4 Bionics, 4 months...beat that!

[kuklaki]

No love yet from Verizon.
So my hubby bought me a new Bionic for Christmas using his upgrade. The phone would not engage the front facing camera. Though I won't be using it that often, I would still like my new phone to work, so I filed a warranty claim in January. A refurb Bionic arrived, and life was good until two day ago, when I had the dreaded boot loop problem.

The phone just randomly decided to reboot itself, with its little droid eye repeating over and over. Then it went to the bios screen. I sat on the phone with tech support for close to an hour until the phone would no longer respond to resets and button combinations. Great. So they sent another replacement which I received yesterday morning.

I take the phone out of the box, boot it up, enter my Google ID...and of course, priorities and all, go to set ringtones when I notice that there is absolutely no sound whatsoever. I pull up YouTube, try a few other things...no joy. (though it does vibrate) Factory reset 2x's, battery pulls, nothing helps. Back on the phone with Verizon.

At this point, I have no desire to keep a Bionic. I talk to tech support, explaining very politely but firmly that yet another (4th) Bionic is not acceptable. I talk to his supervisor, and get the same story. They stand firm that this is my only option from them without using my upgrade. Tech support rambles on and on about how reliable the Bionic is, and that they will personally touch the next replacement to be sure it works, blah blah. I point out to them that the last one worked fine at first before the boot loop, so their hands on test means nothing...the only respond with crickets. Perhaps I am being unreasonable, but I do not feel that using another upgrade is an acceptable option as I have never had a fully functional device from the start.

From searching, I know that some people have had luck with getting Verizon to replace their Bionic with another model. I must be doing/saying something wrong. I am even willing to pay a portion of the cost but my objection is really over them expecting me to use my upgrade (which is not an option because now my husband needs that :-\) What now? Suck it up and hope I finally get one that works?

 

[KillerG]

No love yet from Verizon.
So my hubby bought me a new Bionic for Christmas using his upgrade. The phone would not engage the front facing camera. Though I won't be using it that often, I would still like my new phone to work, so I filed a warranty claim in January. A refurb Bionic arrived, and life was good until two day ago, when I had the dreaded boot loop problem.

The phone just randomly decided to reboot itself, with its little droid eye repeating over and over. Then it went to the bios screen. I sat on the phone with tech support for close to an hour until the phone would no longer respond to resets and button combinations. Great. So they sent another replacement which I received yesterday morning.

I take the phone out of the box, boot it up, enter my Google ID...and of course, priorities and all, go to set ringtones when I notice that there is absolutely no sound whatsoever. I pull up YouTube, try a few other things...no joy. (though it does vibrate) Factory reset 2x's, battery pulls, nothing helps. Back on the phone with Verizon.

At this point, I have no desire to keep a Bionic. I talk to tech support, explaining very politely but firmly that yet another (4th) Bionic is not acceptable. I talk to his supervisor, and get the same story. They stand firm that this is my only option from them without using my upgrade. Tech support rambles on and on about how reliable the Bionic is, and that they will personally touch the next replacement to be sure it works, blah blah. I point out to them that the last one worked fine at first before the boot loop, so their hands on test means nothing...the only respond with crickets. Perhaps I am being unreasonable, but I do not feel that using another upgrade is an acceptable option as I have never had a fully functional device from the start.

From searching, I know that some people have had luck with getting Verizon to replace their Bionic with another model. I must be doing/saying something wrong. I am even willing to pay a portion of the cost but my objection is really over them expecting me to use my upgrade (which is not an option because now my husband needs that :-\) What now? Suck it up and hope I finally get one that works?

The Bionic is a great phone...when it works. I would personally ask for the new one. It doesn't cost you anything, so if you can get a good working one, then that'll probably be your best option. But if you get another lemon, then you truly have something to complain about. They tested it themselves, and if it doesn't work then they need to fix that. Probably by giving you a different device.

 

[Paul627g]

I had a total of 5 Samsung Epic 4g's in a 2 week period....

The first being my original of 9 months that had a failed LCD, then two weeks later I had gone through 4 refurbs that all were broken in one way or another. Ended up swapping out to a NS4G in the end of it all....

 

[kuklaki]

Thanks for the replies, and I guess you do have me beat. I am waiting for a callback from a supervisor today, and will update the results.

 

[3rdpig]

Anyone can get a string of bad phones, changing to a different device isn't always the best thing to do. I had a BB Tour that had problems, after several Tours in a month or two VZ offered to switch me out of it....and what did I chose? Yes, you guessed it, a Storm. I wound up going through 3
Storms in a period of nearly a year, I finally sold the last one they gave me and bought a used Droid 2 on Ebay to finish the contract. I used that D2 for 14 months with very little problems till I got the Bionic a few weeks ago.

 

[kuklaki]

Yeah, I know bad luck can happen with any electronic device but as I rely on mine for business and depend on the GPS for solo traveling I honestly had anxiety over getting another one.

Like nearly everyone here, I am somewhat savvy with anything in the electronic gadget realm despite my simplistic post I think I mostly needed to vent to like minded individuals and share my woes.

In any case, "Shannon" at Verizon took great care of me, actually listened to my concerns and went the extra mile. I should be getting a Razr either tomorrow or Monday morning. I let her have the fun of surprising me with the color, i just care if it works.

So thanks for reading and replying.

 

[KillerG]

Yeah, I know bad luck can happen with any electronic device but as I rely on mine for business and depend on the GPS for solo traveling I honestly had anxiety over getting another one.

Like nearly everyone here, I am somewhat savvy with anything in the electronic gadget realm despite my simplistic post I think I mostly needed to vent to like minded individuals and share my woes.

In any case, "Shannon" at Verizon took great care of me, actually listened to my concerns and went the extra mile. I should be getting a Razr either tomorrow or Monday morning. I let her have the fun of surprising me with the color, i just care if it works.

So thanks for reading and replying.

Watch it be purple lol. Hope you enjoy it and it doesn't have any issues, as it'll also be a refurbished model as well.

 

[londonham]

Tl;dr

 

[cckgz4]

If they send another and it sucks, I would find a cheap used device on eBay that's not a bionic

Sent from Le Lumia de Cyan using Board Express

 

[Cares]

Just complain and ask for a different model. I got a Rezound because of data drops.

 

[sniffs]

Tl;dr

What was the point of your post?



OP: Verizon's policy is they must go through 3 refurbs before they offer a different model.

This means, your original 1, and 3 refurbs, so 4 devices total. This is what my Verizon liaison told me. Glad you got a replacement RAZR though..

 

[3rdpig]

I'm self employed and I use mine for business too, which is why I was so disappointed in the Blackberrys I had. I couldn't even rely on the Storms to make phone calls without locking up or spontaneously rebooting. And the official VZ OS versions were the worst of all.

I'd have a heck of a time using a standard Razr for business since I usually swap to a spare battery before the work day is over. If I forget to keep it charging while I'm in the car and navigating I often won't make much past lunchtime on the first battery.

So far the Bionic has been good to me ::knocks on wood::.

 

[Cares]

I never had to get a replacement Bionic before they offered a Rezound. I simply just asked and they said OK.

 

[Lee_Bo]

I've had some small issues with my Bionic, but not anything I'd want to replace the phone over. For me, being able to add SD memory and a removable battery are important, so the RAZR and GNex are out.

 

[kuklaki]

Nice forum, nice replies. Geez, I going to kinda miss you all a little bit Well, will be sticking around but I'll be moving next door. It's a shame this model did not work out since I had been waiting for it since rumor I am just glad i did not go crazy on the accessories.
Thank you and bye for now!