Cell Phone Repair

I had a G1 phone. Unfortunately it fell down and cracked its front glass plate. The phone was still working with no problem. Even the touch screen was working with no issues. Still I thought I will replace the glass plate and did a search for Cell phone repair shops near by and this shop's address popped up. I sent out an email to get the estimate and a guy called me and said it would take $125 to replace. Initially I was hesitant to spend this much money on the phone as it was working for me and then later decided to fix it. I was using this phone for 3 weeks before I decided to fix it. I went to the shop and gave the phone and they charged me $30 and told me I have to pay $95 when I get the phone back and it would take two days for them to fix it. I agreed. From then, I got two phone calls from them. First call after two days, telling me after replacement touch screen is not working. Then another call after 4 days saying that main board had a problem. Then there was no calls. After 8 days I called them back and then came to know that there is a problem with speaker and I need to pay additional $50 for its flux wire. Everyone who went through this, without a second thought can say that they messed up something while repair and don't want to take responsiblity. I didn't pay the rest and asked them to return my phone because how can you be sure that after spending this much, the phone will work?. I got the phone back and its not even switching on. In the end, the whole thing Looks like I paid CPR $30 to make my phone completely stop working.

Comment On This

First I would like to say that this customer left several important things out that we explained to him very thoroughly.

To start:

The $30 fee he paid up front was a "Diagnosis Fee", that we get on phones (before we even touch them) that have been dropped or smashed because there can be hidden issues inside the phone that may not show up until the screws are taken out of the phone. Phones these days are VERY compact, especially the G1. So when dropped, like this customers phone was, things inside can break and still be held together by the screws pressure out of pure luck. This happens ALL THE TIME. We deal with this on a weekly basis.

Secondly:

He payed the $30 diagnosis fee and we took in the phone for repair. (Take note that the front "glass plate" as he called it actually a part called a digitizer, this part controls the touch screen interface of the G1). A well experienced technician who has worked on dozens of G1's opened the phone and replaced the digitizer. Upon reassembling the phone powered up but the digitizer wasn't working. We then tried once again with a 2nd new digitizer just in case the first one was defective. Proving exclusively that there is another problem with the phone due to the physical damage it incurred.

Then we called the customer and told him we would need some more time to work on the phone because replacing the digitizer didn't completely solve the issue and it could possibly be a main board issue or something. (This is why we have the diagnosis fee). So we continued to diagnose the phone and told him "we would call him when we had an update".

We later found that his ear speaker was not working either. And this meant that his "main flex" had a problem. We swapped out his flex for our test one and the phone tested out perfect during the first test. Now with picky issues like this we test the phones several times before contacting the customer so as not to misinform them in case we just got lucky and it worked that 1 time we tested it.

We tested it a few more times. All checked out perfect. The customer then called and asked what the status was; we told him that on top of the digitizer he also needed a new main flex. We quoted him an additional $50 for the flex.

He declined the flex replacement. He came in to pick up his phone. And per store policy which was verbally explained to him when he dropped it off, as well as on the form he signed, there were no additional charges. The $30 Diagnosis Fee that he paid up front is in place so that in cases like this where we put in several hours of work and the customer declines the complete repair, we at least get $30 to help compensate for our time involved.

The phone was powering on just fine when it left the store, as stated on the invoice the customer signed at pickup.

To put it simply, this phone was dropped and therefore physically damaged. There were hidden issues within the phone that didn't show up until the screws were taken out of the phone that were holding the broken pieces together inside the phone. We in no way were responsible for the issues within this phone. We are here only to offer options to the customer other than purchasing another phone at full retail value. Also, per the diagnosis fee this customer is entitled should he change his mind to come back and complete the repair within 30 days he can still reapply that $30 on the same phone.

Sincerely,

Cell Phone Repair