multiple warranty exchanges

[Starwiz221]

I'm currently on my 5th phone in the past 8 months that I've had the phone, Nokia Lumia 900. It's always been a bit buggy and that's annoying, but they're have been so many problems that I just give up on this phone. I've just recently, 2 days ago, gotten it exchanged again because it's sim card reader up and stopped working. I called up to ATT support and the woman said that I'd be able to get the early upgrade which takes about $100 off the retail phone price so about $600 still, kind of really lame. She said they'd call back next tuesday to see if there are any problems, but there are always problems, the whole interface is randomly buggy and likes to activate functions randomly. I just want to go to a different model of phone without having to pay the $60, aka 300% markup on a good, working phone. Somebody please help me.

[Starwiz221]

I'm currently on my 5th phone in the past 8 months that I've had the phone, Nokia Lumia 900. It's always been a bit buggy and that's annoying, but they're have been so many problems that I just give up on this phone. I've just recently, 2 days ago, gotten it exchanged again because it's sim card reader up and stopped working. I called up to ATT support and the woman said that I'd be able to get the early upgrade which takes about $100 off the retail phone price so about $600 still, kind of really lame. She said they'd call back next tuesday to see if there are any problems, but there are always problems, the whole interface is randomly buggy and likes to activate functions randomly. I just want to go to a different model of phone without having to pay the $60, aka 300% markup on a good, working phone. Somebody please help me.

[Starwiz221]

I'm currently on my 5th phone in the past 8 months that I've had the phone, Nokia Lumia 900. It's always been a bit buggy and that's annoying, but they're have been so many problems that I just give up on this phone. I've just recently, 2 days ago, gotten it exchanged again because it's sim card reader up and stopped working. I called up to ATT support and the woman said that I'd be able to get the early upgrade which takes about $100 off the retail phone price so about $600 still, kind of really lame. She said they'd call back next tuesday to see if there are any problems, but there are always problems, the whole interface is randomly buggy and likes to activate functions randomly. I just want to go to a different model of phone without having to pay the $60, aka 300% markup on a good, working phone. Somebody please help me.

[jamileh]

I'm sorry you're having so many problems with your phone. 

You can either wait for the scheduled call back or you can send a private message to ATTCustomerCare with your name, account number, email address, phone number and the best time to contact you. There may be another way we can help.  




To send a private message, you can either click on the link in this message or click on the little blue envelope in the upper right hand corner, click "compose new message" and type ATTCustomerCare in the "Send To" field.

[ATTCustomerCare]

Hi Starwiz221,

Thanks for sending us the private message. One of our Managers will gladly look into it and contact you within 24 business hours (most likely today) to assist.

[kbeares]

I've had the same woes with my wife's Lumia 900. We are getting our third replacement phone this week. The frustrating part of this entire process is that they continued to give me refurbished Lumia 900's that exhibited the same problem. After arguing (Not screaming) with the 10th person I have talked to in support in the last month, I got escalated to a supervisor in warranty and they gave me this "one time only" exchange where I could get a Samsung Focus 2 or Samsung Focus S.  That's not a deal at all!!! Come on! I could have saved myself 10 hours of calls to support and just paid $.99 with a 2 year extension for that phone. What they should have done is provided me with a Windows 8 phone that is comparable to the device I had. Probably the Lumia 920 or 820.  The Samsungs, while I like them are the second run phones and most likely refurbished and we have no idea whether this problem will be resolved with this phone. So, to her problem.

My wife has had the same issue since the fall with her phone. Basically the phone gets stuck syncing mail. When it is in this state, no text messages are successfully sent or received with no errors. The very critical problem with this problem is that you have knowledge that it is failing. No error message, nothing. So, when I ask her did you get my text or email or she asks me the same thing, we then saw that the phone was in this state. The only way to resolve was to reboot. Putting it airplane mode or turning off wifi, blue tooth or data did nothing. The problem occurred about every 24 hours. In January, my wife was done with rebooting. So, I called support. Here is the run down on what we did to resolve the issue with no remedy. We hard reset the phone. Replaced the phone with a Lumia 900. Replaced it again. Replaced the SIM card. Did another hard reset. I removed email accounts. Nothing. It even repro'd with just Windows Live (Microsoft Account) and a IMAP mail account.  Now, they are sending me a Focus 2. If this issue happens again, I will be very very upset.

My core frustration is the run around I got from support. Everyone were trying to be helpful, but seriously, at some point in time AT&T has to realize that they need to cut their losses (Countless hours on the phone costs lots of money on their end) (Countless hours on the phone and driving down to their regional Device Support Center for their customers is also costing me time away from work, family, fuel costs and anything else I would rather be doing let alone the amount of minutes from my contract that I burned talking to them.) I personally think that I was a very very agreeable customer and did everything they requested, but it has gotten to the point where I feel AT&T support is just useless.  Most of the reps I talked to the phone had no ideas on what to do and I have no faith that they will escalate this problem to Nokia and Microsoft. I have had three phones that reproduce this problem and I have found numerous discussions on this board and others that have the same issue.

I had the same phone and never had the issues she had. Granted, it was my third Lumia 900. The first one had a bad sensor in the screen causing the phone to automatically depress the windows, search and back key (replaced in 1 day from store). The second had the screen seperate from the body with 2 days (Replaced at the store). The later worked all the way up til the time I upgraded to my 920.

I will email the customer service person who jumped in on this thread as well. I am seriously considering leaving for another carrier. Even though I would be walking away from a contract that has more than a year on it and also a grandfathered in unlimited data plan.

