The latest in a string of consumer disappointments around Google’s Nexus One involves stacking early termination fees on top of one another. As several customers have noticed, canceling your Nexus One service after the 14-day trial period and before 120 days has passed results in what Google calls an Equipment Recovery Fee of $350.

That’s in addition to any carrier fees in place. For T-Mobile that’s another $200. That’s $550 in fees plus the $180 you paid for the phone. The lesson? Buy the thing outright if you’re interested but unsure. It’ll run you $530, will come unlocked, and you can resell it yourself and recoup most of your losses.

You also have to wonder where that money is going. In most carrier partnerships, it’s the carrier that subsidizes the cost of the phone, hence the egregious ETF. Here, though, Google is the retailer, so presumably it subsidizes the cost itself. Why the T-Mobile fee? And if for some reason T-Mobile is covering consumer costs, why Google? Whatever the case, it ends poorly for consumers.