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Verizon, bad phone, bad insurance.

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Signed up with Verizon for 2 iPhone 6s, two lines, fully insured, and less than six months ago.
Last week my phone crashed.
Spent a few hrs with Apple support. No cigar. Go to the Apple Store, but make appointment. Ooops, nothing available for 3 days: Repeat: You will not get any support for 3 days even if your phone is under warranty.
Tried to explain I need my phone 24/7 for various reasons. So sorry, long waiting list at the Apple Store.
(How is Apple Support so damn superior if it takes 3 days to trouble shoot, or a get a new phone? :scared:)
Called Verizon's insurance instead.
They overnighted a new phone that did not work: Black screen, nothing else.
Called and bitched: Got another phone today: A bad Apple again. Unable to log in, touch screen not sensitive, no # 6. got 5 or 7 instead.
2 hours with Apple support, no support.
They finally said this phone is out of warranty...(got it 2 hours ago from Verizon's insurance dept.)
Called Verixon again. Now Very unhappy. They rep admitted they shipped "refurbished" phones.
Guess they forgot to fix 'em though.
Demaded a brand new f.... iPhone 6 and they promised to ship me one, tomorrow the day.

Am I just lucky, or is this a common thing in the Versizon World?

(Yes, I drove to the Verizon Store first thing in the morning when this happened: Oh no, Oh no, we can not give you a new phone despite the insurance and warranty. You have to file a claim and "they" will ship you a new phone. )
 
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Tried to explain I need my phone 24/7 for various reasons. So sorry, long waiting list at the Apple Store.
(How is Apple Support so damn superior if it takes 3 days to trouble shoot, or a get a new phone? :scared:)
Called Verizon's insurance instead.
They overnighted a new phone that did not work: Black screen, nothing else.

They rep admitted they shipped "refurbished" phones. Guess they forgot to fix 'em though.
Demaded a brand new f.... iPhone 6 and they promised to ship me one, tomorrow the day.

Am I just lucky, or is this a common thing in the Versizon World?

I'm fairly certain that most U.S. wireless carriers ship out refurbished phones as warranty replacements. The theory is that your phone was "used" when it broke, so it is replaced with a used phone.

I've heard variations of your story from other people before, which makes me wary of refurbs that aren't from Apple. I don't think the carriers have the same high standards. Best results probably will come from getting replacements at the Apple Store, because you can test your replacement device there and demand another if it is unsatisfactory. With carrier replacements, it is a lottery combined with the hassle of shipping.

If I needed a phone right away I would buy a completely new unit at full retail, and sell the warranty replacement unit later. This is a bit of a pain, but the cost might be worth it if the phone is a critical business tool.
 
Replacement phones via carrier insurance plans are always refurbs unless they don't have a refurb model on hand.

As for Apple, I have my own fun story. I had a Macbook Pro that once caught fire in my office. I called the store, they said "no appointments, sorry, but bring it in because of the fire hazard"... I drove an hour and 15 minutes to their store in St. Louis, and sat at one of their waiting tables with the laptop continuing to emit puffs of smoke in the store for the next 90 minutes... they didn't care about the fire hazard. I was departing the next day for a presentation in London, and needed a replacement. They said that because of the fire, they couldn't allow me to take it back out of the store, and they had to send it to corporate to determine next steps. They also said they couldn't supply me with a replacement in the meantime, and it could take up to a week for corporate to decide what to do with it. They refused to allow me to take my hard drive from it. After I complained, they agreed to clone my hard drive to an external hard drive so that I could have my data, but unfortunately the hard drive encryption we used was tied to something on the drive and I ended up with corrupt data. When I think of Apple service, I think of Lily Tomlin - "we're Apple; we don't care, we don't have to." When the word "genius" is used to describe customer support people, I think of the unshaven hipster Apple "geniuses" and I am turned off by the mere thought.

Luckily, I had my own personal Macbook that I was able to repurpose for my office use... It wasn't until I returned from my trip, raising holy hell through Steve Jobs' e-mail address that I got a call back. They asked me to go to the store where they gave me a replacement Macbook. Later, they called to collect more information, and determined that a combination of a bad firewire cable plus a bad motherboard port caused the problem.
 
I had a Macbook Pro that once caught fire in my office. I called the store, they said "no appointments, sorry, but bring it in because of the fire hazard"... I drove an hour and 15 minutes to their store in St. Louis, and sat at one of their waiting tables with the laptop continuing to emit puffs of smoke in the store for the next 90 minutes... they didn't care about the fire hazard. I was departing the next day for a presentation in London, and needed a replacement. They said that because of the fire, they couldn't allow me to take it back out of the store, and they had to send it to corporate to determine next steps. They also said they couldn't supply me with a replacement in the meantime, and it could take up to a week for corporate to decide what to do with it.

I probably would have called the police at that point and threatened to have the store employees arrested for theft if they wouldn't return the machine.
 
I probably would have called the police at that point and threatened to have the store employees arrested for theft if they wouldn't return the machine.

They probably would have called the fire department in return, given that the machine was emitting puffs of smoke, and the St. Louis fire dept would likely have permanently disabled it. At that point, Apple could have claimed that it was the response from the fire department that disabled it, and then we'd be in quite a mess about the cause of the fire. I knew I'd eventually get it handled - but was left, stuck without an option from Apple.
 
