I would seriously reconsider taking your iPhone in for repair at Best Buy! I thought it might be quicker to bring my iPhone 11 with a broken screen to Best Buy, rather than the Apple store directly - as they are authorized Apple repair and I have AppleCare. When it took about 40 minutes to get my order submitted into the system I had a feeling that maybe there was a degree of incompetence here and that maybe I should abandon having them work on my phone. Instead, I continued and when they recommended (because Apple recommends it) to replace my battery that was at 73% I agreed to the service. I was told there would be no additional charge to the $29 to replace the screen. However, the technician who was actually going to work on my phone said that it would be a combined bundle of $99 for the battery and the screen. I agreed since it would keep my phone going longer (and Apple recommends it - later, the manager told me it was actually mandatory that they replace the battery, which I believe was dishonest and not true), though I didn’t have a problem with the battery holding a normal charge. I was told it would take 3.5 hours - my appointment was at 12:40 and I got my phone back at 5pm. However, in performing the repair they mis-aligned the front camera, essentially breaking it - no face-id, face-time, etc.. They are authorized AppleCare and so the least they would be responsible for is replacing the phone with a refurb, which is what they agreed to do - but the $99 will not be refunded. Wait, I still have to pay for that new battery when you’re replacing the phone because you broke it? Not 1, but 2 of the techs told me that while this doesn’t happen ALL the time, it frequently happens that something goes wrong with the iPhone repair (“because there are a lot of little parts in there”). I was told by a tech that “this just happened to me yesterday, I put a phone back together and the front camera failed.” This doesn’t inspire confidence in their ability to successfully repair iPhones. All the Geek Squad techs I interacted with were pleasant and professional in demeanor, so I’m willing to give them 2 stars for that - and they did repair the screen, they just damaged the phone in the process. I decided to ask Gemini what it thought about my dilemma (since Gemini was being advertised all over this area of the store) - it suggested calling customer service and to request a refund for the service fee. Okay, just what is the Best Buy corporate position when a repair goes wrong? I called Best Buy customer service and the first person I spoke with put me on hold, then hung up on me. I called again and a pretty rude woman, who kept talking over me said repeatedly “we only handle online orders, anything to do with the stores has to be dealt with at the store!” Gemini recommended calling the Geek Squad customer service number. I did and the customer service gentleman seemed to be somewhat sympathetic with my concerns, put me on hold for a while and then hung up on me. I’m not sure these overseas call centers are really very helpful, certainly not in this case! This only compounds my frustration with Best Buy. I’ve worked behind the sales counter and it’s just good policy to at least meet the customer in the middle to make them feel like they are at least okay with how the transaction was resolved. When I spoke with the manager to ask why they were keeping the service fee, she opened a folder of Apple service fees, ”okay you paid how much for the screen, I see, and we charged you $99, and with tax that was probably, what $104?” I’m not sure what that was all about - I guess just to stall and gauge how upset I was going to be, and when I wasn’t she closed the binder and said that Apple insists they keep all service fees and that it’s in their contract with Apple and there’s nothing that can be done. Not sure I believe any of that, actually I most certainly don’t. I would still buy a tv from Best Buy, as I have in the past, but I would never bring anything to the Geek Squad again - lesson learned!
