what to do with a water damaged iphone?

[jeffcam1211]

I dropped my iphone in the toilet and now I am S.O.L. with both apple and at & t. Apple says it's BER (thanks for the cute acronym) and AT & T is no help whatsoever. It will turn on but it will not take a charge and the display is very dim and can only be viewed in direct light. I went to buymytronics.com but was wondering if there are any other options.

 

[pintnight]

Buy a new iPhone at the no discount cost and use the damaged iPhone as a paper weight.

 

[QuarterSwede]

There's always ifixit.com. They sell parts for both the originial and 3G and they offer free guides to fixing it.

Then put it on a rider on your insurance.

 

[Tokiopop]

I am sure there are some shops that repair iPhones, however they're not official.

 

[jeffcam1211]

Buy a new iPhone at the no discount cost and use the damaged iPhone as a paper weight.

Yeah.....not gonna happen. There is a good chance that the same thing could happen again. I'll just keep costing myself $500 over and over again. The iphone is great but I cannot have something that delicate and expensive as an uninsured phone that I carry with me all the time. I'm just gonna get a refurbed touch and go back to the good folks at verizon with my trusty old razr. AT & T can suck it, I cannot believe they will not insure these phones.

 

[stevey500]

Find a friend really good at taking electronics apart.. soak all the components in alcohol and let it dry. Maybe even do it twice. Don't soak the LCD though. Place the LCD somewhere warm to dry while doing the cleans on all the other parts. If it does accept a charge with itunes detecting it and function correctly (3G, Wifi, and Edge/gprs still works), then you're good. If the LCD still looks bad, just get a new LCD for it. Find a cheapo At&t/cingular in the mean time, it'll be worth it.

 

[Davidkoh]

Yeah.....not gonna happen. There is a good chance that the same thing could happen again. I'll just keep costing myself $500 over and over again. The iphone is great but I cannot have something that delicate and expensive as an uninsured phone that I carry with me all the time. I'm just gonna get a refurbed touch and go back to the good folks at verizon with my trusty old razr. AT & T can suck it, I cannot believe they will not insure these phones.

I got a good idea for you, don't use your phone in the bathtub... How can you be mad at AT&T for you being stupid?

 

[JoshJosh117]

.

 

[Theophany]

I dropped my iphone in the toilet and now I am S.O.L. with both apple and at & t.

1. LMAO - how??
2. Is S.O.L. an intended pun?

 

[Leaira]

Well, looks like you'll have to throw it in the garbage and buy a new one, if you even want an iPhone. You should've just flushed it! LOL

Personally, I've always been satisfied with the basic phone they gave me with my cell contract!

 

[macfearless]

you could always step up your fishes cool points and toss it in your aquarium! all unsafe parts taken out first, of course!

 

[jeffcam1211]

I got a good idea for you, don't use your phone in the bathtub... How can you be mad at AT&T for you being stupid?

Weeeeeeeeeellllll.........nice to meet you mr perfect! I have always wanted to meet someone who never made any mistakes in life! If your reading comprehension was any good though you would have seen that it fell in the toilet not the bathtub.

I'm pissed at AT & T bacause to get even a basic-cheapo phone they want to charge me the full price ($200). I offered to sign another 2 year contract to get the cost down on a different/any phone but they told me nope.

Wasn't looking to get into any pissing matches though just looking for some help. Thanks for you input.

 

[jeffcam1211]

1. LMAO - how??
2. Is S.O.L. an intended pun?

1. I had on a sweatshirt with one of those horizontal stomach pockets and I put it in there. When I went to unbutton my pants to take a leak I must have leaned over to far to the side and it slid out and down the toilet it went. It was like it happened in slow motion. I put it in rice for a few days but no luck.

2. yup!

 

[dave006]

...

I'm pissed at AT & T bacause to get even a basic-cheapo phone they want to charge me the full price ($200). I offered to sign another 2 year contract to get the cost down on a different/any phone but they told me nope.

Wasn't looking to get into any pissing matches though just looking for some help. Thanks for you input.

I can't offer help with your iPhone but you could get a AT&T Go Phone and just insert your SIM and you are ready to go for now or you can purchase a unlocked phone from BestBuy for $75-$99. Once you have your SIM in the phone you can call in and cancell your iPhone data plan.

Dave

 

[Hutch1]

Yeah.....not gonna happen. There is a good chance that the same thing could happen again. I'll just keep costing myself $500 over and over again. The iphone is great but I cannot have something that delicate and expensive as an uninsured phone that I carry with me all the time. I'm just gonna get a refurbed touch and go back to the good folks at verizon with my trusty old razr. AT & T can suck it, I cannot believe they will not insure these phones.

Insure them so everyone who dumps it in the crapper gets a new one? I don't know to many phones that will survive a dunking in the crapper, so it's really not about the iPhone being delicate. As for insurance there is Squaretrade that offers insurance on the iPhone.

Did you try your homeowners policy?

 

[Theophany]

1. I had on a sweatshirt with one of those horizontal stomach pockets and I put it in there. When I went to unbutton my pants to take a leak I must have leaned over to far to the side and it slid out and down the toilet it went. It was like it happened in slow motion. I put it in rice for a few days but no luck.

2. yup!

That really sucks, I can relate to that, my iPhone fell out of my sweatpants when I was getting into my car. Landed face down and totally smashed the glass.

