Hey everyone! I’ve been dealing with this issue for over four months and I’m going to turn to you guys for help on what to do now. You might remember the issues I had with my dad’s phone. If not, here’s what happened.

So four weeks ago, yes a month ago, my dad woke me up saying his phone was not working and asking me to take a look. When I checked it I saw it was in “panic mode” and not doing anything. I had to go to work so I left it.

When I got to work I had some time during the day so I looked up what “panic mode” meant and found no real information, just info to restore the device.

When I got home there was nothing I could do to restore it despite multiple calls and chats to figure it out. The nearest Apple store is very far away for me. Instead I made an appointment at the closest Geek Squad to try and get their help.

At the same time I was locked out of my dads iCloud account trying to restore. So I had to deal with that too.

When I took it to Best Buy they said it couldn’t be repaired at all and that they would send it to Apple and they would send a refurbished phone as a replacement. This is important for later!

However before they could send it, the “Find My Phone” feature had to be turned off. Surprise. I was still locked out! It said that it would be 16hrs until I got a phone call that it was ready to login. About 20hrs later I logged in and it said 7 days! I called multiple times but all I got was that u had to wait 7 days even though I explained multiple times that I was told 16hrs and that those 16hrs had passed.

So 7 days later I finally got access and took it back to Best Buy. They said the same thing, it would be sent to Apple so they could try to find the issue and we’d get a discounted refurbished phone. So we left the phone to be sent to Apple and went home with the promise that it would be no longer than a week.

A week and a half later, aka yesterday, I had to call because I never heard anything. I was told the phone just came in and they were “getting ready to call me”. I highly doubt it! I made an appointment to pick it up today and went to the store.

When we got there the store employees ignored us until we stared them down. Finally we got a guy who was the “supervisor” and he started to set up the phone. Then he said that the phone actually wasn’t fixed. He then proceeded to tell us that Apple was refusing the repair because it was “tampered” with. I was blown away!

I tried to explain multiple times that we bought the phone brand new from Verizon when we were with them two years ago. Actually we switched away from Verizon because of issues after we bought that phone (they double charged us, lied to us, and more). Plus we have never had an issue with the phone, at all, so there were no repairs to be made. We also said it was never supposed to be repaired. It was supposed to be replaced!

The guy kept saying that it wasn’t his problem and directed us to Apple. I got so mad because they had literally wasted so much of my time! He told me that I could yell at him but he wasn’t able to do anything because of Apple. Oh yes, I was yelling at this point.

The best part is when he tried to get me to sign a paper to give us the phone. He said it was a “legal release” saying I picked up the phone. The paper said “Geek Squad repaired the device”.

I threw the pen at him.

Then he gave us the phone and we went to the Apple counter. The guy there was surprised to hear all this as well. He offered to get the general manager who came over. I was on hold for Verizon at this point. Eventually he got the whole story and said that likely Verizon couldn’t help. At some point I talked to Verizon and the manager there said that there was no chance they would have given us a used phone if we bought a new one. I don’t trust anything Verizon says but figured it was unlikely since it came sealed in a new box. Still, I might stop at their store tomorrow after work where I got the phone since it’s on the way.

The Best Buy manager offered us a discount on a new phone and my dad really wanted to have something after a month without a phone so he did take the discount. So he has a phone!

But Best Buy still couldn’t say what was “tampered” so I called Apple. After three calls to Apple they say that they don’t show any record of ever getting the phone and called Geek Squad. Supposedly I’m getting a call from a manager there tomorrow and the Apple manager will call me tomorrow to make sure they followed through.

I doubt they will so I’m on the phone with Geek Squad now. A manager hung up on me after I called her out for saying that I didn’t have a “protection plan” so I didn’t deserve good customer service. I’m still trying to get some answers though. Oh, they don’t like it when I point out that Apple never got the phone either.

The second manager I reached insisted that he couldn’t do anything except check the status because of this lack of “protection plan”. I played along and “checked the status of the repair” even though the phone is on the table right next to my laptop. Anyway, he kept saying this until I said “Oh look, the district managers for Best Buy are on LinkedIn, I’m sure I could find the regional managers’ Twitters or something”. Then he started offering his help but only after I go to the store again tomorrow. I laughed at that, said that since the store already refused to help I’ll just keep escalating it, and hung up instead.

---

I will get to the bottom of this! I am still thinking something is very fishy about this whole thing so if anyone has suggestions please let me know! Is there something I can do beyond what I’m doing already? Should I try reporting them to the Better Business Bureau perhaps? Should I actually start checking for regional managers on Twitter (that’s how I got the Verizon issue from two years ago resolved). All suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

Follow me on social media!

Instagram | Youtube | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Bloglovin‘ |Pinterest | Email |Snapchat: StarringPamela |