Showing posts with label iPhone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPhone. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

My T-Mobile Trade-In with Apple nightmare ...with a happy ending

I am T-Mobile customer on the Go5G Plus plan and when the iPhone 15 was announced I decided to trade in my iPhone 12 which qualified for a $0.00/mo over 24 months offer. I chose to place my order via Apple.com. Here are the details of the promotion, which I followed to the letter:

Order details

Here is the chronology of events:
  • September 15: placed my order via Apple.com opting for the trade-in offer above paying only $38.78 for taxes and confirming all the terms as expected:


  • September 21: received "Your trade-in is in the works" email notification from Apple again showing all the terms were correct:
Trade-in terms


  • September 22: received iPhone 15 on launch date!
  • September 23: received trade-in kit box
  • September 28: sent iPhone 12 in trade-in kit box via FedEx Home office (kept tracking receipt - VERY IMPORTANT!)
  • September 29: FedEx tracking shows trade-in kit was delivered
Trade-in tracking


  • September 30: Received "Your Trade-in is a success" email from Apple!
Trade-in confirmation
  • October 2: Received my T-Mobile bill without the trade-in credit, so ended up paying $23.09... but the terms of conditions do specify that it may take 1-2 bill cycles for the credit to appear so I decide holding off from calling T-Mobile...
    • iPhone 15 - Black - 128GB
    • ID: 20230914...., Balance: $554.00, Installment 1 of 24 $23.09
  • October 30: My 2nd bill is not yet issued, but I see no signs of the Trade-in credit on T-Mobile, so I decide to contact customer service via chat on the application. I provide all the details above to Lizeth: terms, dollar amounts, etc. They asked me for the IMEI of my trade-in (iPhone 12) which luckily I had saved. They asked for the receipt, which I provided but it was from Apple so they do not seem to have any record about this. I provided a screenshot and also a PDF with all the details from Apple about the order. That still was not sufficient. They then asked me to provide the tracking for the trade-in which luckily I had also saved. That was not enough, so they told me they needed more time to research this and then they scheduled a follow up call for November 8th.
  • November 8: I get the call from Lizeth from T-Mobile but missed it because I was on a business call I couldn't get out from. They left a voicemail indicating they still need more time to research this and that they will call me back on November 15.
  • November 16: I get a call back from Lizeth indicating they still had no resolution for me but that it had been escalated on their end and I would get a call back the following day.
  • November 17: Lizeth calls me back to let me know that they had no record on the trade-in and that there was nothing further that T-Mobile can do to solve this. I then asked to escalate this to a supervisor. The supervisor calls me back stating the same thing and suggesting that I reach out to Apple. I had already contacted Apple via chat and they had given me all the details I had provided to T-Mobile, so I asked how Apple can get in touch with T-Mobile to resolve this since me providing the information from Apple was not enough. The supervisor then suggested that I called Apple and bridged a call with T-Mobile. I proceeded to call Apple and explained the situation. David from Apple agrees to speak to T-Mobile customer service, so I called T-Mobile. After 20 minutes on hold, T-Mobile answers the call and it was like starting over. I explained that I had Apple on the line but apparently he was not interested on talking to them. After 20 more minutes of T-Mobile doing research I decide to bridge the calls and David shares all the information that T-Mobile asks for. After another 20 minutes of no progress, I ask to speak to a supervisor that can actually solve this. Another T-Mobile supervisor joins the call and after some research she claims she found the order and that is stuck in "running" and that is why the credit was not applied but not to worry, I would get my credit in 2-3 business days and just asks me to wait for a few minutes. I thought "finally!", after 10-15 minutes of being on hold, the supervisor comes back and says that the order was actually a business order and that was not eligible for the promotion. I explained this was a personal order and I have never had a business account with neither Apple or T-Mobile. I had to drop for a show at that point and asked her to solve this and give me a call back. She agree to call me back in the week but it didn't sound like I should expect a different outcome. This call ended up being 1hr 37 minutes with no progress. Kudos to David from Apple for sticking around this long!
  • November 20: I had no idea what to do at this point. I was going to wait for the call back but I felt I was just going to hear the same story. I felt defrauded and the worst part was that the offer was still active and I followed it to the letter. I thought I could not be the only one going through this situation. So I googled, and came across this reddit post that turned out to be a lifesaver! This confirmed that I was not the only one going through this, and this was a post from 2 months ago. Multiple users were reporting that the only way they got this solved was by contacting T-Force. I had to also google how to do that, but apparently that is just a different customer service team from T-Mobile that is only reachable via Facebook or Twitter (now X). I had contacted T-Mobile via Twitter in the past so I decided to give it a try. I sent an initial message with the summary of my issue. I immediately got prompted to verify my T-Mobile account, which I did. I then waited 20 minutes for a response, which didn't sound promising. To my surprise Becky responds back apologizing for this issue but that she was going to fix this right away. I was obviously very skeptical at this point. I asked for confirmation that we were talking about the same offer and she confirmed it again apologizing as if this was a very common known issue. That very same day in the afternoon I get a text message confirming the promo was getting applied to my line:
    • T-Mobile promo message: Line XXXX is scheduled to receive a monthly bill credit for Apple Retail Trade ID230182 as long as you maintain eligibility
    • That promo ID is by the way something T-Mobile customer service kept asking for, but Apple was not able to provide.
    • I checked my T-Mobile online account and the trade-in credit was finally showing correctly applied!
    • Becky let me know that there was a small possibility that the promo could get rejected so she scheduled a follow up for the next week.
  • November 27: I kept checking my account almost every day and the credit was still there, which Becky confirmed that all still looked good but she scheduled another follow up the next week to do a final check after my November bill cycle!
Lessons learned
  • I have done all my trade-in promotions directly with T-Mobile with no issues. In fact I did another one this year and that was correctly applied right away. This does not justify this issue. Apple needs to demand that T-Mobile gets their act together or stop offering this trade-in promotion via their website. The main reason why I chose to do it with Apple this year is because the trade-in credit over 24 months makes it $0, where T-Mobile gives you part of the credit as an instant credit instead of spreading over 24 months, which adds a small amount to your bill (e.g. $6.67) and I preferred not increasing my bill.
  • T-Mobile Customer Service quality has suffered greatly over the past few years. I also speak Spanish, I dealt with another issue earlier this year, and I ended up calling customer service in Spanish instead because they seem to have better and faster response.
  • You may wonder why I'm sticking with T-Mobile after dealing with these issues, well, they still seem to have the best value in terms of service/offering, but just hope you don't have to deal with customer service.
  • If you are having a similar issue, contact T-Force right away! I wrote this blog to hopefully save you some time and anger dealing with this! 

