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Digital Sabotage

K

Kris Jorg

Lurker
Here is an interesting story. I've had it happen more than once now and I'm curious if anyone else has.

I have an android Moto Z3. About two weeks ago I let my nephew hold my phone and he cracked the screen within minutes. Luckily the function of the phone and display was unaltered. All of the images looked great so I just dealt with it. Now i've been paying for insurance for a while and I decided to look up my coverage. It says I have $29 screen replacement through Asurion. So I filled out a claim for a new screen.

The very next day my phone stops working. Nothing on the screen, zero input. I tried all combinations to get it working again. Now I didn't drop my phone again, nor did I get it wet. It just wouldn't turn on. I contacted asurion to check on the status of my claim and they said "We digitally scanned the phone and it is saying there is more wrong than a cracked screen."

"You did what??? I said. How odd is it that right after I file the claim that my phone stops working? I find it hard to believe that the cracked glass suddenly destroyed my phone. You don't like the idea of a $29 dollar screen vs a $99 dollar used phone."

I'm not a conspiracy theorist at heart. However this is the second phone to have this exact symptom. It was a broken screen, working fine, filed a claim and BOOM phone won't work. I never though about it until now when the agent told me about digitally scanning my phone. I wonder how hard it would be to look at the code...

I intend to find out more. Any similar experiences? Class action against Asurion anyone? I happen to have a pretty good lawyer. The issue would be proving it.
 
Kris Jorg said:
Here is an interesting story. I've had it happen more than once now and I'm curious if anyone else has.

I have an android Moto Z3. About two weeks ago I let my nephew hold my phone and he cracked the screen within minutes. Luckily the function of the phone and display was unaltered. All of the images looked great so I just dealt with it. Now i've been paying for insurance for a while and I decided to look up my coverage. It says I have $29 screen replacement through Asurion. So I filled out a claim for a new screen.

The very next day my phone stops working. Nothing on the screen, zero input. I tried all combinations to get it working again. Now I didn't drop my phone again, nor did I get it wet. It just wouldn't turn on. I contacted asurion to check on the status of my claim and they said "We digitally scanned the phone and it is saying there is more wrong than a cracked screen."

"You did what??? I said. How odd is it that right after I file the claim that my phone stops working? I find it hard to believe that the cracked glass suddenly destroyed my phone. You don't like the idea of a $29 dollar screen vs a $99 dollar used phone."

I'm not a conspiracy theorist at heart. However this is the second phone to have this exact symptom. It was a broken screen, working fine, filed a claim and BOOM phone won't work. I never though about it until now when the agent told me about digitally scanning my phone. I wonder how hard it would be to look at the code...

I intend to find out more. Any similar experiences? Class action against Asurion anyone? I happen to have a pretty good lawyer. The issue would be proving it.
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How did your nephew actually manage to crack the screen. Because from experience there's really only two ways that can happen, either it was impacted by something, or the phone was subject to some other stress, e.g. it was sat on. Maybe there was some other damage that didn't manifest itself until later, like the logic board was damaged possibly? Well either that, or the repairer is trying to pull a fast one? No idea who "Asurion" is, but are they trustworthy?

I had a Samsung Galaxy S screen crack when it was in my pocket, however we were moving furniture about at the time.
 
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Had they received the phone when they said they'd "digitally scanned" it? Had you installed some app for them that would give them the ability to generate a report on the phone's status? Otherwise the claim to have "digitally scanned" the phone is pure, unadulterated BS. And I don't suppose they could say what else was wrong?

In fact if you've not installed some diagnostic software from them I'd say that the most likely explanation is that they forgot that you'd not sent them the phone yet and read the script they'd use when inventing a more expensive problem. Cynical? Perhaps, but at least that is something that is physically possible, whereas remote scanning a phone they've had no contact with is not.

As for delayed failure after damage, unfortunately that's not impossible. If the problem is only that the screen is completely off that's easy to see, but even if it's completely powered-down (since I'm not sure how dead it is) a contact damaged by the impact could do that. If someone you trusted were to take it apart very carefully and find something that could cause this (e.g. a bad connection) you could prove them innocent, but proving guilt would be difficult. However, even if you have installed an app from them which could produce a basic status report (which they big up as a "digital scan") that's a long way from a kill switch for the device: to do anything even approximating to that would require privileges that a user-installed app could not be granted. So I find the idea that they have a kill switch for your phone which they flip once you make a claim very unlikely indeed.
 
I don't think you've got a lot of leverage in this matter. Any phone with a cracked screen is an obvious indication that the phone has been damaged in a more than significant way. Wear from usage is one thing, a software glitch or an internal component failing is another, but a physically damaged screen would involve a substantial impact in some way. Simply because it still worked afterwards doesn't mean there wasn't long-term damage internally.
 
svim said:
Any phone with a cracked screen is an obvious indication that the phone has been damaged in a more than significant way.
Click to expand...
Did I ever explain how I cracked my first Moto's screen? No, I know I didn't--it was too embarrassing. But what the hell! I stuck the tip of my mechanical pencil under what I thought was the press-on screen protector I'd put on it. It wasn't. The screen cracked into a web of little spider veins. :o The phone was in no way damaged...it was just unusable...

That was the last phone device that didn't immediately go into an Otterbox Defender case upon arrival. :D
 
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