Apple Store Gives One iPhone Owner $200 Worth of Customer Care

SAN DIEGO - After running over his new 16GB iPhone 3G, Mark Yturralde expected to pay full price to replace his severely mangled device. While backing out of the garage in his Scion XP Mark felt a slight bump from his rear wheel. Seconds later he felt the same sensation coming from his front wheel. Right then Mark realized that the unthinkable had occurred as he delivered instant death to his new iPhone 3G.

"I thought, What was that? My stomach dropped and I realized oh no..." said Mark describing his iPhone crushing nightmare, "When I went to look, it was literally smoking," Mark said about his iPhone, "It smoked for a good couple hours."

The amazing part of this story was the customer care Yturralde received from the Fashion Valley Apple Store in San Diego when he presented them with his grossly mangled iPhone. They replaced his device for the price of an 8GB model, which amounted to a $200 savings from what Yturralde would have paid. "Apple was very nice about it, Mark said, "I expected to pay full pop to replace it. That is very cool!"

Reports of exceptional customer service from the Apple store are not rare, they're just less interesting to report than iPhone developers having their apps rejected for inclusion in the App Store. These stories may be less interesting, but certainly not unheard of. Apple rules. Tell a friend.

[photos by Mark Yturralde]

Comments

[hecubus]

The same thing happened to me. My 16GB iPhone fell out of my pocket and I got into my Honda CR-V (by no means a light car, but not a full-size SUV) and I ended up running over the iPhone.

The result was not smoke, but a cracked screen. Everything was still functioning!!! The phone rang, it answered calls, received SMS...even the multi-touch worked if you didn't mind having glass shards in your finger.

I took the phone to the Apple Store in University Park Village in Fort Worth. Initially they thought the only way to replace the phone was for me to pay full price ($600) on a new iPhone since I had already used up my AT&T subsidy.

After further discussions with an Apple Genius and (i think) the Store Manager, they decided they could do a "glass replacement" (since the rest of the unit still worked) and the cost of that repair would be the price of the subsidized iPhone. Since they really don't repair iPhones (as I was told at the store), they would give me the service unit (basically a new iPhone without the cables, manuals, etc.).

[Gary Allen]

Ouch! You take a perfectly great piece of customer service and then slap on an unrelated, legal-oriented piece of whining? Hey--his iPhone was saved. What more do you want?