Three Strikes & You're Out...

Maybe it is just me, but I seem to have no luck when it comes to cellphones. After enduring with T-Mobile for far too long, I have to admit that Verizon is not a heck of a lot different.

My current phone is the LG Dare. I've dared to be different, and have to admit defeat. The Dare is a pure touchscreen phone. I have had many problems with it, including unable to unlock the phone, and dialing on its own in a pocket (you wouldn't think one phone could have both problems, but it does).

On top of that, the voice quality is quite lousy. I can generally hear folks, but they can't hear me too often. At times, I felt like I was in one of those Verizon commercials, but they couldn't hear me now! Not good.

Also, despite only a few calls, there are times that I can't make it through 24 hours without charging the phone. This despite supposedly new batteries being swapped in at the store.

Add in stupid menus that make no sense, and that this phone is no longer being sold, and I only got it late summer, and I am most disatisfied. Oh, and don't forget the frequent dropped calls that drove everyone crazy.

I've been to the store a few times before. The first time they changed out the battery, but nothing changed. The last few times they swapped out the phone. While I appreciate the effort, my phone originally had 30 hours on the timer. While they told me these were high quality refurbs, they were worn out and both had over 100 hours on the timer before we started. Why they would work better is beyond me.

Before we got to the end of the 12 month warranty, I wanted to get changed to a different model. Anything else in fact, as long as it didn't say LG on it!

So today I was in the "Big Red" store. I presented my list of complaints. Of course they tried to give me another Dare. I asked nicely if we could try something else. They steered me towards another LG, the Chocolate Touch. While it looked better, I held my ground, and asked for something else. After some open air market negotitations, I was offered a Samsung Rogue. I grabbed at it.

Unfortunately, for some reason, they didn't have one to give me. Why do I think with a new contract one was available in the back? At any rate, they promised to ship me one this week as a swap.

I am glad to dump LG. For the record, the camera on the LG worked well, even if nothing else did. Here's to going Rogue...

Jonas

Verizon LG VX8360

I've gotta love the Verizon sales strategies. Since the summer I've had the Verizon LG VX8360 around the house. It is a traditional flip phone, which is quite boring by today's smartphone standards. However, not everyone wants mobile data on the move.

There is a major problem with this phone however. Even after reading reviews of it, I got stuck with one. When the phone is powered off, the battery drains. If left off overnight, the battery will go from fully charged to one or two bars.... totally unacceptable. In some other industries, they might recall the product, and make it right. Not so in the world of cellphones!

On my first trip to the Verizon store to complain, they claimed major ignorance on the issue. I told them that it was well documented on both the LG and Verizon forums. I was told they had never heard of this; it must be me. I did mange them to swap out the battery, but it did not change anything, and the problem persisted.

On another trip to the store, for the same problem, they did offer to swap out the phone... for a refurb. As mine is in pristine condition, I hesitated, and declined. Probably a mistake in retrospect, but my workaround was to keep the phone on all the time. Does this sound like the way things should work from "Big Red?"

Today, I was back at the store once again. This time they didn't disagree with me, and offered another refurb of the same lousy phone. This time I took it as even with being on, the phone went from 4 bars of battery to dead overnight. I also got a new battery out of them.

We will see if the problem persists, but all signs point to that it will. I think they just hope you get bored with the process, and get beyond the one year guarantee on a 2 year contract. I can just hear it coming next summer "You're not due for a new phone yet, but this one is not working...."

Stay tuned! I have already decided that if this how LG stands behind their products, I'm not buying their junk again.

Jonas