Terrible first day iPhone experience so far

[KidFresh]

I had just received my iPhone last night and activated it this morning.

(My earlier thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/700001/)

Much to my horror, I quickly noticed two small dark spots on the screen. Dead pixels and lot of them. Annoying.

I call up AT&T and the rep (after confirming with Apple tech rep) tells me to go to an AT&T to exchange it for another. I get to the AT&T store and the reps there then tells me that they don't carry refurbished phones in inventory at any of the NYC stores. She suggests I go to the Apple store a few blocks away in Soho. Upon arrival, I saw that the Genius Bar was completely mobbed. I was told to make at an appointment at one of their kiosks. After a 15 min wait on line to use a terminal, I make the earliest appt. date which is Sat. at noon. REALLY?!

I call up AT&T/Apple again asking if they can just send me a new phone instead. Their response is NO. Must see Genius Bar first. Arghhhh...
I tried a hard reset a few times and DL'd a "fix pixel" app. No dice.

Is all of this standard???

Feel free to flame me for purchasing a refurbished iPhone. The only redeeming moment of the day was having the chance to meet/talk to ex-supermodel, Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich for a few minutes. She was standing in line behind me waiting to use the same appt. kiosk. But no I'm not a happy camper right now.

 

[Michael CM1]

That sounds about standard. In the future, know to go online and make a Genius appointment beforehand. Don't expect to just walk in and get seen because many people have appointments already.

Usually there wouldn't be a problem with such a return, but refurbs are popular and probably getting scarce as the product cycle winds down. It's just part of your saving $100. I got lucky with my EDGE phone and didn't have any problems until months later, and then it was a software issue.

 

[kage207]

Get over it. They must've missed it during the testing. Usually Apple is good at the refurbished products they sell.

And NYC? Dude, that's like 10million people in that city area. You can't blame Apple for being so busy.

 

[alphatectz]

That sounds about standard. In the future, know to go online and make a Genius appointment beforehand. Don't expect to just walk in and get seen because many people have appointments already.

Usually there wouldn't be a problem with such a return, but refurbs are popular and probably getting scarce as the product cycle winds down. It's just part of your saving $100. I got lucky with my EDGE phone and didn't have any problems until months later, and then it was a software issue.

Sorry to here that man, but you should of made an appointment at the 5th avenue location, I just reserved my stop 5 mins ago for tomorrow after work (which is 5:30) you'll be able to get an appt soon of not just stick with of until your appt on sat.

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A312g Safari/528.16)

Feel free to flame me for purchasing a refurbished iPhone. The only redeeming moment of the day was having the chance to meet/talk to ex-supermodel, Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich for a few minutes. She was standing in line behind me waiting to use the same appt. kiosk. But no I'm not a happy camper right now.

Yeah, and I'm sure she loves getting chatted up by strangers when she's out shopping.

 

[KidFresh]

Definitely. I'm just not familiar with how things at AT&T/Apple works after being with Verizon for over 7 years.

I'm not blaming Apple for being busy or having bad quality control since I've been told by many people that their refurbished products are pretty decent. All the AT&T/Apple reps that I've spoken with were very apologetic and courteous. It's just the process that bugs me.

Verizon would've exchanged/sent me a new phone right away. I now know that the iPhone is a special case. I'm just asking myself if it's all worth it.

 

[kage207]

Definitely. I'm just not familiar with how things at AT&T/Apple works after being with Verizon for over 7 years.

I'm not blaming Apple for being busy or having bad quality control since I've been told by many people that their refurbished products are pretty decent. All the AT&T/Apple reps that I've spoken with were very apologetic and courteous. It's just the process that bugs me.

Verizon would've exchanged/sent me a new phone right away. I now know that the iPhone is a special case. I'm just asking myself if it's all worth it.

Well man, instead of venting. Understand that it s a product in high demand. Over 7million iPhone in the US alone. That's pretty high. That's extremely high for any phone to be sold in the US. Just consider yourself lucky that you are getting it fixed / getting a very fair deal for getting it fixed.

 

[KidFresh]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A312g Safari/528.16)

Yeah, and I'm sure she loves getting chatted up by strangers when she's out shopping.

The convo btwn us was cool. We both bitched about our iPhones. And then talked about her handbag since I work in fashion wholesales.

 

[alphatectz]

The convo btwn us was cool. We both bitched about our iPhones. And then talked about her handbag since I work in fashion wholesales.

NYC is a very busy area, but apple will treat u right. Since u left
Verizon for AT&T for the iPhone it wasn't a mistake, the 3.0 software is coming out. So you'll have a blast with your iPhone. Your not
Gping to turn back to verizon.
As for your whole sale fashion hand bag, let's have a chat PM me.

