost of doing business.
Caught? Like if I get caught putting a giant spoiler on my Cadillac? Sure it should be a crime but it's not. I did it in my front yard and it took 6 weeks to finish installing and painting it and all my neighbors saw me do it, and I'm here telling you about it. There's no caught because it was my Cadillac, my spoiler, and my own bad taste.
When I was a child, I used to make fun of Mexican low riders with crazy paint and spoilers. Then I went to Mexico and I realized I was an uncultured buffoon. Every car looked like the cars I saw in LA and the people spend countless hours modifying their cars.
Now I rejoice in people's car passion, no matter what you do to their cars.
More than likely the reason for this is because they are not sending the original device back.
They are probably pulling a used one that is in good shape from the shelf that is the same style, etc - shipping it to you as the replacement in order to save time and sending yours back to a repair center to be worked on if possible.
They should either disclose longer turnaround times for people in those situations, charge (after authorization) for a non-warranty repair, or send the device back unrepairable if that's the case (which they do in some regions).
Why should they do that? If they decide it's a better use of their resources to swap the entire device than to repair the original and ship it back, why would you be opposed to that? You're getting an entire new device out of the deal and coming out ahead with new hardware (and possibly upgraded hardware, if there have been manufacturing revisions since your original purchase).
If it's a matter of your data, it should always be assumed that you will lose 100% of your data when you send a device in for repair, no matter what the repair is. There's always a chance that they need to replace a component containing the storage, that your device has to be reset to defaults after a part has been replaced anyway, or that it just straight-up gets physically lost in the mail. Backup before sending in anything for repairs. Why anybody would put an un-wiped phone in the mail in the first place, is beyond me.
Came here to say this. Companies send refurbished devices out, they usually make it really clear that you should wipe your device and not expect to get data back exactly because once they receive the device and verify its condition within reason, they send a replacement. Nintendo, Apple, Pixel, Samsung have all done it to me.
Pixel is doing this because they can't send someone else a phone with a non-oem part. If they do in the US they take liability if it's a cheap Alibaba knockoff that does something stupid like make the battery explode. As screwed up as the US laws are, it's difficult to fault them for CYA.
Bottom line is, if the phone has a non-oem part they can't vouch for it, so they need to put your phone in the queue to get fixed is how it reads to me.