Defective phone

Wow, what a nightmare I have must gone through. It took me over three years to get a smart phone baskically because they seemed whay to complicated for me. I finally ordered one last December on line since they are cheaper and got a Samsung 4. I had no idea at the time that a refurbished phone was only warranted for 90 days. It took me three weeks to even get the courage to open the new phone. I had my nephew to help explain how to turn it on and a few more essentials. I noticed that my battery died daily and was told it was because of all the apps it had. As they say hindsight it 20/20 and I now realize my phone was defective from the start.

   The phone continued to need charged daily and I never used the internet on the phone, just calls and texts. In July, I stopped at my local AT&T store and they said it was an easy fix and They had a new battery mailed to me. This did not help with the charge. Just last week, I plugged it in and the next morning it had a full charge. An hour later, it beeped and was dead. I charged it for another three hours and when I unplugged it, the entire phone was hot. I called customer service and they told me not to use the phone but in order to get it replaced I would have to go through the tech line to confirm it was defective. To make a very long, two hour + phone conversations, two customer service people told me I had a year warranty, one said 90 days, another that it expired in August which would have been 8 months and the final one had to look into the official third set of records to report that it was only 90 days. I was very confused by this time because there was so many different answers and it angered me to know that AT&T resell phones that don't even last a year.

   I have carried insurance on my phones since I started with AT&T many, many years ago. I called insurance and had to go through a crazy process to prove I was really me. I had wonderful man from the CEO office help me finish this and he got it approved right away. At that time, he left me a message and was confused as why I didn't get a free replacement since it was less than a year old. More confusion and angst when I found out that I had to pay $100 for my replacement phone but if I didn't have insurance it would cost me $585 for a new phone which is the same price as they charge you for a refurbished one. All the customer service people were very polite but not helpful. I feel very taken. I am definitely not smart about smartphones and now realize that information is not communicated well. I was not aware of the 90 day warranty and would not have accepted it as I have heard how they don't check phones because it cheaper just to have the customer have a replacement. I also had no knowledge of smartphones and assumed after a few calls to customer service that all phones died that quickly which was not the case, just defective phones die that quickly.

   I am also disappointed because it was so hard to reach a customer service supervisor's supervisor. I was promised a call by one two days later but this did not occur. One of the supervisor told me there is no one above her but changed her mind when I asked her if she owned the company. I'm not even sure that this explains my frustration but it is the best I can explain.