Apple Short Pump Town Center — Local services in Short Pump

Took my iPhone X in to be looked at for freezing and touchscreen issues just to be told nothing is wrong. The guy (short Hispanic man) asked if I can take the case off my phone. I said "yes, if you will be careful with it, I have this in mint condition, and I don't want any damages".. He looked at my phone with the case off and commended the condition I kept it in. I asked before he did diagnostics if he would put a rag underneath the device before working on it. He says "if this table does damage to the phones, we would have many lawsuits".

Yeah sure, like your decade old wooden table has no debris that could cause scratches as you slide it across the table between the 2 of us... So, after after the full Diagnostics, which of course showed nothing wrong, he does a full factory data reset and tells me the phone is fixed. I look at the back of the phone that I just gloated about being mint condition, and it has scratches that perfectly aligned to how he slid it across the table.

I ask for a manager, to show him the scratches, and the manager brings out a cleaning cloth. I tell the manager about the scratches, and he uses the cleaning cloth that was practically black from dirt, to clean away scratches on the back of my brand new Iphone X's glass phone.

I eventually tell them I'm not going anywhere until they replace the device, and it was like pulling teeth trying to convince the manager that the employee scratched my phone because, they were not convinced that the table could have scratched it.

The employee comes back out with his tablet and puts marks into the tablet under the comment section that the damage was previously done before him even seeing it! He asked me if there's anything else he can do and tells me basically to leave.. If I were simply that much of a pushover, which many people are, I probably would have just left, but knowing that my phone was in perfect condition before taking the case off, I was not about to accept this...

I eventually made enough of a fuss for them to replace the device but, they made me feel like I was liar, even though I take pride in how I treat my phones.

The woman that was sitting next to me said in private to me "I saw your phone before you gave it to him, and it did not have these scratches". They made me feel like a liar, and that I was trying to cheat the system!

See, what I do is every year is I sell my phone in mint condition at top value so, I can constantly upgrade. I do this so my future customers are very happy with their purchase, and are confident in my selling integrity. Obviously I do it to receive as much money as I can for the value that it’s worth in it's condition. I never get to fully enjoy the value of the phone, and its beautiful aesthetics because, of the sacrifice so, I put it in a large ugly bulky case. To me that cost is worth it to me to be able to upgrade every year for a decent opportunity cost...

I'm just still in shock that the man looked at me and said " I did not scratch your phone" after I just showed him the Mint Condition 10 minutes prior to this conversation.

I understand they see hundreds of iPhones a day, but to some of us a $1,000 for a phone is a lot, and we do treat it like it's gold and very important!! I just have to say I never felt so undervalued in my life. I was called a liar and tried to be lied to..

The man eventually replaced the phone, but he left me with the phone as "sim failure locked", which wouldn't let me activate without him personally calling my carrier.

So I spoke with a random rep that had no idea what was going on, and his relationship he had with me these past several minutes. She seemed shocked that he just left me with a phone that was incapabable of being activated without a carrier lock, without his assistance.

She went to go look for this man, and he came back and took full responsibility finally! He had the look on his face like he had been caught red-handed trying to do something that he shouldn't have been doing...

Avoid this place at all costs Just go to Best Buy. It just isn't...

Driving 11 miles one way to visit this store (11/26/24 about 4:30 pm) was a waste of time, but since we left feeling our business wasn't wanted, it didn't end up being a waste of our money. Elsewhere, we found a new iPhone 16 Plus with 13 months of phone service for $549 vs. just an iPhone 14 Plus for $829 at the Apple store. When leaving, neither of us wanted to ever to return for any reason. We quite like our older Apple phones and computers, but I was seriously tempted to buy an Android phone instead after our Apple experience both in store and online.

Over-crowding, poor listening skills, misinformation about requirements for moving service and data to a new device, refusal to hold the selected phone or let us purchase it and return the next day for the phone number and data transfer were off-putting and resulted in considerable frustration, and inconvenience. It would have been so easy to tell us UP FRONT that Apple stores don't do phone number activation or data transfer for those WITHOUT a MOBILE provider CONTRACT. This didn't happen despite numerous attempts on our part to explain we had Verizon month-to-month service with NO CONTRACT.

Phone activation and data transfer must be done as part of the purchase transaction and, if help is needed, as a DIY in-store project. This requires customers to remain in the store with both devices for 1-2 hours whether a phone trade-in is involved or not.

