I just received a $299.00 charge on my account due to damage device
My phone worked great while in my home area but when we traveled to another city several hundred miles away it would only work using WIFI, texting would work, everything else ok, it just would not allow calling out or receiving calls. I called tech support to go thru several attempts to resolve the issue while out of town only to be told that the best option would to allow it to be claimed under the manufacturer warranty. when I arrived home the next week I had the replacement phone, however my original phone was magically working great. My wife said we should take it to the local corporate store to see now wither or not to send the new phone back or the original back for warranty. We had the local store to look at the phone, he inspected the phone for any external damage, looking for a cracked screen or dented cover, the phone has never been out of the Outer box other than when the service tech asked me to take the sim card out during her troubleshooting techniques, in which the phone looked new, he then showed me a little white dot in the head phone jack and also inside the sim card receptacle both where white, he explained to me that those are water indicators and are very sensitive to any moisture exposer. He said yours looks to be a manufacturer issue, I would suggest you to go ahead and send the phone in and keep the new replacement phone.
Fast forward a month later and a charge for $299.00
I called in to the support line today to be told that there was water damage to the phone and pictures to prove . I was told that I was suppose to receive an email showing the damage, However I was never communicated with by anyone at the service center via phone or email. When I asked when was the email sent, he could not find where anything was ever sent out by email and he could not find pictures of the damage, after a 15 minute hold, he said he found the pictures and was looking at the pictures showing damage to the sim card dot and another one located inside on the circuit board. He told me that he was sending it back to the service center for re examination.
After I sent the phone back (I was told that it had to be received within a certain time frame) I started looking on line and discovered that this same thing has happened to numerous individuals, I reached out to some friends who are employed within Verizon to find out this was a common practice.
What type of recourse do I have?
The employee that told you this was a manufacturing defect should not have done so, or at least told you to contact Apple, in the least, they should not have suggested you return a damaged phone and keep the replacement. I am afraid that you will be stuck with those damages charges. I am sure Verizon will bring up the form you signed or agreed to (should have been a form to agree to before accepting an exchange.)
Unfortunately you may be stuck with the fee. A Verizon rep can't visually look at the outside of a phone and determine that it is a manufacturer defect UNLESS it was a cosmetic defect such as housing not properly assembled. Under no circumstances should they have told you that just by doing a quick look. It doesn't help you now but I always suggest while an Apple device is under manufacturer warranty to deal solely with Apple for troubleshooting. If you don't have an Apple Store nearby you can contact them either by phone or start support request via their website.
It's understandable that a $299 charge wouldn't be a welcome surprise on your bill, nrojay. Let's get to the bottom of what happened. Please be on the lookout for a Private Message so we can better assist.
LynnD_VZW
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This seems just wrong from the start. Using the manufactures warranty because a phone doesn't work in specific areas seems questionable from the get go. I hope they had you replace the SIM card, sent someone out to look at the towers in the trouble spots and did everything they could before suggesting that.
Are we thinking the phones during shipment were susceptible to moisture? I sure hope this is made right, but chances are good it won't be to your liking. The second employee should have told you not to send in the device and immediately looked to see if you paid for insurance because then you could have that instead. You would have had a deductible, but not to the tune of $300.
Yes we took the sim card from my wife's phone and placed It in the phone to troubleshoot to rule out the sim card
Strange though it would work perfect within our local area or within 50-60 miles of my home area. It was just not getting a signal but all other functions on the phone was perfect during the time we where out of time then.
Did they send someone out to the troublesome area? What is the zip code of the area you weren't getting signal?
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