O*M*F*G

The other night, the little hardware "Silent" switch fell off the side of my year-old iPhone 3G when I was taking it off mute. As this seemed to result from a defect, and not damage, I decided to see if I could get it fixed under warranty.

I first rang MagnumMac to see if they could tell me if it was covered under warranty, as they are Wellington's only Apple specialist store.

MM: I can't really say for sure. You could try MobilefoneRepair to see if they know, as they're the official repair providers.

Fair enough, I thought, so I gave them a ring.

MFR: Sir, you'll need to bring it in so we can assess to see if there's liquid or impact damage as these will affect the warranty.

Me: But it's only a little switch on the side.

MFR: Sir, we'll still need to check it. Our address is...

Me: Isn't that Auckland? I'm in Wellington.

[...]

That conversation didn't go anywhere near where I needed it to go, so I went into the flagship Vodafone store near work to see if they could help.

VF: It sounds like it should be covered under warranty. Ring this Apple hotline number and they'll give you a case number. Bring that in and we'll get the ball rolling.

I dutifully rang Apple and a very helpful chap told me that the damage would be covered under warranty, and gave me a case number for Vodafone to use. The next day, I took my phone and case number back to the store.

VF: I'm sorry mate, we can't do anything without proof of purchase.

Of course, I wished that they had told me this the day before (rassle frassle). That night, I trawled through boxes and eventually found the original paperwork I was supplied. Next day, back to the store I went.

VF: I'm sorry, this is your contract; we can't do anything without the actual proof of purchase.

Me: But Apple have all the details in their computer.

VF: Sorry, policy says we need the receipt. If you go to the store where you bought it, they'll be able to print your off a copy.

Wearily, I trudged up to Digital Mobile in Manners Mall, where I explained the situation to them.

DM: Oh, we've changed hands since you bought the phone and our records archived. We'll need to send a request to head office in Auckland for a copy, then we'll give you a call and you can come and pick it up.

Me: o_O

Luckily, he thought to ask if I had email (sure... a guy wearing a suit and holding two smartphones doesn'thave email). This means that once he receives the copy, he can forward it onto me, and I can go back to the Vodafone store.

This has been one long drawn-out process, which makes me want to drink. The light at the end of the tunnel is that I'll be given a brand-new iPhone 3G, as they don't do repairs on them. Until then, it's a game of waiting to see what the next blocker will be.

Lost Phone Saga

With my daughter recently having had a scalding accident, she and I have spent a couple of nights at Hutt Hospital (excellent service there!).  After we got home from the hospital, we discovered my wife had left her cellphone there.

At my urging, my wife rang Vodafone to request a bar be put on her phone so that it couldn't be used.  Unfortunately, it seemed that Vodafone were having system issues so we were redirected to the backup call centre in Egypt.  She explained the situation to the CSR, who was unable to put the bar on due to the issues.  My wife then asked for an assurance that we wouldn't be charged for calls made during the time that a bar was not on the phone.  The CSR stated that we would still be liable for any incurred charges.  My wife said that this shouldn't be the case, but the CSR started off on some sales script.  My wife interrupted to try to make her case and the CSR hung up on her!

(For me, this is the height of rudeness and is unforgivable.  I have actually raised this separately with people at Vodafone from my Twitter stream, and Vodafone in no way condones this behaviour.)

During this time, I had been trying to ring my wife's cellphone as we knew where it had been left.  About 15 minutes later, a woman rang our landline and said that her son had "found the phone".  As they weren't at the hospital any more, we have our suspicions as to whether the boy had pocketed it.  The woman wasn't at home, but did give us her landline and cell numbers.  She then promised to contact my wife when she did get home so we could arrange to go and pick it up.

By late evening, we hadn't heard anything so we rang Vodafone again to see if the systems were back up and we could get the bar put on.  We were able to get this done this time, so we asked if they could tell us if there'd been any activity on the phone.  The CSR told us that the last activity had been mid-afternoon, but couldn't tell us any more due to "privacy issues".  This surprised us as my wife had PIN-verified plus she confirmed three sets of personal details - why couldn't she know what's happened on her own phone?

(I have since tried registering my wife for My Vodafone so she could see if there was any activity listed in thee, but of course you need to enter a validation code that's sent via SMS to the phone.)

Its now the next afternoon, and we haven't heard from the woman with our phone.  Unfortunately, we've misplaced the piece of paper with her phone numbers on (as you do when you have kids), so we have no way of contacting her outside of ringing the phone, which isn't being answered.

The way I see it... if we haven't heard from her by Monday, we claim it as lost/stolen with the police so we can do an insurance claim, and get the phone disabled remotely.  Really can't think of any other solution.

Chasing the 3G Guy

This will probably sound like a case of sour grapes (and it probably is a bit), but I think there's probably some opportunities for lessons to be learnt here.

As those in New Zealand know, our Vodafone is running a competition in which three Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbooks can be won daily for five days. In order to win a netbook, the basic premise of the competition is to find the 3G Guy based on clues he gives out online. Today, the 3G Guy was in Wellington so I thought I'd have go.

Around 9am, the first clue went up...

Clue #1: I am not going to see the son or the holy ghost . . . #find3gguy

After a few minutes pondering, I worked out that this was Te Papa (Museum of New Zealand) and promptly headed down there. I got down there just after 9.15 and had a good look around for him. As I couldn't find him there, I checked (about 9.30) to see if there was another clue. I was a bit surprised when I saw this...

We have a winner! Nik collared me en route to the te papa museum...nice one!

It turns out that the winner had grabbed the 3G Guy up around Manners Street. This immediately pissed me right off as I'd been at the location for about 15 minutes and the 3G Guy had posted the clue to his "location" from over three blocks away.  In addition, he had been grabbed nowhere near the location where he was meant to be.

I eventually calmed down and waited for the next location search.  A few hours later, the next clue was up...

12pm clue #1 - This guy is a made man

This wasn't obvious and I did a little running around, but was unable to locate him. To cut a long story short, the winner found the 3G Guy by a restaurant on a "man-made beach". What this beach had to do with the clue doesn't appear to be that obvious, but I accepted this as a fair loss.

The final competition of the day was to locate the 3G Guy using a Google Map on the Vodafone website based on clues as before. Here are the clues and my associated thoughts...

6pm online draw: clue#1 Probably gonna smoke a cigar here

Matterhorn Bar - a noted cigar bar in Wellington

Clue #2: NZ's notorious for having a lot of these

New Zealand has a bit of fame for its bars.

Clue#3 A farmer could probably use one of those

Umm, perhaps there's a farmer's tool called a matterhorn?

Clue #4: There's lots of these a farmer could use here . . . or a window cleaner

Uh, is he meaning the bucket fountain? Although that's within spitting distance of the Matterhorn, it's clearly a different location for the first clue.

Final Clue: Elijah wood URINATED into that?! Mr Baggins!

He does mean the bucket fountain! WTF? He's hinted at two different locations!  It turns out the location was the bucket fountain in the end.  I wouldn't mind this, but the first clues say one location (to me) and the remaining clues say another.

I don't know what's happened in the other cities in the competition, but this seems to me to have been run pretty poorly in Wellington.  The second location was a fair win and I can accept the third, but the first was just poor form.  It's not just that I was directly affected - I would be just as indignant if it happened to someone else.  If you set up a competition with a specific method to win, you can't just play fancy-free with your own rules.

Poor form Vodafone.