Experience with AppleCare?

[tsmatthews19]

Hey, so does anyone have any experience with having AppleCare send them a refurbished iPhone, then sending yours back to them? Do they look over it very carefully? How long until I know that my issue was covered or not? Are they pretty chill when sending your old one back? In my case, the iPhone doesn't recognize that there is a SIM card installed when there is, do you know if this is covered? Thanks in advance!

Thomas

 

[dotme]

They're usually pretty cool. I remember another thread you started a few days ago. Did the phone you sent back not see a SIM card at all, or did you get a "SIM not supported" error? There's a huge difference...

 

[tsmatthews19]

It didn't even recognize it, it said nothing about it not being supported. On iTunes, it said "no sim installed"

 

[dotme]

Ah you should be fine then. No worries.

I went through a bad experience last year with a Craigslist iPhone 3GS, and got burned. It was jailbroken, the seller placed a call before I bought it, and we did the deal. It was for my daughter, we're on AT&T so I didn't care about the jailbreak, and didn't want it.

I set it up as a new phone, called AT&T and got her on the right plan, put in her SIM, and got the "SIM not supported" error. Called Apple, they said it was covered by Applecare, so I sent it in, and they sent back a new one. Same error. So I sent that one back, got yet another new one. Same error. At that point, we were all stumped.

Turned out after some phone calls and escalation that the seller sold me a Canada Bell iPhone! I live in Iowa. There was no way to tell by inspecting the phone that it was carrier-locked to a canadian phone company - but it was, and could not be activated with AT&T. Apple would only send back Canada Bell replacements, so I was screwed.

I ented up selling the iPhone to a Canadian. I took the money, and bought her a proper AT&T unit. It all ended well, but it was a lesson learned.

I don't think that's the case for you - if your phone didn't see a SIM at all, it's probably just bad hardware and a replacement should take care of it.

Apple never gave me any grief about the original iPhone ever being jailbroken by the way.

 

[tsmatthews19]

That scares me!! I bought my iPhone 3GS used from one of those buy-sell used phone stores for 180$ and a 10 day money back. Thanks a million for you help by the way!

 

[dotme]

That scares me!! I bought my iPhone 3GS used from one of those buy-sell used phone stores for 180$ and a 10 day money back. Thanks a million for you help by the way!

Lucky you on the money-back. If Apple is sending you an advance replacement (sending you a new one before you send yours in), here's what I would suggest...

Try to activate the replacement. If it activates, you're good to go. If it doesn't, make a trip to AT&T and have them give you a replacement SIM just for giggles. If that's still a no-go, you might be in my situation. If so, I'd walk the original phone back to the buy-sell and get your money back (they probably won't refund if you walk in with a different iPhone). Then call Apple, explain the situation, and that you're returning their replacement. That leaves you temporarily without an iPhone, but with all your money.

I paid $325 for that 3GS last year, and I thought I was going to eat it. I wasn't happy. I got lucky. Hopefully it will all work out for you though!