If you’ve ever had your phone, tablet or computer handed back as unrepairable with a story that sounded somewhat questionable, you might be interested in our latest article. Hope you find it interesting!
The Important Points
- If something doesn’t ring true after you’ve had a repair done, it’s a good idea to get a second opinion elsewhere.
- Though most repair businesses are reputable, some will use excuses to cover damage they caused.
- Some attempt to shift the blame for the results of using low-quality parts, e.g. unreliable “copy screens”.
- Read More
Introduction
We don’t offer mobile phone unlocking but a lot of our competitors do.
There are some dubious practices and dealings that go on behind the scenes in the phone unlocking business. For example, if a phone has an FRP (factory reset protection) or iCloud lock set, and you’ve been offered it, how do you know it isn’t stolen? Spoiler- a lot of people do know that it’s stolen or prefer to look the under way when they’re given an obviously questionable cover story- as do many of the people actually unlocking them.
We get emails like this all the time and they never fail to make us angry. We’ve already told you about the “copy” screens (those designed and manufactured from scratch by companies other than Apple) that many independent stores use in place of refurbished originals* without telling you the difference. This is what happens in practice:-
A significant proportion of the more “interesting”(!) repairs we get in are those handed to us by other stores. This is because most of them are jobs that they can’t manage by themselves- i.e. the more difficult ones! On top of which is the fact that they- or other people- have often already messed things up further in a failed attempt to repair it.
This is a typical example. We took a look at this iPhone 6 for another local business. They hadn’t attempted to repair it themselves, but someone else had had a go, and really hadn’t done a good job at all.
A few months back, we came across a story where a customer had taken their iPhone 6S to get its cracked screen replaced. Unfortunately, she hadn’t come to us, but instead went to another local store that shall remain nameless(!)
The customer and store disagree on minor details, but it seems clear that while the phone was originally supposed to have been fixed, it turned out that it wasn’t- and the shop were unable to fix it themselves.
If you’ve ever been tempted to let a cheap or “no fix, no fee” repair centre “have a go” at fixing your phone or tablet then bring it to us if they can’t do it… be careful.
There’s a bigger risk of having your device written off before we see it than you might think. Curious? See our latest article for more information.
Introduction
It’s common sense that going for the cheapest repair store isn’t likely to get the most time or expertise spent on your smartphone or tablet. (For similar reasons, the same applies to “no fix, no fee” businesses).
However, you might be tempted to give our rivals a chance anyway. After all, if they fail, you still have the option of bringing it to us… right?
Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for the fact that an incompetent repair can turn something that might have been fixable in more skilled hands into a complete write-off, regardless of how good the next technician is.
Can They Fix It? Er… No, They Can’t
We got our hands on this iPhone 6 after the customer had previously taken it to a local store that had only just opened. The original problem was that the headphone socket wasn’t working- this requires swapping the charging flex, and should be fairly straightforward… if you know what you’re doing.
The customer left the phone with the shop and was told to come back later. When he returned to see if the phone was ready, the assistant behind the counter paused a YouTube video on his laptop, explained that the phone still wasn’t ready and pointed to various disassembled parts on the bench.
This is one of the reasons our industry has a bad reputation and customer confidence in independent stores is so low.
We were asked to look at this iPhone 6 from another store. They’d tried fitting four different LCDs and none were giving a display. We managed to repair the iPhone, but there was a number of issues with their attempted repair.