 

[KidFresh]

Well man, instead of venting. Understand that it s a product in high demand. Over 7million iPhone in the US alone. That's pretty high. That's extremely high for any phone to be sold in the US. Just consider yourself lucky that you are getting it fixed / getting a very fair deal for getting it fixed.

I guess that's the trade-off for getting such a trendy product?

 

[daonesteven]

long story short, sorry you got the short end of the stick, but trust me, it should be worth it in the end.

 

[StuddedLeather]

Sorry you couldn't wait until next month

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

It sucks that you got an iPhone with dead pixels, but I don't understand the bitching about the crowd at the Apple Store. Did you really think you were going to be able to cut to the front of the line just because you have an issue? Perhaps the other people--you know, the ones who already had appointments--had issues as well.

 

[iPhoneNYC]

Did you by your refurby from Apple or ATT? From reading comments here, its seems that Apple sells a higher quality refurby than lame old ATT. So I'm wondering if you could post where the phone came from? Thx.

 

[xmnj]

Did you by your refurby from Apple or ATT? From reading comments here, its seems that Apple sells a higher quality refurby than lame old ATT. So I'm wondering if you could post where the phone came from? Thx.

I agree with iPhoneNYC, Apple refurb standards are much better than ATT, so if you purchased the refurb from ATT, then the blame is on them for not catching it.

 

[aristobrat]

All the AT&T/Apple reps that I've spoken with were very apologetic and courteous. It's just the process that bugs me.

Verizon would've exchanged/sent me a new phone right away. I now know that the iPhone is a special case. I'm just asking myself if it's all worth it.

FWIW, it doesn't sound like you're going through the normal process.

Normally if you get an iPhone that's defective right out of the box, you can exchange it at the place of purchase (just like you can with Verizon).

Since you bought a refurb iPhone from AT&T online, you've got some extra hoops in the process simply because AT&T doesn't stock refurbs in their stores.

I'm sure the proper way for AT&T to have handled this would to have been for you to ship your defective phone back and have them send you another one, but going the service route (i.e. having the Genius Bar replace the phone for you) sounds a lot quicker than that.

Did you by your refurby from Apple or ATT? From reading comments here, its seems that Apple sells a higher quality refurby than lame old ATT. So I'm wondering if you could post where the phone came from? Thx.

AFAIK, Apple doesn't sell refurbs to new customers. An existing customer can get a refurb during a Genius Bar visit, but someone buying an iPhone should get a brand new one, right?

 

[barkomatic]

Definitely. I'm just not familiar with how things at AT&T/Apple works after being with Verizon for over 7 years.

I'm not blaming Apple for being busy or having bad quality control since I've been told by many people that their refurbished products are pretty decent. All the AT&T/Apple reps that I've spoken with were very apologetic and courteous. It's just the process that bugs me.

Verizon would've exchanged/sent me a new phone right away. I now know that the iPhone is a special case. I'm just asking myself if it's all worth it.

That Soho store is awful and I try to avoid getting anything serviced there. The geniuses at that particular location are very strict about exchanging any product and often force you to jump through many hoops before they'll even consider it. It wouldn't suprise me if they tried to tell you that the dead pixels on your phone are "within spec".

As another poster suggested, it might be better for you to go the store on 14th street and 9th. However, since you got to speak to Milla Jovovich it certainly wasn't a wasted trip!

 

[KidFresh]

I'm sure the proper way for AT&T to have handled this would to have been for you to ship your defective phone back and have them send you another one, but going the service route (i.e. having the Genius Bar replace the phone for you) sounds a lot quicker than that.

We'll see what Genius Bar will do when I bring in the phone tomm.
I don't see a reason why they won't swap another for me since it arrived defective. If not, I'm hoping AT&T will send me a replacement followed by me shipping this faulty one back.

 

[con500]

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Yeah, and I'm sure she loves getting chatted up by strangers when she's out shopping.

Harsh....OP made no mention of chatting up the lovely mila...think they said it was nice to meet and av a chat with her

 

[actorkid]

Definitely. I'm just not familiar with how things at AT&T/Apple works after being with Verizon for over 7 years.

I'm not blaming Apple for being busy or having bad quality control since I've been told by many people that their refurbished products are pretty decent. All the AT&T/Apple reps that I've spoken with were very apologetic and courteous. It's just the process that bugs me.

Verizon would've exchanged/sent me a new phone right away. I now know that the iPhone is a special case. I'm just asking myself if it's all worth it.

even if they sent you a new phone when you called AT&T, it would take a few days to receive it....its honestly quicker to just take the genius appt tomorrow...next time reserve an appt online...its effortless and helps avoid situations like the one you're in