Shout out to these guys! Yesterday (8/18/2021) I was working as usual and had my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra) sitting on its stand on my desk displaying my blood sugar readings as I normally do, when the screen turned off. I have a special app installed that is supposed to prevent the automatic screen shutoff and auto-dimming that normally occurs after several minutes, so this startled me. I’ve been using that app since I got the phone, but only use it when I need the screen to stay on for extended periods, like when I’m sitting at my work desk with the rest of my monitors on. I tried to turn the screen back on, but it wouldn’t turn on anymore.

I did everything I could think of – disconnecting the charging cable, force-rebooting the phone… but nothing worked. I could tell the phone itself was working, and I was even able to call myself from my desk phone at work and it would ring, and I kept guessing at where the slider actually was a few times and was able to answer the phone and talk, so I knew everything seemed to be functioning ok except the display itself. I don’t know if it just burned out or what.

I even tried all of the tricks that worked for others on the internet who have had this issue before, and none of those things worked either. I am on-call for the hospital this week, so I knew I needed a working phone by the time my on-call shift started in the afternoon, so I took a few hours off of work and headed home to get my old phone, then to the Verizon store to see if what they could do.

A Verizon clerk looked at my phone, then checked my account and said that I don’t have insurance on the phone, so the only option I have is to pay off the balance on the broken phone (I’ve had it about a year, with 12 months of payments left on it), then they could sell me a new phone. Or he recommended another option that would probably be much cheaper: Go to Ubreakifix, a repair shop right behind the Verizon store I was at.

Verizon’s (and pretty much every other carrier, I believe) “insurance” policy costs about $33/month to cover all of the cell phones on your plan. It sounds cheap, but it adds up, and there’s also one other big catch: There’s a deductable, just like most other insurance plans – so if ANYTHING happens to your phone, you have to pay that deductable first, then your insurance covers all other costs beyond that amount. Currently that deductable, for us, would be $250-$300 (it varies based on the cost of your phone). I decided years ago to stop paying for this insurance and keep the money as well as our old phones (one generation back) which can then be used as a backup phone, should any of them break and need repair or replacement. This has worked out great, as we’re pretty careful with our smartphones now, so we rarely need to fall back to this.

The balance left to pay off my current phone was over $700. I considered my options, very briefly, then went to Ubreakifix. I’ve never heard of this place, but if it’s a cheaper option, I might give it a try. As it turned out, I’ve never had such a pleasant experience as I did at this place. The clerk/tech took my phone as I explained my issue, looked it over and confirmed there was an issue. Then he checked the warranty and found it was still under warranty. Why didn’t Verizon say that?? Verizon wouldn’t do anything without me having their insurance plan. The tech said they can take it in and repair it or ship it out for repair under warranty, he’d have to check and see, but said it shouldn’t cost me anything unless they find water damage or other damage after opening it up. But, he said, it looks really clean and he doesn’t see any issues with it other than the screen being completely dead, so that shouldn’t be an issue. He said they’ll take it and figure out what needs to be done, then call me by the end of the day and let me know approximately when I’ll get it back.

I had him switch my number to my old phone temporarily, which turned out to be as simple as moving the SIM card from my broken phone to my old phone. As long as they were both Verizon, it shouldn’t be an issue, he said, and there wasn’t. I could swear it used to be much more complicated that just a SIM card swap.

Anyway, that was that. I went home and started configuring my old phone with the apps I currently use. I had wiped the old phone shortly after I got my new one close to a year ago, so I had to start from scratch. But it was easy enough to get the basic essentials up and running quickly and I was in business.

A few hours later I got a text from Ubreakifix stating my phone repair is complete and I can come and pick it up. Holy crap! I drove back to the store and picked it up. Sure enough, no charge at all, it was all covered under the manufacturer’s warranty. They replaced the screen and it’s working great again. That kind of experience just doesn’t happen often enough these days, so hats off to Ubreakifix! Below is what it would have costed, had it not been covered under the manufacturer’s warranty. Add that to the $20 I found on my lunch walk the other day and I’m doing pretty good.