Rarely do I give a one-star review. And now that this whole saga is done and over with, I will tell…read moreit all here, in hopes that someone will learn from this and not do what I did.
A few weeks ago, I noticed my phone was starting to lose its charge rather quickly. Upon further inspection, my iPhone 15 Pro was physically misshapen. To my dismay, the battery within the phone itself began to expand.
The first available appointment I saw was at the Smith Haven mall location. Being that I needed my phone fixed right away. I wanted to take the first available appointment so here I am and they're telling me that they could fix my phone, but it's going to take pretty much the entire day. Being that I couldn't leave my phone all day there Friday, as I had to work for the whole day, including in the evening, I asked if I could come back the next day. They told me they would put the battery aside for me and that I could come first thing in the morning. Until this point, my interactions have been pleasant and pretty easy.
I come back the next day, leave my phone for the repair, and hope for the best. What I got was actually the worst. The repair there did not work and they told me that since they did not have any iPhone 15 pros in-house, they would have to take my phone and send it in to exchange it for a new one. In the meantime, they would give me a loaner phone which turned out to be an iPhone 14 not pro and that I would have to wait for my other phone. When I ask how long this would take, they told me it would be about a week, but usually it takes less. I asked if I could pay pay for an upgraded phone and they told me no. I should mention that I was not going in cold, I have been paying into AppleCare for quite some time now with a lot of my devices. I was then told I had to walk to the T-Mobile in the mall to reactivate my phone as they could not do it for me.
I was trying so hard not to be a Karen, but when I asked why this was the case and why I wasn't told that this could happen and that they didn't have any iPhone 15 pros in house, they told me that this was the best that they could do, but this was top-tier service, and that I should be grateful.
I called back mid week checking the status of my phone, and needless to say I was not given an apology or any help whatsoever, they told me that since my phone was with AppleCare, they could not give me any information. I will say I'm not proud of my behavior on that call, but I was never treated with any empathy or sympathy. I just wanted a functional phone. Instead, I was given an old phone, which cannot handle any of the functions I needed for work, and I missed a bunch of messages from my son's school during the two weeks that I had this loaner phone.
Yes, I had the phone for two weeks, and it was the roughest two weeks. I missed a bunch of messages, I couldn't get my email, I couldn't connect to any networks that I needed to, and overall, I realize how tough it was to live life without our mobile devices.
I sent Hubs to pick up the phone. The kicker... they didn't send me a new phone. They repaired my old one. The phone that they couldn't repair in house. So moral the story, as if you have AppleCare just steal directly with them. Don't go to an Apple Store. I would even go further and say purchase directly online. I would never step foot in one of these stores ever again.