Background
I have been using my iPhone 3GS for about six months and everything was fine and suddenly one day it became “unchargeable”, i.e. no matter how you charge there was no signal or battery icon appearing on the screen. Even manual hard reset could not rescue the situation. So I decided to send to Maxis service centre for warranty claim as the unit is still under the one-year warranty period.
At the Maxis service centre
The technical staff was friendly and tested the unit and shook his head and said, “We need to send this back to Apple for warranty claim. The unit is confirmed ‘konked’.” [‘konked’ is Malaysian way of saying it is dead]
I asked, “How long does it take to get it repaired?”
He replied, “Normally in such case, Apple will replace you a brand NEW unit, not repair. But I cannot promise how long it will take, minimum 2 weeks up to maximum 6 weeks.”
I almost fainted on hearing this. “Then in the meantime how am I going to do my business without the phone?”, I asked
After much haggling and making “a lot of noise”, they finally gave me a loaner phone (a 3G 8G model) claiming this is an exceptional case for me only. They said they would call me when the replacement unit arrives.
Two weeks later
Happily I was using the 3G model though it was obviously very sluggish as compared to the 3GS model. They did not call me even after 12 days. I made two calls to Maxis 123 and the call centre service staff said she would escalate the matter to the branch to check the arrival date. Nothing happened after two days. I smelled something was not right and I decided to walk in the service centre to check physically.
As predicted, the replacement unit was already there BUT the staff just did not call me to collect.
Brand new iPhone also dead ON SAME day
I got my new iPhone and was so happy it was a brand new one. The phone battery was at about 30% and it went off after the battery was used up. I went home that night and started to charge. To my horror again, it could not be charged AT ALL. I was so worried that Maxis would not give me another phone again as this will be the second warranty claim.
The next day (Saturday) I went to Maxis service centre again to make my second warranty claim. The technical staff tested and confirmed that it was dead again.
“We would fast track the claim for you for this one, 2 to 3 working days this time. We shall do it as priority.” He told me it would most probably be ready by Wednesday or earlier. No loaner unit this time as they promised to expedite the process within 3 working days.
Second loaner unit
Come Thursday (i.e. after 4 working days) I made a visit to the centre and the unit had not arrived from Apple’s outsource logistics company. This time I demanded a loaner unit and they had no choice but gave it to me. I used the unit ( a 16 G 3GS model) for less than 4 hours before they called me saying my replacement unit had arrived. I got the second new unit on yesterday night!
Life with model 3G and without iPhone
My model is 3GS and the first loaner unit was 3G. It was very sluggish and applications ran slow. The experience was not nice. Worst still is life without iPhone — I Twittered much less, Facebooking much less and was so inconvenienced. I could not surf net on the go, could not check emails on the go, could not read my news online etc. I felt like handicapped without my hands!
