OK, seriously, I think those stickers react if you walk within 50 miles of a body of water. And my carrier’s salespeople got offended when they saw it activated. This comic isn’t THAT hyperbolic.
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OK, seriously, I think those stickers react if you walk within 50 miles of a body of water. And my carrier’s salespeople got offended when they saw it activated. This comic isn’t THAT hyperbolic.
Comments are closed.
Sweaty hands got them wet.
I sold cell phones for a stint back in like…2004/5.
You do not understand: This shit happens everyday with people trying to “pass one over us”, and we’re just trying to save them time. “Dude. You got it wet, don’t care how. They ain’t going to repair it. Just find another phone.”
Seriously, in only 7 months, I have STORIES about shit like this:
The woman who “dropped her phone” but she brought it into a store in a plastic ziplock baggie because it was in about 20 pieces, water damaged, and had tire tracks on it…..but the phone shouldn’t have broken from just dropping it on the ground…right?
Or the dude who….after a minute, relented and admitted that he was shitfaced on a weekend, and went swimming. Fully clothes. With his phone in his pocket.
I think some of the people who sell cells phones to people for too long, build up a….sarcasm/bullshit screen. They [i]are[/i] trying to help, but have started skipping the lines of “I’m just trying to save you time…” because of all the times the customer never listened….and then come back 2 weeks later and find their phone returned with the big sheet saying, “Physical Damage” or “Water Damage”…which might as well be spelled out in big red letters “Oh heeeellllll No!” Course, then the customer takes out their frustration on the nearest object: The Sales staff.
…Yeah. I’ve been there. Done that. Got the fuck out.
I used to work for Verizon. Some of the technical people drove me nuts. Like this one time a gal calls in, she got her second damaged Droid, to replace her original Droid. Her first Droid had lost all her data and files. She called to get a replacement. This one wouldn’t even turn on. The next replacement had a keyboard that wouldn’t close. So she calls me back, understandably mad. I had a hunch, so I told her to take her original Droid that she’d started with, had her do a hard reboot and a full reset, had her resynch with her Gmail account, and voila, all her data came back! So basically I did what several other technical support reps hadn’t been able to do, and she sent the two defective replacements back to Verizon.
Thing was, I had just followed the directions the original rep had supposed to follow.
And I wasn’t even in tech support.
Anyone who deals with the general public in a service fashion has a hard time striding that line between maintaining a helpful attitude and not taking people’s BS. In my line of work I deal with insurance agents who have two years to take mandated classes before their licenses expire. Long story short, we have a ton of people who call and get pissed off at us because their computer crashed and they can’t finish their class, or it takes longer than they thought it was going to, etc etc etc.
One time, just one time I flat out told a person: “you’re an adult, it’s your job to keep on top of these things.”
Believe it or not, that actually got him to calm down and talk like a person again.
It’s been proven that normal perspiration will turn those things at least pink, if not all the way red. Article about that about four months ago in Information Week, people saying their Apple phones were being denied service.
I personally think it’s a scam – I think the fuckin’ stickers turn OF THEIR OWN ACCORD after a certain amount of time.
My phone has =NEVER= gotten moisture on it, let alone get immersed. those stickers are ‘X’ed on. My phone is also over two years old. Gee, coincidence?
Either that, or they’re so bloody sensitive that the water in the air makes them turn.
Fuckers.
I’M NOT KIDDING. THOSE PINK Xs ARE THERE TO BEGIN WITH. They count on the fact that by the time you actually get your new phone, you’re so excited, disoriented, and exhausted by the whole ordeal
that you won’t check.
I was in Mick’s position as illustrated above, too many times in my life, which is to say at least a dozen, before I managed to catch myself, and remember to catch myself, and check said battery BEFORE walking out of the store.
Sure enough, the criss-cross pattern was already pink.
When I pointed this out, the sales person said “Oh no, it doesn’t matter that they’re pink. What we check for is blurring.”
Which is, of course, horseshit.
Buy cheap phones, at the first sign of trouble smash them to peices and buy a new one. It’s the only way.
Then they’ll invent a phone case packed with dessicant. If they haven’t already.
as a phone repair tech: those stickers often come from the factory red. and will turn red if they’re in your pocket while you cook, or if you have your phone in the bathroom while you shower, or if you jog and get hot, or if your chinchilla decides to bathe with it.. or… yeah. just yell, it’ll get replaced =)
Humidity. Use of phone in cold environment then moving to warm environment (condensation failure). Living in Dallas or Houston, oh.. wait.. I already said Humidity.