Really don't know what else you could do tbh, I don't *personally* think taking it apart in an attempt to dry it out will work, but if there are no other options what have you got to lose?

 

[MikePA]

There is a good chance that the same thing could happen again. I'll just keep costing myself $500 over and over again. The iphone is great but I cannot have something that delicate and expensive as an uninsured phone that I carry with me all the time. AT & T can suck it, I cannot believe they will not insure these phones.

This is hilarious. You're the one that's irresponsible and even admit it by stating there's a good chance it will happen again and you blame ATT. ATT isn't the one who should suck it. You might want to see if Verizon offers 'I'm a klutz and blame everyone but myself' insurance.

 

[jeffcam1211]

Insure them so everyone who dumps it in the crapper gets a new one? I don't know to many phones that will survive a dunking in the crapper, so it's really not about the iPhone being delicate. As for insurance there is Squaretrade that offers insurance on the iPhone.

Did you try your homeowners policy?

Yeah, I have State Farm and they stopped insuring them. I would have dropped $500 on another if they did. They used to do it for $40/year. I was told too many scammers abused the priv when the 3g came out so they cancelled it.

This is hilarious. You're the one that's irresponsible and even admit it by stating there's a good chance it will happen again and you blame ATT. ATT isn't the one who should suck it. You might want to see if Verizon offers 'I'm a klutz and blame everyone but myself' insurance.

Thanks for your help. I did indeed contact the fine folks at Verizon and yup they offer it! $5 dollars/month with a $50 dollar ded on ALL phones including $500-$600 BB's. No questions asked too! I had Verizon for 10 years before I switched over to AT & T in sept for the iphone and yes their service blows AT & T's away. Now if apple would just ditch AT & T the world would be right.

Sure is alot of friendly and helpful people here in mac land........

 

[pranavss11]

Yeah, I have State Farm and they stopped insuring them. I would have dropped $500 on another if they did. They used to do it for $40/year. I was told too many scammers abused the priv when the 3g came out so they cancelled it.




Thanks for your help. I did indeed contact the fine folks at Verizon and yup they offer it! $5 dollars/month with a $50 dollar ded on ALL phones including $500-$600 BB's. No questions asked too! I had Verizon for 10 years before I switched over to AT & T in sept for the iphone and yes their service blows AT & T's away. Now if apple would just ditch AT & T the world would be right.

Sure is alot of friendly and helpful people here in mac land........

Tough luck man. So are you going back to Verizon now? You would have to pay the ETF tho.

 

[MikePA]

Sure is alot of friendly and helpful people here in mac land........

If you want people to sympathize with your incompetence and whining, visit Oprah.

Man up and take responsibility for what you did and stop looking for someone else to CYA.

 

[gco212]

Out of curiosity, why would you expect AT&T to give you a free phone for signing a new two year contract, when you're current contract is only about 4 months old?

 

[jeffcam1211]

Tough luck man. So are you going back to Verizon now? You would have to pay the ETF tho.

Yeah I'm gonna. Oh well It'll cost me $155. A new AT & T phone will cost me more than that. My razr is free and I won't have a contract.

If you want people to sympathize with your incompetence and whining, visit Oprah.

Man up and take responsibility for what you did and stop looking for someone else to CYA.

Go and re-read the start of this thread. No whining here just trying to see if there is anything else out there like buymytronics.

Go away.

Out of curiosity, why would you expect AT&T to give you a free phone for signing a new two year contract, when you're current contract is only about 4 months old?

Who said anything about free? I would have paid $300 for another which would have been the same as the original terms. The fact is they have you in a bind and they know it. Many have switched over for the iphone and have no choice but to pony up $500 for another one or $200 for a basic flip since you have a service agreement with them.

At $300 a pop for an iphone many people would resist the urge to dunk there phones. I think this would be a good way to keep there customers happy since now I am planning to cancel my DSL service and home phone with them as well. I will go from giving them $150 bucks a month for all services to $0. THAT is why I expect them to throw me a bone on the cost of the phone.

 

[MikePA]

Go and re-read the start of this thread. No whining here just trying to see if there is anything else out there like buymytronics.

Apple says it's BER (thanks for the cute acronym) and AT & T is no help whatsoever.

AT & T can suck it, I cannot believe they will not insure these phones.

I'm pissed at AT & T bacause to get even a basic-cheapo phone they want to charge me the full price ($200).

None of this is whining, huh? Right. You joined this forum to whine that neither Apple nor ATT will bail you out of the mess you got yourself into. Then you try and blame the phone as being delicate, like it's supposed to handle being dropped in a toilet.

Go away.

You're the one that needs to go away and find both a new phone and a place to learn personal responsibility.

 

[Hls811]

For what its worth, I bought an iPhone from ebay and it ended up having Water Damage (I didn't know this when I bought it).. Anyway, when I took it to the Apple store, even though they were the ones who pointed out to me it had water damage they were still able to replace it for a refurb for me (which has worked great since).

You may just want to try another Apple Store or maybe speak with a manager. Sometimes you just get lucky that way.

 

[synagence]

Since Apple's policy is to NOT replace water damaged goods its best to set your expectations at that level BUT head into a store and be REALLY polite, apologetic and sincere...

You might just get a nice surprise ... since more people are generally decent sometimes they don't like sending someone away disappointed .. u might get lucky