Genuinely livid
Alright so, I have an iPhone 13 Pro. For the past two weeks, I noticed that my phone was not charging unless the charger was held in a specific position, it will often register that it is “charging”, but the battery will be actively draining while plugged in, and the charger wiggles in the port. Sounds very obviously like a loose charging port that needs replaced, correct? Like any moron who doesn’t even know about phones could tell that the charging port needs replaced.
I call the nearest ubreakifix, describe exactly this, and I’m told “it just needs to be cleaned out.” Mmmm I really don’t think so, I already tried cleaning it out myself when this problem started, but whatever. So I bring the phone in, they clean the charging port out, and instruct me to go get a brand new charger from the Apple Store, not an off brand charger because they have it on their charger for like less than a minute and don’t observe the issue. Fine, I go to the Apple Store and get a new charger hoping the problem is solved.
It is not. Plug it in with the brand new charger for a while, and it’s still doing the exact same fucking thing as before. I call them back up and tell them. So now they tell me to check my battery health. It does say 69%, it’s degraded. They insist that has to be the issue despite my vocal doubts, so I turn around and head right back to the store to get the battery replaced. It wasn’t going to be done before I had to go to work, so my wife picked it up and brought it to me after it was done. She says they replaced the battery, and did additional cleaning inside the port and everything looks and functions perfect according to them.
They are full of shit. I’m at work, phone’s back, so I plug it in to FINALLY get that sweet sweet charge going. Again, still registering that it’s “charging” but actively draining on the charger and still fussy about positioning. I go back into my settings out of curiosity to look at the battery health again even though it was allegedly replaced. It still says the health is still degraded, but at 75% instead of 69%. So now I’m absolutely fuming at this point, because I legit gave these incompetent dudes all the money I had available to me at the moment after paying bills and making a payment on my dental stuff, ran back and forth all afternoon, and still NOTHING has been resolved in the slightest. I’m starting to think I’m getting scammed and they put someone’s old, slightly less shitty battery in my phone. I call back yet again, tell them it’s still not charging and the battery still says it’s degraded. They absolutely insist, swear up and down that their diagnostics said the battery was at 100% health and brand new, nothing was wrong with the charging port according to the diagnostics, and that they made sure the phone was charging while on the charger. I am told at this point that they will, actually, replace the charging port, but at half price. Which I honestly think is some bullshit, at this point it should be free because I have insisted AT EVERY STEP OF THE WAY throughout this fiasco that it has to be my charging port, every single employee has refused to listen to me and just do what I originally asked for, they’ve already made me flush all that money down the toilet on the battery that I insisted wasn’t as pressing of an issue as the charging port, and now they’re trying to wring more money out of me to replace the thing I have been telling them to replace FROM THE JUMP. I really am absolutely furious that they still want me to pay at all for the thing I initially told them to do, but they kept ignoring and dismissing me on. But I also don’t want to go to another shop and pay full price and also be out the cost of this clearly used, clearly not brand new battery. I swear the employees are just trying to get as much money out of me as possible because they think I’m just a dumb woman who doesn’t understand technology. But I’m not, I’ve known this whole damn time that my charging port was ran through and needed to be replaced. Those employees however? Morons. Or con artists. You pick. Either way, I’m not really sure how I should proceed with this scenario. Any advice would be appreciated.