I’ve been using the same phone for over six years now so I haven’t had this problem. What happens if you simply replace the battery with a new one that hasn’t been exposed to water, perspiration, humidity, tears, etc. ever in its operational existance? Has anyone tried?
there are stickers on both the battery and the phone.
Liquid paper. Tiny paintbrush. I have been successful with this.
Here’s the thing about those stickers that nobody will ever tell you: those red X’s are the default setting for those stickers. When they get wet, the X’s don’t change, what changes is the white background turns bright red. How do I know this? I worked device repair at Nintardo, specifically repair and remanufacture of the DS, which as you might imagine finds its way out of pockets and into puddles quite often.
Dr. T is right. I’ve had clients get some batteries wet enough to change the sticker from x’s to bright, screaming, unrelieved red. The batteries still worked though, so I told them not to worry. And in my super nerdery moment, just showing water damage on the battery wouldn’t be enough to invalidate the warranty; there are actually a couple of those stickers on the inside of the phone that would also need to be red as the battery might be an extra battery that you had that got exposed to iced tea condensation after you were done charging it (oh yeah, that is totally experience speaking- I have a “good” battery that I put in it if there’s a tech glitch and a “bad” one that has the red sticker but is otherwise just fine). Nerdery moment finished. Comic is awesome as always.
Funny, my iPhone had some issues after a brief run-in with a glass of scotch. Cut to about two weeks later at the apple store when they swapped it out for a new one, no charge.
Meanwhile my brother has had a series of amusing issues with phones. Mostly getting drunk and leaving them in cabs.
Meanwhile, one of my son’s favorite tricks is to drop his phone into a full glass of water, have someone call it, pluck it out of the water, and answer it. I chose his phone wisely.
Heh…all this makes me laugh…
We washed my wife’s cell phone. Spin cycled it. Found it when it when into the dryer….a couple of bumps and “oh crap.”
Dried out over a month….works fine. Of course, its not one of those fragile “smart” phones.
First, the Red XXX is printed on the film – it’s the background that is the sensor film!! White is Dry, the one in your drawing is just fine.
If the background film turns slightly Pink it indicates high humidity, and they false trip enough for Apple to finally admit it in court, see link below. Solid Red is when there isn’t any question about it, the phone (or at least the sticker…) got liquid water on it.
And the one in my Droid-2 is very slightly pink after all these years, it’s a 3M problem not an Apple one. But other makers haven’t been as rabid in screaming “No Phone for You!” as Apple has.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/iphone-warranty-flap/
The sales rep for my carrier will trim and cut tape to size and put it OVER the water sensor when you buy a phone if you aren’t a douchebag. When I asked what he was doing he said “Well, you weren’t an impatient douchebag this entire time so I figured I’d help you out. Sometimes those damn sensors turn red if you’re in even slightly moist conditions. Like if it rains tomorrow, and you have your phone in a plastic bag, packed with moisture absorbers, it’ll trip.
The worst part is that water damage isn’t necessarily even a big deal. My mom dropped her Samsung flip phone while wading in Long Island Sound. They found it half an hour later, it having been fully submerged the entire time. My dad popped the battery out, soaked the phone again in fresh water (to get the salt out), and then left it in a bowl of uncooked rice for a few days.
This was a couple of years ago. She’s still using that phone. It works perfectly. I suspect that sticker is bright red, though.
Shameless plug for an awesome product here.
If you want to protect your phone, check out http://www.liquipel.com. They waterproof phones and such. I don’t think that they can do every possible device, due to some manufacturing issues with the phones themselves, but overall, it’s a great product.
I miss the old 8700 series blackberry PDA/phones. A coworker was at the beach and his phone fell into the ocean. He searched for half an hour. When hefinally found it, he pulled the battery and dried it with a towel, then let it sit open, unplugged for a couple of days. When he put the battery back in, he immediately regretted it, as all of his email started rolling in.
Shhhhhhh! You don’t want to invoke the wrath of the phone police! They’re watching us! Didn’t you see that episode of WKRP!? 😉
Being in the PNW means that those stickers are red right out of the box. Unless you open it on one of the 3 dry days we get each year.