I HATE Cell Phone Stores

My iPhone 11 is a little over a year old. Last week the battery started draining within an hour or two of a full charge. It was also feeling hot. The phone and account are through my employer. It was set up by one of my co-workers who I will call Bill. On Friday, I went to the cell phone provider’s store to get some help. I arrived right at the opening of the store. There were already 3 customers there along with 2 employees. I sat and waited my turn. As usual, all customers had lengthy transactions. I waited for a half-hour when one of the employees, who was still helping a customer, asked me what I was there for. I told him the issues I was having. He said, they no longer replace batteries and asked if I had insurance. I said that I wasn’t sure (but I had a feeling we didn’t put insurance on the phones). He asked me my phone number so he could look it up. I gave it to him and then he asked for the PIN number. I had no idea what that was. Bill, my co-worker was at his camper (spotty service). I called and texted him and got no reply. So I left the store.

Bill finally got back to me and texted me the PIN hours later. I went back to the store. This time I was able to speak to someone immediately. She asked me for the same info. And as I thought, there was no insurance. She said you could go to the following stores and have the battery replaced or you could upgrade and get a new phone. She said that she thought a new battery would be about $200. I said, maybe I’ll just get a new phone. So we went to see what my options would be. I picked out a new phone and THEN she says that I can’t purchase it without authorization from Bill. So I call him and text him, but of course no reply. While I was waiting for him to get back to me, I called Batteries Plus and asked if they could replace the battery on an iPhone 11. He told me yes, that the battery was in stock and that it would take just a few minutes to do and it was only $69. So off I went.

I got to Batteries Plus and was asked what I needed. I told the guy and he said, we don’t have any of those batteries. I told him I was just told that you do. He said the other person must have looked at something different.

Bill replied by text saying that he would try to call the cell phone store and he thought that he had put my name on the account also. The last person I spoke to at the cell phone store didn’t say anything. I would assume she would have seen my name.

I wasn’t able to go back to the store until Sunday. Once again I arrived right as it opened. There was another customer waiting for the door to open. There was one employee. The customer tells me that it might take quite a while for what he has to do. He had been there for 3 hours the evening before and was now back to finish. I waited patiently for 1 hour and in that hour I texted Bill and asked him if he could text me an authorization with his name and number in case I wasn’t on the account. He actually did it right away. The employee and the customer were trying to transfer multiple phones from another carrier. They were on hold, they were punching in numbers left and right…it was a shit-show. While they were on hold, I asked if I could just ask a question. I just wanted to know if I was on the account. I gave him my number and the PIN. He was going back and forth from his tablet to the desktop computer numerous times. Then he said that he couldn’t pull up the account at all. I asked why not. He said it was PROBABLY because it was Sunday and they kind of shut down the business side for the weekend!!! WTF? I said, so I can’t do anything until Tuesday (holiday weekend!). He confirmed that. Then I asked, will this authorization text be ok if I need to purchase a phone and my name isn’t on the account. NOPE, Bill has to be here in person.

Bill is on vacation all this week.

Wow. Any problems I’ve ever had with the phones on my plan (mine, my gf’s, my son’s and my daughter’s) have all been handled online. I haven’t been in a cell phone store in ages.

ETA: Yay, Verizon!

FYI, it would cost only $69 for an out-of-warranty battery replacement from Apple, either mail-in or while you wait at an Apple Store. Even if the cost is higher, I’d prefer the battery be replaced by the OEM and in this case, replacement by an actual Apple employee is a whole lot less.

And an iPhone 11 isn’t so old that I’d just give up and buy a new phone.

The last time I went was to pick up a phone that I ordered online because it was faster that way.

I’ll avoid that in the future as well. Deliberate snail pace setting up and activating the phone so they could hard-sell accessories and warranties the entire time. Blegh

Forgive me for saying so, but I would have just gone straight to Bill and said, “Fix it or get me a new phone.” Really, it’s your employers phone, you don’t have any responsibility here.

That’s where I was - Verizon.

I spoke to someone on the phone today. I find this hard to believe, but she just emailed me a form to fill out so I can be a point of contact on the account! How is that so easy to do? And she did mention that I could order online also. I never thought of that, because I would have thought I’d need authorization from Bill!

What a waste of time.

Heck, I just got a new battery for my iPhone8 at Best Buy and it only cost $49.99. Yeah, Bill can take the phone in or buy you a new one…