Lake Effect Tech — Local services in Town of Lowville

I normally would never leave a bad review but this experience left a really bad taste in my mouth. Low quality components, poor service and no accountability. In short, if you have to get major components of your phone or computer replaced, spend the extra money and go to Best Buy. For details, read through.

I had a horrible experience here with my iPhone 11 Pro. Although Lake Effect Tech is an hour away from me, I chose to go there because it seemed reputable and a friend of mine had gone there and had a good experience.

I had cracked my phone screen about three weeks prior to coming into this store. Other than the crack in the screen, the phone was 100% functional, no issues whatsoever. I called and made an appointment for an iPhone 11 screen replacement, forgetting to mention it was an 11 Pro. I was quoted $120. Arrived for my appointment and was told the Pro takes a different screen, he had ordered it for me and to come back Friday, the following day. He did want me to pay for the service at that point though, and when I looked at the price on the register, it was now $216. He didn't even mention that the iPhone 11 Pro screen repair was nearly double the price of the regular iPhone 11, to make sure I still wanted to follow through with the service, but I digress. I still thought I would at least get top quality service so I signed the receipt.

Phone repair took all of five minutes. He came back over and handed me the phone as it booted up. My lock screen shows and I unlock it. He says "alright, looks like it works, have a nice day." Something doesn't look right about my screen but I can't put my finger on it. He now tells me that "Oh yeah, you're gonna have a message come up for a few days saying it doesn't recognize the screen since you didn't go to an Apple store." Hmm weird but whatever I suppose. I go on my way. On my one hour drive home, I noticed my phone started to sporadically restart, and would be off for several minutes before booting back up. This continued to happen every half hour or so. I also put my finger on what I wasn't able to while in his store; The display was smaller than before. The iPhone 11 screen goes nearly to the edge of the entire device, wrapping around the front facing camera and speaker at the top of the phone. My display was now shrunken down below the camera & speaker, and there was a good 1/4" gap of black nothingness around the display that was not there beforehand.

I called on Monday and described the issues that I was having. The guy was very quick to deflect these issues as problems with the phone, "he didn't touch any of that stuff." I told him I'd keep an eye on it and come back in if it didn't improve.

That weekend I had to leave the state for work for the next two weeks. One morning while I was gone, I look at my phone to find a large blue bar running down the left side of my display. Within a few hours, it had turned black and overtook the entire screen. After I returned from my trip I went back to the store and described what happened. He tells me that I broke my screen and that I would have to purchase another one. We argued a bit but he was adamant about it being my fault, I left the store livid.

I made an appointment with Apple and described to them what had happened, knowing I would likely lose my warranty due to using a third party repair store. They booked me an appointment same day at Best Buy, and the price was reasonable. While at Best Buy getting my phone serviced correctly, the employee showed me how the display that was in my phone was "clearly third party and not the correct part for the phone," and pointed out that the display was physically way too small, doesn't even reach the edges of the device, and that the electrical components looked and felt super cheap, and didn't even lay in the correct way. He also told me that's why the screen broke, poor quality and not properly supported due to wrong dimensions, etc. I left Best Buy and have had no issues since.

This concludes my experience. ...

My Samsung S23 Ultra fell out of my pocket and the screen broke. I'm not gonna lie, it was a pretty pricey mistake not to have a case on it. I knew it would be. Trevor told me how much for each part and the labor and said it would take Josh an hour to an hour and a half. When I paid for everything, he sent in for the parts and they arrived a day and a half later. He then set me up for an appointment with Josh to fix it. I made sure to show up 15 minutes early as Josh is a pretty busy guy. He was done a tad over half an hour and everything has been working perfectly for the past week! I highly recommend! Both Trevor and Josh were great...

Josh Fitzgerald went way out of his way to help me with a problem I had and resolved it in a fast, professional way. We need more people and businesses like Josh and Lake Effects Tect in out world. THANK YOU JOSH FIR DROPPING EVERYTHING YOU HAD GOING ON TO HELP ME...