My experiences with Apple have generally been positive, but recently my most recent experience with my iPhone had left me never wanting to walk into an Apple store again.
To cut to the chase, back in January I brought my iPhone 5 into the apple store in Burlington, MA to replace a bad vibrator motor. Usually they just swap the component, but in my case they were unable to do so, and swapped the phone instead. The phone they gave me had a number of dead pixels, but not having time that day I agreed to take the phone and they told me I could come back and have the screen replaced. So far so good.
I went in later that week to have the screen replaced, and after waiting an hour to have it replaced they tell me when they were doing routine scans of serial numbers on certain parts inside the phone, they found serial numbers that didn't match the original hardware and refused to replace the screen. After arguing for 30 minutes they finally agreed to "very generously" replace the screen under the circumstances. I left under the impression they would record this on the record because I DID NOT swap components in the phone and did not want this to jeopardize the Applecare+ warranty.
Fast forward to last month and the phone one night dies and doesn't take a charge, completely dead. I again schedule an appointment to have it checked out and long story short after arguing with managers and applecare for OVER AN HOUR they refuse to do anything, except finally they agree to reseat the battery to see if that would help. In this case whatever they did allowed the phone to turn on enough to start charging, and I charged it up a few percent at the store and went home. Since then the battery has still not been right, and the last week the battery percentage freezes at either 100% or near 0%, it is very hard for it to charge (and when it's charging the battery percentage doesn't change until a phone restart) and the phone randomly turns off.
At this point I know I could try getting a 3rd party battery and replacing it (which I've avoided until now because I was supposed to be covered with Applecare), hoping it will solve the issue, but if it's another hardware problem I'm out $500 on a phone. I own a number of apple products and have generally been very satisfied, but Apple has left a sour taste in my mouth after this experience especially because they don't believe there is any way their system could have messed up identifying the serial numbers inside the phone.
Is my best bet to replace the battery on my own and hope for the best or is there anyone else I can contact?
-Unhappy Apple Customer
To cut to the chase, back in January I brought my iPhone 5 into the apple store in Burlington, MA to replace a bad vibrator motor. Usually they just swap the component, but in my case they were unable to do so, and swapped the phone instead. The phone they gave me had a number of dead pixels, but not having time that day I agreed to take the phone and they told me I could come back and have the screen replaced. So far so good.
I went in later that week to have the screen replaced, and after waiting an hour to have it replaced they tell me when they were doing routine scans of serial numbers on certain parts inside the phone, they found serial numbers that didn't match the original hardware and refused to replace the screen. After arguing for 30 minutes they finally agreed to "very generously" replace the screen under the circumstances. I left under the impression they would record this on the record because I DID NOT swap components in the phone and did not want this to jeopardize the Applecare+ warranty.
Fast forward to last month and the phone one night dies and doesn't take a charge, completely dead. I again schedule an appointment to have it checked out and long story short after arguing with managers and applecare for OVER AN HOUR they refuse to do anything, except finally they agree to reseat the battery to see if that would help. In this case whatever they did allowed the phone to turn on enough to start charging, and I charged it up a few percent at the store and went home. Since then the battery has still not been right, and the last week the battery percentage freezes at either 100% or near 0%, it is very hard for it to charge (and when it's charging the battery percentage doesn't change until a phone restart) and the phone randomly turns off.
At this point I know I could try getting a 3rd party battery and replacing it (which I've avoided until now because I was supposed to be covered with Applecare), hoping it will solve the issue, but if it's another hardware problem I'm out $500 on a phone. I own a number of apple products and have generally been very satisfied, but Apple has left a sour taste in my mouth after this experience especially because they don't believe there is any way their system could have messed up identifying the serial numbers inside the phone.
Is my best bet to replace the battery on my own and hope for the best or is there anyone else I can contact?
-Unhappy Apple Customer