BACKSTORY. My old iphone XS Max was deemed "unrepairable", and I needed a new phone ASAP -- before we left town for Thanksgiving. I called to see if the Short Pump (Henrico, VA) Apple store had an iPhone14 Plus in stock. They did, so my husband and I drove 30 minutes to make the purchase despite both being quite tired after a long day.

We chose our phone and were ready to pay, but:

1. The Apple team member we spoke with online before driving to the store told us all we'd need to get the phone activiated and data transferred was an Apple ID. Yet the Apple ID was the ONLY thing store personnel didn't request.

2. We needed photo ID to prove we were owners of the phone and the account. At the hospital, I'd just removed ID and credit cards from my phone case and sent them home for safekeeping, but I had a photo of my driver's license on my phone should I need ID for transfer from the ER to the hospital. That, plus my hospital ID bracelet, confirmation of identity by my husband who had his IDs, and account validation by Verizon was not enough, so I'd have to drive back.

3. We needed something called a SIM pin -- allegedly found on our mobile phone contract or by calling Verizon. Several times we explained our phone service was "pre-paid" without any contract or SIM pin we knew of, but the Apple sales rep reiterated the SIM pin requirement.

They sent us home after we'd made a 22 mile round trip to get the phone, and now that would have to be repeated.

Back at home, I called Verizon for the SIM pin. As expected, they confirmed we didn't have or NEED one for a Verizon-to-Verizon transfer of an old number and data to a new device. There were no restrictions on doing this other than my need to unlock the SIM pin setting on my phone which had been done before and again during the visit to the store.

Back at home, I called Apple support to see if they'd confirm or contradict what we'd been told at the store about a SIM pin, or if they had any suggestions about how to get around this obstacle to our purchase. Things got even worse. The focus was on selling me a more expensive phone with a protection plan. After more than an hour trying, I declined further "assistance" and ended the call in frustration and out of concern for stress-related health issues that had sent me to the ER in the first place.

WHAT...

Imagine doing everything right, like making an appointment, coming for your appointment on time, and having AppleCare. Associate runs diagnostics on my AirPods and AirPods case. I have insurance, and he tells me my AirPods case is good. Not to mention this is my second time getting the AirPods replaced, never the case. Associate just replaced the AirPods. When I get home, AirPods won’t connect to the phone. I decided to call Apple support. Apple said they will replace the whole thing. I have AppleCare, but they want me to pay a $30 surcharge fee, plus put a hold on my card for $600+ until they receive the AirPods back. I said well, I will go back up to the Apple Store and get a new charging case for my AirPods. So first I called the store and told them the problem. The messages were forwarded to whoever, and I told them I might not be on time for my appointment. I work way on the other side of town, and the problem should’ve been resolved at the first appointment if somebody would’ve done their job correctly. I show up late to the second appointment. Associate said what’s up. I said, How are you doing? He said, What’s up, is this? Is this how you approach everybody at the Apple Store?. I told him I had an appointment for 4 PM. Now I already talked to Apple support; they wanted to give me brand new AirPods and a charging case, and I also called the store, and they were supposed to tell them what happened with my situation. When the associate came out asking me Did you leave it on the charger for an hour? Yes, I did. I called Apple support. I even called the store. This is an inconvenience to me. Oh, we need to run a diagnostic. That’s already been done. I just need a new charger case; it’s not my fault you guys messed up. I said OK, I’ll wait and run a diagnosis on the charging case. The associate comes back and says, Oh, your charger case isn’t good as it isn’t charging. Duhhh, I know something isn’t right. I did everything right. I said this should’ve been resolved at the first appointment, but the associate just wanted to replace my AirPods and told me my charging case was good. You should’ve replaced the whole thing. I have an insurance associate going to say he didn’t check the charging case. I said yes; he did. Well, it isn’t in his notes. His notes are wrong; he checked both in front of me. Who has time to keep coming up here to an Apple Store? What can y’all do for my inconvenience? They won’t give you anything for free, so I read online that they do a family and friends discount. I said well, I don’t want anything for free. Let me get a discount on a charger or something. They got real quiet. Oh, we can’t disclose if we have a family and friends discount. So now they gotta ship my charging case off to Apple. Before I left, I told the associate to check the cameras and see if he did a diagnosis on my charger case and AirPods. Yall got all this technology in here, and people are still getting their job wrong. I did what I was supposed to do. I made an appointment. I have insurance. I don’t have time to run back and forth to an Apple Store. And I did everything right. They don’t care because everybody’s using this product, so why should they care? I think I might be done with AirPods after...