1. Wake up one morning 12/4 and the cell receiver on my iphone 7 128 is dead--but at least it can be backed up. it's outside of warranty. There has been no recent water exposure (and never under an inch of water anyway) and no drops within 2-3 weeks
2. bring to apple store, they say "oh yes, it's a known issue and there's a recall, we'll replace it within 1 week (as in come back in 7 days and it'll be here), give you a loaner phone with 1/4 the capacity so you can't restore from backup." Phone is documented by the apple "Genius" as having NO outward damage, backed up, we turned find my iphone off -- in short, phone was working apart from the cell access and this was freaking documented
3. 10 days of no contact later you call, they say "repair is pending" and have no more information
4. 4 days later, still nothing, you call, they tell you they'll call back, they don't
5. day 16 they call, say once they opened the phone they found "damage" (the phone is outwardly immaculate, but whatever), will repair it for $350, you refuse
6. 3 days later (day 19) it's available for pickup
7. phone is now totally inaccessible, BRICKED -- only shows the "Cannot activate" warning and iTunes on computer can't do anything. no worries, it still turns on... good thing I backed it up before Apple totally broke it?
8. Decide to give apple another chance as they're offering double trade-in until 1/1/19 -- try and upgrade to an 8 using the now-bricked iphone 7 as a trade-in (since it's not outwardly broken). Wait in apple store 45 minutes to buy a phone. I even buy applecare because I assume it beats my verizon insurance which I can now drop.
9. Trade-in can't be done for reasons nobody knows -- it just says "UPGRADE BLOCKED, CONTACT 1800MYAPPLE" on their check-out gadget. They refer me to apple support but advise I walk away with the 8 at full price (I can get the trade-in credited later after I get things cleared up with apple home office)
10. Apple support transfers me 5 times (once to an outside company handling trade-ins), drops me once while on hold -- total time 90 minutes to find out I need to make the last 2 payments on the phone they broke before I can get the trade in. At least, that's their best guess as to why the upgrade is blocked.
At this point, not sure if I'm going to do insurance and file a damage claim "Apple says the phone is broken but it really isn't" with the $150 deductible, stick with the 7 and return the iPhone 8 in 14 days for full refund. Or should I pay off the phone and get the $250 (assuming that's why the upgrade is blocked--again, we have no idea)? I feel like even with the full-service AppleCare there's no assurance they wont totally screw me or give me some horrible runaround in the event something goes wrong. I simply do not trust Apple, and their telephone support is hooorrrribbblleee.
What a horrible experience. It also seems from the descriptions of other users that the initial problem was all Apple anyway (perhaps the iOS 12 update?). This has been at least 5-6 hours of my time I wont get back if you include driving across town to the nearest apple store and waiting. Also, I had to reconfigure 2 phones now, losing some chunks of data each time (thank god for IMAP). I'm trying not to fall victim to the sunk costs fallacy and I also REALLY don't want to have to jump through any more hoops. I'm already 4 hours into this just today.
Any advice?
2. bring to apple store, they say "oh yes, it's a known issue and there's a recall, we'll replace it within 1 week (as in come back in 7 days and it'll be here), give you a loaner phone with 1/4 the capacity so you can't restore from backup." Phone is documented by the apple "Genius" as having NO outward damage, backed up, we turned find my iphone off -- in short, phone was working apart from the cell access and this was freaking documented
3. 10 days of no contact later you call, they say "repair is pending" and have no more information
4. 4 days later, still nothing, you call, they tell you they'll call back, they don't
5. day 16 they call, say once they opened the phone they found "damage" (the phone is outwardly immaculate, but whatever), will repair it for $350, you refuse
6. 3 days later (day 19) it's available for pickup
7. phone is now totally inaccessible, BRICKED -- only shows the "Cannot activate" warning and iTunes on computer can't do anything. no worries, it still turns on... good thing I backed it up before Apple totally broke it?
8. Decide to give apple another chance as they're offering double trade-in until 1/1/19 -- try and upgrade to an 8 using the now-bricked iphone 7 as a trade-in (since it's not outwardly broken). Wait in apple store 45 minutes to buy a phone. I even buy applecare because I assume it beats my verizon insurance which I can now drop.
9. Trade-in can't be done for reasons nobody knows -- it just says "UPGRADE BLOCKED, CONTACT 1800MYAPPLE" on their check-out gadget. They refer me to apple support but advise I walk away with the 8 at full price (I can get the trade-in credited later after I get things cleared up with apple home office)
10. Apple support transfers me 5 times (once to an outside company handling trade-ins), drops me once while on hold -- total time 90 minutes to find out I need to make the last 2 payments on the phone they broke before I can get the trade in. At least, that's their best guess as to why the upgrade is blocked.
At this point, not sure if I'm going to do insurance and file a damage claim "Apple says the phone is broken but it really isn't" with the $150 deductible, stick with the 7 and return the iPhone 8 in 14 days for full refund. Or should I pay off the phone and get the $250 (assuming that's why the upgrade is blocked--again, we have no idea)? I feel like even with the full-service AppleCare there's no assurance they wont totally screw me or give me some horrible runaround in the event something goes wrong. I simply do not trust Apple, and their telephone support is hooorrrribbblleee.
What a horrible experience. It also seems from the descriptions of other users that the initial problem was all Apple anyway (perhaps the iOS 12 update?). This has been at least 5-6 hours of my time I wont get back if you include driving across town to the nearest apple store and waiting. Also, I had to reconfigure 2 phones now, losing some chunks of data each time (thank god for IMAP). I'm trying not to fall victim to the sunk costs fallacy and I also REALLY don't want to have to jump through any more hoops. I'm already 4 hours into this just today.
Any advice?
