Recently I broke my iphone. It wasn’t brand new, not under warranty and I thought I was just out of luck. However, I found out about a nifty little thing called a cell phone repair company. Did you know there was such a thing? I always thought I had to go back to T-Mobile or Verizon or Best Buy or wherever I had purchased the phone from. However, there are cell phone repair services scattered through out each city, that have nothing to do with big name brand cell phone service companies. Iphone repair, android repair and other types of phone can all be fixed and restored at other places. However, there are some disadvantages to that. Here are a few of those pros and cons.
Pros
It’s easier to negotiate price at a cell phone repair company. This is because usually they are locally owned and not corporate. Carrier services are corporate and have set prices that the employees are not able to change. They may have some freebies that they can throw in but they won’t be able to give any lower price that what the company has set. A local cell phone repair company may be more willing to work with you.
Cell phone repair companies know what they are doing as much as big carrier services. Chances are, they have worked with your phone before and have encountered the problem you are having. That’s the thing with phones; when there is a problem, it seems to happen to all the phones. This is a good thing when it comes to fixing them, because the repair company will already know what needs to be done.
If you aren’t able to afford the insurance for your phone, it could be hundreds of dollars to get your phone fixed by your carrier service. As mentioned before, a cell phone repair shop may work with you on price but even if they don’t, it’s going to work out cheaper anyway because they have no reason to ‘punish you’ for not having bought any insurance.
Cons
You may void your warranty by going to a cell phone repair company. Many times there is something that has to be done to fix a phone that requires taking it apart and messing with the hardware inside the phone. If this has to be done, then you may be violating some part of your contract that says you will only allow your carrier to do repairs. Check in your contract to make sure that you won’t be messing anything up by going to a cell phone repair company.
While the repair service may know what needs to be done because they have encountered the problem you are having before, they may try to take short cuts and cut corners when repairing your device. A carrier service can’t do that because they have specific procedures and policies in place when it comes to fixing phone in order to make sure contracts and agreements are still valid. They want to hand out the least amount of free phones as possible and if they mess something up, they’ll have to rectify the situation to keep your monthly business. A cell phone repair company could just act like the problem they they created was there before hand and you wouldn’t know the difference.
It’s all cash up front. There’s no making payments, rolling it into your monthly bill or anything like that. You have to pay for it when it’s done, no questions asked, no other options.
It’s important to have a cell phone so of course, you do what you have to do in order to survive. In this day and age, not having a cell phone is just not an option. Whether it’s for business or personal, it’s crucial to be reachable at all time. Of course, cell phones aren’t even just for making phone calls anymore. It might be your GPS or your schedule or some other important factor of your life. The benefits usually outweigh the risks of going to a cell phone repair company but make sure you consider all of the above before you walk in.
