Samsung Care+ PSA: Replacement devices may not be in perfect condition
Just a quick story with my Samsung Care+ experience, since I'm not satisfied at all. I purchased Samsung Care+ with my Z fold 5 when it first came out and I filed a claim for the first time about a week ago, after my phone had fallen into a pool. The process was fairly painless, I paid the $99 deductible, a replacement phone arrived the next business day, I swapped all of my data over and sent the old phone back.
The issues started when I noticed that the replacement phone had a weird fault with the always-on-display; the top of the screen would glow red whenever the AOD was active, which annoyed me because it meant I couldn't use my phone as a bedside clock anymore at night or even have it facing up when charging at night because the glow would bother me. I contacted Servify, who runs Samsung Care+ in the USA, and after trying to convince an AI chathot over the phone that I needed to talk with a real person, they said they'd send me a new phone. When I asked for a confirmation that the phone they would send me could either be a new-old-stock phone or something else in new condition (not refurbished), they said they couldn't do that.
I was kind of annoyed with being told I'd have to transfer all of my data again and they couldn't even guarantee me a problem-free genuinely new condition phone, so I asked if my case could be escalated, and they said no. I tried calling back and speaking with a different agent, and every time, they refused to escalate my case or allow me to speak to a manager. When I told them my concern, they said they'd put in the notes that I did not wish to receive a refurbished device, but that they couldn't guarantee it. I was eventually told that I'd receive a callback from a manager within 2 hours, but 24 have passed without any calls. Each time that I called, it was clear that I was speaking with someone in a call center, outsourced to India, and they had a specific script that they were reading. It was annoying to receive a defective device from them, ask them to make sure that they make it right for me and be given the run around, have to talk with an AI chatbot just to be able to speak to a real person, then not be allowed to escalate my case or speak to anyone in management. They had me email a video of the issue to them, then complained that I had my hand in the frame of the video (because they demanded that the devices IMEI be present in the video, so I had to show them the IMEI then turn the device off so they could see the AOD). The whole experience was just incompetent and if you aren't satisfied with the service being given to you then good luck speaking to anyone about it.