Monday, April 09, 2012

iPhone 3GS successfully unlocked by authorized AT&T unlock

After reading the anticipated news that AT&T was officially unlocking iPhones starting on April 8th, 2012 I called the customer service number: 800-776-4663 provided my phone number (I am an active customer with AT&T). They confirmed my current iPhone 4 is three months away from becoming eligible for the unlock because it is still within the 2-year contract (even though I have already meet eligibility for an early upgrade), but my old iPhone 3GS which is over 2 years old was eligible. They asked for the phone's IMEI number (available through Settings -> General -> About or by dialing *#06# on your iPhone) then I was asked for an e-mail address. They had me wait on the line to receive a confirmation e-mail which took several minutes. All the e-mail contains is a link to this PDF with instructions for restoring your iPhone from iTunes in order to complete the unlock. They offered to stay on the line while I restored it, but I know it can take close to an hour to backup and do a full restore, so I declined the offer. Even though I was already on iOS 5, apparently you must perform a restore through iTunes to complete the upgrade. You can still backup and restore from iCloud, but the restored should be initiated through iTunes, at least that's the official word. At the end of the restore, this is what you want to see:

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Turn your camera into a wifi enabled camera with an Eye-Fi X2 card

The Eye-Fi card is nothing more than a SDHC card with an embedded wifi chip. When the Eye-Fi cards were originally released you could only transfer if you were at home and had your network setup, or by using certain hotspots (only the first year is free). The eye-fi X2 series added a very convenient feature: direct mode. This mode, in combination with an iPhone/iPad or Android application make it very convenient to transfer photos taken from your digital camera and transfer them to your phone from anywhere without the need to use a 3G or wifi connection.

