New phone, what a PITA

[ColdSteel]

So, I have a 8 year old iPhone 3GS. I've kept it that long because I've been constantly paying for new iPhones for my wife and I just didn't feel like doing the same for both of us. It's costly. Finally though, my iPhone just started randomly turning itself off. It looks like the battery charge sensor went wonky. So, I decided to get a new unlocked Moto Z Play from Amazon. It's inexpensive, has fantastic battery life and is very responsive according to reviews.

It arrived this weekend and I had to make two trips to the AT&T store yesterday to get it setup properly because the first service person I got didn't know how to set up an unlocked phone correctly and I had no data. After the second trip and 3 different service people pitching in, it was working correctly. Email, phone, messaging, internet, all working fine. I love the phone, it's as advertised and after a day of messing with settings, the battery charge indicator has barely budged.

Then I see that there's a new Android OS update for it and I need to use WIFI to download and install it. So, I turn on WIFI to connect to my router and it immediately turns back off. No searching for broadcasts, nothing on the screen, just bam, on and back off again. WIFI still works fine with my old phone though so it's definitely something wrong with the new one. After a lot of googling, and trying everything recommended out there to no avail, it seems the most likely cause is that it came with a defective WIFI antenna. It seems to happen a lot with Motorola phones, apparently. So great, now I have to wipe it and return it after spending all day setting it up.

So I did a return/replacement with Amazon this morning and picked the option for UPS to pick it up. They say I have 30 days to return it so I figure I'll just wait until the replacement get there, transfer everything to the new phone, and then return it. But no, when they email me the info after selecting the UPS pickup option, they say UPS will pick it up the next business day. Oh, and your replacement phone will arrive by the 20th. Just wonderful. I check the Amazon site to see if you can change the pickup date or the pickup method options. No, you cannot change a thing or cancel it. Now I have 10 days with no phone.

As you can see this is a bit of a rant. I'm PO'd but I'm not sure exactly who gets the lions share. Myself probably for buying a phone on-line.

[Isgrimnur]

The people in the stores are there to sell. They aren't trained in troubleshooting beyond the simplest of tasks. As a former call center worker, they'd end up calling us anyway.

[Punisher]

If you haven't given it to UPS yet, you should be able to tell them it isn't ready for pickup and you will call them when it is.
If you need to return again in the future and have a printer and a nearby UPS drop-off, just select UPS drop off as your option This is what I do.. and a really cool thing with amazon. If you elect to return something for store credit, as soon as UPS scans it as being picked up (or dropped off a a UPS center), they credit you right away. I do enough business with amazon that I always choose credit.

[ColdSteel]

Thanks Punisher. I've already wiped the phone and packaged it up for pickup so at this point it doesn't matter. After I get the replacement I'm preparing myself to do battle with AT&T because they didn't enable LTE service on the new phone yesterday, even though it's an LTE phone. The guy told me it couldn't get LTE because it was an unlocked phone and only AT&T phones could get LTE and the best I could get was 4G. That's some BS right there. Should be fun.

[em2nought]

I have sweet dreams of going ten days without a phone.

[Kasey Chang]

I am quite happy with the refurb Samsung Galaxy S6 I got off Amazon two weeks back. I even got full Qi charger setup for it both car and home. Looks practically new, good battery life (for a phone that's allegedly weak on battery), and tons of available accessories even in dollar stores (cases for $1, any one?)

As for Amazon returns, I always do either Locker drop off, or UPS drop off, depending on my driving that day.

[Kraken]

If you buy a phone on Amazon, how do you make it work with your carrier? Do you have to take it to a Verizon store and have it activated, or something? Do they copy all the stuff off your old phone? Do they load their bloatware onto it?

I put a new battery in my S4 a couple of weeks ago so it's good for awhile, but it's been out of storage for some time now, so I'm thinking about getting a new one after xmas. There's a lot of crap that I can't delete so whenever I want something new, something old has to go.

[Punisher]

If you buy a phone on Amazon,
1) how do you make it work with your carrier? Do you have to take it to a Verizon store and have it activated, or something?
2) Do they copy all the stuff off your old phone?
3) Do they load their bloatware onto it?

I put a new battery in my S4 a couple of weeks ago so it's good for awhile, but it's been out of storage for some time now, so I'm thinking about getting a new one after xmas. There's a lot of crap that I can't delete so whenever I want something new, something old has to go.

1) Is it a Verizon phone going on a Verizon network?
If so, AND you already have a Verizon phone with a SIM card (and the new one does as well), then you should be able to just swap SIM cards.
If you don't have SIM cards or the phone is an unlocked one going onto Verizon, then you need to go into the Verizon store.
If it's an unlocked one, test EVERYTHING before leaving. internet, text messages, multimedia messages, etc... When I did it with T-Mobile, text messaging didn't work. I had to do some manual configuring to get it to work. Special code had to be put in in some advanced setting.

2) Maybe. Depends on the 2 phones and the salesperson. In some cases, they can't do it though.

3) I have not seen this happen, but if it is already a Verizon phone it will still have it. In fact, even if you take an unlocked Verizon phone to a new carrier, it keeps the Verizon crap on it. (At least I haven't found a way to remove it going from Verizon to T-Mobile

[Kasey Chang]

I just put in the SIM and setup via Google. Everything worked just like that. (I'm on Verizon)