Cell phone manufacturer warranties and Best Buy receipts are BS!

[bonkers325]

Bought an LG G2 from Best Buy last May - it's technically still under the 1 year warranty. Today the screen shut down and now the whole unit won't power up. Not a problem, I'm still under warranty. Except I purchased the phone from Best Buy online and the receipt they provided to me does not have an IMEI #. So I can't prove that I bought it from Best Buy without the IMEI on the receipt. Fast forward 2 hours on Best Buy customer service, nobody can help me and Geek Squad straight up tells me that they'd only put that info on your receipt if you bought some sort of service with Geek Squad for your phone.

What a load of shit. If you buy a phone from Best Buy make sure the receipt has your IMEI on it.

 

[Raduque]

Wat. I've bought several devices from bbuy and the receipts all have IMEIs, serials, etc on them. In fact, the most recent one was an HP Spectre x2 with LTE and it specifically says on a lower part of the receipt:

"You purchased the following:
HP Spectre (model number stuff)
IMEI: (imei number)
MDN/Mobile Phone Number (my regular ph#)

SERVICE AND SERVICE OPTIONS
VZW Device Only - No Plan"

 

[KeithP]

Sounds like you might have a packing slip and not a receipt?

-KeithP

 

[bonkers325]

Yep. It was a packing slip. The receipt on BB website doesn't even have any of the basic information on the phone, just model # and SKU. Looks like I'll never be able to get the warranty honored. Good thing it was only $150, otherwise I'd feel really bad. But still, not being able to have a warranty honored does make me a little pissed.

 

[corkyg]

What did your credit card charge show for the purchase? You should have that record.

 

[Raduque]

I don't actually know why you need the receipt. Can't you just use the IMEI and serial of the phone to get service from LG? They should know when the warranty expires just by the serial off the phone itself.

 

[Artdeco]

I just looked, my BB receipts are available to print online.

 

[JeffMD]

heck it should be in your emails, check that.

Rad, imei activations are not proof of purchase.

 

[bonkers325]

LG says that the IMEI is past warranty, however they would honor it if it was within 1 year of PURCHASE from the retailer. Since the receipt doesn't have an IMEI on it, they cannot prove that I bought this particular phone from Best Buy. Makes sense from LG's point of view, they don't want to get scammed and such. But Best Buy's online receipt doesn't indicate IMEI numbers so I'm kind of SOL on this. I contacted their CSR and they were not very helpful in locating this info. It sucks.

 

[Oyeve]

LG says that the IMEI is past warranty, however they would honor it if it was within 1 year of PURCHASE from the retailer. Since the receipt doesn't have an IMEI on it, they cannot prove that I bought this particular phone from Best Buy. Makes sense from LG's point of view, they don't want to get scammed and such. But Best Buy's online receipt doesn't indicate IMEI numbers so I'm kind of SOL on this. I contacted their CSR and they were not very helpful in locating this info. It sucks.

You'd probably get better results going to a bb store and have them look it up.

 

[jchu14]

That's really strange. LG honored their warranty for a verizon LG G2 I bought from bestbuy.com. I just provided a screen shot of my order confirmation email from bestbuy.com

I bought the phone (Verizon branded, not on contract) in May 2015 and sent it back to LG for faulty GPS in December 2015. The email confirmation code did not have an IMEI. Overall process was pretty smooth. I received a prepaid fedex shipping label and the turn around time from me making claim to me getting it back was around 2 weeks.

I guess it's possible that the phone was manufactured less than 1 year ago, but that' seems unlikely considering it's such an old phone.

I started the claim on the website: https://www.lg.com/us/support/repair-service/schedule-repair, then everything else was done through email. Best of luck to you.

 

[bonkers325]

You'd probably get better results going to a bb store and have them look it up.

Probably. But I've not had great luck with BB associates in the NYC area. I'll give it a shot though.

 

[bonkers325]

That's really strange. LG honored their warranty for a verizon LG G2 I bought from bestbuy.com. I just provided a screen shot of my order confirmation email from bestbuy.com

I bought the phone (Verizon branded, not on contract) in May 2015 and sent it back to LG for faulty GPS in December 2015. The email confirmation code did not have an IMEI. Overall process was pretty smooth. I received a prepaid fedex shipping label and the turn around time from me making claim to me getting it back was around 2 weeks.

I guess it's possible that the phone was manufactured less than 1 year ago, but that' seems unlikely considering it's such an old phone.

I started the claim on the website: https://www.lg.com/us/support/repair-service/schedule-repair, then everything else was done through email. Best of luck to you.

Looks like we both bought in on the same deal. I tried what you suggested, let's see if it works out.

 

[Midwayman]

Might look into what warranties your CC offers. Sometimes they extend warranties or provide help if they aren't honored.

 

[isekii]

I didn't even need to provide a receipt when I had a tablet warrantied by LG.
I did it initially through Twitter --> Chat --> Email

 

[raven_70]

Bought an LG G2 from Best Buy last May - it's technically still under the 1 year warranty. Today the screen shut down and now the whole unit won't power up. Not a problem, I'm still under warranty. Except I purchased the phone from Best Buy online and the receipt they provided to me does not have an IMEI #. So I can't prove that I bought it from Best Buy without the IMEI on the receipt. Fast forward 2 hours on Best Buy customer service, nobody can help me and Geek Squad straight up tells me that they'd only put that info on your receipt if you bought some sort of service with Geek Squad for your phone.

What a load of shit. If you buy a phone from Best Buy make sure the receipt has your IMEI on it.

I just posted same issue with my Samsung tablet. Did you find a resolution?

 

[Ketchup]

After wording for a retailer that sold these, I would never buy one. I will pay extra for a warranty ONLY if:

1. Ican go into the store and have them take care of it. As long as I have a receipt, the store should be able to take care of it, wherever it may need to go. Heck, I should only NEED the credit card I paid for it with. They can look up the receipt.
2. If they provide a number for me to call, I would expect it to offer the SAME treatment as I would get in option #1.

Today's world has allowed some great opportunity for retailers. But most of them use it just to become more lazy and get away with it.

 

[Gunbuster]

AMEX, always buy this shit on AMEX. You would have the amount you paid back on your card by now if you did.