Last month, I temporarily added a mobile hotspot as I have done many times. Verizon took it upon themselves to delete my unlimited data plan due to the addition of another feature, and refused to add it back. I have paid 1000's of dollars in paying full price for new phones to keep this plan which is no longer available. Escalating to corporate last week and no response back. Looking at my contract they have mandatory arbitration for disputes.:cursing:
 
Last month, I temporarily added a mobile hotspot as I have done many times. Verizon took it upon themselves to delete my unlimited data plan due to the addition of another feature, and refused to add it back. I have paid 1000's of dollars in paying full price for new phones to keep this plan which is no longer available. Escalating to corporate last week and no response back. Looking at my contract they have mandatory arbitration for disputes.:cursing:

Ugh, that sucks. I've been doing the same and still have two lines with unlimited data. I keep the hotspot permanently on one of the lines. There are some for sale on eBay.
 
Thx for moral support.
I had to vent:
Pretty fu... Innocent: Paid full price, been responsible, first time loss, etc.
(58 year old male, good credit, I expected better from these fu...heads but they had to ask:
did you drop or submerge your new phone after you got it? No Lady, UPS delivered it 20 minutes ago. Been
trying to charge it, had no time to drop or submerge it.)
Frustrating...
Hopefully the Tesla Thing is better and they are trying to help rather than accuse you of damaging the goods.
 
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Got 3rd phone today.
Insisted on a new phone.
Got it, now uploading and restoring, seems to be good, but not there yet.
Never knew I was that deponent on a stupid telephone. Guess I am...
 
New phone is good.
All is well.
lesson to take away from this thread: Demand a new phone from the beginning.

I got a new phone today, 3rd replacement.
Fair enough, they send ya a refurb or used phone the first and the second time. But they forgot to fix it, or forgot to refurbish it.
Seems like quality control was left with morons.
Let me repeat: The Verizon Insurance folks are clueless.
they kept shipping me bad phones.
ok, enough bitching.
Sold or gave away all my old Smart Phones, but may have some old Flip Phones stowed away.
Will pull out and charge in case I do this again: As in depending on sh!tty Customer Service and Sh!tty Insurance for my happiness:(
 
Had a similarly annoying experience with Sprint. In my case, I got my phone direct from Sprint in May of 2014. Small things kept going wrong (screen flickering, pressing the wrong area etc), but the final straw for me was the camera no longer focusing.

Go to sprint, they tell me they can't work on Apple products per Apple's policies (this, after I explained the problem over the phone and they scheduled me an appointment at a local Sprint Store). Guy says leave the phone with him as well as my apple ID password and phone PIN and they'll back it up then run some diagnostics.... yeeeeeah, no.

Go to Apple (had to make an appointment 2 days out), guy takes the phone in the back, then comes back with it half-assembled. He tells me the screen is not an authentic Apple part and they refuse to work on it. So great, got a refurbed phone from Sprint, Sprint isn't allowed to work on it, Apple WON'T work on it and to top it off, he didn't full re-assemble the phone (the screen wasn't seated) because he said the moment they see non-Apple parts they're "hands off". Wtf?

Go back to Sprint, they tell me that my insurance plan will cover a replacement but I'll have to pay the $200 deductible. At this point I grabbed my wife's old iPhone 5 out the draw, factory reset it and am just using hers until my Project Fi invite comes (which is really just a holdover until a good flagship Windows 10 phone comes out). Done with Apple products.
 
Do you have the receipt from Sprint? If you paid for a new phone and they gave you a refurb, I'd go after them. But I find it surprising you wouldn't know. New Apple products come in the sealed apple box with the serial number printed on the side.
 
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Do you have the receipt from Sprint? If you paid for a new phone and they have you a refurb, I'd go after them. But I find it surprising you wouldn't know. New Apple products come in the sealed apple box with the serial number printed on the side.

Not always when you get it from the carrier in my experience. In this case though, it was in an apple box, but it (and the others on the back shelf) were already opened and prepped for activation.

In any case, I did give Sprint hell and got a service credit and refund for the "insurance" I'd paid so far. Whooptee doo, but at that point I had a working phone and just stopped caring.
 
Go to Apple (had to make an appointment 2 days out), guy takes the phone in the back, then comes back with it half-assembled. He tells me the screen is not an authentic Apple part and they refuse to work on it. So great, got a refurbed phone from Sprint, Sprint isn't allowed to work on it, Apple WON'T work on it and to top it off, he didn't full re-assemble the phone (the screen wasn't seated) because he said the moment they see non-Apple parts they're "hands off". Wtf?

Go back to Sprint, they tell me that my insurance plan will cover a replacement but I'll have to pay the $200 deductible. At this point I grabbed my wife's old iPhone 5 out the draw, factory reset it and am just using hers until my Project Fi invite comes (which is really just a holdover until a good flagship Windows 10 phone comes out). Done with Apple products.

I think Sprint is the culprit. They never should have sold you a refurb as new in the first place, and using non-OEM components is unacceptable, given that it instantly voids the Apple warranty.

I would dump them as a carrier ASAP.