Anyone else had this issue with their phone or with support and warranty department?

Kevin

[jamileh]

Thanks for sending the PM. I just saw your tweet too. 

Did you include the info that I mentioned earlier in your PM? If not, please send that so the ATTCustomerCare folks can give you a call. 

Thanks!

[kbeares]

Just shot ATTCustomerCare an email with my contact info.  Thanks a lot for the prompt reply.

My central concern is that there may be a systemic problem with the Lumia 900 with the current builds.  There we antenna issues in April that Nokia fixed. I wonder if they have a regression. Clearly the phone gets into something like a deadlock condition and does not time out. When I normally run into no network conditions, email will fail saying that the server cannot be reached.  This doesn't happen. I have researched other forums, wpcentral is one of them where other users are complaining of the same issue.

What I would like to make sure AT&T does is grab the phone and look at the repro and work with Nokia and Microsoft to research the issue. I would have chalked it up to a bad phone, but when I had the same issue on 2 more phones with a new sim card, it makes me wonder if there is something else going on.

Kevin

[jamileh]

Thanks for the extra details, they're appreciated it. 

I'm going to do a little digging on my own while you're working with the fine folks at ATTCustomerCare.

[kbeares]

Here are some forum threads:

http://forums.wpcentral.com/htc-8x/215883-randomly-not-getting-notifcations-sms-texts-emails.html

http://forums.wpcentral.com/htc-8x/208839-2.htm#post1889455

Hope this is helpful in chasing this stuff down.

[kbeares]

Jamileh,

Unfortunately, AT&T Customer Care has not been at all helpful. Thier response is simply, We hope the Samsung works for you. In my opinion, the Samsung Focus S or Samsung Focus 2 is not a comparable phone to the Nokia Lumia 900. I could list out the reasons, but to me this is a downgrade from where we are. Simply do the side by side comparison and anyone would agree that I am basically getting blown off here. I could get a Nokia Lumia 800 for $49. So, why the resistance? To me, this is what drives people to wait for their contract to expire and then bolt to another carrier hoping for a better level of service.

It is sad that I have been such a long time customer and have spent so many hours with support that the response is, sorry, but this is our policy, sod off.

Kevin

[jamileh]

I'm sorry Kevin, I know this has been frustrating for both you and your wife. 

I'll take a look at the case notes but can't promise any different outcome. Never hurts to try though.

[sastripay]

I have had the same issues as you since I bought my phone last fall.  I tried to return or exchange the phone within a month of buying it, but the manager at the store kept refusing - stating that I had to update my phone.  (Even though my phone did not say that I needed to update it.)  I have been frustrated by this for the last few months.  So for months, I have been constantly turning my phone on and off to reset it because I don't get text messages or my emails do not sync without being manually prompted.  I also plug in my phone to update it on Zune at least once a week - even though my phone has yet to tell me that an update is needed.

The final straw was two weeks ago.  In less than 1 minute, 60 old text messages were send out by the phone - without me doing a thing (Must be magic...).  They were copies of previously sent texts from a few months ago.  (My sister received 25 in an instant.)  I called and spent over an hour on the phone that night with support.  In the end, I was told that I could upgrade one time to the 920 (my request), but unfortunately, they were out of stock at that time.  The representative told me that I could call back in a few days and request the 920.  So I did and had the worst experience of my life.  The representative told me that I could only get a replacement 900.  I told them that I did not want another one (I've already had 3 exchanged at the store level because of feedback issues and connectivity issues) and I wanted the upgrade.  I will admit that I was not the nicest customer because of my extremely high level of frustration.  (Just a note, I run a small business out of my home and missed 3 new opportunities due to issues with the phone, so it is now affecting my livelihood.)  I asked to be escalated to a supervisor who claimed that they could not possibly replace my phone with a 920 because there were no notes on my account stating that.  After 45 minutes, I was transferred to customer care.  The representative there also provided me with no exchange - only offered to cancel my service - after I had spent over an hour on the phone, taking me away from work.  I have never felt less valuable as a customer.

I have to say that I was extremely offended.  I have worked in customer service for over 25 years, so I know how easy it can be to take care of a customer the right way.  Instead, every rep just kept claiming that they have never heard of such problems and that they just can't replace my phone.  I spent the weekend fuming and considering switching to Verizon or Sprint.  I have since calmed down - but not much - especially because my phone stopped receiving and sending text messages today.  I called support again today *again for about an hour) and have thrown in the towel.  I did receive better service today, but I was also told that there is a note on my account that I cannot have an upgrade - only a replacement.  To me, that is not an acceptable solution, but I don't have a choice.  I can pay almost $300 to cancel my service or $300 a month from now for a new phone on a early upgrade plan.  I have a replacement phone coming, but to be honest - am not happy about that.  I prefer to have an upgraded phone without these issues, but apparently, that is too much to ask.  While I decide what next steps I want to take, I will be researching other cell providers and what they can do for me.  I may choose to eat the $300 and move on - even though I prefer to stay with AT&T - I have been a customer for over 10 years.  But I do not feel appreciated as a customer, so I will be researching my options.

[jamileh]

I'm sorry you've had such a hard time. 

I'd like to have you speak with a member of my team to see what else we can do here. Will you please send a private message to ATTCustomerCare with your name, account number, email address, phone number and the best time to contact you? 




To send a private message, you can either click on the link in this message or click on the little blue envelope in the upper right hand corner, click "compose new message" and type ATTCustomerCare in the "Send To" field.