The direct mode uses an ad-hoc network mode which to the phone looks as any other wifi network protected by a WEP key. Aside from a one-time setup to register the card, the transfer process is very seamless. At the time I setup my card I had to install the software on my PC. I'm not sure if you can now do all the setup from http://center.eye.fi/

What's even better is that now there is a wide selection of eye-fi connected cameras. I own a Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS, which by the way is a really great point-and-shoot camera. The 300 HS is one of the connected cameras. This means you get an extra menu for 'Eye-Fi Settings' when you're using the eye-fi card. This allows you to disable the wifi feature of the SD card when you don't need to use it.


You will need to recharge your camera's battery more frequently when using the Eye-Fi card. Every time the camera is powered (and there are pictures on the card) it will broadcast a wifi signal for 30 seconds (you can configure it to longer time using their software). The wifi broadcast goes off after a configurable period of time of no activity. When using a connected camera an icon will indicate if the wifi is on:



Another feature that you get with connected cameras is that it will display an icon once a picture has been transferred:


To connect your to your Eye-Fi card using the iPhone application simply power up your camera and connect as you would to any other wifi network. A wifi network that begins with 'Eye-Fi Card' will show up in your available networks. It is protected by a password and unfortunately the only way I know of retrieving the key is using the Eye-Fi center software.


Launch the Eye-Fi Application and you will see the pictures being transferred right away. This application can run in the background so as long as the camera is on and connected via wifi, it will continue transferring in the background. The application has improved a lot since the original version, it now provides more feedback as to what it is doing and the transfer is more reliable.


There are more and more wifi enabled cameras in the market and they are becoming more affordable, but they don't provide the breadth of features available through smartphone applications. Cellphone cameras are also slowly becoming better, however they still lack in zoom, focus, motion and low light performance. If you already have a good point-and-shoot or DSLR camera, this is a convenient and affordable way to transfer your photos into your smartphone when you're on the go. The Eye-Fi Connect X2 4GB retails for only $29.99.


Wednesday, December 12, 2007

How to fix iPhone speaker problem

BEGIN UPDATE (5/14/08). This solution worked for me for at least 2 months, since then I've had at least 4 reocurrences, all of which were fixed just by reinserting the earphone repeatedly, except for the last instance, I had to clean the earjack and seems back to normal
END UPDATE

One day I got a call on my iPhone and I was not able to hear any audio. After a while I figured out I could still hear audio if I put it in speakerphone mode. Next I realized that the play icon was showing up with no audio. I tried pausing/playing music and I could no hear any audio at all. After doing some research on Google I found out this was a very common problem on the iPhone, and unfortunately it appears to be a problem on the hardware and not on the software.

The iPhone has a mechanism to detect when you unplug the headset, apparently this mechanism can fail sometimes due if debris gets in the headset jack. This is why you can't hear any audio, because it thinks you have a headset plugged in and continues to route all audio to the headset output. There are several workarounds published out there, some very creative that suggest using a damped q-tip. But the one solution that worked for me was plugging and unplugging the headset several times until it gets back into the correct state. However this solution was only temporary for me, eventually the iPhone would get into that same state. Because I connect the iPhone on the aux port of my car stereo I had to check every time I left my car to make sure I would be able to use my phone throughout the day!

This became very annoying, so I called Apple Support (1-800-MY-IPHONE) and the workaround they had me try was to plug and unplug my headphones 5 consecutive times as fast as I could. The problem was fixed immediately, but I was very skeptical this would be a long term solution. So I continued verifying that the phone was in the correct state everytime I unplugged the headset. To my surprise this problem hasn't reocurred since then and it's been over 4 weeks and I plug/unplug it at least twice a day, so it seems in my case this problem was indeed caused by a debris and not a permanent hardware problem, which is a relief. So there you have it: the official recommendation from Apple support if you want to give it a shot.